For once in a long time, I don’t have anything written today. I spent the entire weekend writing my final speech for my public speaking class and I am giving that speech today. I’m very nervous because the speech is a roast and I’m not sure if it’s convincing enough. It’s doesn’t matter, it’s too late to change anything.

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What has people done?

There is a saying about Asians, “Asians eat everything with four legs except tables—and everything that flies except airplanes.” You can laugh. I used to laugh at this statement too but it’s true. I’ve had a few of those delicacies in the past myself like the roasted pigeon and water snake soup. That was before I watched all those documentaries about garbage in the oceans, about people brutally killing sharks for their fins, and about the heart breaking effects the garbage in the oceans have caused the sea turtles and other sea creatures.

That’s why I have grown to dislike a lot of the things humanity has done to Earth and other living creatures.

Let me tell you a story…

To help keep him energized, my grandpa in China decides to own a couple of dogs. Based on personal experiences and stories I’ve heard from my mom and relatives, he isn’t someone I would call kind and caring. In the recent years, since he began owning dogs, I began to hear tales of him abusing the dogs, beating them with a stick and starving them ‘til they were skin and bones.

Then several months later, I would hear that the dogs have run away. However, the fate of runaway dogs in China is a fate worse than being abused. It is equal to a death sentence. Runaway dogs not only cannot find food on the streets but they will eventually become food themselves because there is no dog pound, there are only slaughterhouses and people.

Seeing this picture just makes me sick to the stomach and knowing that some people enjoy this creature makes me beyond ill. I mean, why would anyone do such things to this cute little creature, whose main purpose is to keep us company and lay on our laps when we’re sad?

This came out in the news a few days ago. It is about the Australians refusing to sell cattle to Vietnam after witnessing the brutal method the Vietnamese used to slaughter cows. With a sledgehammer!

That is why I became a vegan. Meat? No thank you. I refuse to let another animal, no matter if it’s a dog, cat, cow, pig, or chicken die because of one person’s desire to eat meat. I even say no to seafood, crab, oysters, etc. because seeing them being taken from their home at the bottom of the ocean and being stripped away of their pearls and their arms and legs bound, waiting to be transported to the market and restaurants, to be sold and eaten, that is just cruel.

I took an environmental engineering class a few years ago and in that class, I watched several documentaries about the pollution in the natural environment because after all, environmental engineering is all about maintaining the environment and making sure we don’t disrupt the ecosystem and wild life.  One of those documentaries was about the Puget Sound.

Puget Sound is located along the northwestern coast of Washington state and it along with the countless species that call the Puget Sound home is in trouble.  The countless species of the Puget Sound in trouble include the orca whales, salmon, shellfish, and sea lions. The species are in trouble because of this geoduck industrial operation where people toss some 40,000-plus PVC pipes per acre into the shoreline ecosystem.  This is before and after a tropical storm and let’s not mention the 140,000 pounds of toxic chemicals entering the Puget Sound every day and 75% of those chemicals originated from storm water runoff from roads, driveways, and other developed lands. The harbors of Puget Sound are 7 times more contaminated with the toxic chemical known as PCB than the adjoining sounds. What’s worse is that orca whales are the victims of this PCB contamination.

Seeing and reading about these horrible things that people did over the years makes me angry and I think we should all do something about it before there are no oceans or any animals left.