SAVE THE HORSES

We have a magnificent window of opportunity to save our noble friend, the horse, from slaughter in the U.S. Senate. The Equine Cruelty Prevention Act would prevent horses from being slaughtered in the U.S. or shipped to slaughter in foreign countries. SB1579 would stop the needless roundups of our wild horses with helicopters and give them back the lands intended before cattle ranches overtook their territories. Both bills have passed the House; for more information, go to www.thecloudfoundation.org and/or do a Google search for horse slaughter. Videos abound as testimony.

There are those who believe it’s OK to send our magnificent friends to slaughter. Horse owners, especially those in the cattle ranching, rodeo, and race horse industries, send their large used-up horses to auctions, where horsekillers buy them for $100 or less.

Please write your senators and ask them to co-sponsor these two bills. Don’t let another horse die, unseen, unheard and unfelt. Lorna Moffett | Monterey

NO WARMONGERING

Paul Wilner’s Weekly article (“Local Spin – Finishing the Job,’’ Dec. 3-9) on increasing troops in Afghanistan claimed it is too soon to say whether Obama’s strategy will work. I find this quite incredible given that we have nothing to show after nine years of war.

Recent figures on the cost of war in Afghanistan are staggering. In a country with no seaports and a shortage of navigable roads, a gallon of gas costs $400. According to the Congressional Research Service, one soldier costs 1 million dollars per year!! With a 30,000 troop increase, we will be adding $30 billion more per year to the $243 billlion we have spent!

It is unconscionable to spend dollars this way when money is so badly needed for jobs, health care and saving our Mother Earth from climate catastrophe. Peggy Olsen | Monterey

THE VEGI FACTOR

With the opening of the international climate conference in Copenhagen, the world’s attention is focused on global warming. But most man-made greenhouse gases responsible for global warming are emitted not from industrial smokestacks or car exhausts, but from meat and dairy production.

Greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is emitted by burning forests to create animal pastures and by combustion of fossil fuels to operate feed crop, factory farm, and slaughterhouse machinery, trucks, and refrigeration equipment. The much more damaging methane and nitrous oxide are discharged from digestive tracts of cattle and from animal waste cesspools.

Whatever is decided in Copenhagen, each of us can help reduce global warming three times a day. Our local supermarket stocks a rich variety of soy-based lunch “meats,” hotdogs, veggie burgers, dairy products, and ready-to-eat frozen dinners, as well as a vast cornucopia of more traditional fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Mitchel Corbett | Monterey