Jane Goodall says global disregard for nature brought on coronavirus pandemic

Renowned conservationist and activist Dr Jane Goodall is hoping the coronavirus pandemic will be a wake-up call, warning the crisis is a result of human disregard for nature and animals

By Kirsten Diprose and Matt Neal

PHOTO: Dr Goodall says people need to think differently about the environment in order to avoid pandemics. (Australian Story, file photo)

Key points:

• Dr Jane Goodall, marking 60 years of field research and discovering that chimpanzees make and use tools, says animal habitat loss and intensive farming are part of the viruses jumping species
• She says as forests disappear, animals come in closer contact with each other and humans
• Dr Goodall equates the human disregard for nature as also the root cause of climate change

Dr Goodall said we should have known a pandemic-like coronavirus was coming because other viruses, such as SARS and HIV, also jumped the species barrier from animals.

Both SARS and COVID-19 are types of coronavirus and have been traced to live animal markets, or wet markets, in China.

But Dr Goodall said the loss of animal habitats and intensive farming are part of the problem, making it easier for viruses to spread from one animal to another and then to humans.

“We have to learn to think differently about how we interact with the natural world,” she said.

“And one of the problems is that as more and more forests have disappeared, so animals themselves have come in closer contact with each other.

Various species of bats are reservoirs for viral diseases such as coronaviruses and Hendra.
iStockphoto: CraigRJD

“Most of these viruses that jumped to us have come through an intermediary. So there’s a reservoir host like a bat and in [the case of COVID-19] it’s thought to have jumped into a pangolin and then into us.”

Not just wet markets

Dr Andrew Peters, an associate professor in wildlife health and pathology at Charles Sturt University, backs Dr Goodall’s assertions that human interference with animal habitats is a concern when it comes to diseases.

“There’s going to be intense focus on the wet markets in China as a focus for human spill-over of viruses from wildlife, and that’s rightfully so,”

Dr Peters said.PHOTO: Dr Andrew Peters says human impacts on the natural environment are a factor in viruses crossing from animals to humans. (Supplied: Shane Raidal/Charles Sturt University)

“But the thing we mustn’t lose sight of is there are a whole lot of other things we do in the natural environment that can lead to these kinds of spill-overs occurring.

“In Australia we’ve seen a number of emerging infectious diseases, including Hendra virus, which is obviously a very well known and deadly virus that infects horses and humans from bats.

“The causes of that are thought to be deforestation on the coastal plain of Australia and the pressure that puts on bat populations as they move down to the coast in winter.”

Dr Peters said humans need to reconsider their relationship with the natural world, and the impact we’re having on animals.

“The majority of human new emerging infectious diseases come from wildlife,” he said.

Six decades with the chimps

PHOTO: A baby chimp born at Monarto Zoo, which was named Hope by Dr Goodall. (Facebook: Monarto Zoo)

Dr Goodall is marking 60 years since she first entered the jungles of Tanzania at the age of 26, to study chimpanzees.

It was her unorthodox approach of immersing herself in their habitat that led to the discovery in 1960 that chimpanzees make and use tools.

The 86-year-old is also concerned the global chimpanzee population could become infected with COVID-19.

Coronavirus questions answered

Breaking down the latest news and research to understand how the world is living through an epidemic, this is the ABC’s Coronacast podcast

“The genetic makeup between humans and chimps differ by only just over one per cent,” she said.

“So almost certainly if the infected humans are anywhere near the chimps they are liable to catch it.”

A tiger at the Bronx Zoo in New York reportedly tested positive to COVID-19 earlier this month, suspected to have been infected by a zoo employee.

This is the first known instance of a tiger contracting the new coronavirus.

“We at the Jane Goodall Institute are taking very, very drastic measures to try and protect the chimpanzees in our two sanctuaries in Africa and the wild chimps which is, of course, much harder,” she said.

‘Treating climate change like a pandemic’

Dr Goodall said it is the same disregard shown by humans towards nature that is also the root cause of climate change.

“The way we have treated the planet with our reckless burning of fossil fuel and coal mines — you know all about that in Australia, and how it is heating up the planet,” Dr Goodall said.

“You have certainly suffered from the terrible fires and that’s because the planet is getting hotter and drier, the droughts are getting longer, and it’s all we have done to the natural world.”

PHOTO: Primatologist Dr Jane Goodall at the Perth Zoo with one of the locals. (ABC News: Briana Shepherd)

What the experts are saying about coronavirus:

• From a scientific point of view, the argument that it’s a manufactured virus has been totally discredited
• “We’re very lucky in the fact that the virus is pretty lousy at surviving on its own.”

She said the global community should have been treating climate change long ago as if it was a pandemic “because it’s actually far more devastating in terms of loss of life and people being driven from countries simply because the habitat is so inhospitable”.

“So why haven’t we been? Why haven’t we been treating climate change as the disaster it is?” Dr Goodall said.

“You only have to look around at some of the political leaders in different countries to understand why. Because people don’t want to think about making the changes necessary because it would impact their success in business.”

But Dr Goodall said there is reason to hope with the way leaders and communities are working together to fight coronavirus — evidence of what humanity is capable of.

“Maybe it has taken something like this COVID-19 to wake us up and realise you can’t eat money,” she said.

