Food Service Giants Should Support Small Farmers, Not Big Food | Take Action Tuesday @EarthFoodLife

Industrial food vs. small farmers: Staff of the McEnroe Organic Farm, located in Millerton, New York, work a stall at the New Amsterdam Market in Manhattan. Organic farming associations across the nation have been supporting the community of farmers and conscious eaters for nearly five decades, but, as EFL contributor and Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York board member Elizabeth Henderson reports, “direct sales and [the organic] label are not enough to keep family-scale farms viable.” (Photo credit: istolethetv/Flickr)

Real Meals Campaign: Recently we have witnessed some of the most dramatic impacts of Big Food: the burning of the Amazon and an ICE raid on hundreds of workers at chicken processing plants in Mississippi after a major labor abuse settlement by Koch Foods. Big Food corporations are also hiding an ugly truth: Their business model drives farmers and fishers off the land and water, perpetuates racial injustice, drives down wages, and drives up chronic disease, biodiversity loss and carbon emissions. They are a threat to our future, with communities of color hit first and worst. Yet Aramark, Sodexo and Compass Group continue to make exclusive deals with these Big Food corporations and others like them.
>>>Urge Aramark, Sodexo and Compass Group to drop their exclusive deals with Big Food corporations and instead support small-scale farmers, farmers of color, fair and humane food sources, and community-based agriculture.

World Animal Protection: Right now, there are more than 3,000 intelligent, social dolphins across the world suffering in captivity. They often look like they are smiling, but this is just the shape of their face. Captive dolphins are separated from their mothers far too young, confined in tanks hundreds of thousands of times smaller than their natural home and deprived of food so they can be trained. The multibillion-dollar captive dolphin industry wants you to think dolphins enjoy their confinement. They rely on a quirk of nature—the shape of a dolphin’s face—and years of misinformation. Captive dolphins are living miserable lives in the name of profit for dolphinariums and other venues, where every ticket sold prolongs a dolphin’s miserable existence. While many travel companies have stopped promoting this cruelty, Expedia Group is still selling tickets to these venues and profiting from this inhumane industry.
>>>Urge Expedia to stop selling, offering or promoting any dolphin shows or experiences.

PETA UK: At the Biomedical Primate Research Centre in the Netherlands, approximately 1,500 monkeys are used for breeding or experimentation at any one time. They’re often shaved, crudely tattooed, placed in restraint cages, and infected with debilitating diseases. Sometimes, after being sedated, these intelligent animals remain conscious during terrifying procedures, such as those in which tuberculosis bacteria are injected directly into their eyelids. Unable to escape, they’re helpless to defend themselves. Experiments on monkeys must stop now. The results of such studies aren’t even relevant to humans.
>>>Urge the Dutch government to end the use of primates in experiments and to make the transition to humane science.

Cause for concern…

Exxon knew: Student climate activists march in Washington, D.C., in November 2015, with signs admonishing ExxonMobil for its complicity in furthering the climate apocalypse. The company “says it supports a federal carbon tax and the Paris climate agreement,” reports EFL contributor Elliott Negin of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Then why, after all these years, is the company still financing advocacy groups, think tanks, and business associations that reject the reality and seriousness of the climate crisis, as well as members of Congress who deny the science and oppose efforts to rein in carbon emissions?” (Photo credit: Johnny Silvercloud/Flickr)

Round of applause…

Voice for the voiceless: More than 100 animal activists demonstrated outside City Hall in New York City on October 31, just before the city council passed a landmark package of legislation aimed at protecting animals, including a ban on foie gras, new restrictions on operating horse carriages on hot days and a ban on trafficking wild birds meant to protect the city’s pigeons from being captured and moved to Pennsylvania, the only state where cruel pigeon shoots are still legal. “To see the City Council grow in their empathy towards all animals, including ones raised on farms for food, is an incredible evolution to see,” said Allie Feldman Taylor, president of Voters for Animal Rights. (Photo credit: Reynard Loki)

Parting thought…

“Until we have the courage to recognize cruelty for what it is—whether its victim is human or animal—we cannot expect things to be much better in this world. We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature.” —Rachel Carson

Trump Sued by 20 States and New York City for Endangered Species Act Rollbacks | Take Action Tuesday @EarthFoodLife

