Let them eat bugs

Save the planet … eat bugs!

This was the long and short message of a recent article posted at wired.com — a feature story that touted the consumption of those lovely critters we typically swat as being a key to improving our environment. O.K., admittedly the authors weren’t saying it’ll “save the planet” per se, but at least lemurs – you know, those cutesy monkey-like critters from Africa’s Madagascar.

According to the article, conservationists and researchers have “spent the last few years developing a program to encourage the people of Madagascar to re-embrace bugs as a source of protein. That in turn could relieve pressure on endangered lemurs, which hunters target for bushmeat.”

Thus, the simple message is: If the good folks of Madagascar can just suck it up and eat more bugs, like they used to before they went all lemur meat crazy, there will be a lot more of these animals jumping about in the trees overtop their heads.

The author of the wired.com article claims that the locals frequently did, in the past (and still in rural areas today), eat bugs. However, he then goes on to remark that this was typically done “in times of need.”

What makes this article a bit of an eye-roller is that it isn’t really about just touting the wonders of eating bugs, it’s about replacing “red meat,” a typical target of the Green Left. To them, red meat is about as big of an environmental villain as there is (no disrespect to plastic straws).

Why? Because red meat naturally, requires cows – and as every environmentally-correct person knows bovine farts are responsible for creating a climate catastrophe. Cows also drink a lot of water and need space to roam about – space which could be used for something much more ecologically important – like either lemurs in Madagascar or, even better yet, giant solar or wind farms that can chew up miles of wildlife habitat over here.

This attack on red meat has gotten a bit crazy. Recently a member of the British Parliament actually wanted to tax red meat eaters to save the planet from climate change. When I heard about this British proposal being discussed, I thought it was just a bit over-the-top. But apparently it doesn’t go far enough. Now they want us … to eat bugs.

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