“If we go on destroying nature in this way, go on disrespecting the other beings whom we share this planet, it’s a downward trajectory.

“So hopefully this [coronavirus response], which is affecting the whole world, will give us the jolt we seem to need to start behaving and thinking in a different way”.

A new documentary Jane Goodall: The Hope, based on Dr Goodall’s long career, will be released April 22 by National Geographic to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

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Global Warming Has Not Slowed

Global Warming Has Not Slowed

We’re seeing an onslaught of misinformation on climate in the build up to the new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change release later this week.

Here’s some truth to push back.

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Pill To Gill | Mood Drugs In Waterways, Alter Fish Behaviour, Study Finds

Mood-changing drugs enter waterways, affect fish, study finds

Courtesy of Umeå University, Science and World Science staff

      Some medicines that end up in the world’s wa­ter­ways af­ter be­ing used are af­fect­ing fish be­hav­ior, ac­cord­ing to a new stu­dy.

Tomas Brodin of Swe­den’s Umeå Uni­vers­ity and col­leagues found that wild Eu­ro­pe­an perch ate faster, be­came bolder and acted less so­cial af­ter ex­po­sure to an anxiety-moderating drug known as Ox­aze­pam.

Perch. (Courtesy Ben       Christensen)

      Residues of the drug of­ten wind up in nat­u­ral aquat­ic sys­tems af­ter peo­ple con­sume it, the re­search­ers said. They’re ex­cret­ed, flushed down the toi­let, trea­ted at wastewa­ter treat­ment plants, and end up in the wa­ter un­changed.

Brodin and col­leagues dosed wild perch with amounts of Ox­aze­pam equiv­a­lent to those found in Swe­den’s riv­ers and streams. Their re­sults, they said, sug­gested that even small amounts of the drug can al­ter the be­hav­ior and for­ag­ing ra­tes of these fish. 

“Nor­mally, perch are shy and hunt in schools. This is a known stra­tegy for sur­viv­al and growth. But those who swim in Ox­aze­pam be­came con­sid­erably bold­er,” said Brodin, lead au­thor of the re­port, pub­lished in the Feb. 15 is­sue of the jour­nal Sci­ence. The af­fect­ed fish left their schools to seek food on their own, a be­hav­ior that can be risky, he ex­plained; they al­so ate more quick­ly.

“We’re now go­ing to ex­am­ine what con­se­quenc­es this might have. In wa­ters where fish beg­in to eat more ef­fi­cient­ly, this can af­fect the com­po­si­tion of spe­cies, for ex­am­ple, and ultima­tely lead to un­ex­pected ef­fects, such as in­creased risk of al­gal bloom­ing,” said Brodin.

“The so­lu­tion to the prob­lem is not to stop med­i­cat­ing ill peo­ple but to try to de­vel­op sew­age treat­ment plants that can cap­ture en­vi­ron­men­tally haz­ard­ous drugs,” added en­vi­ron­men­tal chem­ist Jerk­er Fick, a co-au­thor of the stu­dy.

The sci­en­tists added that the find­ings should be seen as a point­er about what might be un­der­way in many wa­ters around the world, though full­er stud­ies are re­quired be­fore any far-reach­ing con­clu­sions can be drawn.

Related articles

• Psychiatric Meds in Water Supply May Alter Fish Behavior – U.S. News & World Report (health.usnews.com)
• Drugs Laked Into Rivers Make Fish Antisocial (news.yahoo.com)
• Study: Anxiety Drugs Found In Fish Could Have Evolutionary Consequences (washington.cbslocal.com)
• Drug passed on to fish boosts their confidence (smh.com.au)
• Pill to Gill: Antianxiety Drugs in Flushed into Water May Be Making Fishes Fearless (scientificamerican.com)
• Anxiety Drug in Water Makes Shy Swedish Fish Greedy (bloomberg.com)
• Drug residues ‘alter fish behaviour’ (bbc.co.uk)

The 2013 Climate Change Wake-up Call

The 2013 climate change wake-up call

Is an extreme heatwave enough for people to start taking the science of climate change seriously in Australia? Dr Paul Willis hopes so.

By Paul Willis

Bureau map for January 8 shows area of deep purple over Australia. Shades of deep purple and magenta have been added to the forecast map for temperatures up to 54 degrees Celsius (BoM)

Related Stories

• Why are rising CO2 levels caused by burning fossil fuels?, Science Online, 14 Mar 2012
• Heatwave exacerbated by climate change: Climate Commission, A new report from the Federal Government’s Climate Commission says the heatwave and bushfires that have affected Australia this week have been exacerbated by global warming.
• Heat drives bureau back to the drawing board, The Bureau of Meteorology has been forced to introduce new colours to some of its charts because of recent extreme heat in Central Australia.

The hot weather that has besieged the nation since the beginning of the year and the associated bushfire threat has, I hope, been something of a cathartic experience for Australia. Finally an event that can be linked to climate change has been of such magnitude and impact that many people are now sitting up and taking notice.

Even so, we have been slow off the mark to discuss the linkage between extreme weather events and climate change and those discussions were still limited in extent. I’m hoping that the extreme heatwave is a ‘shot across the bow’ notice that we need to take climate change seriously — but already the climate denial camp are viewing these extreme events as business as usual.

