Doctor Curmudgeon®: Phew! What a Scare!
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By Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D. FAAP
Doctor Curmudgeon® can now breathe!
There had been rumors.
Little squibs appearing with “ding” noises on her mobile phone.
Email that annoyed her with frightening subjects.
Even anonymous phone calls about it.
Chocolate shortage!
No way.
Impossible.
This could not be happening. She must have wandered into a terrifying alternate universe by mistake.
Where was Sir Galahad, Protector of the Welsh Fairie people….the brilliant Siberian Husky in charge of the household, the canine knowledgeable in all things important for the care and feeding and well-being of the small, messy, annoying physician?
Surely, this major domo would know about it if was real and not just fake news! *see note
A group called the Earthworm Foundation had concerned themselves with this critical food
group. They had used satellites to check out forests in West Africa. The Ivory Coast region is one of the most hallowed and important sources of cocoa.
It appears that forests are being lost at an alarming rate in this beautiful country.
Doctor Curmudgeon®’s heart rate accelerated. Her eyes became moist.
She did some breathing exercises that had been taught to her by Renpet (a feline member of the curmudgeon household who was a “former” CIA agent…it is thought)
As she felt calmer, she “googled,” and found that it appeared that the shortage was being averted.
Good people were working together. The Ivory Coast government signed the Paris Climate
Agreement to which they committed to restoring twenty percent of the land to beautiful forests.
And then about a dozen of the most prominent chocolate companies stepped up to form a coalition called The Cocoa Forest Initiative, to stop the deforestation of Ghana and the Ivory Coast
But far more than chocolate was important here. Animals, such as chimpanzees and pygmy hippos were losing their homes to this wanton deforestation:
To quote from the Mighty Earth website–
” An “Open Secret:” Illegal Ivorian CocoaMighty Earth’s field investigation in Côte d’Ivoire reveals how cocoa is driving illegal deforestation in the nation’s protected areas. Our findings expose how environmental destruction is an “open secret” throughout the Ivorian cocoa supply chain, from growers through traders, chocolate companies and the Ivorian government.”
And Earthworm states that SODEFOR, a logging company in the region has also been involved as a partner in stopping this devastation
Yes, Doctor Curmudgeon® has her chocolate stores and no concerns for the immediate future
And, how on earth can her serum chocolate level possibly compare with the losses of farmers and animals?
*NOTE FROM SIR GALAHAD: We canines and felines do not indulge in chocolate it is toxic for us)
Doctor Curmudgeon® is Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D., a physician-satirist. This column originally appeared on SERMO, the leading global social network for doctors.
SERMO www.sermo.com “talk real world medicine”
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