In its first major climate report since 2013, the IPCC offers its starkest warning yet: Serious impacts of global warming are now unavoidable.

By Reynard Loki, Independent Media Institute

9 min read

In a grim report released on Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that climate change was “unequivocally” caused by human activity, and that within two decades, rising temperatures will cause the planet to reach a significant turning point in global warming. The report’s authors—a group of the world’s top climate scientists convened by the United Nations (UN)—predict that by 2040, average global temperatures will be warmer than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, causing more frequent and intense heat waves, droughts and extreme weather events. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the bleak findings a “code red for humanity.”

The report found global warming increasing at a faster rate than earlier predictions estimated. “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land… [and] at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last 2,000 years,” the report says. “Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.” Even if the world’s nations enacted sharp and stringent reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases today, overall global warming is still estimated to rise around 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next 20 years. That means that the hotter, more dangerous future that scientists and the Paris climate agreement sought to avoid is now unavoidable.

Linda Mearns, a senior climate scientist at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research and one of the report’s co-authors, offered a stern warning: “It’s just guaranteed that it’s going to get worse,” she said, adding that there is “[n]owhere to run, nowhere to hide.” In an interview with the Hill, Kim Cobb, the lead author of the report’s first chapter, said, “We’re already reeling, clearly, from so many of these impacts that the report highlights, especially in the category of extremes that are gripping these headlines and causing so much damage, but of course the 1.5 degree C world is notably and discernibly worse.”

“The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: Greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk,” Guterres said in a statement on the report. “Global heating is affecting every region on Earth, with many of the changes becoming irreversible.”

There is a sliver of hope that the worst impacts of the climate catastrophe might be averted, but time for that is rapidly running out, and many actions must be taken by governments, the private sector and civil society in tandem and with urgency—a tall order. “I again call on donors and the multilateral development banks to allocate at least 50 percent of all public climate finance to protecting people, especially women and vulnerable groups,” Guterres said. “COVID-19 recovery spending must be aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement. And the decade-old promise to mobilize $100 billion annually to support mitigation and adaptation in developing countries must be met.”

Key stakeholders in the climate crisis response are the world’s Indigenous peoples, who are particularly vulnerable to the direct impacts of climate change, as they are often living on the front lines of the natural environment and depend on healthy ecosystems for their survival. The climate crisis also adds another difficulty to the long list of obstacles that Indigenous communities have faced for centuries, including loss of land and resources, human rights violations, discrimination, marginalization and unemployment.

Negotiators at COP26, the upcoming UN climate conference taking place in Glasgow in November, should include Indigenous voices, knowledge and needs as they outline the world’s climate mitigation plan. Hopefully, they will uphold the sentiment expressed during the COP26 Climate and Development Ministerial held in March, where the “importance of drawing on the knowledge held by [I]ndigenous peoples, women, rural communities, young people and local authorities was… emphasized, along with the importance of pursuing rights-based approaches.”

Vehia Wheeler, co-founder of Sustainable Oceania Solutions, a small, women-owned social enterprise based in Hawaii that seeks to educate the young citizen scientists of Oceania using ancestral knowledge in partnership with STEM methods, called for Indigenous voices and their climate solutions to be championed at COP26. “Indigenous knowledge systems should be a guide for the future,” she recently said in a tweet shared by COP26.

One main reason that the world’s Indigenous communities must play a central role in the climate fight is the fact that they hold or manage a disproportionate amount of officially protected regions, regions that have experienced a low human impact. According to an assessment on the species extinction crisis issued by the UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in 2019, Indigenous peoples occupy 28 percent of the Earth’s land, but more than 40 percent of formally protected areas—and 37 percent of all remaining terrestrial areas with low human impact. “Three-quarters of the land-based environment and about 66 percent of the marine environment have been significantly altered by human actions,” the IPBES report states. “On average these trends have been less severe or avoided in areas held or managed by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.” Deforestation rates across the Amazon, for example, are two to three times lower in lands held by Indigenous peoples.

In other words, when it comes to conserving nature and biodiversity—important strategies in the battle to save the climate—these front-line communities are doing a lot of things right. Unlike the Western viewpoint that the natural world is something that humans can and should dominate, Indigenous communities across the globe have lived in harmony with nature, seeing the life on the planet as part of an interconnected whole. “We put our non-human relatives first, meaning the trees, the sky, the water,” Nikki Cooley, co-manager of the Tribes and Climate Change Program for the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals in Flagstaff, Arizona, told Yale Environment 360 last year. “We don’t treat them as objects to be studied in a lab. We revere them.”

Working intimately with the land and its natural resources, and often guided by a holistic mix of current science and traditional knowledge, Indigenous people have been successfully mitigating climate risks and adjusting to changes in the climate and environment for generations. “Indigenous peoples have always been on the front lines,” said Cooley. “Tribes have always been adapting to climate change. Now we have to adapt even faster.”

“People around the world increasingly see the urgent need to tackle the twin emergencies of climate change and biodiversity loss,” writes Steven Nitah, a former politician from the Northwest Territories, Canada, who served as the chief negotiator for the Łutsël K’e Dene First Nation, in a recent commentary in One Earth. “We can make progress on both these fronts if the world also recognizes the leadership of Indigenous peoples who oversee the most healthy, biodiverse, and intact lands and waters left on Earth.”

The 2019 IPBES report notes that current modeling on a regional and global scale lacks Indigenous input and suggests that policymakers consider “the views, perspectives and rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, their knowledge and understanding of large regions and ecosystems, and their desired future development pathways.” The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs for Indigenous Peoples supports that view, contending that Indigenous communities are “vital to, and active in, the many ecosystems that inhabit their lands and territories and may therefore help enhance the resilience of these ecosystems,” adding that “[I]ndigenous peoples interpret and react to the impacts of climate change in creative ways, drawing on traditional knowledge and other technologies to find solutions which may help society at large to cope with impending changes.”

“The gravity of the climate emergency has been tirelessly called out by Indigenous and front-line communities for decades,” said Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network. “We must pressure the IPCC before the mitigation report comes out early next year to listen to the voices of the traditional knowledge holders of Indigenous peoples and end carbon pricing, carbon capture and solar radiation management mitigation strategies that keep fossil fuels coming out of the ground.”

“The front lines are already way ahead of the politicians. We are leading with solutions—from community-owned solar energy systems that create safe, good-paying jobs to just recovery efforts that ensure those communities most impacted by the crisis are built back in sustainable and safe ways based on community needs,” said Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UPROSE and co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance Board of Directors. “To truly address the climate crisis, we need policymakers to enact bold and transformative policies like the THRIVE Act, which [was] crafted in deep consultation and partnership with Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian and Pacific Islander, poor, and marginalized communities.”

And while it is clear that Indigenous knowledge is critical to solving the climate crisis, the future is in everyone’s hands. And it’s not just about focusing on what society emits into the atmosphere (the net-zero myth), but also about how we behave as consumers overall. What we eat, what we buy, where we travel—all of it degrades the environment to some degree and impacts the climate. “Every single day that we live, we make some impact on the planet,” said famed primatologist Jane Goodall. “We have a choice as to what kind of impact that is.” It’s a responsibility that falls on the shoulders on individuals as well as worldwide leaders of industries and governments.

To survive the climate emergency that has gripped the planet, we each need to look at ourselves and reconsider our behaviors as consumers, homemakers, parents, travelers, drivers, eaters and voters. Support must be given to political, business, civic, Indigenous, Black, Brown, LGBTQ, women and youth leaders who are laser-focused on just, equitable and science-based climate solutions. “If we combine forces now, we can avert climate catastrophe,” said Guterres. “But, as [the IPCC] report makes clear, there is no time for delay and no room for excuses.”

Take action…

“[UK cabinet minister] Alok Sharma will act as president of the summit alongside an all-male team of climate and energy ministers. Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of Scotland, will welcome world leaders to the talks, but has no formal standing in the negotiations, and women will currently only be represented at a more junior level. Women are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change. Without representation at a leadership level, how can we expect their interests to be fairly represented?” —Sian Conway, Change.org

• Urge COP26 President Alok Sharma: Address the gender divisions in climate by forming a representative and inclusive UK leadership team for COP26
• Urge COP26 President Alok Sharma: Keep big polluters out of COP26
• Urge governments: Commit to urgent action on climate and environmental literacy at COP26
• Urge the United Nations: Serve climate-friendly food at the COP26 UN Climate Conference

An EFL reader says…

Cause for concern…

“These penguins are hard hit by the climate crisis, and the U.S. government is finally recognizing that threat,” said Sarah Uhlemann, international program director at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, following the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s recent proposal to list Emperor penguins as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

• Melting ice imperils 98% of Emperor penguin colonies by 2100 (Christina Larson, Associated Press)
• Scientists find new, more dangerous climate threat in thawing permafrost (Steven Mufson, Washington Post)
• Bipartisan infrastructure deal wouldn’t remove all lead pipes (Arthur Delaney, HuffPost)

Round of applause…

“[V]egans have a very specific reputation, especially online—namely, that they prioritize aesthetics over everything else,” writes Lydia Wang for Refinery29. “But, intersectional vegan activists are working to change that, by starting a nuanced, thoughtful conversation about the many interconnected reasons to eliminate meat consumption.”

• Veganism isn’t just about saving animals—it’s about saving the world (Lydia Wang, Refinery29)
• Chicken is absurdly expensive right now: This food company is offering a clever alternative (Jeff Beer, Fast Company)
• Instagram cook shows how going vegan will revolutionize your next camping trip (Peter Elia, iNews)

ICYMI…

“The natural world is undergoing two enormous crises that are currently threatening the natural world: climate change and biodiversity loss. These crises are intertwined. Climate change is cur­rently impacting 19 percent of species listed as threatened on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the world’s catalog of endangered species. We are currently experiencing the Sixth Extinction, the sixth major extinction event in Earth’s history and the only one caused by human activity. The Sixth Extinction is not only itself accelerating—it is also accelerating climate change, creating a destructive feedback loop. Now scientists are beginning to understand that another kind of destructive feedback loop is happening: Our own efforts to protect the climate could actually harm biodiversity.”