The USA had a similar experience last year with Superstorm Sandy: a nasty, unprecedented weather event of horrendous impact that was also in line with the predictions made by climate science over the last couple of decades. Most of the US and indeed most of the world were shocked at the pictures of widespread devastation delivered by a single, freakish storm. Sandy came off the back of an even more devastating drought across much of the USA during the preceding northern summer that has also been linked to climate change.

Finally many Americans started to ask if these were the hallmarks of climate change. The country which has been the most inactive of nations with respect to recognising climate change and implementing measures to mitigate against its worst effects started to sit up and take notice. Climate change suddenly became very real and very serious. And to just drive the message home a little more clearly, last week it was announced that 2012 was the hottest year on record for the continental USA.

But perhaps the greatest influence on the American climate epiphany was not caused by the weather, nor did it even originate within their borders.

Economics counts more than science

On the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, insurance underwriting giant Munich Re issued a report  just before Superstorm Sandy hit their eastern seaboard. After analysing weather data from 1980 to 2011 they identified that the overall burden of losses from weather catastrophes was US$ 1,060 billion (in 2011 values). Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was the costliest single event ever recorded in the US with US$ 62.2 billion insured losses and overall losses of US$125 billion (in original values). The report went on:

“… Nowhere in the world is the rising number of natural catastrophes more evident than in North America” and “Anthropogenic climate change is believed to contribute to this trend”.

When an organisation like Munich Re issues a report like that, people, business and politicians sit up and take notice. The bottom line is that, due to the identified increased risk of damage and loss due to more severe weather events in North America, they are going to charge more for their insurance underwriting services. They have made a link between climate change and the wallets of America. And it’s when a dollar cost can be placed on something as esoteric as climate change science that people begin to take notice — we live in societies governed by economists, not scientists.

This message was reinforced this year when noted American economist Joe Stiglitz came out with nine ways that climate change is already hurting the US economy and some of these effects are huge. Stiglitz argues that climate change is likely to cost the US economy $3.8 billion per year by 2020, $6.5 billion per year by 2040 and $12.9 billion by 2080.

One would hope that most Americans awoke to 2013 with some very sobering prospects for their continued indifference and intransigence to climate change. And that’s right when Australia was delivered its climate clout: a savage reminder that what the climatologists have been saying for the last 20 years or more is real and has potentially devastating local consequences.

 

Heatwave coverage a slow burn

The New Year heralded the beginning of a widespread and intense heatwave across Australia. With this heatwave came a catastrophic risk of bushfires which went on to burn out large areas of several states. This infographic from activist group GetUp! neatly summarises the heatwave and bushfires as they stood on 10 January and places them in the context of climate change.

Let’s be clear here: attributing specific weather events to a general cause such as climate change is a tricky proposition. It’s akin to asking which individual cigarette is going to cause the lung cancer that kills the smoker. But, just as smoking has now been shown conclusively to cause cancer, there will also be an increasing occurrence of extreme weather events as predicted by climate change. While this or any specific event cannot be predicted by climate change models, the facts that they occur and their nature, is exactly what climate change models have been predicting.

While news bulletins and front pages across the nation were filled with stories covering the heatwave and bushfires, the Australian media was slow off the mark to explore the link between these events and climate change. After more than a week of record temperatures and scorching bushfires, there were no articles that suggested climate change had a part to play in the catastrophe.

Then on 8 January, The Conversation introduced climate change into the debate, and the Australian Science Media Centre (AusSMC) provided expert comments to the media that explored climate change as a causal factor for the twin disasters. An AusSMC rapid reaction early that day included these comments from Dr Markus Donat, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Climate Change Research Centre, at the University of New South Wales:

“In recent studies we have analysed how extreme temperatures have changed globally. For most regions, including Australia, we found that extremely high temperatures have become more frequent and more intense, while extremely low temperatures are occurring less frequently than they did in the middle of the 20th century.

“Counting the number of very warm days (in this specific case defined as the warmest 5 per cent during the 1951-1980 period) we found that during the most recent 3 decades 1981-2010 the frequency of days in this warmest category has increased by 40 per cent globally.”

It’s a contextual statement not so much directly linking the current events to climate change but providing the wider framework within which the heatwave and the fires could be interpreted. It was reused in the media 77 times over the following couple of days.

Later the same day in another release from the AusSMC, Liz Hanna, a convenor at the Climate Change Adaptation Research Network – Human Health, at the Australian National University, provided these more impassioned comments:

“Those of us who spend our days trawling — and contributing to — the scientific literature on climate change are becoming increasingly gloomy about the future of human civilisation. We are well past the time of niceties, of avoiding the dire nature of what is unfolding, and politely trying not to scare the public. The unparalleled setting of new heat extremes is forcing the continual upwards trending of warming predictions for the future, and the timescale is contracting. This trepidation on the part of scientists and researchers, and in some cases flagrant resistance by stakeholders in the fossil fuel industry, to allow the real story to be fully revealed and comprehended by the public at large, has allowed the stalling of action to save the planet, and ourselves.

“To speak of heat alone, heat already kills more Australians than the road toll. If it is not already double, it soon will be.” …

“People who cannot access cooled environments are also at risk. The response of turning on air conditioners only exacerbates the problem of global warming. The only correct response is to slow down, and ultimately reverse, the warming.”