Trump’s latest gift to Big Oil: The bald eagle is an Endangered Species Act success story. But now 20 states and New York City are suing the Trump administration for rollbacks to the nation’s bedrock conservation law—even as we are losing species at a rate faster than any time since the dinosaur extinction 65 million years ago. Trump’s revised rules—which make it more difficult to protect wildlife, particularly from climate change threats—“appear very likely to clear the way for new mining, oil and gas drilling, and development in areas where protected species live,” The New York Times reports, even as a new poll shows that Americans would rather reduce oil and gas exploration than drill. (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Audubon: The Endangered Species Act has a proven track record of success in providing a safety net that protects our most vulnerable wildlife. It has prevented 99 percent of the species under its care from going extinct, including America’s symbol, the bald eagle. But the White House has released new rules that weaken it. We should allow this critical law to continue to protect wildlife for future generations, not undermine it.
>>>Urge your senators and representatives to protect the Endangered Species Act.

Animal Welfare Institute: Oregon, Washington, Idaho and several Native American tribes have applied to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to kill hundreds of California and Steller sea lions in the Columbia River basin. They say it’s necessary to kill them to save endangered and threatened salmon, but in fact the primary threat to the fish is degraded spawning habitat. The Columbia River and its tributaries abound with dams and culverts and other human-caused habitat damage. Killing sea lions is a diversion from these more important threats, whose solutions—particularly the strategic removal of some dams—are less politically palatable. Federal legislation was passed last year to allow this sea lion killing program—the first indiscriminate cull allowed under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) since its passage in 1972. Even under this new MMPA amendment, however, these states and tribes must meet certain criteria before a cull can take place, and these standards are not being met. This cull should not move forward; if it does, the animals will literally die for nothing.
>>>Submit a comment letter to NMFS before today’s deadline, urging NMFS to deny the application.

Rainforest Action Network: The Leuser Ecosystem in Indonesia is the only place on Earth where you can find elephants, tigers, rhinos and orangutans under the same forest canopy. But undercover investigations have exposed an illegal palm oil plantation responsible for destroying critical wildlife habitat in the sensitive ecosystem. This conflict palm oil has been traced to several leading food brands, including General Mills, Kellogg’s, Nestlé, Mondelēz, Mars, Hershey’s, Unilever and PepsiCo. These companies are not following their own “no deforestation” commitments and they still can’t guarantee deforestation-free palm oil in their products.
>>>Tell these brands to cut ties to illegally produced conflict palm oil and stop the deforestation in the Leuser Ecosystem.

Cause for concern…

Hot planet: The Swan Lake wildfire rages through a stand of black spruce in a boreal forest in Alaska in June, part of another record-setting summer for wildfires around the world. “As many of these fires are occurring in remote areas, they may not pose a major threat to densely populated areas, but rural populations, particularly Indigenous groups, are being affected,” reports EFL contributor Robert Walker, president of the Population Institute. “The fires do not bode well for humanity’s future.” (Photo credit: National Wildfire Coordinating Group)

Round of applause…

A better life: A rescued pig at Edgar’s Mission, a nonprofit farm sanctuary outside Melbourne, Australia, that cares for more than 300 rescued farm animals. “Public perception of animal cruelty, backed by mounting scientific evidence of the similarities between human and nonhuman animals, is helping to change hearts, minds and laws,” writes EFL contributor and animal activist Nina Jackel, founder and president of Lady Freethinker, an animal rights media nonprofit. “Just as we will evolve past racism, sexism, ageism and religious persecution, we will evolve past barbarism toward animals, too.” (Photo credit: Jo-Anne McArthur/We Animals)

Parting thought…

“The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.” —Charles Darwin

Congress Should Ban Brazilian Products Linked to the Amazon Wildfires

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)

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Round of applause…

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)

Parting thought…

“We are no better or more evolved than any other living being.” —Ricky Gervais

Nestlé’s Water Bottling Plan Threatens Florida Ecosystem

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)

Round of applause…

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)

Parting thought…

“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.

Amazon Destruction Financed by BlackRock, World’s Biggest Investment Firm | Take Action Tuesday @EarthFoodLife

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).

