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It’s a fact! 100% of men, women and children eat food, and 97.5% of must buy their food from others who bring it from an average of 2,000 miles away. And so the hungry ask: ”What’s in this tomato? Who planted that broccoli? Is it safe to eat genetically engineered corn? Why are they irradiating meat? Are we running short of water? Why is China growing our apples? What will happen to us if we can no longer farm? How safe is our food chain?” The Food Chain is an audience-interactive syndicated newstalk radio program and podcast broadcasting weekly on radio stations and streaming on demand on the internet. The Food Chain, which has been named the Ag/News Show of the Year by California’s legislature, is hosted by Michael Olson, author of the Ben Franklin Book of the Year award-winning MetroFarm, a 576-page guide to metropolitan agriculture. The Food Chain is available live via GCN Starguide GE 8 and delayed via MP3/FTP. For clearance and/or technical information, please call Michael Olson at 831-566-4209 or email michaelo@metrofarm.com
Episodes
Sunday Aug 04, 2024
Sunday Aug 04, 2024
Susana Monso, Author, Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death
Every person thinks about where we all will eventually go, but no person knows for certain where we will go. This leads some people to think about the animals for which we have taken dominion, and wonder:
What do animals think about dying?
Up and down the food chain, it is eat and be eaten. This elemental fact gives rise among people to thanatology, which is the study of death.
Today we begin our Food Chain discussion with some concluding thoughts about thanatology from Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death, by Susana Monso.
“Scientists have been trying for a long time to find a characteristic that will definitively separate us from the other species. So far, all candidates have failed. Neither the use of tools, nor culture, morality, or rationality are exclusive to human beings. Nor is a concept of death. We’re not a unique species. We’re just another animal. And as such, we’re bodies that work until a certain point, but end up irreparably broken. Perhaps if we come to terms with the fact that we’re animals we may also reconcile with our own mortality.”
But before we can come to terms with the fact that we are just another animal, we must first find a way to step outside of our anthropocentric way of seeing life and death. And so we ask:
What do animals think about dying?
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