Burning for meat: This NASA satellite image shows numerous wildfires burning across the Amazon rainforest on August 11, 2019. The space agency began to detect heightened fire activity in the region in July. (Photo credit: NASA)
Mercy for Animals: The Amazon rainforest is burning. A cloud of smoke covered São Paulo, Brazil, shrouding the city in darkness for a day. What’s driving the rapid increase in fires? Experts point to the clearing of forest for farmland to raise cattle and grow soybeans to feed farmed animals. The Amazon is the largest rainforest in the world and helps buffer against global warming by absorbing carbon dioxide—2 billion tons of it per year, holding a total of around 150–200 billion tons of carbon. When they burn, trees and plants release stored carbon. Destroying large blocks of rainforest accelerates climate change by releasing massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. The entire world will feel the effects of these fires, and we are all culpable for the destruction they cause. The United States is Brazil’s third-largest export market. In response to the fires, lawmakers in Congress recently introduced H.R. 4263, the Act for the Amazon Act, federal legislation calling for a prohibition on importing certain Brazilian products from industries linked to the fires. >>>Urge your representative to cosponsor H.R. 4263.
NRDC: Are you flushing Canada’s boreal forest, one of Earth’s greatest defenses against climate change, down the toilet? The majestic forest stores huge amounts of our climate-busting carbon pollution, but it’s being cut at a dizzying rate—much of it for toilet paper. Toilet paper brand Charmin uses absolutely no recycled paper in its toilet paper—just 100 percent virgin forest fiber from the boreal forest. This destroys its trees, hurts the livelihood of hundreds of Indigenous communities, and threatens the iconic boreal caribou, billions of songbirds, and other wildlife who call this ancient forest home. >>>Tell Procter & Gamble to make Charmin planet-safe.
Compassion Over Killing: An undercover investigation at Cooke Aquaculture, an industrial Atlantic salmon hatchery in Bingham, Maine, that supplies to Martha Stewart’s new True North Seafood line, has revealed putrid conditions breeding disease and parasites, intensive crowding, and widespread cruelty to fish. The plight of fish often goes unseen and unheard, but this new exposé brings to light the dire lack of protection for millions of animals raised for food. Just as billions of land animals suffer inside factory farms, so too do farmed fish. And like land animals, fish have the ability to suffer and feel pain. >>>Tell Martha Stewart to cut ties with Cooke Aquaculture.
Cause for concern…
Rivers in retreat: A new study has found that groundwater pumping is depleting rivers and streams across the world, threatening water systems already stressed by global warming and overuse. The flow of the Colorado River (above, seen in Lake Powell, Utah) could be decreased by up to 20 percent by 2050 due to climate change alone. (Photo credit: Fred Moore/Flickr)
Putting a cap on it: California has passed a law that protects public land from Trump’s oil and gas development plans. The law, signed by Governor Gavin Newsom on Saturday, sends a “clear message to Trump that we will fight to protect these beautiful lands for current and future generations,” said Democratic Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, who introduced it. (Photo credit: California Water Boards)
Water wars: Young ibises perch on a fallen log along Florida’s Santa Fe River, which supports a myriad of plants and animals—species that would be threatened by Nestlé’s water bottling plan. (Photo credit: anoldent/Flickr)
CREDO Action: Florida’s rivers and the plants and animals that rely on them are already facing multi-pronged threats from land development, pollution and climate change. Now the state’s Santa Fe River is facing a new threat. Nestlé is seeking to extract more than 1.1 million gallons of water a day from the river’s natural springs to sell as bottled water. The Santa Fe is home to the Suwannee moccasinshell, a freshwater mussel that is protected under the Endangered Species Act, and imperiled sturgeon have been found swimming its waters. Turtles, birds and other plant and animal species have called this river home for centuries. Allowing Nestlé to jeopardize the health of this already threatened river is ill-advised and irresponsible. >>>Urge the Suwannee River Water Management District to reject Nestlé’s bottling plan.
The Humane League: McDonald’s is a global giant, but when it comes to the treatment of chickens raised for its menu items, it is lagging behind. McDonald’s has released an inadequate animal welfare policy that fails to address several important welfare issues. Under current conditions, chickens in the company’s supply chain suffer from unnatural growth due to selective breeding and genetical manipulations, ammonia burns from toxic waste fumes, and debilitating injuries from being crippled by the weight of their own oversized bodies. As one of the world’s most influential companies, McDonald’s has the power to impact the entire food industry—as well as the lives of millions of suffering chickens. Instead, McDonald’s has chosen to mislead consumers with hollow promises that lack meaningful change. >>>Urge McDonald’s to stop purchasing abused chickens.
Animal Legal Defense Fund: Special Memories Zoo, a roadside zoo in Greenville, Wisconsin, has a well-documented history of Animal Welfare Act (AWA) violations. Endangered tigers, Tanya and Teagan, are just two of the more than 200 animals kept in horrible conditions at Special Memories Zoo. These tigers are confined in small, rusty cages, where they are not provided the basic necessities of clean water, food or straw. Witnesses observed the tigers’ water tanks full of algae, their food buckets infested with maggots and rancid meat, and the tigers’ straw left soiled and unchanged for months. The Animal Legal Defense Fund sent notice to Special Memories Zoo declaring an intent to sue the facility for keeping the tigers and other animals in squalid conditions that violate the Endangered Species Act, as well as state laws covering captive wild animals, animal cruelty and public nuisance. >>>Boycott Special Memories Zoo and other roadside zoos that profit by exploiting animals.
Cause for concern…
Danger lurking: A new study has found that pregnant women exposed to higher levels of the common chemical bisphenol A (BPA), used in the manufacturing of plastics, are more likely to bear children who suffer from wheezing and reduced lung capacity, challenging the U.S. Food & Drug administration’s position that it’s “safe at the current levels occurring in foods.” One of the most produced chemicals worldwide, the global BPA market is projected to reach 7.3 million tons by the end of 2023. (Photo credit: mali maeder/Pexels)
Plastic pickup: A floating device designed by Dutch scientists for the non-profit Ocean Cleanup has successfully retrieved plastic trash from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an enormous collection of marine debris in the north central Pacific Ocean estimated to be at least the size of Texas. Nearly 13 million metric tons of plastic ends up in the ocean every year. (Photo credit: Ocean Cleanup)
“The proper use of science is not to conquer nature but to live in it.” —Barry Commoner
Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and animal/nature rights, and champions action; specifically, how responsible citizens, voters and consumers can help put society on an ethical path of sustainability that respects the rights of all species who call this planet home. EFL emphasizes the idea that everything is connected, so every decision matters.
Click here to support the work of EFL and the Independent Media Institute.
Questions, comments, suggestions, submissions? Contact EFL editor Reynard Loki at [email protected]. Follow EFL on Twitter @EarthFoodLife.