—EFL editor Reynard Loki, “To Save Planet, Solve Twin Crises of Climate Change and Species Loss Together, Say UN Scientists,” CounterPunch, June 18, 2021

Parting thought…

“May my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living.” —E.E. Cummings

Reynard Loki is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute, where he serves as the editor and chief correspondent for Earth | Food | Life. 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 Yes! Magazine, Salon, Truthout, BillMoyers.com, Counterpunch, EcoWatch and Truthdig, among others.

Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and nature/animal 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.

In its first major climate report since 2013, the IPCC offers its starkest warning yet: Serious impacts of global warming are now unavoidable.

By Reynard Loki, Independent Media Institute

9 min read

In a grim report released on Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that climate change was “unequivocally” caused by human activity, and that within two decades, rising temperatures will cause the planet to reach a significant turning point in global warming. The report’s authors—a group of the world’s top climate scientists convened by the United Nations (UN)—predict that by 2040, average global temperatures will be warmer than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, causing more frequent and intense heat waves, droughts and extreme weather events. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the bleak findings a “code red for humanity.”

The report found global warming increasing at a faster rate than earlier predictions estimated. “It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land… [and] at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last 2,000 years,” the report says. “Widespread and rapid changes in the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere have occurred.” Even if the world’s nations enacted sharp and stringent reductions in the emissions of greenhouse gases today, overall global warming is still estimated to rise around 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next 20 years. That means that the hotter, more dangerous future that scientists and the Paris climate agreement sought to avoid is now unavoidable.

Linda Mearns, a senior climate scientist at the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research and one of the report’s co-authors, offered a stern warning: “It’s just guaranteed that it’s going to get worse,” she said, adding that there is “[n]owhere to run, nowhere to hide.” In an interview with the Hill, Kim Cobb, the lead author of the report’s first chapter, said, “We’re already reeling, clearly, from so many of these impacts that the report highlights, especially in the category of extremes that are gripping these headlines and causing so much damage, but of course the 1.5 degree C world is notably and discernibly worse.”

“The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: Greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk,” Guterres said in a statement on the report. “Global heating is affecting every region on Earth, with many of the changes becoming irreversible.”

There is a sliver of hope that the worst impacts of the climate catastrophe might be averted, but time for that is rapidly running out, and many actions must be taken by governments, the private sector and civil society in tandem and with urgency—a tall order. “I again call on donors and the multilateral development banks to allocate at least 50 percent of all public climate finance to protecting people, especially women and vulnerable groups,” Guterres said. “COVID-19 recovery spending must be aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement. And the decade-old promise to mobilize $100 billion annually to support mitigation and adaptation in developing countries must be met.”

Key stakeholders in the climate crisis response are the world’s Indigenous peoples, who are particularly vulnerable to the direct impacts of climate change, as they are often living on the front lines of the natural environment and depend on healthy ecosystems for their survival. The climate crisis also adds another difficulty to the long list of obstacles that Indigenous communities have faced for centuries, including loss of land and resources, human rights violations, discrimination, marginalization and unemployment.

Negotiators at COP26, the upcoming UN climate conference taking place in Glasgow in November, should include Indigenous voices, knowledge and needs as they outline the world’s climate mitigation plan. Hopefully, they will uphold the sentiment expressed during the COP26 Climate and Development Ministerial held in March, where the “importance of drawing on the knowledge held by [I]ndigenous peoples, women, rural communities, young people and local authorities was… emphasized, along with the importance of pursuing rights-based approaches.”

Vehia Wheeler, co-founder of Sustainable Oceania Solutions, a small, women-owned social enterprise based in Hawaii that seeks to educate the young citizen scientists of Oceania using ancestral knowledge in partnership with STEM methods, called for Indigenous voices and their climate solutions to be championed at COP26. “Indigenous knowledge systems should be a guide for the future,” she recently said in a tweet shared by COP26.

One main reason that the world’s Indigenous communities must play a central role in the climate fight is the fact that they hold or manage a disproportionate amount of officially protected regions, regions that have experienced a low human impact. According to an assessment on the species extinction crisis issued by the UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in 2019, Indigenous peoples occupy 28 percent of the Earth’s land, but more than 40 percent of formally protected areas—and 37 percent of all remaining terrestrial areas with low human impact. “Three-quarters of the land-based environment and about 66 percent of the marine environment have been significantly altered by human actions,” the IPBES report states. “On average these trends have been less severe or avoided in areas held or managed by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.” Deforestation rates across the Amazon, for example, are two to three times lower in lands held by Indigenous peoples.

In other words, when it comes to conserving nature and biodiversity—important strategies in the battle to save the climate—these front-line communities are doing a lot of things right. Unlike the Western viewpoint that the natural world is something that humans can and should dominate, Indigenous communities across the globe have lived in harmony with nature, seeing the life on the planet as part of an interconnected whole. “We put our non-human relatives first, meaning the trees, the sky, the water,” Nikki Cooley, co-manager of the Tribes and Climate Change Program for the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals in Flagstaff, Arizona, told Yale Environment 360 last year. “We don’t treat them as objects to be studied in a lab. We revere them.”

Working intimately with the land and its natural resources, and often guided by a holistic mix of current science and traditional knowledge, Indigenous people have been successfully mitigating climate risks and adjusting to changes in the climate and environment for generations. “Indigenous peoples have always been on the front lines,” said Cooley. “Tribes have always been adapting to climate change. Now we have to adapt even faster.”

“People around the world increasingly see the urgent need to tackle the twin emergencies of climate change and biodiversity loss,” writes Steven Nitah, a former politician from the Northwest Territories, Canada, who served as the chief negotiator for the Łutsël K’e Dene First Nation, in a recent commentary in One Earth. “We can make progress on both these fronts if the world also recognizes the leadership of Indigenous peoples who oversee the most healthy, biodiverse, and intact lands and waters left on Earth.”

The 2019 IPBES report notes that current modeling on a regional and global scale lacks Indigenous input and suggests that policymakers consider “the views, perspectives and rights of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, their knowledge and understanding of large regions and ecosystems, and their desired future development pathways.” The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs for Indigenous Peoples supports that view, contending that Indigenous communities are “vital to, and active in, the many ecosystems that inhabit their lands and territories and may therefore help enhance the resilience of these ecosystems,” adding that “[I]ndigenous peoples interpret and react to the impacts of climate change in creative ways, drawing on traditional knowledge and other technologies to find solutions which may help society at large to cope with impending changes.”

“The gravity of the climate emergency has been tirelessly called out by Indigenous and front-line communities for decades,” said Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network. “We must pressure the IPCC before the mitigation report comes out early next year to listen to the voices of the traditional knowledge holders of Indigenous peoples and end carbon pricing, carbon capture and solar radiation management mitigation strategies that keep fossil fuels coming out of the ground.”

“The front lines are already way ahead of the politicians. We are leading with solutions—from community-owned solar energy systems that create safe, good-paying jobs to just recovery efforts that ensure those communities most impacted by the crisis are built back in sustainable and safe ways based on community needs,” said Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of UPROSE and co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance Board of Directors. “To truly address the climate crisis, we need policymakers to enact bold and transformative policies like the THRIVE Act, which [was] crafted in deep consultation and partnership with Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian and Pacific Islander, poor, and marginalized communities.”

And while it is clear that Indigenous knowledge is critical to solving the climate crisis, the future is in everyone’s hands. And it’s not just about focusing on what society emits into the atmosphere (the net-zero myth), but also about how we behave as consumers overall. What we eat, what we buy, where we travel—all of it degrades the environment to some degree and impacts the climate. “Every single day that we live, we make some impact on the planet,” said famed primatologist Jane Goodall. “We have a choice as to what kind of impact that is.” It’s a responsibility that falls on the shoulders on individuals as well as worldwide leaders of industries and governments.

To survive the climate emergency that has gripped the planet, we each need to look at ourselves and reconsider our behaviors as consumers, homemakers, parents, travelers, drivers, eaters and voters. Support must be given to political, business, civic, Indigenous, Black, Brown, LGBTQ, women and youth leaders who are laser-focused on just, equitable and science-based climate solutions. “If we combine forces now, we can avert climate catastrophe,” said Guterres. “But, as [the IPCC] report makes clear, there is no time for delay and no room for excuses.”

Take action…

“[UK cabinet minister] Alok Sharma will act as president of the summit alongside an all-male team of climate and energy ministers. Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of Scotland, will welcome world leaders to the talks, but has no formal standing in the negotiations, and women will currently only be represented at a more junior level. Women are disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change. Without representation at a leadership level, how can we expect their interests to be fairly represented?” —Sian Conway, Change.org

• Urge COP26 President Alok Sharma: Address the gender divisions in climate by forming a representative and inclusive UK leadership team for COP26
• Urge COP26 President Alok Sharma: Keep big polluters out of COP26
• Urge governments: Commit to urgent action on climate and environmental literacy at COP26
• Urge the United Nations: Serve climate-friendly food at the COP26 UN Climate Conference

An EFL reader says…

Cause for concern…

“These penguins are hard hit by the climate crisis, and the U.S. government is finally recognizing that threat,” said Sarah Uhlemann, international program director at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity, following the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s recent proposal to list Emperor penguins as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

• Melting ice imperils 98% of Emperor penguin colonies by 2100 (Christina Larson, Associated Press)
• Scientists find new, more dangerous climate threat in thawing permafrost (Steven Mufson, Washington Post)
• Bipartisan infrastructure deal wouldn’t remove all lead pipes (Arthur Delaney, HuffPost)

Round of applause…

“[V]egans have a very specific reputation, especially online—namely, that they prioritize aesthetics over everything else,” writes Lydia Wang for Refinery29. “But, intersectional vegan activists are working to change that, by starting a nuanced, thoughtful conversation about the many interconnected reasons to eliminate meat consumption.”

• Veganism isn’t just about saving animals—it’s about saving the world (Lydia Wang, Refinery29)
• Chicken is absurdly expensive right now: This food company is offering a clever alternative (Jeff Beer, Fast Company)
• Instagram cook shows how going vegan will revolutionize your next camping trip (Peter Elia, iNews)

ICYMI…

“The natural world is undergoing two enormous crises that are currently threatening the natural world: climate change and biodiversity loss. These crises are intertwined. Climate change is cur­rently impacting 19 percent of species listed as threatened on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the world’s catalog of endangered species. We are currently experiencing the Sixth Extinction, the sixth major extinction event in Earth’s history and the only one caused by human activity. The Sixth Extinction is not only itself accelerating—it is also accelerating climate change, creating a destructive feedback loop. Now scientists are beginning to understand that another kind of destructive feedback loop is happening: Our own efforts to protect the climate could actually harm biodiversity.”

—EFL editor Reynard Loki, “To Save Planet, Solve Twin Crises of Climate Change and Species Loss Together, Say UN Scientists,” CounterPunch, June 18, 2021

Parting thought…

“May my heart always be open to little birds who are the secrets of living.” —E.E. Cummings

Reynard Loki is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute, where he serves as the editor and chief correspondent for Earth | Food | Life. 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 Yes! Magazine, Salon, Truthout, BillMoyers.com, Counterpunch, EcoWatch and Truthdig, among others.

Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and nature/animal 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.

A 500-year-old legend is key to the survival of a rare giant softshell turtle.

By Hoang Bich Thuy and Nguyen Dinh Thang, Independent Media Institute

4 min read

Like many turtle species, Swinhoe’s softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei)has for centuries held special cultural significance in Viet Nam. For the people of the country, the Hoan Kiem turtle, as it is known locally, is a symbol of Viet Nam’s independence and prosperity. According to the legend passed from one generation to the next, this giant golden turtle emerged from the Hoan Kiem Lake to reclaim a magic sword used by the Le Loi King to defeat Chinese Ming forces in the 15th century. The lake was renamed Hoan Kiem Lake or Lake of the Returned Sword based on this legend.

But despite the Rafetus swinhoei being revered, it is also extremely threatened. For two decades it has been listed as “Critically Endangered” on the Red List maintained by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Since 2013, the Rafetus swinhoei has also been listed in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

When two of the last remaining Swinhoe’s softshell turtles died without producing any known offspring between 2016 and 2019, this species became the most endangered turtle in the world. In response, conservationists and veterinary experts from Viet Nam, along with global partners, made the recovery of this turtle one of their highest priorities. Swinhoe’s softshell turtles were also included in the five-year conservation plan of Ha Noi People’s Committee in 2018 and added to the committee’s 2030 vision plan.

Then, in October 2020, a female turtle was captured in Viet Nam and confirmed by veterinarians to be a female Rafetus swinhoei. With the leadership of the Ha Noi Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, in collaboration with the Asian Turtle Program of Indo-Myanmar Conservation and our organization, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), this imperiled turtle species may now have a second chance at survival.

The confirmation of Swinhoe’s softshell turtle in Ha Noi’s Dong Mo Lake means there is now a female in addition to a male, who is at the Suzhou Zoo in China. Authorities believe there are at least one more of these turtles in Dong Mo Lake and another in nearby Xuan Khanh Lake. Conservationists hope to capture and determine the sex of the other turtles in the coming months.

Ultimately, conservationists aim to help at least one male and female to breed to ensure that this species can return from the brink of extinction. The race to save this flagship species in Ha Noi highlights the importance of working in partnership to mobilize resources and address issues like water pollution, safer habitat, and more sustainable resource management. It also helps to replicate that success to save other species.

Task forces have been established to provide both the daily monitoring of turtles and the capture and preparation of other Swinhoe’s softshell turtles for a captive breeding program. Local fishermen have been engaged to monitor and capture the turtles, and have played a significant role and made a key contribution to Rafetus swinhoei conservation work.

At the same time, scientists are working to better understand the ecological role of this species. Researchers like Jeffrey Lovich of the U.S. Geological Society have highlighted their importance to the seafloor biosystem, where they contribute by enriching soil nutrients and facilitating seed dispersion. The way in which river turtles—and specifically the Rafetus swinhoei—add value to their own ecosystems is an area that needs further study.

As WCS has worked to locate more Rafetus swinhoei individuals in the wild, we have come to better understand the ways in which habitat destruction has helped to push this turtle species to the edge of extinction: from water pollution to riverbed abrasion, to overexploitation for food and illegal trade.

A communication task force is now working with local communities to transition from harmful hook and electrical shock fishing methods to safer practices, and to rethink the way in which trash and pesticides are disposed into the sewage system, which eventually empties into the Dong Mo Lake, to help improve the quality of the lake water—especially during the low rain season. More work must be done to curb pollution from dump sites and golf courses into local waterways.

In Viet Nam, with the leadership of the Ha Noi People’s Committee, we are determined to take responsibility to give this cultural icon another chance. While overhunting and habitat destruction have contributed to its demise, our work confirms that the Hoan Kiem turtle and the centuries old legend lives on.

With bad news and sadness from COVID-19, we feel hope by giving this species another chance to survive and to pass the symbol of prosperity to future generations in Viet Nam and around the globe.

###

Hoang Bich Thuy is country director of the Viet Nam Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Nguyen Dinh Thang is an information and design assistant at the Viet Nam Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

Take action…

Tell you members of Congress:

“Right now, wildlife is experiencing an acute crisis. We’re in the middle of the biggest mass extinction event since the dinosaurs. Elephants, cheetahs, gorillas, and other wildlife have never been closer to disappearing forever. Saving these and so many other species will require your continued commitment to effective wildlife conservation policies… And global conservation is just common sense. Poaching and trafficking not only threaten wildlife but they fuel terrorist and militant groups and harm local communities. Strong enforcement and well managed parks benefit wildlife and local community development, and drive sustainable growth and economic development. For these reasons and more I stand for wildlife. As you continue to work through the legislative priorities before Congress, I urge you to do the same.”

Urge Congress to prioritize global wildlife conservation.

Letter to the editor…

Replying to “Humanity’s #1 Environmental Problem Is Consumption—Climate Change Is Just One of the Byproducts,” by Earth | Food | Life editor Reynard Loki, Brave New Europe, June 2, 2021:

“Your contention that consumption is destroying our planet is accurate. But consumption goes hand in hand with financial expansion, and that is the real problem. Finance works on the unsustainable premise of perpetual and limitless growth, the antithesis of physical reality. The world must adopt a means of providing access to goods and services in sync with the finite resources of the planet. We cannot do it by continuing the present value system of acquisition. But we can do it with objective science.” —Stephen L. Doll, Member, Board of Directors, Technocracy, Inc.

Cause for concern…

“In early 2018, residents of Boise, Idaho were told by city officials that a breakthrough technology could transform their hard-to-recycle plastic waste into low-polluting fuel,” write Joe Brock, Valerie Volcovici and John Geddie in a Reuters special report. “Within a year, however, that effort ground to a halt. The project’s failure, detailed for the first time by Reuters, shows the enormous obstacles confronting advanced recycling, a set of reprocessing technologies that the plastics industry is touting as an environmental savior—and sees as key to its own continued growth amid mounting global pressure to curb the use of plastic.” 

• Recycling myth: Big oil’s solution for plastic waste littered with failure (Joe Brock, Valerie Volcovici, and John Geddie, Reuters)
• Adapt or die: That is the stark challenge to living in the new world we have made (David Wallace-Wells, The Guardian)
• Government subsidies are driving destructive overfishing (Coty Perry, YourBassGuy)
• Conflict, COVID, climate crisis, likely to fuel acute food insecurity in 23 ‘hunger hotspots’ (United Nations)
• India’s stray dogs are being locked out by a U.S. ban on adoptions (Anagha Subhash Nair, CNN)

Round of applause…

“Why are pork producers constantly trying to overturn laws relating to cruelty to animals?” asked Josh Balk, who leads farm animal protection efforts at the Humane Society of the United States, about an animal welfare proposition approved overwhelmingly by California voters in 2018 that requires more space for breeding pigs, egg-laying chickens and veal calves. “It says something about the pork industry when it seems its business operandi is to lose at the ballot when they try to defend the practices and then when animal cruelty laws are passed, to try to overturn them.”

• Bacon may disappear in California as pig rules take effect (Scott McFetridge, Associated Press via U.S. News & World Report)
• Biden has historic opportunity to cut pollution with new clean cars rule (Carol M. Browner, The Hill)
• Bayer to pull glyphosate from U.S. lawn and garden markets (Rhonda Brooks, Farm Journal AgWeb)
• Cade Cunningham, the number one NBA draft pick, is vegan (Anna Starostinetskaya, VegNews)
• Is India heading towards a vegan future? (Siddharth Kothari, YourStory)

ICYMI…

“At long last, the world’s largest dam removal is finally happening,” write EFL contributors Deborah Moore, Michael Simon and Darryl Knudsen on Truthout (“Damming Rivers Is Terrible for Human Rights, Ecosystems and Food Security,” February 22, 2021). “The landmark agreement, which was finalized in November 2020 between farmers, tribes and dam owners, will finally bring down four aging, inefficient dams along the Klamath River in the Pacific Northwest. This is an important step in restoring historic salmon runs, which have drastically declined in recent years since the dams were constructed. It’s also an incredible win for the Karuk and Yurok tribes, who for untold generations have relied on the salmon runs for both sustenance and spiritual well-being.”

Parting thought…

“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way… As a man is, so he sees.” —William Blake

Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and nature/animal 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.

Performing elephants are denied all that is natural to them and are forced to endure beatings, electric shock, food and water deprivation and intimidation.

By Dee Gaug, Independent Media Institute

9 min read

No matter what political views or affiliations people in the United States might have, most of them would agree that animal abuse is just plain wrong. Animals who are kept in captivity or are forced to perform in circuses are subjected to some of the worst kinds of abuse. Among all these animals, however, elephants suffer the most in captivity as they are highly intelligent and social beings, according to experts, and have complex physical and social needs that cannot be met in any circus or zoo environment.

“Elephants who are kept in small enclosures are in increased danger of developing chronic foot disease and arthritis, both of which lead to frequent instances of death for captive elephants,” according to Dr. Toni Frohoff, a biologist and behavioral ethologist. “In fact, the most common reason for premature death of captive elephants is lack of space and standing on hard and/or otherwise inappropriate surfaces.”

Many people are unaware that circuses are still part of the American culture. The closing of the infamous Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in May 2017 did not mark the end of cruelty perpetrated on elephants, who are forced into captivity and made to perform in circuses. Between 25 and 30 traveling circuses, which include caged wild animals, continue to travel and operate in the United States. There are currently more than 60 elephants and hundreds of other animals still being used for human entertainment. Circus animal cruelty and exploitation are rampant. Some operators like Loomis Bros. Circus and Carson & Barnes Circus continued operating throughout the worst of the U.S. COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and were once again advertising their show schedules for the spring and summer season in 2021. Currently, Carden Circus, Loomis Bros. Circus, Carson & Barnes Circus, Tarzan Zerbini Circus, and others are back on the road with elephants and other wild exotic animals.

Performing elephants are deprived of all that is natural to them. The methods used to train a wild animal into submission include beatings, electric shock (hot shots), food and water deprivation, and brutal intimidation. Elephants do not stand on their heads, sit on stools, stand on their hind legs, or give rides to humans on their backs because they want to; they do it because they are forced to with brutal training methods, as exemplified in undercover videos that can be found on YouTube.

While the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been tasked by Congress to enforce the Animal Welfare Act (AWA), which was signed into law in 1966 and is the primary federal law that regulates the treatment of animals in research, exhibition and transport, the AWA provides only minimum acceptable standards and historically has rarely been enforced. A prime example of this lack of enforcement is the story of Nosey the elephant. Nosey was captured in Zimbabwe when she was two years of age in 1984 and was brought to a Florida ranch with 62 other young elephants. About two years later, she ended up in the hands of former circus clown Hugo Liebel. Liebel used Nosey to perform in his circus and dragged her all over the country in a filthy, dilapidated trailer for more than 30 years.

Over the course of the next three decades, Liebel would rack up about 200 violations of the AWA for things like chaining Nosey so tightly by both her front and hind legs that she could hardly move, failure to provide adequate veterinary care, and failure to have sufficient barriers to protect the public. Yet year after year, the USDA rubber-stamped his annual renewal license. Though Liebel was fined several times, these fines were so minimal that they hardly made a difference and were seen as a small price to pay to keep the circus operational.

Finally, in November 2017, authorities in Lawrence County, Alabama, seized Nosey after Liebel’s truck had broken down. She was subsequently placed at the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee where she has been receiving much-needed veterinary care for the plethora of ailments she is suffering from as a result of her life on the road and in the care of her owners. She remains in the sanctuary and is thriving there.

Nosey’s story is unfortunately not unique. In fact, it is the norm. Many, if not all, circuses that are currently on the road have extensive histories of federal animal welfare violations related to the handling of their elephants. The USDA inaction makes them complicit in the neglect and abuse of captive elephants. As a result, captive elephants continue to suffer every day that USDA inspectors refrain from doing their jobs, either because they do not care or due to internal pressure that prevents them from doing so. “It feels like your hands are tied behind your back,” says veterinarian Denise Sofranko, who spent 20 years as an inspector, and was quoted in an article on the website of the nonprofit Lady Freethinker. “You can’t do many things you’re supposed to when it comes to protecting animals. You’re seeing inspectors so frustrated they’re walking out the door.”

Animal advocates have long demanded a change to the USDA’s policy of rubber-stamping annual renewal licenses for chronic AWA violators. Up until November 2020, exhibitors seeking an annual renewal license would sign a self-certification form stating that they were complying with the AWA. Even if the USDA had actual knowledge of noncompliance—such as recent inspections that revealed violations of the AWA—the USDA would still renew the license.

The USDA’s Animal Care division is responsible for inspecting more than 12,000 facilities and exhibitors, including circuses and zoos, to ensure these license holders are operating in compliance with the AWA. Unfortunately, the USDA appears to be more concerned with not burdening license holders than with protecting animals and the public. So pervasive is this problem that on April 4, 2019, more than 140 congressional members from both sides of the aisle signed a 16-page letter to Sanford Bishop, chairman of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, FDA, and Related Agencies, expressing concern that the “USDA is treating these regulated industries as customers, giving deference to those who can’t comply with the AWA’s modest requirements while giving short shrift to the animals and the taxpaying public.”

In fact, a February 2019 article in the Washington Post said that “USDA inspectors documented 60 percent fewer violations at animal facilities in 2018 from the previous year.” The number of animal welfare citations issued by the USDA fell markedly under the Trump administration, from 4,944 citations in 2016 to 1,716 in 2018, according to another article in the Washington Post published in August 2019.

It is not a stretch to say that the USDA is complicit in perpetuating animal cruelty. In February 2017, the USDA, without warning, removed animal welfare records from its website, according to an article in the Washington Post, prompting large animal welfare organizations such as the Humane Society of the United States, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the Animal Legal Defense Fund—along with other animal rights groups—to file separate federal lawsuits for violating a prior congressional directive and obliterating all transparency. The USDA purged from its website the searchable database of AWA inspection reports and enforcement records on thousands of licensed facilities and operators that use animals without providing any explanations, leaving the public in the dark—a public who, along with animal protection organizations, relies on this information to monitor and expose potential animal abuse at these facilities. Critics of this move stated that this was an attempt to keep the USDA’s complacency a secret from the taxpaying public, who pay for the salaries of the USDA employees and for other ancillary expenses related to the operation of the agency, and avoid accountability for enforcing the Animal Welfare Act.

This purge sent chronic AWA violators a clear message that there would be no accountability for providing not only substandard care but also outright abuse of their animals. No longer would chronic violators fear public scrutiny.

Fortunately, in December 2019, Congress enacted a provision in the fiscal year 2020 appropriations bill issuing a clear mandate to the USDA to fully reinstate its searchable database, giving the public access to all the agency’s records. The bill, signed into law in December 2019, required the agency to restore the purged records on its website within 60 days of the bill’s enactment, and continue posting such records moving forward. The records are being restored, albeit very slowly.

In response to pressure from animal protection organizations and the public, in March 2019, the USDA sought public comments on proposed updates to its current licensing procedures and received a staggering 110,000 comments. After decades, this pressure finally prompted the USDA to amend its licensing requirements to eliminate automatic renewals. A May 2020 USDA press release stated, “With this change, licensees have to demonstrate compliance with the AWA and show that the animals in their possession are adequately cared for in order to obtain a license.” Under the new rule, which went into effect in November 2020, licenses are valid for three years and applicants must demonstrate compliance before obtaining a license. This does not necessarily raise the bar set almost 55 years ago. This simply means that if a previous licensee, with a history of repeat noncompliances, wishes to obtain a new license, they would need to demonstrate that they are in compliance with the AWA regulations on the day(s) the USDA inspector is present and before a license is to be issued. It is noteworthy that the AWA’s antiquated standards are much less stringent than those of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the preeminent accreditation body in the United States. USDA inspectors will now conduct pre-licensing inspections since there will be no more renewal licenses. Under these new rules, “an applicant who fails the first inspection may request up to two reinspections to demonstrate compliance.”

Despite this development, the proverbial fox is still guarding the henhouse, and only time will tell if these new rules will have the desired effect of affording greater protection for captive elephants. Real change will come only with public awareness and legislation. What can be done? You can contact your senators and representatives and urge them to support the Traveling Exotic Animal and Public Safety Protection Act, TEAPSPA, which, if passed, will effectively end traveling acts nationwide that use exotic animals. In addition, you can make the choice to boycott circuses and zoos that use exotic animals. As journalist and former editor for Vanity Fair magazine Graydon Carter once remarked, “We admire elephants in part because they demonstrate what we consider the finest of human traits: Empathy, self-awareness, and social intelligence. But the way we treat them puts on display the very worst of human behavior.”

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Dee Gaug is co-founder and vice president of Free All Captive Elephants (FACE). Prior to her involvement with FACE, Dee worked as a trial attorney for 15 years. She has done pro bono legal work in both Massachusetts and Florida including for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Dee received her BA in psychology from the University of New Hampshire and her doctorate in law from Massachusetts School of Law. In 2018, she was a panelist at both the Free the Oregon Zoo Elephants Conference and the Performing Animal Welfare Society’s International Captive Wildlife Conference. She has gone undercover on numerous occasions to document the living conditions of captive elephants in both circuses and zoos.

Take action…

The Traveling Exotic Animal and Public Safety Protection Act (TEAPSPA, H.R. 2863), introduced into Congress by Representatives Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) and David Schweikert (R-AZ), would amend the Animal Welfare Act to prohibit the use of exotic and wild animals in traveling performances. A companion bill, S. 2121, was introduced in the Senate by Senator Bob Menéndez (D-NJ) and cosponsored by Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT).

Urge your senators and representatives to support TEAPSPA to help end wild animal suffering in traveling acts across the United States.

Letter to the editor…

Replying to “Glyphosate’s Toxic Legacy Exposed: Why This Weedkiller Should Be Banned,” by EFL contributor Stephanie Seneff, CounterPunch, July 2, 2021:

“This is a demonstration of the control the Ag-chemical companies have over our government. I lived in Iowa for decades and these companies ran the state. Even though during the 1960s and 1970s it was demonstrated that a farmer’s income would not drop—just his yields, without the use of most chemicals—the ag-chem groups keep pushing their poison. Hence, Iowa has some of the nation’s worst water quality. We knew then that killing Iowa’s waterways was not necessary but the chemical companies are powerful. I would love to see an agency set up who would put the citizenry first, not the corporations, as the EPA currently does.” —Larry Schlatter, Gambier, Ohio

Cause for concern…

“We used to see our brothers and sisters in the Sahel leaving because of conflict and looking for better economic opportunities, but now it is climate change that is becoming one of the major drivers, pushing out people who can no longer cultivate their land,” said Landry Ninteretse, the Africa director for climate advocacy organization 350.org. “This is not only going to impact Africa, but also Europe, Asia, and America as well, as people seek safer places where they can live.”

• Madagascar’s famine is the first in modern history to be solely caused by global warming (Aryn Baker, TIME)
• Great Barrier Reef’s decline should be a wake-up call (Richard Leck, The Hill)
• America’s nuclear waste has nowhere to go and more is coming (Matthew Gault, VICE)
• Wildfire smoke may be even more toxic than previously thought (Yale Climate Connections)
• Is our reliance on air-conditioning warming the planet? (Richard Schiffman, Washington Post)

Round of applause…

“We have found, in our domestic and global advocacy and nutrition work, that for millions of people the suffering of animals in intensive confinement systems is a main driver of dietary shifts that are good for us, good for the planet and good for our fellow creatures,” writes Kitty Block, the president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States and CEO of Humane Society International. 

“When people see that pregnant pigs are confined in ‘gestation crates’ for months, unable to even turn around, trying to relieve stress by chewing on the bars of their crates until their mouths bleed, they can’t help but reexamine the true cost of their pork products. Both the marketplace and the public policy sector are already responding to consumer demand for healthier and more humane food choices. Giants in the food industry are diversifying their product lines and menus with plant-based offerings and a dozen states have passed laws that ban the intensive confinement systems responsible for so much animal misery.”

• Animal welfare must be central to reforming the food system (Kitty Block, Humane Society of the United States)
• Growing food justice by supporting Black farmers and a community-owned grocery store (Hannah Wallace and Tosha Phonix, Civil Eats)
• On this farm, cows don’t have to make milk and pigs sleep in (Melissa Eddy, New York Times)
• 49 delicious vegan BBQ recipes for summer parties (Kate, The Green Loot)
• These moths are so gorgeous they ‘put butterflies to shame’ (Shi En Kim, Smithsonian Magazine)

ICYMI…

“Just like our own ancestors, the precursors of today’s elephants originated in Africa. But while Homo sapiens evolved from their predecessors between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago, modern elephants first arrived on the evolutionary map much earlier: 56 million years ago. Our arrival ultimately presented these majestic animals with their gravest threat, as we have killed them in great numbers for their ivory and destroyed their prehistoric habitats to make room for a host of human activities, from agriculture and logging to urbanization and other forms of land development. Now a new assessment of the pachyderms has revealed a stark reality and a turning point, something that conservationists have been worrying about for the past few decades: If poaching doesn’t subside soon and humans don’t stop encroaching on their ecosystems, wild elephants in Africa could become extinct in our lifetime.”

—Reynard Loki, “African Elephants Face Serious Risk of Extinction, Warns New Study,” Independent Media Institute, April 20, 2021

Parting thought…

“Animals should not require our permission to live on Earth. Animals were given the right to be here long before we arrived.” —Anthony Douglas Williams

Reynard Loki is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute, where he serves as the editor and chief correspondent for Earth | Food | Life. 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 Yes! Magazine, Salon, Truthout, BillMoyers.com, Counterpunch, EcoWatch and Truthdig, among others.

Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and nature/animal 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.

Welcome to the cruel world of wildlife killing contests, family events where children play amidst piles of slaughtered animals—and legal in 42 states.

By Katie Stennes, Independent Media Institute

7 min read

You would really have to try hard to find anything more depraved than a wildlife killing contest, which targets coyotes, foxes, bobcats, squirrels, raccoons, crows and even wolves and cougars in some states, for the sake of a prize that could range from cash to hunting equipment. These contests are responsible for the mindless killing of an inconceivable number of animals, all under the guise of sport.

Contests like these should be relegated to history books; instead, these events still take place in nearly all of the 42 states where wildlife killing contests are legal and result in the killing of thousands of animals every year.

Participants in these events, billed as family-friendly and often sponsored by bars, churches, firehouses and other local groups, compete with each other for prizes for killing the largest or smallest animal or the highest number of animals. Hundreds of animals may be slaughtered during a single contest. After the bloody piles of animals are weighed, prizes are awarded and the celebration ends, the bodies of the dead animals are often dumped like trash. Contestants frequently use cruel electronic calling devices to lure animals in for an easy kill and then shoot them with high-powered rifles—including AR-15s.

Referring to a custom-built rifle, a competitor in the De Leon Pharmacy and Sporting Goods’ Varmint Hunt told an investigator from my organization, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), that these rifles, “they’re like a .22-250 on steroids.” He had just used the rifle to gun down animals during the 21-hour contest that culminated in the pharmacy’s parking lot on a January morning in Texas. The rifles are “not very fur-friendly,” he added as he stood over a row of bloody bodies he had killed. “I wouldn’t use something like that if you want to save the fur.” To illustrate his point, he nudged a coyote, bragging, “I shot this one up here in the throat from high up and it blew out the whole bottom of his chest.”

Other participants at the contest unloaded more dead animals from the trucks, which were outfitted for prime killing with raised decks, cushioned chairs and gun mounts. A team of three men, who called themselves “Dead On,” won the event, killing five coyotes, two bobcats, a fox and a raccoon. Contest organizers handed out more than $3,000 in prize money.

At another killing contest in December 2020 that took place 1,000 miles north of Texas, an HSUS investigator saw firefighters helping to drag dead coyotes to the weighing station in the parking lot of the fire department in Williamsport, Indiana. The grand prize went to those who killed the five heaviest coyotes, with side pots awarded to those who killed the greatest number of coyotes, the “big dog” and the “small dog” (referring to the size of the coyotes). The winning team, which had all its teammates dressed in matching jackets, killed about 16 of the roughly 60 animals lined up for display when the contest ended. One competitor told investigators from the HSUS that he used an AR-15 rifle with night vision, adding, “I enjoy it.”

Other undercover investigations by the HSUS—in Maryland, New Jersey, New York (in 2018 and 2020), Oregon and Virginia—showed similar chilling images of contests, including children playing among dead bodies of animals.

Some of these contests are high stakes. At the West Texas Big Bobcat Contest in January, participants vied for $148,120 in prize money. The jackpot for “Most Grey Fox” killings went to a four-man team that killed 81 foxes in 23 hours.

Competitors spend thousands of dollars on equipment to achieve an almost absurd advantage. Electronic calling devices amplified across a field by a loudspeaker lure unsuspecting animals into the open using the sounds of dependent young in distress. These animals can hardly be expected to compete with a team of people armed with spotlights and AR-15-style weapons fitted with precision thermal night vision scopes that “troll” habitat areas, obliterating anything that comes their way.

Killing contests have a cousin in the old-school pigeon shoots—another contest based on indiscriminate animal slaughter. At a pigeon shoot, the birds are stuffed into spring-loaded boxes, thrust into the air at the shooter’s command and then shot from a short distance—all for thrills and prizes. Only one state—Pennsylvania—still openly holds these pigeon shoots.

Just like pigeon shooters, participants in wildlife killing contests spout false claims that they’re doing some act of service for society by ridding the landscape of animals they deem as “varmints” and “pests.” But it is a fact that these events are for fun and games and serve no legitimate wildlife management purpose. The best available science shows that randomly killing animals, especially coyotes, creates problems where there were none.

It sounds counterintuitive but killing coyotes causes them to proliferate. In an unexploited coyote pack, typically only the dominant pair reproduces. Kill off a few members, and the pack splinters apart to find other mates. More breeding pairs means more coyotes—and this adds yet another wrinkle. While most coyotes avoid livestock and prefer to munch on rodents, more pups mean more mouths to feed, forcing adult coyotes to find easier targets like sheep just to survive.

It’s a “paradoxical relationship”—kill more coyotes, lose more livestock. Haphazardly removing coyotes who haven’t been proven to threaten livestock before leaves voids that may be filled by coyotes who are more likely to prey on livestock. Most coyotes can even serve as “guard coyotes” for ranchers, keeping other carnivores at bay.

Native carnivores like coyotes and foxes provide a range of free ecological services to our communities—including controlling rodent and rabbit populations, indirectly contributing to the boosting of plant and bird biodiversity, and scavenging animal carcasses, which keeps our environment clean—and removing them en masse upsets the natural balance of our ecosystems.

We can’t make wildlife management decisions based on anecdotes or intuition or cater to misinformation that competitors use to justify their actions—we must follow the science. State wildlife agencies recognize that ethics must come into play, too. The Arizona Game and Fish Commission outlawed these killing contests in 2019. When the commission was still considering the ban, its chairman, Jim Zieler, who is also a hunter, was quoted by the Washington Post as saying, “There has been a lot of social outcry against this, and you can kind of understand why. It’s difficult to stand up and defend a practice like this.” Sportsmen and state wildlife agency professionals and commissioners across the country have echoed similar sentiments, and some have noted that these contests are damaging the reputation of hunters and jeopardizing the future of hunting. It’s a reasonable fear—society’s values about wildlife are shifting in favor of greater harmony with nature.

Making matters worse, the pandemic has added another element: virtual competitions where the killing persists but the judging and participation are online. Contestants living anywhere in the United States can submit videos of the animals they have killed nearby, and in these videos the contestants are seen shaking the bodies of the dead animals to show that they have been killed recently. These virtual competitions have also led to new prize categories like “best video of a kill.” People from more than 40 states have joined these contest websites, including from states where the contests have been banned. These virtual events take place nearly every weekend.

We certainly can’t let this continue without challenge, especially since many hunters share the growing public disdain for wildlife killing contests. They understand that no animal’s life should be taken in this cruel manner, and like countless other Americans, they believe that there are limits to what we should permit when it comes to the treatment and use of animals.

The good news is that bills and regulations to prohibit wildlife killing contests are emerging at both the federal and state levels. The reasons to ban these events are supported by overwhelming evidence, and those who oppose these contests will have increasing opportunities to register their viewpoints and convictions about this senseless killing of American wildlife, in letters to Congress and to state legislatures and state wildlife management agencies (contact your HSUS state director to find out what’s happening in your state), and to their local government. Wildlife is important to everyone, and our public policies and practices should reflect that.

###

Katie Stennes is the program manager for wildlife protection at the Humane Society of the United States. She has worked in the animal protection field for over eight years.

Take action…

“Wildlife killing contests are barbaric, cruel and unsporting events where participants compete to kill wild animals for cash and prizes,” says the Humane Society of the United States. “​​​​The contests often target native carnivores like bobcats, coyotes and foxes, which are important species that play a critical role in healthy ecosystems. The events do not serve any legitimate wildlife management purpose and simply make a game of killing animals.”