Round of applause…

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)

Parting thought…

“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)

Trump’s Proposed Cuts to Food Stamps Will Take School Lunches Away From 500,000 Children

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)

Round of applause…

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)

Correction…

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)

GOP Lawmakers Are Working to Dismantle the Endangered Species Act | Take Action Tuesday @EarthFoodLife

George, we hardly knew ye: On January 1, George, a 14-year-old snail who was the last known representative of his species, Achatinella apexfulva, died. For years, George (not pictured above) had been in the care of wildlife biologist David Sischo and his team at the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources. For more than a decade, scientists searched for a mate to save the species, but were unsuccessful. National Geographic called George’s loss “emblematic of the loss of native Hawaiian mollusks.” But as a rare case of being the subject of a vigil that counted down the days to the extinction of a species in real time, George is emblematic of the global extinction crisis known as the Sixth Extinction: the sixth time in the history of life on Earth that global fauna has undergone a major population collapse, only this time it’s caused by human activity like deforestation, mining and greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Red List of Threatened Species, which is maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, more than 28,000 species are threatened with extinction—more than a fourth of all assessed species. (Photo credit: Pixabay/Pexels)

Care2: Our planet is losing species at a rate faster than any time since the dinosaurs were wiped off the face of the earth 65 million years ago. And yet in the face of this extinction crisis, Republicans in the U.S. Congress are working to dismantle the law that gives species on the brink a fighting chance. In the last 10 years, more than 300 bills have been introduced that take aim at the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the vast majority by Republican legislators. They’ve attempted to limit authorities from listing new endangered species based on the economic costs of protecting that given species, and whether or not it is native to the U.S. They’ve even tried to force wildlife experts to get Congress’s permission for every single listing decision. The ESA is an environmental success story. It’s helped save wolves, crocodiles, whooping cranes and many more species from annihilation. In the face of climate change and human development putting more species at risk, we need to strengthen—not weaken—every tool we have to fight back.
>>>Urge Republican lawmakers to oppose any bill that weakens the Endangered Species Act.

Pacific Environment: Our oceans are drowning in plastic. Around the world, it suffocates sea turtles, starves seabirds, destroys marine habitat, and clogs local rivers. In fact, we’re on track to have more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans. Zero waste grassroots campaigners have promoted the concept of zero waste in Vietnam, which helped inspire Vietnam’s prime minister to commit to banning single-use plastic nationwide by 2025. But if we’re going to win the battle against the plastic pollution crisis, we have to fight it at home, too. The U.S. produces more waste per person than any other country in the world, and instead of working to stem the tide of pollution, American plastic manufacturers want to dramatically increase production over the next decade. Over 270 organizations from across the country are demanding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency do its job and stop Big Plastic from polluting our oceans and communities.
>>>Urge the EPA to protect communities and oceans from the rising tide of plastic pollution.

Fur Free Minneapolis: The fur trade is a brutal industry where millions of animals such as foxes, minks, rabbits, dogs, cats, raccoons, and chinchillas are killed every year. Most of these animals are raised on fur farms, where they are confined to a life of misery in cages that are barely bigger than their bodies. They live through intense stress and engage in psychotic behaviors like repetitive pacing, self-mutilation and cannibalism. These animals endure this life only to be killed in some of the most inhumane ways. They are electrocuted and stunned, and some are still alive as they are beaten and skinned. They are submitted to this suffering solely for the sake of their fur. Fur farms pollute our water systems with phosphorus, causing algae to grow faster than ecosystems can handle, which in turn leads to the death of fish and plants and reduces the use of the water for human purposes such as consumption and swimming. Fur farms also use at least four times the amount of resources (water and feed) as farms producing plant-based fabrics. In this day of countless eco and animal-friendly fabrics, there is no need for this violent industry.
>>>Urge the Minneapolis City Council to pass an ordinance that bans the sale of new fur products within the city.

Cause for concern…

Exxon under fire: Protesters in Washington, D.C., take part in the Global Climate March, held in cities across 175 nations in November 2015. Last year, the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a case against ExxonMobil, accusing America’s largest oil company of defrauding investors by understating the impact that government-led greenhouse gas emission reductions would have on its business. Last week, Justice Barry Ostrager of the New York Supreme Court sided with the prosecutors’ assertion that ExxonMobil was attempting to discourage witnesses from testifying by making “unreasonable” and extensive requests for documents from the witnesses. The oil giant “can’t go on a gigantic, burdensome fishing expedition to exhume hundreds or thousands of documents that have no relevance to the issues in this case,” said Justice Ostrager. “We must do what we can to stand up to the industry bent on prioritizing its profits over global survival,” writes Patti Lynn, the executive director of the nonprofit Corporate Accountability, in a recent EFL op-ed on Truthout. “Right now, we have a tremendous opportunity to go on the offensive at the state level—and investigations by attorneys general are critical to this.” (Photo credit: Johnny Silvercloud/Flickr)