Fighting fossil fuel: Anti-pipeline activists protesting the Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipelines on September 1, 2017, in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo credit: Anne Meador @cool_revolution/Flickr)
Progress Not Pipelines: Two pipelines proposed five years ago—the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline and 300-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline, both running from West Virginia, through Virginia into North Carolina—would harm streams, groundwater, air quality, wildlife, rural communities and communities of color, public health, and public lands including the treasured Appalachian Trail. They would increase consumer costs and worsen the climate crisis. After violating environmental regulations more than 300 times, causing widespread water pollution, the Mountain Valley Pipeline builders are now under criminal investigation for Clean Water Act violations. Yet construction continues. As for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, federal courts have thrown out environmental permits at least five times for being flawed and insufficient, yet the builder has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to ram the project through. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) should never have allowed these pipelines in the first place—but the agency’s deeply flawed process virtually guaranteed their approval. >>>Urge FERC to issue a stop-work order for both pipelines immediately.
Care2: The Trump administration has reversed an Obama-era policy meant to keep water bottles out of America’s national parks. The six-year policy, which gave national parks the option to refuse to sell plastic bottles, has been an effective strategy that has reduced plastic pollution and helped keep public lands clean. The beverage industry has been lobbying to repeal the policy since it went into effect six years ago, and its reversal was announced just after President Trump named David Bernhardt—a former lobbyist for Nestlé, one of the nation’s largest water bottlers—was named the new Secretary of the Interior. Only 22 percent of the plastic produced since the 1950s is still in use today. The rest is in landfills, littering soils and killing animals like seabirds, whales, dolphins and fish who mistake it for food. >>>Tell U.S. national parks to keep plastic water bottles off of their lands.
Cause for concern…
Nowhere left to roam: Nature is being destroyed at a rate “unprecedented in human history,” according to a recent United Nations report, with more than a tenth of Earth’s species at risk of extinction, including the critically endangered hawksbill sea turtle (above). Human activity and increasing human population are driving this tragedy. From the razing of forests to support agriculture to the rapid growth of urbanization (with cities doubling in size in the last three decades), to pollution, poaching, overhunting and coastal development, there are fewer and fewer places for animals and plants to call home. (Photo credit: aquaimages/Flickr)
Help is on the way: Activists demonstrate at the Rally and March to Save the Amazon Rainforest in Chicago on September 5, 2019. At a United Nations meeting last week shunned by Brazil, French President Emmanuel Macron announced that donors agreed to free up more than $500 million in aid to protect tropical rainforests, including the Amazon, where wildfires continue to burn. “The vast majority of the fires have been set by loggers and ranchers to clear land for cattle,” reports CNN senior producer Eliza Mackintosh. (Photo credit: Charles Edward Miller/Flickr)
Tipping point: Anti-fracking activists gathered on the steps of the Washington State Legislative Building to call on Governor Inslee and the Department of Ecology to deny the proposed fracked-gas-to-methanol refinery in Kalama, Washington. (Image: Washington Environment Council)
Washington Environmental Council: Earlier this month, Cowlitz County, Washington, issued the required shorelines permit for the world’s largest fracked gas-to-methanol refinery, proposed in Kalama, Washington. Now, the Washington Department of Ecology has 30 days to approve or deny the massive refinery. The Kalama Methanol Refinery would use more gas than all of Washington’s gas-fired power plants combined and would become the state’s single largest source of carbon pollution. As Governor Inslee said: “We don’t have the luxury of a 50-year transition phase. The impacts of climate change are already coming to bear and … unless we reduce emissions by half over the next decade, we will reach an irreversible tipping point.” >>>Tell the Washington Dept. of Ecology to deny the shorelines permit for the Kalama Methanol refinery.
Rainforest Rescue: The government of Gabon gave a land concession to OLAM International, a Singapore-based agribusiness corporation, giving them the permission to clear half a million hectares of rainforest—an area more than three times the size of London—for oil palm and rubber plantations. However, there are dozens of Indigenous communities living on that land, where local people depend on healthy forests and savannas for their livelihoods, which are based on agriculture, hunting, gathering and fishing. >>>Urge the Gabonese government and OLAM International to return the lands of the Ferra and Nanga communities.
Care2: The life of an American egg-laying hen in a factory farm is a miserable experience. Crammed into a cage almost too small for her body, she can’t stand up or even spread her cramped wings. Packed and stacked next to thousands of other hens surrounding her, she is terrified, confused, traumatized. Every day, she’s breathing in waste and suffers from a host of illnesses as she lays egg after egg. As consumers become increasingly aware of the cruelty of factory farming, grocers and restaurants have provided cage-free eggs and other more humane animal products. Cal-Maine Foods of Jackson, Mississippi, the largest egg producer in the United States, does provide cage-free eggs. But in the pursuit of ever more profits, they’re also threatening to increase their production of caged eggs. >>>Urge Cal-Maine Foods to commit to 100% cage-free eggs.
Cause for concern…
Killing time: Pigs are sensitive, emotional and exceptionally intelligent, with cognitive abilities comparable to a human toddler. But every year, more than 120 million of them suffer tremendous physical and mental anguish on U.S. factory farms before being killed. Now Trump’s Department of Agriculture is deregulating the pork industry, lowering the required number of food safety inspectors and allow accelerated processing times. “Rushed pork processing lines cannot effectively stun the pigs, leaving them to suffer slaughter while fully conscious,” writes Cassandra Cyphers of Lady Freethinker. (Photo credit: Jo-Anne McArthur/Oikeutta Eläimille/We Animals)
Lab days, numbered: Rabbits are frequently used in experiments that cause pain and suffering, including Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) tests forcing them to breathe toxic truck fumes. Now, following calls by animal advocacy groups and thousands of concerned citizens, the EPA has committed to a 30% reduction by 2025 in mammal study requests and funding, and 100% elimination by 2035. In addition, the agency will invest $4.25 million in the development of alternatives to animal testing. (Photo credit: ruurmo/Flickr)
Fighting for a future: Young protesters at the Global Climate Strike in London on March 15, 2019. (Photo credit: Garry Knight/Flickr)
There’s growing frustration, particularly among the world’s youth, with how adults have so horribly mismanaged the climate crisis.
By Reynard Loki, Independent Media Institute
The Global Climate Strike on Friday, September 20, is expected to draw millions of people across 150 countries in what is poised to be the largest worldwide climate protest in history. Led by 16-year-old Swedish student and climate activist Greta Thunberg, the strike, which will call on world leaders to take decisive and meaningful climate change action ahead of the United Nations Climate Action Summit in New York on September 23, encapsulates the growing frustration, particularly among the world’s youth, with how adults have so horribly mismanaged a crisis that world leaders knew was possible a generation ago. In 1979, the First World Climate Conference (FWCC), backed by an international committee of 100 scientific experts, concluded that it was necessary for nations to “prevent potential man-made changes in climate that might be adverse to the well-being of humanity.”
