BOOK REVIEW
Most if not all farmers’ markets in this region also accept food stamps. Support Our Farmers’ Markets Some farmers’ markets such as in Silver Spring operate year round (every Saturday, 9am to 1pm, next to the Civic Building on Fenton and Ellsworth; meat and dairy products including butter, eggs, no homogenized milk, yogurt, and kefir; fresh fruits and veg - etables in season; freshly baked breads and sweets; tasty fermented fresh veggies; wonderful homemade artesan body care products such as soaps; and much more). However, our tax dollars are still subsi - dizing CAFOS rather than smaller eco-agriculture farms with hu - mane ecological animal and food practices. We need to change that. Harari explains these choices in Chapter 5, History’s Biggest Fraud. “For 2.5 million years humans fed themselves by gathering plants and hunting animals that lived and bred without their in- tervention. Homo erectus, Homo ergester, and the Neanderthals plucked wild figs and hunted wild sheep without deciding where fig trees would take root, in which meadow a herd of sheep should graze, or which billy goat would inseminate which nanny goat.” The Plight of Laboratory Animals Harari also expresses grave concerns for “tens of billions of lab - oratory monkeys, dairy cows, and conveyor-belt chickens over the last two centuries subjected to a regime of industrial exploitation and cruelty that has no precedent in the annals of planet Earth.” He also acknowledges the justified complaints from animal-rights activists regarding the profound pain and suffering modern in - dustrial agriculture inflicts on farm animals. Those sad and cru - elly confined animals cannot be healthy or in any way content. Humankind’s legacy of ecological degradation includes destroyed
habitats and extinct species as forests were cut down, swamps were drained, rivers were dammed, and plains were flooded. Harari laments that “our once green and blue planet is becoming a concrete and plastic shopping center.” Wildlife most at risk besides chimpan- zees are whales, elephants, porcupines, penguins, giraffes, and wolves. Ecological turmoil could also threaten the survival of Homo sapiens , while other organisms such as rats and cockroach- es appear to be doing well. Harari ponders the future. “Per - haps 65 million years from now, intelligent rats will look back gratefully on the decimation wrought by humankind.” Alyce Ortuzar is a freelance medical and social science researcher, writer,andeditor.SherunstheWellMindAssociationofGreaterWash- ington, a holistic medicine information clearinghouse that focuses on environmental and nutritional influences on our mental and physical well-being. For five years, she edited the U.S. SurgeonGeneral’s smok - ing and health reports. She can be reached at (301) 774-6617 and by email at alyceortuzar@gmail.cominMontgomeryCounty,Maryland.
PATHWAYS—Summer 21—71
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