(I’ve reproduced Donat’s quote in full but edited the quote from Hanna as it was provided by the AusSMC).

Hanna’s comments received wider publication than Donat’s with over 202 publications using parts of her commentary. But, of those 202 publications, 182 were reprints of an article by Ben Cubby at Fairfax leaving just a handful of others that discussed the climate-heatwave-bushfire link. Thus, despite there being good and forceful comments from respectable researchers made readily available to the Australian media, the take up was rather poor and some media organisations ignored the issue completely.

The story was picked up overseas by the BBC as well as bloggers, and George Monbiot at The Guardian in the UK drew particular attention to how the heatwave was confronting evidence against climate change denial in Australia specifically naming Tony Abbot, Andrew Bolt, Ian Plimer and The Australian.

 

Force of denial

Almost as soon as the discussion got started in Australia, the forces of denial and ignorance sprang back into life. On 9 January acting Opposition Leader, Warren Truss, was quoted thus:

“Indeed I guess there’ll be more CO2 emissions from these fires than there will be from coal-fired power stations for decades.”

This is, indeed, only his guess with no numbers or data to back it up. This off-the-cuff statement of belief was comprehensively pulled apart by Philip Gibbons, senior lecturer at the Australian National University, in The Conversation. Gibbons showed, in fact, that the amount of carbon released by the current bushfires is around 2 per cent of the annual emissions from Australia’s coal-fired power stations. To equal those annual power station emissions would require incinerating a forest the size of Tasmania.

Other media outlets maintained the business as usual climate denial. In The Weekend Australian on 12 January, the environment editor, Graham Lloyd, wrote a rather confused piece taking some details that have been changed in climate outlook predictions to cast doubt on the credibility of climate science.

It included a statement that, “The jury is out on the cause of the round of heatwaves hitting Australia”, with no clear idea who that ‘jury’ is. Ever fussing in the cracks trying to obfuscate a clear picture of what is actually going on, once again our national paper gets it hopelessly wrong on this issue. And this was after The Australian published this piece on 3 January covering predictions from the Bureau of Meteorology for an increase in both the frequency and intensity of future heatwaves. A rather confused agenda.

Let us hope that future discussions around climate change and what to do about it will be free of invented factoids and misinformation. It’s time to take the science seriously. We are witnessing the consequences of ignoring that science and pretending that climate change isn’t occurring. It’s a heavy price we are paying and that debt is only going to increase if we don’t wise up.

About the author:

Dr Paul Willis is the director of RiAus, Australia’s unique national science hub, which showcases the importance of science in everyday life.  The well-known palaeontologist and broadcaster previously worked for ABC TV’s Catalyst program. This article was first published on the RiAus website.

Related articles

• Australian bush fires: Extreme heatwave goes off the scale (guardian.co.uk)
• Wild weather: Extreme is the new normal. (newscientist.com)
• Australia heatwave part of global trend – IPCC chief (newsinfo.inquirer.net)
• Climate change turns up the heat (thehindu.com)
• The 2013 climate change wake-up call (abc.net.au)
• Heatwave exacerbated by climate change: Climate Commission (abc.net.au)

ELEPHANT JIHAD: Islamists Fund Terrorism by Slaughtering Elephants

ELEPHANT JIHAD: North African Islamists funding terrorism by slaughtering elephants

Sudanese Muslim militiamen and Somali al-Shabaab terrorists are financing their jihad from poaching raids against the endangered wildlife.

The janjaweed poachers use the profits from massacring the African elephant to continue their sectarian killings against other religionists and unbelievers!

 The common link is their utter disregard for life and for the rule of law.

via Africa Review

Cameroon’s Special Forces have been deployed to foil an imminent raid by Sudanese poachers who for eight weeks earlier this year slaughtered half the population of elephants for their ivory at one of the country’s wildlife reserves.

The poachers have been attempting to take park guards in northern Cameroon by surprise by exploiting greater ground cover that has sprouted in the rainy season, according to international conservation body World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), which said it had been informed by high ranking officials of the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR) on Friday.

“This is the same group of poachers that in early 2012 travelled more than 1,000km on horseback from northern Sudan across the Central African Republic and Chad to kill over 300 elephants in the Bouba N’Djida National Park in northern Cameroon,” WWF said.

The heavily armed and well coordinated poachers, who had told local villagers of their plans to kill as many elephants as possible, claimed they had killed as much as 650 out of some 1,000 that roamed the park.

The elephant population in Cameroon and in central Africa is estimated to have been halved, mainly by poachers, between 1995 and 2007 with the number of elephants killed still on the rise…

A story from the New York Times in September explained that Sudan’s janjaweed, the Arab Muslim supremacists who bear responsibility for the genocide against black Africans in Darfur, are offenders in the illegal ivory trade.

Der Spiegel reports that janjaweed poachers use the proceeds for arms:  “The millions of dollars their poaching raid must have brought in will allow them to replenish their weapons stores.” The New York Times also identified al-Shabaab from Somalia as an ivory poaching participant.

al-Shabaab, the militant Islamist group that has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, recently began training fighters to infiltrate neighboring Kenya and kill elephants for ivory to raise money.