In the four decades since the FWCC, humanity has done a terrible job at reining in greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, we have done just the opposite. Since 1980, global carbon emissions have increased by more than 80 percent. The lion’s share of that polluted pie is taken up by the burning of fossil fuels and other industrial processes, followed by changes in land use tied to a steadily growing human population; namely, agriculture and deforestation.
The United States, the world’s biggest producer and consumer of oil, and second-biggest emitter of carbon dioxide after China, has set a remarkably poor example for other nations since Donald Trump entered the White House. His administration, which pulled out of the Paris climate agreement, has been aggressively attacking science, gutting the agencies tasked with caring for the natural environment and protecting the public from the health harms related to the environment, including fossil fuel pollution, and the entry of plastics, agricultural waste and toxic chemicals into waterways and food chains. Just last week, the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to revoke the Obama-era Waters of the U.S. rule, which defines which of the nation’s waterways are subject to federal regulations. Now it will be easier for power stations, factory farms and industrial firms to pollute lakes, rivers, streams and sources of drinking water. In July, the agency rejected an Obama-era proposal to ban the neurotoxic insecticide chlorpyrifos. Produced by Dow Chemical (a major donor to Trump’s inauguration committee), chlorpyrifos, which hampers brain development in children, has made its way into the nation’s rivers and streams, where it threatens both humans and wildlife.
Looking to the steadily warming north offers gloomy pictures as well, with the Arctic losing near-record amounts of sea ice this summer to rising temperatures, and suffering through some of the longest-running wildfires ever recorded. This summer, Alaska lost more than 1 million hectares to wildfires, while Greenland experienced a record heatwave. Siberia fared even worse, with more than 2.6 million hectares burned since July.
While the situation of the beloved polar bear, so long the face of global warming, appears to have stabilized—at least for now, for some subpopulations—there is no short supply of new mascots to be the sad emissaries of the climate crisis. A frontrunner is the Bramble Cay melomys, which earlier this year became the first mammal to go extinct due to climate change. The small rodent lived on a single island in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, which itself could be the new face of climate carnage. Supporting thousands of animal species up and down the food chain, the reef has stood the test of time for the last 20,000 years, but it has finally met its match: a deadly cocktail of climate change, overfishing and land clearance. The world’s largest living organism is dying, and we are to blame. “Climate barbarism” is what Naomi Klein, the inspirational climate change chronicler, calls it in her new book “On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal.” At least 17 countries have now declared a “climate emergency.”
Teen titan: 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg met with EU officials and members of the European Parliament on April 16, 2019, in Strasbourg, where she made an impassioned plea to save the planet. “If our house was falling apart our leaders wouldn’t go on like we do today,” she said. “If our house was falling apart, you wouldn’t hold three emergency Brexit summits and no emergency summit regarding the breakdown of the climate and the environment.” (Photo credit: European Parliament/Flickr)
But amid all the human-caused death and destruction across the world’s ecosystems and the planet’s climactic mechanisms, all is not lost—yet. “There is still time to tackle climate change, but it will require an unprecedented effort from all sectors of society,” says the United Nations. There have been some key victories and signs of progress, indicators that some kind of system change may be underway. In July, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law the landmark New York Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Targeting a net-zero carbon economy by 2050, it is America’s most aggressive state-level climate legislation.
On the national front, the Green New Deal, which seeks to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, is making headway into the 2020 presidential election, with a majority of Democratic candidates supporting it. Co-authored by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the nonbinding resolution—the most sweeping climate policy ever introduced into the U.S. Congress—calls for “a fair and just transition” to protect communities impacted by climate change, particularly those who have been disproportionately affected by pollution in the past. Its proponents are signaling a break with the consumer-capitalist model of profit and resource depletion to embrace a model that values nature, sustainability, communities of color and Indigenous people. Across the Atlantic, the European Union has introduced the European Green Deal. Based on the Democrats’ legislative package, and with the same 2050 net-zero target, the EU version seeks to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent.
China, the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, is on target to achieve its climate goals nearly a decade ahead of schedule. As the United States cedes its leadership role in the climate fight, China has gone the opposite route, rolling out more than 100 policies over the past decade aiming to reduce both energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, including adding enormous solar and wind installations to its energy grid and introducing a feed-in tariff that guarantees prices for producers of renewable energy. As China accounts for nearly a third of humanity’s carbon emissions, its contribution to achieving the Paris climate agreement’s goal of limiting global temperature rise to 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels is key (though the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a special report in October of last year calling for a ceiling of 1.5° Celsius to avoid the worst impacts of climate change).
Consumer behavior is a major element of the climate solution. Through their “15 Ways in 15 Days” challenge, the United Nations is calling on individuals across the globe to adopt sustainable lifestyles. “Evidence shows that if enough people start to adopt the changes [in] … key lifestyle areas of food, stuff, move, money, and fun, then the global momentum of collective action will help shift the economy and address pressing social and environmental issues,” the UN says.
Scientists are even calling on their own to engage in civil disobedience to spur action. Ecologist Claire Wordley of the University of Cambridge and conservation biologist Charlie Gardner of the University of Kent recently published an op-ed calling on their fellow scientists to “act on our own warnings to humanity” and engage in nonviolent civil disobedience. “The scientists who alerted the world to the climate and ecological crises have a moral duty to join the popular movements demanding political action,” they write.
But disparate actions, no matter how well-intentioned, may prove insufficient. To prevent the world from warming 1.5° Celsius, a massive, coordinated, global and legally binding effort across all sectors of society is needed; basically, a regime change, politically, socially, and culturally. Notably, the shift from cruel, competitive consumption to compassionate, cooperative regeneration—to a stewardship of the planet that is green, eco-friendly, sustainable, local, organic and respectful—is generational, gendered and multicultural. Research suggests that women tend to be more environmentally conscious than men, and more specifically, female economists are more likely to support environmental policies than their male counterparts.
And then there’s Greta Thunberg, who will lead a demonstration Friday in New York City, and her global army of young climate strikers. “We are facing an existential crisis … it will have a massive impact on our lives in the future, but also now, especially in vulnerable communities,” said the 16-year-old in an interview with Democracy Now! “We should also try to wake the adults up, because they are the ones … who are mostly responsible for this crisis, and we need to hold them accountable.” Will adults take responsibility for the planetary morass we find ourselves in today? Perhaps. But as people—a great many of them too young to vote—gather in streets, parks and public squares around the globe on September 20 to demand action, a bigger question looms: Will adults act?