Round of applause…

A helping moo: In a recent article for The New York Times, Elisa Mala investigates “cow cuddling,” a practice in which people interact with the bovines by brushing or petting them, and even having chats. “The experience is similar to equine therapy, with one game-changing difference: Horses tend to stand, but cows spontaneously lie down in the grass while chewing their cud, allowing humans to get even more up close and personal by joining on the ground and offering a warm embrace,” she writes. As the use of emotional support animals grows, some researchers are proposing a standard assessment for certifications. Dr. Marc Bekoff, an evolutionary biologist, points out that, just like pets, some emotional support animals “would rather be doing something else and enjoy more freedom,” underscoring the importance of meeting the animal’s unique needs and well-being. “I’m all in favor of people using nonhuman animals of many different species for emotional support if it works for them and the animal.” (Photo credit: Kat Jayne/Pexels)

EFL in the news…

Sriram Madhusoodanan, climate campaign director for Corporate Accountability, recently discussed an EFL op-ed, Current Investigation of ExxonMobil Could Spur Broader Climate Action, by Corporate Accountability’s executive director Patti Lynn, in a radio interview with FAIR’s Janine Jackson for CounterSpin, FAIR’s radio show. [LISTEN]

Parting thought…

“Not a single creature on Earth has more or less right to be here.” —Anthony Douglas Williams

Trump’s EPA Wants to Know What You Think of Monsanto’s Roundup Weedkiller | Take Action Tuesday @EarthFoodLife

Monsanto’s milk? A new study by the Center for Environmental Health found over 90 percent of families tested had glyphosate in their bodies. The main ingredient in Monsanto’s popular weedkiller, which the World Health Organization classifies as a probable carcinogen, glyphosate has also been found in 80 percent of breast milk samples in a recent study conducted in Urucui, Brazil, a region where soybean farms are sprayed with the herbicide. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is conducting a review of glyphosate and is accepting public comments until September 3, 2019. (Photo credit: Rawpixels/Pexels)

Organic Consumers Association: Glyphosate, the key ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, is the most widely used herbicide in the world. Its residues are found in water and soil. It’s sprayed along roadsides, sidewalks, parks and playgrounds, gardens, and on school grounds. Testing shows a variety of foods contain glyphosate. It has been detected in the urine of the majority of people who have submitted samples for testing, and has been found in breast milk. Not only does it damage the placenta, it crosses the placenta, which may result in birth defects. In March 2015, the World Health Organization classified glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, based on numerous scientific studies linking glyphosate to a range of cancers, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, renal cancers, skin cancers and pancreatic cancer.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently reviewing glyphosate and is accepting public comments until September 3, 2019.
>>>Urge the EPA to ban glyphosate.

Care2: Bumblebees have suffered immensely in the 21st century. Since the 1990s, scientists estimate that 90 percent of the bumblebee population has been lost. Many factors have contributed to their decline, but chief among them is that bumblebee habitat has dropped by 87 percent. Yet despite these shocking numbers, it took the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) until 2017 to add the rusty patched bumblebee to the Endangered Species List. It was supposed to be a new beginning. But since then, USFWS has missed its legal deadlines to protect bumblebee habitat. When the agency was granted an extension, it missed the new deadline, too. Among the most important pollinators, bumblebees are essential to keeping our environment healthy and keeping people fed. We need them to keep our crops growing and sustain healthy environments. Bumblebees help keep us alive. The least we can do is hold our government accountable to do what is required to save them.
>>>Urge USFWS to take immediate action to protect bumblebee habitat and save these critical pollinators from extinction.

Lady Freethinker: In a devastating assault on protected whale populations, Japan announced its withdrawal from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and has resumed killing whales commercially as of July 1, 2019. The slaughter of the whales is brutal and horrific. Whalers attack them with a harpoon loaded with explosives. When it makes contact with the animal, shrapnel is propelled into their bodies and the prongs of the harpoon spread open to stop the whale from escaping. Death is slow and excruciating. Japan has continued to kill whales under the guise of scientific research over the last 30 years. This year, 122 of 333 minke whales murdered for “research” were pregnant and 53 were youths. Japan plans to hunt minke, sei and Bryde’s whales along the Pacific coast, devastating these protected species.
>>>Urge the Japanese government to reverse their cruel and short-sighted decision to bring back commercial whale hunting.