One former al-Shabaab associate said that the Shabaab were promising to “facilitate the marketing” of ivory and have encouraged villagers along the Kenya-Somalia border to bring them tusks, which are then shipped out through the port of Kismayo, a notorious smuggling hub and the last major town the Shaabab still control.

Sadly, the Islamist culture and tradition of raiding, pillaging, plundering and exploitation of natural resources and property is alive and well.

Related articles

• Cameroon army to take on machine-gun-toting elephant poachers (worldnews.nbcnews.com)
• Poachers slaughter Kenyan elephant family (capitalfm.co.ke)
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• World Wildlife Fund bemoans killing of 11 elephants in Kenya (ghanabusinessnews.com)
• AFRICA WILDLIFE : Horror as entire family of elephants slaughtered for ivory (environmentaleducationuk.wordpress.com)
• Surge in Elephant Poaching (changebydoing.wordpress.com)
• Horror as entire family of elephants slaughtered for ivory (telegraph.co.uk)
• WWF: Elephant poaching increasing across Africa (itv.com)

Switzerland Farmers Eating Cats and Dogs With Meals

Farmers in Switzerland routinely EATING cats and dogs with their meals

Reposted here also:-

• Practice still common among farmers in areas of Switzerland
• The most popular type of dog is a breed related to the Rotweiler
• Commercial sale of dog meat is banned in the country, eating is not

By ALLAN HALL

It is a practice more usually associated with Far Eastern countries such as China and Vietnam.

But a report by a newspaper in Switzerland has revealed that dog and cat meat is still part of meals in the Alpine nation.

The Tages Anzeiger said farmers in the Appenzell and St. Gallen areas in particular slaughter the creatures to eat themselves or to pass on to friends.

Canine snack: Eating dog meat is still common practice in some areas of Switzerland, a newspaper in the country has found

The favourite type of meat comes from a dog that is related to the beefy Rottweiler.

‘There’s nothing odd about it’, a farmer told the paper. ‘Meat is meat. Construction workers in particular like eating it.’

Another farmer told how he raised animals and then called in a butcher friend to kill them when they were ripe for slaughter. Still one more described how he either shot the creatures, usually adored as pets throughout Europe, or bludgeoned them to death.

According to the report, people ate the meat as ‘mostbröckli’ – usually a form of beef or ham that is marinated, but this one made from dog or cat.

‘No-one knows what it is when you prepare it in this fashion,’ a farmer added.

Dog’s dinner: Although human consumption of dog meat is mostly associated with Asian countries such as China, pictured, Swiss farmers confessed to breeding dogs for their meat

While not taking place on a commercial scale, the practice horrifies animal rights activists in Switzerland where the eating of such creatures is not forbidden by law, as it is in nearby Germany.

In Switzerland the person who wants to kill a cat or a dog will only be prosecuted if the killing is itself cruel.

DOGGY DINING

Dog meat is eaten in a number of countries across the globe, but the practice is mostly associated with Asian nations.

It is most common in China, South Korea and Vietnam where earing dog  is believed to bring good fortune

Koreans even have a special ‘meat dog’ breed called Nureongi which is bred for human consumption and very rarely kept as a pets.

And the flesh cannot be sold commercially, even though some communities have pressed in the past for it to be sold on market days alongside the usual fare of beef, pork and lamb.

The newspaper added; ‘The surveyed farmers spoke about their special preference only through the assurance of anonymity. All feared a hostile reaction from animal welfare activists and animal lovers.

‘Animal welfare organisations and farmers assess the consumption differently, but it is particularly popular in the Rhine Valley.

‘One farmer said he had stopped eating it purely because it is “frowned upon” by society. He sees this as the hypocrisy of a society “that can get otherwise not enough meat.”’

There are no official figures about how many of these animals end up on the plates of the Swiss.

The country also has a small but thriving trade in cat pelts for coats and bedspreads. The Swiss parliament rejected changing the laws to protect dogs and cats for human consumption back in 1993.

Edith Zellweger of the Salez animal welfare group said; ‘How unscrupulous can a society be that man eats his best friend?’

She was behind the drive 20 years ago to get the law changed and will press for fresh legislation again.

The Federal Veterinary Office said it was a ‘cultural matter’ and pointed out that in some countries dogs are reared specifically to be slaughtered and eaten.

More…

• Revealed: RSPCA destroys HALF of the animals that it rescues – yet thousands are completely healthy
• Man tries to reclaim pet dog from rescue centre two weeks after leaving it only to be told it had been PUT DOWN
• The real dogs of war: Intimate images show soldiers caring for the animals who have helped them through the ages

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255684/Farmers-Switzerland-routinely-EATING-cats-dogs-meals.html#ixzz2HBjBWGnR

Related articles

• Dog stew anyone? (korcan50years.com)
• A Scene From Hell: Dogs Seized in Philippines Slaughterhouse Raid (sys-con.com)
• Meat is meat: Swiss farmers eat dogs, cats (thenewstribe.com)
• Guangzhou university canteen slammed for serving dog meat (wantchinatimes.com)
• That Eating of Cats & Dogs (straydogsworldwide.wordpress.com)
• Farmers in Switzerland EATING cats and dogs with their meals (lunaticoutpost.com)
• Swiss dog-eating still legal (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Farmers in Switzerland routinely EATING cats and dogs with their meals. (sunsetdaily.wordpress.com)
• Switzerland Farmers Eating Cats and Dogs With Meals (theageofblasphemy.wordpress.com)

Come to Australia!

