Plus, according to an environmental radio program in Pennsylvania, a Thanksgiving turkey can go from an egg to a 20-pound bird in just 14 weeks. The radio program, which features the environmental researcher Mike Berners-Lee, went on to draw the conclusion that because turkeys reach full-size so quickly, they are not on the planet long enough to make as big of an environmental impact as other animals that are produced for consumption, like cows and pigs.
Even still, while many of the ingredients that we consume for a traditional Thanksgiving meal can be thought of as relatively environmentally friendly, we must also consider the great distances that many Americans travel on this day to be together. An infographic posted by the radio program states that traveling 500 miles by car can have 50 times as large of an environmental impact as one’s meal. Plus, air travel is even worse, because burning fuel higher in the atmosphere doubles the climate impacts. Since so many Americans travel by either car or by airplane for Thanksgiving, I’m afraid we must also consider the negative impacts that this aspect of tradition has on our environment.