Cause for concern…

Hold your breath: Just as the Trump administration is rolling back clean air rules, a new study funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has found that more than 30,000 deaths have been linked to unhealthy air quality in the United States over the past 20 years. Adding to the concern is the report’s conclusion that even places considered “safe” can still experience increased mortality rates. “We’ve known for some time that these particles can be deadly,” Majid Ezzati from Imperial’s School of Public Health and the study’s lead author, referring to PM2.5, atmospheric particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers—30 times smaller than the width of a human hair. “This study suggests even at seemingly low concentrations—mostly below current limits—they still cause tens of thousands of deaths.” (Photo credit: SD-Pictures/Pixabay)

Round of applause…

Stand up and be counted: An estimated 200,000 people joined the People’s Climate March in Washington, D.C., on April 29, 2017, to protest President Trump’s anti-environment policies. The capital was one of 300 locations across the nation that participated in the action. Now, organizers of global climate strikes scheduled for September 20th and 27th in more than 150 countries are hoping for a massive turnout. “Young people have been leading here,” said climate activist Bill McKibben, founder of the environmental nonprofit 350.org, “but now it’s the job of the rest of us to back them up.” (Photo credit: Justice & Witness Ministries/Flickr)

What we’re reading…

Change agent: In his latest book, “Climate Change: What Everyone Needs to Know” (Oxford University Press, 2018, 2nd ed.), Joseph Romm, founding editor of the blog Climate Progress, argues that energy conservation has the potential to be the largest source of reductions in greenhouse gases (GHG). He asks, “For the majority of the biggest GHG emitters in the world, especially those in the developed countries, how many energy-intensive activities we do every week and every year are truly vital, something we could not live without? How big a house is vital? How much driving discretionary? How much flying? These are not questions that can be easily answered today.” Romm wonders about how motivated people will be in 2030 to change their emitting ways, “as it becomes more and more painfully clear that not changing behavior will have catastrophic impacts for billions of people, including their own children and grandchildren.”

Ticking time bomb: Investigative reporter Mary Beth Pfeiffer started writing about Lyme disease in 2012 for Poughkeepsie Journal, but as she soon found out, it “proved to be a story far beyond what I’d envisioned … a minefield of controversy with patients caught in the middle.” In her recent book, “Lyme: The First Epidemic of Climate Change” (Island Press, 2018), Pfeiffer sheds new light on another creeping menace of a warming world. “[W]hile Lyme is firmly rooted in thousands of locales, it is surely not confined there are climate changes, ticks move, and cases mount,” she writes, pointing out that the disease is found in at least 30 countries and yields up to 400,000 new cases each year in the U.S. alone. “Lyme disease is moving, breaking out, spreading like an epidemic.”

Keeping it simple: In her book “Simple Acts to Save Our Planet: 500 Ways to Make a Difference” (Simon and Schuster, 2018), Michelle Neff makes the case that “little acts really do add up to big change,” offering a reminder that big global scourges like plastic trash and food waste are just the cumulative effects of small bad decisions made by billions of people every single day. Neff, a writer for the environmental website One Green Planet, offers many easy ways to reduce our personal impact on the planet, from obvious techniques like buying detergent and dish soap in boxes instead of plastic bottles, to more innovative ideas, like creating rain gardens, which help to reduce stormwater runoff and prevent pollutants from entering local streams and lakes.

Parting thought…

“To sin by silence, when they should protest, makes cowards of men.” —Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Trump’s EPA Refuses to Ban Neurotoxic Pesticide | Take Action Tuesday @EarthFoodLife

Quid pro quo: Dow Chemical, a major donor to President Trump’s inauguration committee, has recently received a major gift from the Trump administration: A rejection of a proposed Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ban on the toxic pesticide chlorpyrifos, which the company makes. Pregnant women and their fetuses, young children and farmworkers are particularly at risk from this chemical, which has been linked to brain damage. “With this decision, the EPA continues to sideline science, put public health at risk, and roll back public safeguards in favor of private interests,” writes Kathleen Rest, the executive director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “The effort to ban chlorpyrifos might be stalled, but it’s not over. Our children deserve better. Let your elected representatives know that the EPA is taking us backward. They should hold the agency accountable.” (Photo credit: skeeze/Pixabay)