Come to Australia!

The Wonderful Wildlife & Fabulous Fauna of the Land Down Under!

Are Factory Farming’s Days Numbered?

Good News For Animal Lovers: Factory Farming’s Days May Be Numbered

Two major grocery chains are ditching factory farmed meat — will the changes cause a ripple effect?

 

Photo Credit: © koko-tewan/ Shutterstock.com

This article was published in partnership with GlobalPossibilities.org.

In one of history’s most stunning victories for humane farming, Australia’s largest supermarket chain, Coles, will as of January 1 stop selling company branded pork and eggs from animals kept in factory farms. As an immediate result, 34,000 mother pigs will no longer be kept in stalls for long periods of their lives, and 350,000 hens will be freed from cages.

Not to be outdone, the nation’s other dominant supermarket chain, Woolworths, has already begun phasing out factory farmed animal products. In fact all of Woolworth’s house brand eggs are now cage-free, and by mid-2013 all of their pork will come from farmers who operate stall-free farms.

Coles and Woolworths together account for a dominant 80 percent of all supermarket sales in Australia.

The move to open up the cages was fueled by “consumer sentiment,” and it has been synchronous with amajor campaign against factory farming of animals led by Animals Australia. The campaign features a TV ad, titled “When Pigs Fly,” in which an adorable piglet tells the story of animals sentenced to life in cramped cages, and then flies to freedom.

Meanwhile, in the United States, egg factory farms cram more than 90 percent of the country’s 280 million egg-laying hens into barren cages so small the birds can’t even spread their wings. Each bird spends her entire life given less space than a sheet of paper. And in a reality that does not please fans of Wilber or Babe, between 60 to 70 percent of the more than five million breeding pigs in the United States are kept in crates too small for them to so much as turn around.

There are laws against cruelty to animals in the United States, but most states specifically exempt animals destined for human consumption. The result is that the animal agriculture industry routinely does things to animals that, if you did them to a dog or a cat, would get you put in jail.

Gene Baur, president of Farm Sanctuary, explains: “Most of the anti-cruelty laws exempt farm animals as long as the practices are considered to be normal by the agriculture industry. What has happened is that bad has become normal, and no matter how cruel it is, normal is legal.”

But here, too, change is coming. Undercover investigations have led to a $497 million judgment against the now defunct Hallmark Meat Packing company, and to the recent temporary shutdown of Central Valley Meat Company over what federal investigators termed “egregious, inhumane handling and treatment of livestock.” California and Michigan have passed laws that will phase in a ban on battery cages for hens, andnine U.S. states have joined the entire European Union in heading towards a ban on confining pigs in gestation crates.

Worried that consumers are starting to find out the truth about treatment of modern farm animals and will demand further changes, industry leaders are pushing for “ag gag” laws that would hide factory farming and slaughterhouse abuses from public scrutiny. Recently passed laws in Iowa and Utah threaten jail time for anyone working undercover and taking pictures or video of animals in factory farms without permission.

What don’t they want us to know? What are they trying to hide? What would happen if the veil was lifted and we saw the level of cruelty that has become the norm in U.S. industrial meat production?

A poll conducted by Lake Research partners found that 94 percent of Americans agree that animals raised for food on farms deserve to be free from abuse and cruelty, and that 71 percent of Americans support undercover investigative efforts by animal welfare organizations to expose animal abuse on industrial farms.

Most farmers don’t try to be cruel to animals, but they do worry about how to cut costs. And so long as consumers are kept in the dark about the real source of their food, farm owners have no economic incentive to do more than the minimum necessary to appease regulatory authorities.

Want to take action? Join the Food Revolution Network, an online community dedicated to healthy, sustainable, humane and delicious food for all.

Or join the Humane Society’s campaign for farm animal protection, or Farm Sanctuary’s work for animal welfare legislation. Or if you want to save 100 animals per year, you can sign up for PETA’s free veg starter kit.

Related articles

• Meat Free Week to launch next year in anti-factory farming awareness campaign (mumbrella.com.au)
• Coles to stop selling ham, cage eggs (theage.com.au)
• Good News For Animal Lovers: Factory Farming’s Days May Be Numbered (alternet.org)
• Thank Australian Supermarkets for Selling Only Cruelty-Free Meat and Eggs (forcechange.com)
• Factory Farming’s Days May Be Numbered (readersupportednews.org)
• Largest Supermarket Chains in Australia Saying No to Factory Farmed Animal Products (treehugger.com)
• Ocean Robbins: Is Animal Cruelty Doomed? (huffingtonpost.com)
• Australian supermarkets just say “NO” to factory farmed pork, in deference to “consumer sentiment” (thebovine.wordpress.com)

Crazy Jewish Haredi Rabbis Claim Hurricane Sandy Sent By God | The Sophistry of Theodicy

A Frustrated Reader’s Hurricane Sandy Theodicy

Upset with haredi rabbis claiming that God sent Hurricane Sandy because of gay marriage or abortion or the US policy toward Israeli settlements, a reader sent in the following hurricane aftermath photos with a brief note…

The Satmar yeshiva in Sea Gate, Brooklyn, after Hurricane Sandy

The disgusted reader’s message, referring to the photos posted above, reads, “That’s god’s message to stop MBP [metzitzah b’peh], and all that’s wrong with yeshivohs.”