Join the Global Climate Strike on September 20 to demand elected officials and business leaders to take immediate and meaningful action to combat climate change. Click here to find an event where you live—or host your own.
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Reynard Loki is a senior writing fellow and the editor and chief correspondent for Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He previously served as the environment, food and animal rights editor at AlterNet and as a reporter for Justmeans/3BL Media covering sustainability and corporate social responsibility. He was named one of FilterBuy’s “Top 50 Health & Environmental Journalists to Follow in 2016.” His work has been published by Truthout, Salon, BillMoyers.com, EcoWatch and Truthdig, among others.
Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and animal/nature rights, and champions action; specifically, how responsible citizens, voters and consumers can help put society on an ethical path of sustainability that respects the rights of all species who call this planet home. EFL emphasizes the idea that everything is connected, so every decision matters.
Click here to support the work of EFL and the Independent Media Institute.
Questions, comments, suggestions, submissions? Contact EFL editor Reynard Loki at [email protected]. Follow EFL on Twitter @EarthFoodLife.
Tropical thinking: In this 1856 oil painting by Eduard Ender, Alexander von Humboldt is shown (left) with Aimé Bonpland, a French explorer and botanist, visiting the Amazon rainforest by the Casiquiare River. Armed with an array of scientific instruments, the pair were able to take many types of accurate measurements throughout their five-year expedition. (Image: Wikipedia)
As the world burns — and as kids sound the alarm — the original environmental scientist is worth revisiting.
By Erika Schelby, Independent Media Institute
Alexander von Humboldt was born on September 14, 1769. In his day, he was a globetrotting, convention-defying hero — one of the firstrecorded individuals to raise environmental concerns. To make him hip for a new generation, all it takes is a rediscovery of Humboldt by the young climate strikers across the globe. Their numbers are growing, their task is huge, and they are now urging adults to join them. Why let parents fiddle when the house burns? On May 22, grown-ups at the Columbia Journalism Review, The Nation, and The Guardian listened and launched Covering Climate Now, a project to encourage more coverage of climate change in the media. Bill Moyers, the keynote speaker, pointed out that from 2017 to 2018, major network coverage of climate issues fell 45 percent to a total of a mere 142 minutes. And on May 23, with her knack of being spot-on, 16-year-old climate activist and rising star Greta Thunberg promptly wrote of taking on the climate change challenge: “It’s humanity’s job.”
Finding a champion like Humboldt could be a joyous surprise for the young climate strikers. He has their back. He saw anthropogenic climate change coming more than 200 years ago. After all, he was the pioneering scientist who observed, documented and analyzed human-caused environmental damage in the early 1800s during his long journey of scientific exploration in Latin America. That’s when he blasted the methods of colonialism and warned about climate change caused by reckless deforestation and monoculture plantations. Back then, he investigated dried-up hillsides and the harm done by violent floods. He noted how once abundant water resources were wasted and fertile agricultural land grew barren. He saw things others overlooked.
It was at Lake Valencia in northern Venezuela where Humboldt developed his idea that humans were negatively impacting the climate. In his 1814 book, “Personal Narrative of a Journey to the Equinoctal Regions of the New Continent,” he wrote:
“When forests are destroyed, as they are everywhere in America by the European planters, with an imprudent precipitation, the springs are entirely dried up, or become less abundant. The beds of the rivers remaining dry during a part of the year, are converted into torrents, whenever great rains fall on the heights. The sward and moss disappearing from the brush-wood on the sides of the mountains, the waters falling in rain are no longer impeded in their course: and instead of slowly augmenting the level of the rivers by progressive filtrations, they furrow during heavy showers the sides of the hills, bear down the loose soil, and form those sudden inundations that devastate the country.”
Humboldt came to search for and comprehend the unity of nature. He spoke up for the Earth and for social justice. We can learn from his battles for sustainable practices. Humboldt was an environmental scientist even before the words environment or ecology were coined (1827 and 1875, respectively).
Perhaps it is timely that kid-led, citizen-based, grassroots organizing, like the Sunrise Movement in the United States, the Extinction Rebellion in the United Kingdom and the global School Strike for Climate, have taken root in 2019, the year of Humboldt’s 250th birthday on September 14. Events, talks, conferences, exhibits, concerts, celebrations and the premiere of a musical “Humboldt!” are scheduled — but not so much here in the United States, where we remain force-fed and distracted by political burlesques. In contrast, the climate-striking school kids stayed focused. Each week on #FridaysForFuture,they walk out of their schools to demand a future. Other new groups have started their own activities. Big demonstrations are planned for September 20, just a few days after the festivities for Humboldt’s birthday are over.
Scientists tell us that humans have only 12 years left to reduce emissions and limit global warming to an increase of 1.5° Celsius before things get really grim. And research on the rapidly shrinking biodiversity shows evidence that one million species face extinction. The environmentalist David Attenborough said during a recent United Nations climate conference that we are facing the “collapse of our civilizations and the extinction of much of the natural world.” Greta Thunberg also came straight to the point. Her comment on May 24, the day of the second global climate strike at 1,263 locations in 107 countries has only four words: “Activism works. So act.”
Humboldt represents the road not taken. He was a scientist who saw everything as interconnected. He called for good global stewardship and objected to the careless exploitation of resources. His warnings weren’t heeded. Soon a zeitgeist shift rushed things along on an opposing highway: toward massive development and depletion as if there were no tomorrow. So now it’s appropriate to recall that during the first decades of the 19th century, Alexander von Humboldt was the second-most famous person in the world after Napoleon. The books documenting his work were international bestsellers.
Road not taken: In this 1810 painting by Friedrich Georg Weitsch, Alexander von Humboldt and his fellow scientist Aimé Bonpland meet near the foot of the Chimborazo volcano in Ecuador. (Image: Wikipedia)
As part of his lecture series and later five-volume treatise, “Cosmos: A Sketch of a Physical Description of the Universe,” he gave more than 60 free and lengthy talks to thousands of people from all walks of life. Workers and members of the nobility, men and women, young and old listened to him, rapt. He did not live in an ivory tower. Here in the United States, folks also knew very well who he was and what he did. They named their towns, counties, mountains, forests, schools and parks after him. Today he is still a big deal, but not for the general public. Now he is known almost exclusively only among specialist academic Humboldtians across the globe. There are several active institutions: The Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung/Foundation is one of them. It has 29,000 members. They are scientists and scholars from all disciplines in 140 countries.
An outstanding communicator, Humboldt hand-wrote thousands of letters per year and built an extensive worldwide network with correspondents during his lifetime. This networking continues today, enhanced by the electronic media. This helps in keeping his correspondence with Thomas Jefferson alive and available on digital platforms.