Urge your federal legislators to support a ban on wildlife killing contests.

Cause for concern…

• Deadly flooding ‘shows the urgency’ of climate change, EU official says (Melissa Eddy and Jack Ewing, New York Times)
• Climate scientists shocked by scale of floods in Germany (Jonathan Watts, Guardian)
• Humanity’s #1 environmental problem is consumption—climate change is just one of the byproducts (Reynard Loki, NationofChange)

Round of applause…

Writing in the Atlantic, David Treuer makes the case for returning America’s national parks to the people who were here before colonizers arrived. “The national parks are sometimes called ‘America’s best idea,’ and there is much to recommend them. They are indeed awesome places, worthy of reverence and preservation, as Native Americans like me would be the first to tell you,” he writes. “But all of them were founded on land that was once ours, and many were created only after we were removed, forcibly, sometimes by an invading army and other times following a treaty we’d signed under duress.”​​

ICYMI…

“A new kind of leadership is emerging to confront the climate crisis in an inclusive way. We know that we need to stop burning fossil fuels, we know that we need to transition to a renewable-based future, and we know that we need to invest in our communities to strengthen resilience and reduce vulnerabilities in the face of growing climate instability. But we are paralyzed by inadequate leadership in the United States. White, patriarchal leadership has been focusing too much on technocratic investments based on narrowly defined results and quantitative outputs. The prevalence of this rigid leadership style, based on assumptions of domination and competition, has been exacerbating the climate crisis, reinforcing racial and gender disparities, and excluding diverse voices and perspectives. But as the Squad grows, a new kind of leadership is emerging and widening the circle of power and opportunity. New coalitions of leaders are calling for public investment in collective, collaborative action that harnesses human potential, nurtures people, and builds strong communities.”

—Jennie C. Stephens, from her book Diversifying Power: Why We Need Antiracist, Feminist Leadership on Climate and Energy; web adaptation reproduced with permission from Island Press by Independent Media Institute as “White Patriarchy Won’t Solve the Climate Crisis: Antiracist, Feminist Leadership Is What We Need Right Now,” February 11, 2021

Parting thought…

“A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.” —Leo Tolstoy

Reynard Loki is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute, where he serves as the editor and chief correspondent for Earth | Food | Life. 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 Yes! Magazine, Salon, Truthout, BillMoyers.com, Counterpunch, EcoWatch and Truthdig, among others.

Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and nature/animal 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.

Americans eat more meat per capita than any other country, even though meat consumption is linked to heart disease, diabetes and cancer.

By Jennifer Barckley, Independent Media Institute

5 min read

Bacon and eggs for breakfast, a turkey sandwich for lunch, and roasted chicken for dinner are some of the go-to meal choices in America where meat is considered an essential part of the everyday diet.

Historically, Americans have been led to believe that eating meat and other animal products is necessary to be strong and healthy. This belief was ingrained in most Americans from the moment they were born. The food industry has continuously pushed consumption of these products through ad campaigns that proclaim, “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner,” and “Milk. It does a body good.” An article in Nourish by WebMD raves about chicken’s supposed health benefits, and poultry has appeared in every food guide by the United States Department of Agriculture since the 1940s. Americans have been led to believe that if they forgo these staples of the Westernized diet, they will dissolve into anemic zombies.

In truth, not only is meat consumption not necessary for humans to stay healthy, but it’s also potentially quite harmful. Consider meat’s links to heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers. Or the millions of people who fall sick from listeria, E. coli, and salmonella each year due to the consumption of contaminated meat. Or the more than 2.8 million Americans who contract antibiotic-resistant infections—which is a result of a nasty upshot of the rampant use of antibiotics on factory farms.

Americans eat more meat per capita than any other country, according to the World Economic Forum—which referred to the 2016 figures of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development-Food and Agriculture Organization Agricultural Outlook 2017-2026—but meat consumption hasn’t been a boon for the health of Americans. There is a high prevalence of obesity and diabetes and one of the highest rates of cancer among the American population. In light of these numbers, saying meat is essential makes about as much sense as saying cigarettes are essential.

Unfortunately, the notions that we can’t live without meat and that our meat supply is sacrosanct have been even further entrenched during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Thanks to intense lobbying by industrial meat producers in 2020, the U.S. government had deemed meatpacking and slaughterhouse workers “essential.” While many small businesses were crippled or had to shut down in order to stem the virus’s spread during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. in 2020, the federal government forced slaughterhouses to stay open—this was despite the soaring coronavirus infection rates and employee deaths. A single Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls was linked to at least 1,294 coronavirus cases and four deaths in the spring of 2020, according to an article in National Hog Farmer. In Louisa County, Iowa, which is home to a Tyson plant, 1,301 of the 11,223 residents contracted the virus by July 2021.

Indeed, an insistence on consuming copious amounts of meat poses a grave threat to the very survival of our species. In our mad dash to curtail the virus and develop vaccines at warp speeds, we’ve overlooked—perhaps intentionally—one foundational, inconvenient fact: COVID-19—the source of which has been traced to a live animal market in Wuhan, China—is only the latest in a long line of pandemics that have arisen from our insistence on eating meat:

• Measles, which was responsible for the deaths of millions “[b]efore the introduction of [the] measles vaccine in 1963,” according to the World Health Organization, is believed to have originated from a virus in cattle that spilled over to the human population through the process of domestication.
  
• The H1N1 strain of swine flu is a combination of viruses from three different species—pigs, birds and humans—that evolved when a bird flu virus infected farmed pigs. The resulting 1957-1958 so-called “Asian flu” and the 1968 “Hong Kong flu” each caused 1 to 4 million human deaths. The 2009 H1N1 swine flu epidemic killed almost 300,000 people.
  
• HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was first identified in chimpanzees in West Africa in 1989 and is suspected to have jumped to humans through the hunting, butchering and consumption of HIV-infected primates. To date, AIDS has killed more than 32 million people, according to the WHO.
  
• In 1998, the Nipah virus jumped to humans from fruit bats via intensively farmed pigs in Malaysia and killed more than half of the humans infected.
  
• Ebola, which has claimed more than 11,000 human lives in West Africa between 2014 and 2015, has been traced to fruit bats and primates butchered for food.
  
• The 2003 SARS epidemic—which originated from civet cats, via bats, from a wildlife market in Guangdong, China—infected more than 8,000 people, killed 774, and cost the global economy an estimated $40 billion during that year. At the time this amount was considered staggering, but the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic could be as high as $8.8 trillion, according to the Asian Development Bank.
  

In short, nearly every epidemic or pandemic in human history has been caused by animal-origin pathogens spilling over to people, usually as a result of the myopic quest for meat by humans.

The proliferation of industrial farms—which often cram tens of thousands of chickens into a single shed—has only made things worse. “If you actually want to create global pandemics, then build factory farms,” says Dr. Michael Greger, in his book “Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching.” The situation has become so dire and the threat to public health so acute that in the spring of 2020, a group of Chicago doctors called for a “global moratorium” on the consumption of meat. Given the facts before us, who can blame them?

As we ponder ways to enhance our well-being in the years ahead, it’s crucial to acknowledge with clear eyes the detrimental effects that consumption of meat has on our bodies and even our species at large. A plant-based diet (which, thankfully, is in higher demand these days) can deliver all the protein, fat, and calcium we need, while also reducing the risk of cancer, heart disease and diabetes—three of America’s leading causes of death, and which have all been connected to meat consumption. If adopted broadly, it could even preclude the next global pandemic.

The myth that meat is essential is a deadly one. To bring about a future that’s healthier and safer for everyone, it’s time to leave chicken, beef, fish and other animal products off our plates.

###

Jennifer Barckley is the vice president of communications at The Humane League.

This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Take action…

“After six weeks trapped in a filthy chicken shed, her body aches. Soon she’ll reach the slaughterhouse, where she’ll risk being boiled alive,” writes The Humane League about the short, brutal life of a factory-farmed chicken. “Bred to grow unnaturally fast, these birds suffer from debilitating diseases while trapped in filthy, overcrowded sheds. In their final moments, chickens are hung painfully upside down, struggling to breathe, as they face the terror of ‘live-shackle slaughter.’ Millions will suffer broken bones in the process. Thousands are boiled alive every week. Food companies have the power to end this abuse.​​​​​​​ But many would rather keep these torturous conditions under wraps.”

Urge Costco, Buffalo Wild Wings, Cafe Rio and Church’s Chicken to end the abuse of chickens in their supply chain.

Cause for concern…

“It was a catastrophe over there,” said Christopher Harley, a zoologist at the University of British Columbia, who found countless dead mussels open and rotting in their shells recently at Kitsilano Beach in Vancouver. “There’s a really extensive mussel bed that coats the shore and most of those animals had died.”

• Extreme heat cooked mussels, clams and other shellfish alive on beaches in western Canada (David Williams, CNN)
• ​​​​​​Pacific Northwest heat wave made baby hawks hurl themselves out of nests (Hilary Hanson, HuffPost)
• As Arctic melt sets early July record, hard times ahead for ice: studies (Gloria Dickie, Mongabay)
• Sharks evolved over millions of years as an apex predator, yet are no match for humans (Megan Marples, CTV News)
• Once a rich desert river, the Gila struggles to keep flowing (Jim Robbins, Yale Environment 360)

Round of applause…

• Colorado bans single-use plastic bags and polystyrene, creates bag fees (Alex Burness, Denver Post)
• Volkswagen and BMW fined $1 billion for running emissions cartel (Hanna Ziady, CNN)
• ​​​​​How school food can serve a climate solution (Theresa Lieb, GreenBiz)
• Long-awaited plant-based chicken promises to be ‘almost identical’ to the real thing (Lila MacLellan, Quartz)
• Here’s how to make those TikTok pasta chips vegan (Hailey Welch, The Beet)

ICYMI…

“[D]estructive fishing practices destroy marine habitats, kill countless unintended species in their massive, indiscriminate hauls (“bycatch”), and pull so many individual animals from the seas that nature cannot replenish their numbers fast enough (“overfishing”).​ Global bycatch may amount to as much as 40 percent of the world’s catch, and includes a myriad of species—many of them endangered—that fishing fleets are accidentally catching and inadvertently killing. Fishing nets kill hundreds of thousands of whales, dolphins, sea turtles and water birds every year.”

