Readers write: Eco-equine, consumer choices, and grandparents and child care
How much should grandparents help out with child care? Is eating meat ethical? Readers share their thoughts on these topics and more.
How much should grandparents help out with child care? Is eating meat ethical? Readers share their thoughts on these topics and more.
Eco-equine
Regarding 鈥淎 school bus with hoofs helps a town go green鈥� in the Sept. 9 Monitor Weekly:聽I absolutely love this story. I would so love to have this sort of thing happen in my own rural part of Ontario. But, alas, I am not a lobbyist or organizer.聽Still, the fact that the commune of Ungersheim in France is doing so many eco-friendly things is heartening. It is a way to show love to the environment.聽
Where I live, we have so much land and are so rich in resources, but we do not preserve them as we should. They even seem to be squandered in some cases. That鈥檚 why it is so very heartening to learn of a place where attention to ecological details is de rigueur.聽Thinking on this article will become part of my Green Prayer, and I hope to hear more of these kinds of examples of folks loving the land.聽
A side note: My goal is to train my horse to negotiate the road between my house and the nearest town, a distance of 13 kilometers (8 miles), so he can carry me to get groceries. It would be a drop in the ecological bucket, but that鈥檚 still something!
Katherine Ellis
Georgian Bluffs, Ontario
Consumer choices
Regarding 鈥淐apitalism under pressure: Why CEOs rethink corporate purpose鈥� in the Sept. 3 Monitor Daily:聽It鈥檚 time our behavior as consumers becomes a moral issue too, and a good place to start would be with our dietary choices.聽Factory farming creates, torments, and slays billions of animals annually. The scale of cruelty is unfathomable. And the industry contributes generously to climate change.
Yet many of the same people who volunteer, donate, fuss over pets, and protest all forms of injustice tuck into plates of bacon, cheese, and chicken nuggets.聽We as consumers must be confronted with our role in propagating suffering on a grand scale 鈥� and acknowledge the role we can play in healing it.
Kathryn Casey
New York聽
Grandparents and child care
The article 鈥淏eyond birthday cards and hugs: How grandparenting is intensifying鈥� in the Sept. 30 Monitor Weekly was really interesting to me. We have two grandkids and spend a lot of time with the youngest one 鈥� our 5-year-old granddaughter 鈥� to help out her parents.聽One thought that came to me: I wonder how the practice of grandparents providing care for children varies across racial, cultural, and class lines?
Nick Royal
Santa Cruz, California