In her book “The Passage to Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Shaping of America,”Laura Dassow Walls, the William P. and Hazel B. White Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, tells a little story about John B. Floyd, U.S. Secretary of War, and how in 1858 he visited Humboldt in Berlin to pay his respects. An advance gift had been sent to the old man. It was a fine album with nine maps showing all the Humboldt place names in the U.S. There was also a letter. It said:
“Never can we forget the services you have rendered not only to us but to all the world. The name of Humboldt is not only a household word throughout our immense country, from the shores of the Atlantic to the waters of the Pacific, but we have honored ourselves by its use in many parts of our territory….”
Just as he finished reading this florid ode, the American guest was shown in. A bit of toning down was required. “I wish you to know,” joked Humboldt, “that I am a river about 350 miles long; I have many tributaries, not much timber, but I am full of fish.”
Full of fish. There are still fish in Nevada’s Humboldt River: stocked fish. These days the young fish are grown in hatcheries and put into the stream by humans for the pleasure of the sport-fishing community. Other locations named Humboldt will face serious challenges. In northern California, for example, research and vulnerability studies predict that several communities in beautiful Humboldt County will be washed over by tides on a daily basis. This area has the highest risks of sea-level rise on the extensive U.S. West Coast.
Yet on the upside is the potential for constructing offshore wind energy projects. The northern coastline has long been regarded as ideal, even unparalleled in the U.S., but the local water depth was too deep for wind turbine installations. Now the latest technologies of floating platforms offer solutions. And Humboldt Bay also has California’s only deep-water port north of San Francisco, which will be essential in providing the infrastructure for renewable energy resources.
The good news is that apparently we already have affordable technologies, techniques and the science that can help us to save the planet from becoming uninhabitable. It will be difficult and a long hard slog. Dealing with the tobacco industry was easy compared to the contests to come, and the stakes are higher than they have ever been.
Humboldt’s groundbreaking 1807 “Essay on the Geography of Plants” was published in a complete English-language translation for the first time in 2009 by the University of Chicago Press. As the publisher’s description tells us, the book covers “far more than its title implies. … [I]t represents the first articulation of an integrative ‘science of the earth.’” Walls calls it a work by “our first planetary thinker.” Those trying to find a trail “to the future should start with this book, Humboldt’s manifesto for the 21st century.” As a Humboldt fan, I agree.
Island life: Humboldt’s botanical drawing of Chiranthodendron pentadactylon, a flowering plant, was published in his work on Cuba. (Image: Wikipedia)
The 1807 essay is a powerful road map drawn by a prescient thinker, and it shows the author’s holistic understanding of the natural world:
I]t represents the first articulation of an integrative ‘science of the earth.’” Walls calls it a work by “our first planetary thinker.” Those trying to find a trail “to the future should start with this book, Humboldt’s manifesto for the 21st century.” As a Humboldt fan, I agree. The 1807 essay is a powerful road map drawn by a prescient thinker, and it shows the author’s holistic understanding of the natural world:
“Botanists usually direct their research towards objects that encompass only a very small part of their science. They are concerned almost exclusively with the discovery of new species of plants, the study of their external structure, their distinguishing characteristics, and the analogies that group them together into classes and families. …
“[I]t is no less important to understand the Geography of Plants, a science that up to now exists in name only, and yet is an essential part of general physics.
“This is the science that concerns itself with plants in their local association in the various climates. This science, as vast as its object, paints with a broad brush the immense space occupied by plants, from the regions of perpetual snows to the bottom of the ocean, and into the very interior of the earth, where there subsist in obscure caves some cryptogams that are as little known as the insects feeding upon them.”
Although no one knows if the climate strikers will stumble into Humboldt and his ideas, I hope they do.
This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and animal/nature rights, and champions action; specifically, how responsible citizens, voters and consumers can help put society on an ethical path of sustainability that respects the rights of all species who call this planet home. EFL emphasizes the idea that everything is connected, so every decision matters.
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Turning point: Located on the eastern coast of Australia, the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is the largest reef system on Earth, with more than 3,000 separate reefs and coral cays. Spanning an area of around 14,300 square miles and encompassing about 13 percent of the planet’s total coral reef, the GBR is also one of the most complex natural ecosystems, with 600 types of corals supporting thousands of animal species across the entire food chain, from tiny planktons to whales. But climate change, overfishing and land clearance are all damaging the GBR. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA), the Australian state agency responsible for protecting the GBR, said the outlook for the ancient superorganism was “very poor.” GBRMPA chief Josh Thomas warned that we are at a “critical” point in the reef’s history, saying its future depends on action taken now, even as his agency approved the dumping of more than one million metric tons of sediment from dredging operations within the marine park. (Image: NASA)
Citizen Reef: You may not know it, but the world’s largest living organism, the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), has been looking out for all those who call Australia home—flora, fauna, humans—for the last 20,000 years. It’s been protecting the continent’s coastlines, preventing tidal waves and tropical storms from washing away the nation’s cities. It’s regulating the carbon dioxide levels of the ocean to combat climate change and keep air and beaches clean. It’s created a nursery to more than 10 percent of the planet’s fish species, helping to maintain global fish populations. It’s even contributing to the Australian economy by generating $6.4 billion every year, supporting over 64,000 jobs and holding a net worth of $56 billion. But despite its massive contribution to Australia and the world, it’s still denied the one basic right of every Australian citizen: the right to live. Coal mining, greenhouse gas emissions, the continued growth of the fossil fuel industry and lack of action against climate change are all threatening the life of the GBR. In fact, more than half of the shallow water corals of the GBR have been bleached to death since 2016—all due to increasing ocean temperatures that force her to starve herself. And with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority approving the dumping of more than 1 million metric tons of “dredge spoil”—a mixture of rock, soil and shell sediments extracted and deposited during dredging and dumping activities—within the marine park boundaries, things aren’t looking to improve. >>>Urge Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Susan Levy, Australian Minister for the Environment, to make the Great Barrier Reef an Australian citizen to protect her right to live.
Animal Legal Defense Fund: Do you think of animals as property? The question might seem absurd. But in many circumstances, that’s how our legal system treats animals: as mere property. This treatment can deprive animals of meaningful legal protections that they need and the right to enforce whatever protections they have in court. This treatment is simply out-of-sync with how most people view animals. The “Not Property Movement” rallies support for the legal system to recognize that animals have basic rights. Any reasonable person would agree that animals are not things. They’re complex living, feeling beings, who experience a range of emotions like joy and contentment as well as sadness, fear and pain. But every day that the legal system disregards the basic interests and rights of animals is another day that they are especially vulnerable to cruelty and injustice. >>>Sign the National Not Property Petition to Protect Animals to voice your support for elevating animals’ legal status.
