Bad News from HuffPost: Thanksgiving Is Bad for the Planet, or Something

The things you enjoy are problematic and need fixing -- that's the message from our self-appointed, left-wing minders, whose scolding lectures never end. In a column this week at HuffPost, a writer describes the "damage" inflicted by Americans' Thanksgiving travel and eating habits. The suggested solution? Eliminate the turkey, and perhaps skip meeting up with loved ones who don't live locally. Finger, wagged:

You may want to consider skipping the turkey altogether — and, more importantly, the travel. https://t.co/gToR9NVeam
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) November 5, 2019

After a windup about climate change and the Paris accord, the piece identifies the "culprits:"

How much damage are we doing with our epic Thanksgiving meal every year? We spoke with three researchers to find out more about Thanksgiving’s carbon footprint. 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...

But...here are the bad things about your Thanksgiving fun, which are harming our planet:

Meat and meat byproducts (cheese, butter and heavy cream, for example) have a larger environmental footprint than plant-based ingredients. According to research done by Carnegie Mellon University, the carbon footprint of a 16-pound turkey creates a total of 34.2 pounds of CO2 — the same amount produced by turkey gravy, cranberry sauce, roasted Brussels sprouts, mashed potatoes, rolled biscuits and apple pie combined...The biggest carbon impact is caused by people, not food, traveling extensive distances. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon determined that four people flying a 600-mile trip produces 10 times the emissions of the Thanksgiving meal. Driving is less detrimental, but American cars emit close to a pound of CO2 per mile driven. Orchi Banerjee, a recent graduate of the department of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon, said, “It may help the environment if [your guests] stayed home and cooked their own meal.”

Your enlightened and responsible Thanksgiving should probably exclude meat, butter, and travel. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? I got into a fun Twitter spat with a paint-by-numbers, reactionary, semi-literate person over this kill-joy piece, if that sort of thing is of interest. Meanwhile, there's more bad news regarding wonderful Thanksgiving weekend traditions. College football is bad, you guys (a term that is also problematic, mind you):

TNR having a normal day: "College football is war—war and the supposedly acceptable way to express American masculinity—fed to its tribal consumers on a 100-yard field." https://t.co/a9WHxSXnpS
— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) November 7, 2019

Oh, and you'd better not drink either. Alcoholic consumption is also 'evil,' just like eating meat -- even if you people don't understand:

Opinion: Drinking alcohol will become a social evil like smoking and meat-eating https://t.co/oqONsiuZjT
— The Independent (@Independent) November 3, 2019

I'm reminded of this quote about Puritanism, many neo-practitioners of which now exist on the modern Left: It's "the haunting feat that someone, somewhere, may be happy." I'll leave you with this. I don't even know what to say: