Dixy Lee Ray wrote in Trashing the Planet that she remembered the “good old days” some people seem to yearn for. They were characterized by things like disease carried by swarms of flies attracted by the piles of horse manure in every street. Modern life has its problems, but there are reasons we left the old ways.
The New York Times reports the local food movement is encountering shortages because there aren’t enough slaughterhouses to process small farmers’ cattle. Neighbors object to new abbatoirs in their backyards, so farmers either make slaughter appointments before the animals are even born, or drive them hundreds of miles to facilities which can handle them–no environmental boon, there.