PETA: In the “forced swim test,” a widely used experiment conducted by pharmaceutical companies, mice, rats, guinea pigs, hamsters and gerbils are placed in inescapable containers filled with water. The panicked animals try to escape by attempting to climb up the sides of the beakers or even by diving underwater in search of an exit. They paddle furiously, desperately trying to keep their heads above water. Eventually, they’ll start to float. Some pharmaceutical companies have used the test when developing treatments for depression, even though it has been shown that it doesn’t accurately predict whether a drug will work as a human antidepressant. The forced swim test is bad science. It does nothing more than terrify animals and delay the development of effective new treatments for depression that are so desperately needed. After discussions with PETA US, AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk, AbbVie and Johnson & Johnson announced that they’ll no longer conduct or fund this cruel test. Roche also stated it has discontinued its use of forced swim tests after hearing from PETA US, PETA Switzerland and PETA Germany. But pharmaceutical giants Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Pfizer are refusing to commit to banning it. >>>Urge Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly and Pfizer to ban the use of the forced swim test.
Cause for concern…
Out of sync: Warmer water temperatures can cause corals to expel the algae living in their tissues which in turns makes the coral turn completely white, as shown in the photo above of dying corals in the Red Sea. Research indicates that this condition, called coral bleaching, is five times more frequent today that four decades ago. New research has found that the highly synchronized spawning events of certain reef-building corals in the Red Sea have completely changed over time, drastically reducing their opportunities to have successful fertilization, thus putting them at risk of extinction. Ocean warming and human-caused pollution may be to blame. “Temperature has a strong influence on coral reproductive cycles,” said zoologist Yossi Loya of Tel Aviv University and co-author of the paper, published last week in the journal Science. “In our study region, temperatures are rising fast, at a rate of 0.31 degrees Celsius per decade, and we suggest that the breakdown in spawning synchrony reported here may reflect a potential sublethal effect of ocean warming. Another plausible mechanism may be related to endocrine (hormonal) disrupting pollutants, which are accumulating in marine environments as a result of ongoing human activities that involve pollution.” (Photo credit: prilfish/Flickr)
Plant power: New research shows that successfully navigating the additional effort associated with plant-based diets can help vegans to “promote an image of upward mobility in contemporary consumer society,” write the study authors Thomas Robinson, a lecturer in marketing at Cass Business School at the City University of London, and Outi Lundahl, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Groningen, in The Conversation. “Of course, the ethical and environmental aspects are still—for many people—the major motivation to be vegan,” they note. “But as other recent research of ours shows, thanks to recent celebrity uptake of the diet, veganism is no longer a purely moral movement at the periphery of society, but also a desirable lifestyle choice considered trendy in mainstream culture. Indeed, Beyoncé’s undertaking of a 22-day vegan challenge helped interest in veganism to explode.” (Photo credit: Sean and Lauren/Flickr)
Forests on fire: The map above, created by the NASA Earth Observatory, shows active fire detections across the Amazon rainforest as observed by NASA satellites between August 15-22, 2019. In terms of fire activity in the Amazon, “August 2019 stands out because it has brought a noticeable increase in large, intense, and persistent fires burning along major roads in the central Brazilian Amazon,” according to the space agency. “While drought has played a large role in exacerbating fires in the past, the timing and location of fire detections early in the 2019 dry season are more consistent with land clearing than with regional drought.” Much of the Amazon’s land clearance is to satisfy the world’s taste for meat: 91 percent of its deforestation since 1970 is due to cattle ranching, according to the World Bank. And a big slice of that can be traced back to BlackRock, the world’s largest investment firm—and one of the largest investors in Brazil’s agribusiness industry.
Marjorie Cohn, a professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former deputy secretary-general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, argues that it’s time for the United Nations to step in. “As empowered by the United Nations Charter, the Security Council should find that the fires in the Amazon pose a ‘threat to the peace’ and order measures to restore and maintain international peace and security. Those measures ‘may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations,’” she writes. “The Council should require that member states refrain from entering into trade agreements with Brazil unless and until it agrees to allow international economic and physical firefighting assistance.”
Change: The Amazon continues to burn. Dramatic and swift action needs to take place, and one political body that has the power to take this action is the United Nations. Due to the powers vested in its Charter, the U.N. can “take action on the issues confronting humanity in the 21st century, such as peace and security, climate change, sustainable development, human rights, disarmament, terrorism, humanitarian and health emergencies, gender equality, governance, food production, and more.” The Amazon wildfire crisis checks many of these boxes. Specifically, the U.N. could: 1) send in immediate humanitarian support to all the Indigenous and local groups who have lost their homes and way of life, 2) coordinate a large-scale effort with Brazil and neighboring countries to fight the fires in the most high risk areas, such as those threatening Indigenous communities, wildlife habitats and the most fragile ecosystems, and 3) create economic sanctions on unsustainable logging and cattle ranching in Brazil. >>>Urge the United Nations to use its authority to save the Amazon rainforest.
Wolf Conservation Center: Wolves once ranged across most of North America, a vital part of many varied ecosystems. But by 1950, an unremitting slaughter by humans brought wolves to the brink of extinction. After its passage in 1973, the Endangered Species Act (ESA) provided protection for wolves, allowing them to begin the process of recovery. The ESA has worked successfully for over four-and-a-half decades to prevent the extinction of 99 percent of the species placed under its protection. Moreover, the ESA is popular: A recent national poll found that the law is supported by 90 percent of American voters. But despite its success and public support, the ESA is under political attack. >>>Urge your Congressional representatives to protect the Endangered Species Act.
Nonhuman Rights Project: Beulah, Karen and Minnie are three wild-born elephants who have been held captive and exploited for over three decades by the Commerford Zoo, a traveling circus cited by the U.S. Department of Agriculture more than 50 times for violating minimum standards of the Animal Welfare Act. Beulah, Karen and Minnie are forced to perform at circuses and fairs where they are required to give rides despite Beulah’s painful foot disorder and Minnie’s aggression from years of psychological abuse that has resulted in her attacking handers and the public. Clearly, the Commerford Zoo values profits over the elephants’ well-being or human safety. These highly intelligent, autonomous, self-aware beings deserve the opportunity to live the life that was stolen from them so long ago. Beulah, Karen and Minnie should be immediately transferred to the Performing Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), a preeminent elephant sanctuary in the United States that has agreed to provide the elephants with refuge and lifelong care at no cost to the Commerford Zoo. >>>Urge the Commerford Zoo to release Beulah, Karen and Minnie to PAWS.