It does make some twisted sense, especially when you realize that Hurricane Sandy’s damage was done by very strong winds that blew ocean water past the beaches and into the city proper, and which blew down power lines, trees and upturned cars as it blew out windows, ripped off roofs, and even destroyed houses.

I mean, the operative words here are “blew” and “blow,” and we all know what MBP looks like to most people – an act commonly known as a “blow job.”

As sick and bizarre as this analogy is, it makes as much sense as anything claimed by haredi rabbis like Yehuda Levin and Amnon Yitzhak.

That demonstrates the foolishness of theodicy – and the foolishness of those haredi rabbis who feel the need to practice it

Related articles

• Rabbi Tendler Wants Metzitzah B’peh Regulated in Rockland County (privateinvesigations.blogspot.com)
• Outside New York, controversial Jewish circumcision rite goes unregulated (theuglytruth.wordpress.com)
• Rabbi Yehuda Levin Blames Hurricane Sandy On “Homosexual Agenda,” Gay Marriage (failedmessiah.typepad.com)
• A Frustrated Reader’s Hurricane Sandy Theodicy (failedmessiah.typepad.com)
• Hurricane Sandy Spawns Right-Wing Theodicy (religiondispatches.org)
• London Haredi Rabbi Rape And Sex Scandal? (failedmessiah.typepad.com)
• Rabbi Amnon Yitzhak: US got a ‘nice hurricane’ (privateinvesigations.blogspot.com)
• Orthodox Rabbi: Hurricane Sandy Was God’s Revenge For New York Gay Marriage (joemygod.blogspot.com)

Peak Water? ‘Last Call at the Oasis’ – Why Time Is Running Out to Save Our Drinking Water

‘Last Call at the Oasis’: Why Time Is Running Out to Save Our Drinking Water

A new film provides a much-needed wake-up call for Americans: Our false sense of water abundance may be our great undoing.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock/Ev Thomas

The first voice you hear in the new documentary Last Call at the Oasis is Erin Brockovich‘s — the famed water justice advocate whom Julia Roberts portrayed on the big screen.”Water is everything. The single most necessary element for any of us to sustain and live and thrive is water,” says Brockovich as her voice plays over clips of water abundance — gushing rivers and streams. “I grew up in the midwest and I have a father who actually worked for industry … he promised me in my lifetime that we would see water become more valuable than oil because there will be so little of it. I think that time is here.”

The film then cuts to images of water-scarce populations in the world: crowds of people at water tankers, stricken children, news reports of drought in the Middle East, Brazil, China, Spain.

The images are heart-wrenching and alarming … and so are the ones that come next, which are all in the U.S. Water parks, golf courses, car washes, triple shower heads, outside misters — all point to our folly when it comes to water.

We live with a false sense of water abundance and it may be our great undoing. Even though the film opens with Brockovich’s prophecy that water is more valuable than oil, Last Call at the Oasis mostly focuses on how we’ve yet to grasp this news. The film, which is the latest from Participant Media (Inconvenient Truth, Food Inc., Waiting for Superman), delves into our addiction to limitless growth, our blindness to pressures from global warming, and the free pass that industry and agriculture get to pollute.

The narrative of the film, which is directed by Jessica Yu, is driven by interviews, historical footage and some outstanding cinematography. We’re taken to Las Vegas, so often the starting point for discussions of our impending water crisis. We see a receding Lake Mead, learn that Hoover Dam may be close to losing its ability to generate power as water levels drop, and that the intake valve for Las Vegas’ water supply may soon be sucking air.

We hear from Pat Mulroy, Las Vegas’ infamous water manager, about a plan for the city to pipe water over 250 miles from a small agricultural community. The town of Baker, population 150, looks to be on the sacrificial altar for Sin City. As Mulroy says, it is a “project out of sheer desperation.” But that will be little consolation to the folks in Baker. Or to the rest of us. Because what we learn next is that “we’re all Vegas.”

Phoenix and LA also face water pressures, as the Colorado River strains to meet growing demands. The film shows hotspots like the California’s Central Valley, where 7 million acres of irrigated agriculture have turned near desert into the source of one-quarter of the nation’s food — at a steep environmental price.

California is often warned it will be the next Australia, where a decade of drought has devastated the agricultural sector. At the peak of Australia’s drought, the film tell us, one farmer committed suicide every four days. We meet families who are struggling to save their farms, faced with having to slaughter all of their animals. The scenes of heartbreak in Australia are one of the few times in the film the narrative ventures outside the U.S. Mostly the storyline is focused on America’s own evolving plight.

We see Midland, Texas where a community is stricken by cancer from hexavalent chromium in its drinking water. A reoccurring voice throughout the film is Brockovich, who works as a legal consultant all over the U.S. for communities that often find themselves powerless in the face of industry pollution. “There are 1,200 Superfund sites the EPA can’t deal with,” says Brockovich. “The government won’t save you.”