Environmental Advocates of New York: Under the Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency found there were no safe levels of the pesticide chlorpyrifos and proposed a national ban. The proposal was later rejected by the Trump administration. Chlorpyrifos is extremely toxic. It has been linked to neurodevelopmental defects—like ADHD, autism spectrum disorder and lower IQ. It also significantly impacts wildlife. The Trump administration suppressed a U.S. Fish and Wildlife analysis from being published that found chlorpyrifos threatens more than 1,200 endangered species. Dow Chemical—chlorpyrifos’ main manufacturer—has strong ties to this administration and even gave Trump’s inaugural committee one million dollars right before it reversed the ban on chlorpyrifos. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has the ability to be a leader on this issue and protect New York public health and the environment from this toxic pesticide.
>>>Tell Governor Cuomo to fight Trump’s anti-science and anti-environment agenda and sign the bill banning chlorpyrifos in New York.

Change: If the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act is passed, the United States will have its first-ever general federal animal cruelty law. The PACT Act will allow the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies to crack down on malicious cruelty and the sexual exploitation of innocent animals. The legislation will build on the federal “animal crush” video law that was enacted in 2010, which banned the creation, sale and distribution of obscene videos that show animals being crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled or subjected to other forms of heinous cruelty. The PACT Act will also enable the federal government to prosecute malicious acts of animal cruelty on federal property such as military bases, federal prisons, airports and national parks. Additionally, it will enable federal authorities to crack down on the practice of bestiality, which often involves a subculture where animals are moved across state lines and information is exchanged on websites that enable the exploitation to happen. The legislation, which has broad bipartisan support, is endorsed by more than 200 law enforcement agencies across the country.
>>>Urge Congress to pass the Preventing Animal Cruelty (PACT) Act.

PETA: Air France is the only major airline in the world that transports monkeys—either bred in captivity on squalid farms or snatched from the wild, torn away from their homes and families—to laboratories in the United States. Once in the U.S., they’re transported to dealers such as Primate Products and to laboratories—including Covance, one of the largest importers of monkeys in the U.S.—where they’re imprisoned and tormented in experiments. During an 11-month investigation at a Covance laboratory in Vienna, Virginia, a PETA investigator uncovered many horrors. For instance, workers struck, choked and screamed obscenities at frightened and “uncooperative” monkeys. As a result of the investigation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited and fined Covance for serious violations of the Animal Welfare Act and the laboratory eventually shut down.
>>>Tell Air France that you refuse to fly with them until they adopt and adhere to a formal policy prohibiting the transport of monkeys to laboratories. 

Cause for concern…

Deep thoughts: A man stands in knee-deep floodwater in Roman Forest, Texas, on August 28, 2017, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. A little more than a year later, the United Nations released a major climate report, which warned that by 2040, if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, there will more intense and frequent extreme weather events, coastlines submerged by rising sea levels, widespread species extinction and food insecurity. The report’s release may have increased public anxiety about climate change. “I remember being in sessions with folks the next day,” Andrew Bryant, a therapist, told Kaiser Health News. “They had never mentioned climate change before, and they were like, ‘I keep hearing about this report.’ Some of them expressed anxious feelings, and we kept talking about it over our next sessions.” A survey conducted in April by Yale and George Mason universities found that 62 percent of Americans are at least “somewhat worried” about climate change. Of those, 23 percent said they were “very worried.” (Photo credit: Jill Carlson/Flickr)

Round of applause…

Leave no trace, please: Tourists gather near Upper Falls, one of two major waterfalls in Yellowstone National Park. Natural Habitat Adventures—the travel partner of the environmental nonprofit World Wildlife Fund—has become the first Yellowstone tour operator to achieve a zero-waste trip, reports Ali Wunderman on Condé Nast Traveler. “Yellowstone National Park has sustainability initiatives to address the waste generated by their four to six million annual guests, but imagine if each of those travelers took a few simple steps to ease the burden,” writes Wunderman, who joined a tou group of 12 on a seven-day, waste-free safari through wolf and bison territory. Whatever they couldn’t recycle had to fit in a quart-sized Mason jar. (Photo credit: julielepage/Flickr)

Parting thought…

“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed. … We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.” —Wallace Stegner