Cause for concern…
The other greenhouse gas: The Trump administration said it is aiming to rescind an Obama-era regulation that limits the amount of methane—a primary component of natural gas and one of the main pollutants linked to climate change—that oil and gas companies can emit. “This would be a huge step backward,” said Ben Ratner, a senior director at the Environmental Defense Fund, which points out that methane is 84 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in the first two decades after its release. “It would cause greatly increased pollution and a big missed opportunity to take cost-effective immediate action to reduce the rate of warming right now.” Environmental groups have vowed to fight the move in the courts. (Graphic: Global Carbon Project)
Do not disturb: From August 17-28, 182 countries and the European Union, all members of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES), considered proposals for more than 500 species. And while the votes were often politically or economically motivated, more than 130 species secured protections for the first time, with nine species getting increased protections from international trade. African elephants notched a major win: a near-complete ban on their capture and transport from some African nations to zoos and other captive facilities abroad. Endangered mako sharks scored a new level of protection. And the Indian star tortoise, one of the world’s most heavily trafficked tortoises, received a ban on their international commercial trade. (Photo credit: Jacob.jose/Wikimedia Commons)
Under fire: In his new book “Rainforest: Dispatches from Earth’s Most Vital Frontlines” (Island Press, 2019), preeminent conservationist Tony Juniper provides a comprehensive look at the critical role that rainforests play in the planet’s complex ecological web—and why the survival of all species, including us, is tied to theirs. “[R]ainforests are among the most important of the Earth’s carbon stores and their preservation and restoration is one of the least expensive actions that we can take to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, remove carbon from the atmosphere, and in the process help avoid the worst effects of climate change,” writes Juniper, chair of Natural England, the United Kingdom’s official government conservation agency. He also offers the cautionary of Indonesia, which “largely erased its rainforests over two decades, aided by the World Bank and the IMF—and multinationals.”
Milk’s true cost: In “The Cow with Ear Tag #1389” (University of Chicago Press, 2018), animal studies scholar Kathryn Gillespie offers an incisive examination of the dairy industry—from the disturbing animal welfare issues that underscore the commodification of animals, to the destructive impact that mankind’s taste for milk, cheese and ice cream is having on the environment—demonstrated by her titular cow. She writes that, in doing research for this book, “The grocery store became a site for mourning: the innocuous refrigerators filled with milk, yogurt, cheese, butter, and eggs; the freezers of ice cream; the cases of meat, neatly packaged and priced—these suddenly became, to me, the products of immeasurable violence.”
Healthier living: “On any given day, we are exposed to toxic chemicals that can enter our bodies through the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe, and the products we encounter via our skin,” writes Janet Newman in her book “Living in the Chemical Age” (Lioncrest, 2018). “Most of these chemicals are man-made and didn’t exist before the Industrial Age, so our bodies haven’t had an evolutionary chance to adapt,” she notes, offering several strategies to keep us safe, from reducing exposure to toxic chemicals in our kitchens, to houseplants that can help detoxify indoor air.
Parting thought…
“We cannot treat this in isolation. We cannot solve climate change without biodiversity.” —Cristiana Paşca Palmer, Executive Secretary of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity
Rainforest rights: Activists gathered outside the Brazilian Consulate in San Francisco on June 21, 2019, urging Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to protect the Amazon and respect Indigenous rights. The private sector must also play a role. “Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose,” wrote Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest investment firm, in his annual letter to CEOs last year, calling for “sustainable, long-term growth.” He added, “Companies must benefit all of their stakeholders, including shareholders, employees, customers, and the communities in which they operate.” These sentiments, however, are at odds with his firm’s practice. As the nonprofit AmazonWatch points out, “BlackRock’s portfolio includes many companies operating in the Amazon; companies whose operations both contribute to rainforest deforestation and run roughshod over the territorial rights, health and ways of life of the hundreds of indigenous peoples with unique languages and cultures who live in and rely on the rainforest for their livelihoods and wellbeing.” (Photo credit: Peg Hunter/Flickr)
Action Network: BlackRock, the world’s largest investment firm, has more money invested in the fossil fuel and agribusiness industries–the biggest drivers of climate change–than any other company in the world. That means that BlackRock’s portfolio constitutes a huge liability for putting the planet on a path towards runaway climate change. In fact, BlackRock contributes more to climate change than almost any other company on Earth. The Amazon rainforest and its Indigenous inhabitants are under acute threat from BlackRock, which is taking advantage of Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s removal of environmental barriers to economic activities in the Amazon. And now they will have even more access to deforestation and destruction. Bolsonaro has advocated for the opening of new areas of the Amazon rainforest to agriculture and industry. As a result, BlackRock announced plans to expand its operations in Brazil after Bolsonaro was elected. Moves like this signal strong support for Bolsonaro, whose rhetoric is inspiring violence against Indigenous communities in the Amazon and beyond. As one of the largest investors in Brazil’s agribusiness industry, BlackRock could use its financial clout to curb, not encourage, further forest destruction. It should divest from companies that continue these destructive practices. >>>Urge BlackRock to stop financing Amazon destruction.
Care2: Trump’s main campaign goal of erecting a border wall along the U.S. Mexico border is not only unnecessary and a bad use of funds—it would also actively harm the environment. The walls that already exist along that border show us just how damaging a more expansive one would be. Borders are not real; they are imaginary lines created by humans to maintain power and hierarchies. Wildlife don’t care about which country says they own a certain piece of land: They live and travel where they need to. And because borders are so arbitrarily drawn with zero consideration for the environment, they wreak havoc on natural habitats. There are already some wall-like structures across the U.S.-Mexico border, and they are causing huge problems. For one thing, birds are literally getting stuck in the structures during migration, while other land-based creatures are hemmed in and prevented from moving around. And animals are not the only ones suffering. Water drainage, protected areas and more are not even being considered before these barriers are placed. >>>Tell the Trump administration that you oppose the border wall.
WWF: From beaches in Indonesia to the Arctic, plastic is choking our planet. Most plastic becomes trash after a single use. It has contaminated the soil, rivers and oceans. Eight million metric tons of plastic ends up in the oceans every year. They break down into tiny bits of microplastic, small enough to enter our food chain, along with other types of microplastics like those that are released when we wash our clothes. On average, we could be ingesting around five grams of plastic every week—the equivalent weight of a credit card. In fact, we could be consuming, on average, over 100,000 pieces of microplastic every year. That’s approximately 21 grams a month, just over 250 grams a year. Many of us are doing our bit to reduce plastic pollution, but it’s time that governments and businesses took responsibility too. >>>Urge world governments to introduce a global legally-binding agreement to stop plastics polluting our oceans.
Cause for concern…
Lungs on fire: A NASA satellite image take on August 21 shows smoke from the fires raging in in the Amazon basin that has created a shroud clearly visible across much of central South America. Environmental groups and scientists say the unusual number of wildfires blazing across the Brazilian rainforest were set by cattle ranchers and loggers seeking to clear the land, emboldened by the pro-business stance of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. “The vast majority of these fires are human-lit,” said Christian Poirier, the program director of non-profit organization Amazon Watch, pointing out that Amazon—called the “lungs of the planet” since it provides a fifth of the Earth’s oxygen—is fairly resistant to natural wildfires even during dry seasons due to its high humidity, unlike the arid bushland typical in Australia and California. Humanity’s taste for meat is a main driver for the destruction of the Amazon. According to the World Bank, cattle ranching is responsible for up to 91 percent of Amazon deforestation since 1970. Moreover, soybeans used for animal feed is one of the region’s primary crops.(Photo credit: NASA).