—Reynard Loki, editor, Earth | Food | Life, “U.S. Fishery Managers Are Failing to Protect Marine Habitats as Required by Law,” LA Progressive, May 8, 2021

Parting thought…

“We have to get to the point where each individual, each corporation, each community chooses low carbon, because it makes fundamental sense. It should become a no-brainer.” —Christiana Figueres

Reynard Loki is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute, where he serves as the editor and chief correspondent for Earth | Food | Life. 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 Yes! Magazine, Salon, Truthout, BillMoyers.com, Counterpunch, EcoWatch and Truthdig, among others.

Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and nature/animal 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.

We wouldn’t say “it” or “that” when referring to humans, so why would we for other sentient individuals?

By Debra Merskin, Carrie P. Freeman and Alicia Graef, Independent Media Institute

6 min read

Happy has to be one of the most ironic names for an Asian elephant whose living conditions have prompted groundbreaking legal action on her behalf. Her advocates are certain that she is not happy at all and are seeking to free her from her current confines.

Happy was born in the wild but was captured as a calf in the early 1970s. She ended up at the Bronx Zoo in New York City a few years later, where she’s been ever since.

Given what we know about how physically and psychologically detrimental captivity is for elephants and how vastly different their lives are in the wild, it’s virtually impossible to draw the conclusion that Happy is content at all after enduring decades of confinement that include years of isolation.

We also know that she’s a sentient being, which means she is self-aware—in 2006 she became the first elephant ever documented to pass the “mirror self-recognition test”—and she’s the first elephant to be considered in court for legal personhood under a writ of habeas corpus.

Her lawyers at the Nonhuman Rights Project argue that Happy possesses such complex cognitive, emotional and social abilities and deserves fundamental rights to “bodily liberty” and “bodily integrity”—something we are automatically granted just by virtue of being born human.

If successful, her liberation would be a landmark step toward breaking down the legal wall that separates humans from nonhuman animals. Yet nonhuman animals still remain behind a wall of our speciesist perception, which also desperately needs to change.

Nonhuman animals value their own lives, have their own interests and experience a range of emotions similar to our own that run the gamut from joy and fear to pain, anger, sadness, stress and grief; they have their own cultures and dialects; they play, work cooperatively and use tools; they remember and plan for the future; they love, form long-lasting bonds and show empathy. The conclusion that they have rich emotional lives isn’t mere anthropomorphism; it’s backed up by research in multiple fields, including cognitive ethology, evolutionary biology and neuroscience.

Despite our growing knowledge about nonhuman animals, instead of appreciating them for their uniqueness, beauty and complexity, we’ve focused mostly on what utilitarian purposes they can serve.

Even as we advance technologically, human behavior becomes increasingly objectionable. We raise and kill a staggering number of land and aquatic animals every year for food in an inherently and systemically abusive system.

We confine nonhuman animals to prisons that are zoos and aquariums, force them to entertain us, and use them as test subjects in biomedical research, much of which is senseless, or aimed at treating chronic diseases that are a result of human consumption of animal products.

In the wild, species are disappearing at staggering rates. Scientists have warned that we’re facing a sixth mass extinction. Wild animals continue to be taken by traffickers to be killed for parts or sold in the exotic pet trade. They’re killed simply for fun, including by government agencies under the guise of “management,” while their habitats are being polluted, fragmented and destroyed by humans in the name of development.

Human disregard of the natural world and the species with whom we share it led to a global pandemic that has had a devastating impact around the world, which, worryingly, likely won’t be the last we see of deadly zoonotic diseases—even as we continue to face a very real climate crisis.

Much of the way humans treat nonhuman animals, both legal and illegal, happens behind closed doors and out of sight. It’s in the best interest of industries that exploit them for profit to keep it that way. While there is increasing awareness about the plight of nonhuman animals, far too much of the information we’re regularly exposed to about them, particularly in the media, doesn’t give a “voice to the voiceless.”

Instead, it both subtly and overtly reinforces speciesist views, especially by misrepresenting nonhuman animals and their lived experiences by referring to them as if they were inanimate objects, as it, that and which.

This misrepresentation perpetuates their objectification and fails to show humans exactly who these animals really are, and how they suffer from widespread institutionalized oppression and systemic injustices on a daily basis. This must change to reflect their existences as conscious beings—a nonhuman animal is a who, not a that. A someone, not a something.

The way we use words is indicative of how we relate to the world around us; our words represent our thoughts about others, convey the value we place on other lives and actively shape the course of our relationships and actions. Calling someone it distances us from them, rather than acknowledging our relationship with them. Dismissing someone as an it communicates a thoughtless reference, as if the it in question has no rightful place in this life or is somehow separate from our own existence; that they are less than and we are superior.

Our choice of words builds a framework that can encourage healing or cause harm. This is also visible during interactions between people where there is a lack of acknowledgment, which can prove to be devastating.

Using proper personal pronouns for nonhuman animals, or the gender-neutral they when we are unsure of their sex, would reflect the fact that they, like us, are sentient beings.

More than 80 leaders in animal advocacy and conservation have joined In Defense of Animals and Animals and Media in calling for this to be the standard recommendation in the Associated Press Stylebook to encourage dialogue about how to respect and protect nonhuman animals and their rights and interests, which would help shape a more equitable world.

If not for our hubris and denial of what it means to be an elephant, Happy could have lived her life in the wild among a multi-generational matriarchal herd, where she would have shared lifelong bonds with her mother, family members and others of her kind and enjoyed the simple act of making decisions about her life.

Instead, she is confined and alone, and while her case is being appealed, she can’t do anything about it but quietly wait day after monotonous day, either for us to acknowledge her reality and send her to an accredited sanctuary, or to simply die where she is.

While she is physically isolated, she is not alone in that billions of other nonhuman animals are waiting for us to see them too; to understand them; to overcome speciesist prejudices we hold; to end their oppression; to stop considering them renewable resources; to save their homes; to stop justifying our consumption of their bodies; to stop owning them as property; to stop using them as test subjects; to stop referring to them as things, and to acknowledge they, too, are conscious beings who have a rightful place in this world.

We are past the point of needing scientific evidence that animals are conscious beings, and it is time to update the way we talk and write about them to recognize this fact and to acknowledge that as humans, we exist as part of a whole on this Earth, not separate from it. We share this planet with a mind-blowing array of incredible, awe-inspiring, sentient nonhuman animals whose lives matter to them and who each deserve the dignity and respect of us acknowledging that and referring to them as who, not that.

###

Debra Merskin, PhD, is a professor of media studies in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon and is a co-founder of Animals and Media. Her expertise is in the re-presentation of animals in media and popular culture.

Carrie P. Freeman, PhD, is an associate professor of communication at Georgia State University and is a co-founder of Animals and Media. She publishes and teaches on media ethics, activist communication, environmental communication and critical animal studies.

Alicia Graef of In Defense of Animals is a lifelong animal lover and freelance writer with a BS in animal and veterinary science. She has covered issues relating to animals for more than a decade.

Take action…

“While the scientific consensus is that nonhuman animals are conscious beings—they are someone, not something—they are often described as though they might be nothing more than a couch when they’re referred to as it, that or which,” saysIn Defense of Animals, in a public petition urging the Associated Press to update their stylebook, a guide for journalists and writers, to recommend the use of personal pronouns for nonhuman animals. “Not using personal pronouns for individual nonhuman animals is especially problematic in mainstream media, which not only has a huge impact on our perception, but a responsibility to give a voice to the voiceless.”

Urge the Associated Press to update their guidebook so that it recommends the use on personal pronouns when referring to nonhuman animals.

Cause for concern…

• Arctic’s ‘last ice area’ shows earlier-than-expected melt (Seth Borenstein, Associated Press)
• Corporate studies asserting herbicide safety show many flaws: new study (Carey Gillam, Guardian)
• Horrifying massive oil pipeline blaze sets Gulf of Mexico on fire (Mary Papenfuss, HuffPost)
• The Chamber of Commerce’s sordid history of climate denial (Molly Taft, Earther)

Round of applause…

• EU aims to end caged animal farming by 2027 after petition collects more than 1.4 million names (BBC News)
• ‘Unbelievable’ super-group of whales off Australia caught on film for first time (Isabelle Rodd, BBC News)
• First African American named to lead U.S. Forest Service (Matthew Daly, Associated Press)
• How to responsibly interact with marine life (Ali Wunderman, Condé Nast Traveler)
• ​​​​Turning the lights off for a few nights each year could save millions of wild birds (Angely Mercado, Popular Science)

ICYMI…

“In August 2020, during a cleanup project at a canal in the Dutch city of Leiden, scientists discovered a fish trapped in a latex glove, a finding that prompted them to investigate whether this problem was more widespread. Their fears were soon realized: In just a few months, researchers found hundreds of face masks littering the city’s historic canals. Their findings were released in a March report published in the journal Animal Biology about the impact that PPE litter is having on wildlife.

“The grim conclusion: All those face masks and latex gloves are killing birds, fish and other wildlife across the globe. The researchers, from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center, the Institute of Biology at Leiden University, and the Institute for Water and Wetland Research, all based in the Netherlands, said that animals are becoming entangled in the gear, while others, mistaking it for food, are dying from fatally ingesting it. Some animals are building homes with it.”

—Reynard Loki, editor, Earth | Food | Life, “PPE May Save Human Lives, but It’s Deadly for Wildlife,” EcoWatch, April 24, 2021

Parting thought…

“Animals have hearts that feel, eyes that see, and families to care for, just like you and me.” —Anthony Douglas Williams

Reynard Loki is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute, where he serves as the editor and chief correspondent for Earth | Food | Life. 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 Yes! Magazine, Salon, Truthout, BillMoyers.com, Counterpunch, EcoWatch and Truthdig, among others.

Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and nature/animal 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.