Trump Administration Seeks to Open Up Montana’s Wildlands to Fossil Fuel Development | Take Action Tuesday @EarthFoodLife

Postcard perfect, for now: “The Breaks” are the heart of Montana’s big sky country and encompass the same untouched landscapes that inspired western painter Charles Russell, known as “the cowboy artist” for his romantic paintings of Montana and early western culture. The Trump administration wants to remove conservation protections across this pristine and beloved “Russell Country,” making parts of this region available for destructive and dangerous oil and gas development, further locking the nation into dependence on fossil fuels. (Photo credit: Bureau of Land Management/Flickr)

Pew Charitable Trusts: Central Montana’s Russell Country is characterized by varied, rugged landscapes. Pristine prairie, sliced by the Musselshell River, transforms to rough and craggy breaks approaching the Missouri River. One of the last places to be settled in the West, this sparsely populated section of the country remains almost as remote and wild as it was over 200 years ago. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has just published for public comment the long-awaited draft plan for managing some of this wild country. Unfortunately, the BLM’s recommendation continues the Trump administration’s unprecedented pattern of eliminating conservation protections for special areas in the region, opening up these special places to oil and gas development.
>>>Urge the BLM to take a balanced approach and protect some of these wild remote public lands from future development.

Lady Freethinker: Locked in lonely metal cages, poisoned, sliced open and burned—all for unreliable and needless experiments. This is the fate animals in clinical trials are forced, by law, to suffer in laboratories across the U.S. Now, in a landmark court case, Vanda Pharmaceuticals is taking legal action against the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for trying to pressure the company into conducting cruel and inhumane trials of a new drug on innocent dogs, after which the animals would be mercilessly slaughtered or “sacrificed,” then carved up and their organs analyzed. Vanda Pharmaceuticals describes the nine-month, non-rodent toxicity studies it is fighting against—which involve animals, normally beagle puppies, being force-fed, injected or forced to inhale chemicals before being put to death—as the “unnecessary and unethical” routine killing of animals. The suffering and eventual slaughter of animals in research is unacceptable, and completely avoidable.
>>>Urge Acting Commissioner of the FDA Norman Sharpless to abolish nine-month, non-rodent toxicity studies that result in the pointless and painful deaths of hundreds of innocent dogs and other animals.

Rainforest Action Network: Millions of dollars in sweets are sold by companies like Hershey’s and Mars every year—with holidays like Easter and Halloween each netting millions apiece. What’s not so sweet is that too many of these tasty treats contain palm oil born of rainforest destruction. With commitments to “No Deforestation” but no adequate system in place to actually track where destruction is going down, candy makers continue to profit off of a bitter fate for rainforests, and for the tigers, orangutans, elephants and people who depend on them.
>>>Urge Hershey’s and Mars to establish proactive, transparent monitoring systems showing consumers where their palm oil is grown, the actions that they are taking to track deforestation and to intervene to keep forests standing.

Cause for concern…

Too many people: A large crowd disperses after a Muse concert in Paris on June 23, 2007. Three decades ago, there were 5 billion people on Earth. Today, there are 7.7 billion. By 2050, humans will number 9.7 billion and the population will continue to surge, reaching nearly 11 billion by 2100. “Our planet cannot withstand such numbers,” writes paleontologist Peter Ward in his book “The End of Evolution.” As Robin McKie, science and environment editor for the Observer, reports, 10 billion humans means that “every forest, valley and piece of land will have to be turned to agriculture to feed us.” (Photo credit: James Cridland/Flickr)

Round of applause…

Be the change: Love animals and want to make a difference? One of the most powerful things you can do is to lobby for pro-animal legislation. “Whether they’re city council members, state representatives or U.S. Senators, elected officials care—or ought to care—what their constituents think,” says the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), a nonprofit advocacy group whose mission is to protect animals through the legal system. “By sending letters and emails supporting pro-animal measures that are on the legislative agenda, you can help convince these politicians that the voters who put them in office want to see animals protected from cruelty and neglect. And if there are no pro-animal items on the agenda, you can help change that, too. Tell lawmakers what types of animal protection laws you would like to see introduced and passed.” To help ordinary citizens become animal defenders, ALDF has put together a handy toolkit: “Working With Legislators.” (Photo credit: Ana Francisconi/Pexels)

Parting thought…

“Keep close to Nature’s heart … and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.” —John Muir