Sisters-in-arms: Lakota Elder LaDonna Brave Bull Allard at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in North Dakota, where she founded Sacred Stone Camp, one of the grassroots resistance camps fighting against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. This past June, Allard joined fellow Sacred Stone Village residents who made the five-hour drive from Standing Rock to join the first annual Sovereign Sisters Gathering in Black Hills, South Dakota, which brought together women and their allies to oppose to the current industrialized, extractive model with the development of a new economic vision. This new model, writes Tracy L. Barnett in YES! Magazine, is one in which “Indigenous women reclaim and reassert their sovereignty over themselves, their food systems, and their economies.” (Dark Sevier/Flickr)
“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.” —Chris Maser, “Forest Primeval: The Natural History of an Ancient Forest” (Oregon State University Press, 2001)
Let them eat cake: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the largest federal nutrition assistance program in the United States, giving low-income individuals and families access to food via an Electronic Benefits Transfer card to make purchases in retail food stores. But now the Trump administration wants to cut “broad-based categorical eligibility” (BBCE), which allows states to expand access to qualified individuals and families. “By eliminating it, the administration is effectively creating a benefits cliff, where a parent’s small raise at work—or a modest amount of savings—could end up disqualifying a family from SNAP entirely,” writes Karen Dolan on Marketwatch. “That leaves them poorer for getting a raise or saving money, or else puts them at risk of their food aid falling through the bureaucratic cracks. … On moral grounds, it’s indefensible.” (Photo credit: Delaware Agriculture/Flickr)
CREDO: SNAP is one of the most effective and efficient ways to reduce poverty and boost the economy from the bottom. Currently, states have the leeway to allow people to access SNAP benefits (i.e., food stamps) while still building up some small savings for the future. But President Trump’s Department of Agriculture has a new proposal that would eliminate that flexibility and rip SNAP benefits away from more than 3 million people who rely on them for food security. In addition to robbing families and single adults of food security, changing who is eligible for SNAP benefits would also take school lunches off the trays of more than 500,000 children. This is unacceptable. >>>Tell the Department of Agriculture: Don’t cut SNAP benefits.
Humane Society of the United States: Shark populations are in crisis due to the global trade in shark fins. Every year, fins from as many as 73 million sharks are traded throughout the world to satisfy the demand for shark fin soup. To provide these fins, fishermen often engage in shark finning—a horrific practice in which they cut off sharks’ fins, then toss the mutilated animals back into the ocean where they drown, bleed to death, or are eaten alive by other fish. The shark fin trade has also played a major role in the steep decline of shark species worldwide, some populations of which have dropped by as much as 90 percent in recent decades. Although shark finning is prohibited in American waters, the U.S. still has a bustling market for shark fins. Consumers in most states can buy them, and the U.S. is one of the world’s top importers of shark fins as well as a transit point for international shark fin shipments. That means the U.S. contributes to shark finning and dwindling shark populations elsewhere in the world. The Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act, H.R. 737 and S. 877, will help reduce this trade by prohibiting the import, export, possession, trade and distribution of shark fins and products containing shark fins—saving these animals from a devastating fate. >>>Urge your representatives and senators to support H.R. 737 and S. 877 to stop the trade of shark fins in the United States.
Care2: Foie gras, which is French for “fatty liver,” involves force-feeding restrained ducks, or geese, by shoving metal pipes down their throats multiple times a day, called gavage, and pumping them full of grain, or corn and fat, which leads to acute hepatic lipidosis, or fatty liver disease. As a result, ducks suffer from malfunctioning livers that are ten times their normal size, among other health problems that leave many unable to even breathe normally, or just stand and move around. Fortunately, the practice is considered so inhumane that it’s already been banned in a dozen countries, while several others have a ban on force-feeding. Now, New York City may be next to act. Following a major win in California with the U.S. Supreme Court upholding the state’s ban, Councilwoman Carlina Rivera has just introduced a bill that would ban the sale of foie gras in New York City over concerns about the cruelty involved in its production. If it’s passed, anyone found breaking the law will be facing fines of up to $1,000, up to a year in jail, or both. >>>Urge the NYC Council to ban foie gras.
Cause for concern…
Alarming air: A third of new annual cases of childhood asthma in Europe are caused by air pollution, according to a new study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health. The researchers also concluded that up to 11 percent of those cases could be prevented each year if European countries complied with air guidelines set by the World Health Organization. More than 63 million children across Europe suffer from asthma, the most common chronic disease in children. “Largely, these impacts are preventable and there are numerous policy measures which can reduce the ambient levels of, and children’s exposures to, outdoor air pollution,” said Haneen Khreis, lead author of the study and an associated researcher at the Center for Advancing Research in Transportation Emissions, Energy, and Health at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. “We can and should do something about it.” (Photo credit: Bread for the World/Flickr)
Soil matters: There are numerous ways that conventional agriculture is destructive, illogical and inhumane. Monoculture reuses the same soil, leading to plant diseases. The indiscriminate use of pesticides poisons the waterways, wildlife and causes brain damage in children. Animals on factory farms are cruelly confined and experience immense suffering. Now a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change unveils the opinion of a panel of 100 scientists: Our broken food system is responsible for 37 percent of greenhouse gas emissions that are causing rampant global warming. Scaling up organic farming should be a part of the solution and can play a bigger role in food production. As EFL contributor Elizabeth Henderson points out in an op-ed in Truthout, “Organic farming has brought environmental benefits—healthier soils, freedom from toxic pesticides and herbicides—to 6.5 million acres in the U.S.,” adding that National Organic Program standards “require outdoor access for livestock, grass for ruminants and dirt for scratching for poultry.” (Photo credit: Brian Boucheron/Flickr)
The EFL article “10 Ways Andrew Wheeler Has Decimated EPA Protections in Just One Year,” by Elliott Negin (Truthout, July 11, 2019), incorrectly stated that “the design improvements automakers have made so far to meet the [fuel efficiency] standards have already saved drivers more than $86 trillion at the pump since 2012.” The correct figure is $86 billion. Sorry. It has been corrected. Thanks to EFL reader RexBC from Dallas for letting us know.
Parting thought…
“Almost every single major environmental problem could be solved by a global shift toward plant-based eating.” —James Cameron, foreword to “Food Is the Solution: What to Eat to Save the World,” by Matthew Prescott (Flatiron Books, 2018)
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