Word: ghent
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Last year, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, suggested that the most useful step ordinary citizens could take to help combat climate change would be to stop eating meat. In Belgium, an entire town is taking his advice to heart. The Flemish city of Ghent has designated every Thursday as "Veggiedag" - Veggie Day - calling for meat-free meals to be served in schools and public buildings, and encouraging vegetarianism among citizens by promoting vegetarian eateries and offering advice on how to follow a herbivorous diet...
...Veggie Day is not compulsory, says the city's vice-mayor, Tom Balthazar, because such a draconian measure would be impossible to enforce, even in environmentally friendly Ghent, a picturesque town of 230,000 where bicycles lay scattered against spired churches in the largest car-free city center in Belgium. "We wanted our goal to be easily achievable - it's not hard to skip meat one day a week," he says. "And we wanted it to be something the population could rally behind. If you give people the correct information about meat, it becomes an easy ethical decision." (Watch...
...other public health schools run local outreach programs that promote a meat-free start to the week. Germany's federal environment agency issued an advisory earlier this year urging Germans to return to prewar norms of eating meats only on special occasions. And Leenaert says that since Ghent's Veggie Day was launched on May 13, environmental health officers from several other cities - including São Paulo, with a population of 13 million - have expressed interest in mimicking the program...
...confirmed atheist, I don't believe in the influence of religion on health. The only thing I admit is that religion can help through auto-suggestion. But religion will always survive, as mundus vult decipi (the world wants to be deceived). Frits Gorlé, GHENT, BELGIUM...
...intellectually unfair to blame the act of a lunatic on a political party, whatever his family ties to the Vlaams Belang," says Carl Devos, a political scientist at the University of Ghent. "But the VB is responsible for creating an atmosphere and popularizing the theme of racial tension." He worries that such racially-charged crimes are eroding tolerance in a country that can't exist without it. "It's not like we're living in Beirut," he says. "But we are losing control...