For all our clean water laws, we aren’t very good at enforcement. From 2004 to 2005 an investigation found that the Clean Water Act was violated more than half a million times. It’s not just industry, but pesticides like atrazine, which we learn can be detected in the rain water in Minnesota when it’s being applied in Kansas. In Michigan we see another awful side to Big Ag, the liquid waste from factory “farming,” known as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. These CAFOs threaten drinking water with chemicals, antibiotics and growth hormones.

So what do we do in the face of these threats to our drinking water? Apparently we buy bottled water — which the film details is not only potentially less safe (it has different regulations from tap water) but is environmentally destructive as well.

There are a few bright spots in the film, including strides that have been made in Singapore and other places to recycle water for drinking. (We could at least start in the U.S. by recycling water for re-use in toilet flushing, irrigation and other non potable uses.) And we get to see a hilarious behind-the-scenes look at an advertising company trying to come up with a campaign to pursuade Americans to drink recycled water. Porcelain Springs anyone?

If you don’t know much about water issues, the film is an essential wake-up call. And judging from the way Americans use water, this film looks like it should have a large audience. It covers a lot of ground, but how well?

“Last Call offers a few solutions but — except for a segment on recycled wastewater — little about how to traverse the tangled political, social and economic pathways to achieve them. In fact, at times its ‘stars’ show the exasperation and resignation that comes from years spent seeing the tires spin in the same wheel ruts,” writes Brett Walton at Circle of Blue. “With so many problems to choose from, some worthy candidates are excluded and some issues are insufficiently explored, but the writers make good use of the material they have selected. They explain technical issues, while never losing sight of the lives that are affected.”

Overall the film is beautiful and compelling but misses the mark in one important place — it fails to address energy in any meaningful way. There are split-second clips of tap water being lit on fire (fracking!) and what looks to be a flyover of a mountaintop removal mining site, but the filmmakers never talk in depth to any of the people who live in our energy sacrifice zones in this country. What about the devastation in Appalachia and the growing threats from fracking and tar sands extraction?

The issues of energy and water are inextricably linked. It takes energy to move and treat water and it takes water to keep our lights on and our cars running. The more we ignore the reality of our fossil-fuel addiction, the more we become tethered to a future of climate chaos — droughts, floods and more turbulent storms. It’d be nice to see a film about U.S. water issues that starts in West Virginia, Pennsylvania or Nebraska instead of Las Vegas. This is the most significant lost opportunity in a film that will hopefully have a large reach across the country as it imparts its other important messages.

Look for a screening near you and check out the trailer below.

Tara Lohan is a senior editor at AlterNet and editor of the new book Water Matters: Why We Need to Act Now to Save Our Most Critical Resource. You can follow her on Twitter @TaraLohan.

Related articles

• “Last Call at the Oasis” (sunstonefire.wordpress.com)
• ‘Last Call at the Oasis’: Why Time Is Running Out to Save Our Drinking Water (alternet.org)
• ‘Last Call at the Oasis’: A Documentary About Our Global Water Crisis (ecosalon.com)
• Bill Chameides: Water Ills Focus of New Documentary (huffingtonpost.com)
• Erin Brockovich’s New Map Tracks The Dangers Of Polluted Water (fastcoexist.com)
• Utah, Nevada look to prevent water crisis ()
• Erin Brockovich returns to big screen in water doc (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Warmest Year Ever For United States

U.S. Sees Warmest Year Since Record-Keeping Began 117 Years Ago

Things are heating up in the United States. Over the past 12 months, the average national temperature reached the highest ever recorded since the government began keeping track in 1895.

From May 2011 to April 2012, the nationally averaged temperature was 2.8 degrees Fahrenheit above what scientists called the “long-term average” for the entire 20th century.

Last month alone, warmer-than-average temperatures occurred in nine states located in the Central and Northeast regions. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that above-average temperatures also were recorded in the Southeast, Upper Midwest and much of the West.

So far in 2012 (not counting the month of May), the U.S. (minus Alaska and Hawaii) has experienced the warmest four-month period on record, with an average temperature of 45.4 degrees Fahrenheit. This temperature was 5.4 degrees above the long-term average, according to the NOAA.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

To Learn More:

U.S. Temperatures for April Third Warmest on Record (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Ten Warmest 12-month Periods for the Contiguous U.S. (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

Related articles

• NOAA: US Experienced Warmest 12-Month Period in 117 Years (commondreams.org)
• April checks in at No. 3 on the all-time warmest list for the U.S. (climatecentral.org)
• Hot Enough for You? Warmest May to April Ever for U.S (sott.net)
• U.S. experiences warmest 12-month period on record (wunderground.com)
• Past 12 months and first third of the year were warmest U.S. has experienced since records began in 1895 (yubanet.com)
• U.S. Experiences Warmest 12-Month Period On Record And Most Extreme January to April (thinkprogress.org)
• Last 12-Month Stretch Warmest on Record (newser.com)
• US shatters record for warmest March (usnews.msnbc.msn.com)
• NOAA: Global temperatures in March make coolest March since 1999 even with US’ record-breaking warmth (greencarcongress.com)
• The Winter That Wasn’t Checks In at Fourth-Warmest Ever (climatecentral.org)