Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice In A Time Of Climate Crisis

“Green” is a movement many companies are now taking part of in a way to help improve the environment. The goal is to eliminate the waste that many ends up in landfills and produce more products through renewable resources. McDonalds and Apple’s desire to be “Green” started when more customers became aware of the growing effects of global warming on Earth and began to show interest in helping the environment by recycling, reusing, and reducing their products. These two companies claim to be “Green” in a way to attract more customers into buying their product. However, they claiming to be “Green” is seen as an appearance to many customers. This idea is seen through the book, “Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in a Time of Climate Crisis”

McDonalds, being worth 62 billion dollars, is the biggest, leading fast-food chain in the world. One way the company is being involved in the Green Movement is by changing the toilet handles in the public and employees’ restrooms and replacing them with a Sloan dual-flush handle. It is effective because it saves half a gallon of water per flush. According to the article, Global Best of Green 2014, “The average toilet uses anywhere from 1 to 3 gallons of water for each flush…” (Kroc). Before the company decided to use Sloan dual-flush handle, the toilet flushed up to three gallons of water per use. Now, the company has resolved the issue by replacing the toilet handles with Sloan dual-flush, reducing the amount of gallons flushed down to 30-50%. This is an effective approach because customers that are going “Green” can feel safe using the restroom anytime, knowing that they are not wasting excess amount of water. As a result, McDonalds becomes the main fast-food restaurant that is taking the proper precaution of saving water and helping save the

Agriculture is a farming practice in which crops and animals grow to provide food and other products. It is needed for on-demand fast-food restaurants like McDonalds. This practice is harmful to the Earth because it leads to deforestation from several countries and the furthering of global warming. According to the book Soil Not Oil, Vandana Shiva gives her own idea of agriculture and says, “Many of the crops currently used as feedstock in liquid biofuel product require high-quality agricultural land and significant quantities of fertilizers, pesticides, and water” (Shiva 89). McDonalds creates land spaces for cattle to grow in through deforestation, in which thousands of trees are cut down annually in order save more space for agricultural activities. The company is increasing the use of fire, fertilizers, pesticides and water to kill plants, trees, and bugs in order to promote the growth of their cattle because cattle is the main source for beef production. This is affecting the Earth because an increasing amount of deforestation is causing not only plants and trees to die, but also fire and chemicals escaping the forest site into the air, thus leading to global