Cancel Thanksgiving! Why? Our wonderful turkey dinners are bad for the climate.

“It turns out that your food isn’t the biggest holiday culprit of carbon dioxide emissions — traveling for the meal is.

No one should be discouraged from enjoying the holiday or celebrating with family and friends, but we’re here to provide insight into the ingredients and dishes that have the largest ecological impact. The researchers we interviewed shared suggestions and alternative ingredients that cause less environmental damage.”

So much passive aggressive shaming in the above paragraph. You can have your turkey dinner I guess, but whatever you do, don’t you dare have a good time.

You see, that turkey has a much bigger carbon footprint than previously thought. Not as big as the footprint of those farting cows, but big enough. Then, when you factor in the miles traveled by the other ingredients and foods that will end up on your plate – climate killers!

Seriously, we are supposed to work 24/7 to make sure all ingredients come from within just a few miles from our homes.

“Try sourcing your ingredients locally to limit your impact, from the wine you serve to the herbs that are stuffed into your bird. The benefits of lessening your food miles are numerous, not just in terms of decreasing your carbon footprint, but because then you’re supporting your local economy and increasing the quantity of nutrients in your food. But don’t beat yourself up too much if you can’t source all your ingredients locally. As Liz Goodwin, senior fellow and director of food loss and waste at World Resources Institute notes, that the miles travelled by food are only a part of the equation. She told HuffPost, “food miles are complicated by other things as well, e.g. food production in developing countries provides a source of income and potentially a livelihood for the farmers in that country. However, all other things being equal, it would be better to eat things grown closer to home.””

In other words, forget about inviting family and friends to your home on Thanksgiving. The only way it would be acceptable is if they walked twenty miles uphill all the way to get there.

So, what are your choices for this Thanksgiving? Design a menu entirely around plants…and for heavens sake, ditch the eggs! Which means something like a vegan charcuterie board, mushroom/bean lasagna or enchilada (depending upon which culture you want to appropriate), or a vegan turkey loaf along with Brussels sprouts and some type of cranberry dish.

Wait a minute. Cranberries are grown in bogs. Which means LOTS of water is used to grow them. Isn’t that bad for the environment? Cancel the cranberries!!

With the advent of Greta Thunberg, the Grouch on the Couch, we are going to be seeing and hearing a lot more about how anything and everything we do will kill the environment.

However, don’t dine alone that day. It’s a detriment to food security, therefore bad for the climate.

You know, these climate woke scolds don’t even realize how ludicrous they are.

"squash and pumpkin only create 0.10 and 0.11 pounds of CO2 per pound, respectively. So instead of more turkey, help yourself to an extra slice of pumpkin pie or an additional serving of squash soup."

I'm buying two turkeys. One to eat and another to drive around aimlessly with.

— Regs (@r3gulations) November 5, 2019

Acceptable Turkey Day dining:

• Vegetarian/Vegan menu
• Food sourced from within five miles (ten is marginally acceptable I guess)
• Nix the exotic food sources from other countries
• Glassware, paper plates, paper napkins, and paper plates for table settings (never mind the trees killed to make those paper products)
• If you can’t walk there, don’t go

Unacceptable Turkey Day dining:

• Turkeys, Hams, Cheese, and definitely NO STEAK!
• Driving to your destination
• Flying to your destination
• Eating processed foods
• Dining alone

Turducken Pringles are not an acceptable appetizer by the way.

Pringles has unveiled a seasonal food-flavored chip feast, and it's poised to replace the whole Thanksgiving spread. https://t.co/HiGnGooX1o

— CNN (@CNN) November 7, 2019

For several years our climate change betters have been scolding us about our Thanksgiving dining choices. Now, with the advent of Greta, it seems they are amping up their game. What’s next? A mural on the wall of her scowling at you? Oh wait…

As if San Francisco didn’t have enough problems…

In their rush to shame us into a plant-based Thanksgiving meal, they forgot something.

But then how will we argue with our relatives about politics?

— Holden (@Holden114) November 5, 2019

Excellent question!

The climate grumps can take their cancel culture and stuff it. As for me and mine, Thanksgiving will be a day to enjoy family, no matter how far they have to travel, and a full turkey dinner with all the trimmings.

Feature Photo Credit: Original artwork by Victory Girls Darleen Click