It’s the height of irony that one of the most common justifications for eating animals that I encounter is, “If we didn’t eat them, the world would be overrun with farmed animals!” * News flash: the world is already overrun with farmed animals — through no fault of their own and to the detriment of tens of millions of wildlife animals brutally slaughtered every year to protect the profits of READ ON
By Bill Drelles, Lee Hall, and Matt Shaw On Earth Overshoot Day, which inches earlier each year, we exhaust more resources than Earth annually regenerates. #Pledgefortheplanet, we tweet! But what of the root-level change needed to address “over-exploitation” of Earth and its living communities? Sometimes we pause to focus on our most blatant, direct exploitation of other living READ ON
Two acres of rain forest are cleared each minute to raise cattle or crops to feed them. 35,000 miles of American rivers are polluted with animal waste. In the mad race to the dinner plate, the scarce resources needed to produce meat, eggs, fish and dairy simply can’t keep pace with the demand for these foods. Some commentators propose “green” alternatives like raising animals locally, organically, READ ON
This post is the first in a three-part series from author Dave Simon that takes a critical, no-nonsense look at sustainable claims for three emerging trends in animal agriculture. This first analyzes the sustainability claims of locavorism. The second looks at organic, and the third looks at fish farming. At 200 pounds each per year, Americans eat more meat per capita than any other READ ON
During the holiday gift-giving season, a popular choice for gift-donations are programs that send live farm animals as "gifts" to help alleviate hunger and poverty in low-income countries. Our purpose here is to make the criticisms of these campaigns public and to encourage alternatives that are more effective and more compassionate. We examine the flaws in concept and practice with READ ON
The Conference On November 11th, world leaders in business, industry, and NGOs will join representatives from nearly 200 countries to convene in Warsaw, Poland, for the nineteenth annual Conference of the Parties (COP 19) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—an international environmental treaty established in 1994 to address the challenges of a warming planet. The READ ON
With the U.S. government constantly warring internally over health insurance and federal spending, a question worth asking would be: What health care issues cost Americans and insurers the most? The leading cause of death of both men and women in the United States is heart disease. (1) Every day, nearly 2,600 Americans die of some type of cardiovascular disease (2), the most common form of which READ ON
New report undercounts both risks and opportunities in food and forest The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) published a report yesterday that says the world should expect a 70 percent increase in livestock production by 2050. According to the report, “Tackling climate change through livestock: A global assessment of emissions and mitigation opportunities,” greenhouse gas emissions from READ ON
A number of hurdles obstruct the path of evolution toward more sustainable, peaceful food production systems. One such hurdle is the perpetuation of belief that sustainability can be achieved if we simply modify our current animal production systems. Many authors, scientists, and organizations are happy to spread this message and have ample perceived public platform to do so. This invariably leads READ ON
"Custom will reconcile people to any atrocity." - George Bernard Shaw. In a brilliant article entitled, "Are we on the Verge of Total Self Destruction?," Prof. Noam Chomsky wrote, "At one extreme, you have indigenous tribal societies trying to stem the race to disaster. At the other extreme, the richest, most powerful societies in world history, like the United States and Canada, are racing READ ON
"Underlying all complexity is a deep simplicity," Murray Gell-Mann. Nearly two years ago, Keith Akers convincingly showed in a must-read article that a mass transition to veganism greatly simplifies the task of mitigating climate change. Indeed, a 2010 UN report found that a mass transition to veganism is vital to save the world from hunger and fuel poverty, in addition to the worst impacts READ ON
When we think of Greek yogurt, we generally don’t think about environmental devastation. However, according to a recent report in ModernFarmer.com, that’s about to change. Confirming the inherent waste involved in the conversion of animal parts and secretions into animal products, analysts have revealed that it takes three or four ounces of milk to make an ounce of Greek yogurt. The rest of the READ ON
A recent videotape that went somewhat viral begins with a factual statement by cattleman Allan Savory: "Fossil fuels... are by no means the only thing that is causing climate change." Then Mr. Savory launches into opinion, saying there's "only one option left to climatologists and scientists." That's to do "the unthinkable" — namely, to expand and intensify livestock-raising, using "rotational READ ON
"Plant-based diets may not be environmentally friendly" was the surprising headline above an article about a new French study (first published January 13, 2013). More surprising was the publisher of that headline — Occupy Monsanto — which would normally be skeptical of such a study. Hundreds of other publications have published similar breathless headlines. But the French study doesn't assert what READ ON
Happy Cows and Pink Elephants are on my mind. After last month's encounter with Al Gore and the Pink Elephant of animal agriculture that he's largely ignoring in his climate change slide show, I've been bombarded with emailed reverberations from the "Happy Cow" column that Nicholas Kristof wrote in the NY Times on Sunday. Perhaps, Colleen Patrick-Gourdreau responded to Mr. Kristof the READ ON
“In just over 50 years, the broiler industry has been transformed from more than one million small farms spread across the country to a limited number of massive factory-style operations concentrated in 15 states,” said Karen Steuer, who directs Pew’s efforts to reform industrial animal agriculture. “This growth has harmed the environment, particularly water, because management programs for READ ON
By Zoe Weil There are days when I feel hopeless about the future. Not my personal future, but the future of humanity, the planet and other species. But my work in humane education, which explores the interconnected issues of human rights, environmental preservation and animal protection, and provides people with the knowledge, tools and motivation to be solutionaries for a better world, is READ ON
Change your lightbulbs? Or your car? If you want to fight global warming, it’s time to consider a different diet. By Mike Tidwell Full disclosure: I love to eat meat. I was born in Memphis, the barbecue capital of the Milky Way Galaxy. I worship slow-cooked, hickory-smoked pig meat served on a bun with extra sauce and coleslaw spooned on top. My carnivore’s lust goes beyond the DNA level. READ ON
Our friends at Food and Water Watch have unveiled a new interactive web-based map tool of factory farms across America, and FFW representatives are touring the country to promote it. We caught their presentation earlier this week in Chicago. Based on data provided by the USDA, the mapping tool displays factory farm stats by state and by county, showing the level of concentration and location of READ ON
Late this month a new report on the environmental impact of global livestock production was released by the National Academy of Sciences. Nathan Pelletier and Peter Tyedmers of the Dalhousie University School for Resource and Environmental Studies have released a paper focusing on the environmental implications of the livestock industry. The paper illustrates a number of worrying statistics that READ ON