When it comes to Monsanto’s controversial herbicide, both the mainstream scientific community and our regulatory establishments have failed us.

By Stephanie Seneff, Independent Media Institute

11 min read

The following excerpt is from Toxic Legacy: How the Weedkiller Glyphosate Is Destroying Our Health and the Environment by Stephanie Seneff, PhD (Chelsea Green Publishing, July 2021). It is reprinted with permission from the publisher and has been adapted for the web.

In September 2012, I attended a nutrition conference where Dr. Don Huber from Purdue University was speaking on the topic of “glyphosate.” Glyphosate is the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup. While glyphosate isn’t a household name, everyone has heard of Roundup. Drive across the United States and you’ll see vast fields marked with crop labels that say “Roundup Ready.” Monsanto, the Missouri-based company that was Roundup’s original manufacturer, was acquired by the Germany-based company Bayer in 2018 as part of its crop science division. Monsanto has touted glyphosate as remarkably safe because its main mechanism of toxicity affects a metabolic pathway in plant cells that human cells don’t possess. This is what—presumably—makes glyphosate so effective in killing plants, while—in theory, at least—leaving humans and other animals unscathed.

But as Dr. Huber pointed out to a rapt audience that day, human cells might not possess the shikimate pathway but almost all of our gut microbes do. They use the shikimate pathway, a central biological pathway in their metabolism, to synthesize tryptophan, tyrosine, and phenylalanine, three of the twenty coding amino acids that make up the proteins of our body. Precisely because human cells do not possess the shikimate pathway, we rely on our gut microbiota, along with diet, to provide these essential amino acids for us.

Perhaps even more significantly, gut microbes play an essential role in many aspects of human health. When glyphosate harms these microbes, they not only lose their ability to make these essential amino acids for the host, but they also become impaired in their ability to help us in all the other ways they normally support our health. Beneficial microbes are more sensitive to glyphosate, and this causes pathogens to thrive. We know, for example, that gut dysbiosis is associated with depression and other mental disorders. Alterations in the distribution of microbes can cause immune dysregulation and autoimmune disease. Parkinson’s disease is strongly linked to a proinflammatory gut microbiome. As has become clear from the remarkable research conducted on the human microbiome in the past decade or so, happy gut bacteria are essential to our health, including in ways that researchers have yet to fully understand. It’s worth remembering that Roundup hit the market—and was declared safe—before much of this groundbreaking research on the human microbiome was ever conducted.

Dr. Huber also explained that glyphosate is a chelator, a small molecule that binds tightly to metal ions. In plant physiology, glyphosate’s chelation disrupts a plant’s uptake of essential minerals from the soil, including zinc, copper, manganese, magnesium, cobalt, and iron. Studies have shown that plants exposed to glyphosate take up much smaller amounts of these critical minerals into their tissues. When we eat foods derived from these nutrient-deficient plants, we become nutrient deficient, as well.

Glyphosate also interferes with the symbiotic relationship between plant roots and soil bacteria. Surrounding the roots of a plant is a soil zone called the rhizosphere that is teeming with bacteria, fungi, and other organisms. Glyphosate kills the organisms living in the rhizosphere, which then interferes with a plant’s nitrogen uptake, as well as the uptake of many different minerals. This interference further translates into mineral deficiencies in our foods. Glyphosate also causes exposed plants to be more vulnerable to fungal diseases. And fungal diseases can lead to contamination of our foods with mycotoxins produced by pathogenic fungi.

I came away from Dr. Huber’s lecture convinced that I needed to learn a lot more about glyphosate.

Fable for tomorrow

Both of my parents grew up on family farms in small towns in southern Missouri. The area is now an environmental and economic wasteland, because large agrochemical farming has forced most small farmers into bankruptcy. As a child, I visited my grandparents on their farms, gathering eggs from the chicken coop, marveling over the cows and their calves in the fields, and helping with the fruit stand where my dad’s parents sold apples and peaches. When I was 13, my grandfather was discovered dead on his tractor, with a split-open bag of DDT by his side.

In the 1940s and 1950s, Americans were told that herbicides and insecticides, such as DDT, were safe. DDT is an organochloride first used by the military during World War II to control body lice, bubonic plague, malaria, and typhus. While DDT was effective at preventing malaria, the environmental consequences of its use were devastating, especially as people began using it more and more, in broader and broader applications, for pest control.

I read Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring in 1962, shortly after it was published. A marine biologist by training, Carson condemned the chemical industry for its irresponsible disinformation campaign. She painted a grim picture of no birds singing in the spring. She called it a “fable for tomorrow,” a phrase that haunts me to this day. Silent Spring explores in detail how DDT and other chemicals were poisoning wildlife—from earthworms in the soil to juvenile salmon in the rivers and oceans. Carson’s book had a profound effect on me and helped me understand my grandfather’s untimely and unexpected death.

Around the same time, I also learned about the thalidomide disaster. Thalidomide, manufactured by a German pharmaceutical company, was prescribed to pregnant women to help with morning sickness and difficulty sleeping. It was aggressively marketed and advertised as safe. But thousands of children whose mothers took thalidomide during pregnancy were born with birth defects, including missing arms and legs. Studying the photographs of these deformed and unhappy children in a magazine, I realized that sometimes the products that purport to improve our lives can have major adverse effects—and that the companies that sell them cannot necessarily be trusted to tell us the whole truth about the risks their products pose.

The United States avoided this disaster, which devastated the lives of at least 10,000 children in Europe, because of a brave scientist named Frances Oldham Kelsey. Dr. Kelsey was a Canadian-born reviewer for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, responsible for approving or rejecting the application for a license to distribute the drug in the United States. Although she faced enormous pressure, and although thalidomide was already approved for use in Canada, Great Britain, and Germany, Dr. Kelsey rejected the application after she determined that there was insufficient evidence that it was safe to use during pregnancy. At the time, I was young, optimistic, and patriotic. I remember thinking how lucky I was to live in the United States, a country that protected its citizens from such a catastrophe.

Hiding in plain sight

In the 1950s, in the small town in coastal Connecticut where I grew up, living treasures were everywhere: ladybugs, dragonflies, butterflies, bumblebees, grasshoppers, lightning bugs, giant beetles we called pinching bugs, toads, and dozens of chittering playful squirrels. Praying mantises were a rare delight, but fireflies could be counted on in the evening, along with bats overhead as the shadows grew. Today I live outside Boston, in a place that has a similar climate to the Connecticut town where I spent my childhood. Yet it’s rare to see wildlife on our suburban street. An occasional squirrel, and one or two butterflies in the spring. No longer do we have to clean the windshield of all the dead bugs that accumulate on a summer’s day. Children, of course, don’t realize what they’re missing out on. This change appears to have happened slowly enough that almost nobody has noticed.

Yet, there’s no question that something devastating is going on, even if it’s difficult to name it precisely. The rate of species going extinct today is hundreds or even thousands of times faster than it has been during the past tens of millions of years. Environmental scientists warn that we have already entered the sixth mass extinction. Human health is also suffering. Over the past few decades an alarming rise in many chronic diseases across the globe has occurred, especially in countries that adopt a Western-style diet based on industrialized agriculture. Many of these diseases have an autoimmune component. They include Alzheimer’s disease, autism, celiac disease, diabetes, encephalitis, inflammatory bowel disease, and obesity.

Something terrible seems to be affecting every living thing on the planet—the insects, the animals, and the health of human beings, including children. Something hiding in plain sight. While we can’t reduce all environmental and health problems to one insidious thing, I believe there is a common denominator. That common denominator is glyphosate.

This problem is too important to ignore. My goal is to convince anyone who eats, anyone who has children, and anyone who cares about the health of humans and the planet that we need to look much more closely and much more carefully at the impact of glyphosate on and beyond the food supply. Both the scientific community and our regulatory establishments have failed us. It is time to shine light onto the shadows—to convince the world about glyphosate’s diabolical mechanism of toxicity and give ourselves the tools we need to understand how glyphosate harms us and what we can do to protect ourselves and our families.

Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., is a senior research scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. She has a bachelor’s degree in biology with a minor in food and nutrition, and a master’s degree, an engineer’s degree, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science, all from MIT. She has authored over three dozen peer-reviewed journal papers on topics relating human disease to nutritional deficiencies and toxic exposures. She has focused specifically on the herbicide glyphosate and the mineral sulfur. Dr. Seneff is the author of Toxic Legacy (Chelsea Green Publishing, July 2021) and she lives in Hawaii.

Take action…

Several environmental, public health and consumer advocacy groups, including Friends of the Earth Action, Food & Water Action, Progress America and Corporate Accountability have sponsored a public petition urging the Environmental Protection Agency to ban the use of glyphosate.

Urge the Environmental Protection Agency to ban the use of glyphosate.

Cause for concern…

“The deadly collapse of a 12-story condominium tower on a barrier island north of Miami Beach early Thursday morning has spurred new calls to survey buildings in areas vulnerable to sea level rise and subsidence, highlighting one of the lesser-known threats of climate change,” report Alexander C. Kaufman and Chris D’Angelo for HuffPost.

• Miami tower collapse stokes new fears of rising seas (Alexander C. Kaufman and Chris D’Angelo, HuffPost)
• Unprecedented heat wave in Pacific Northwest driven by climate change (Anne C. Mulkern, E&E News via Scientific American)
• Bipartisan infrastructure deal omits big climate measures (Coral Davenport and Lisa Friedman, New York Times)
• Dispossessed, again: Climate change hits Native Americans especially hard (Christopher Flavelle and Kalen Goodluck, New York Times)
• EPA watchdog says Trump appointees kept fired employees on payroll (Alex Guillén, Politico)

Round of applause…

“Congressional Democrats have approved a measure reinstating rules aimed at limiting climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions from oil and gas drilling, a rare effort by Democrats to use the legislative branch to overturn a regulatory rollback under President Donald Trump,” reports Matthew Daly for the Associated Press.

• Congress votes to reinstate methane rules loosened by Trump (Matthew Daly, Associated Press)
• Shawnee reclaim the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio (Mary Annette Pember, Indian Country Today)
• Mapping quest edges past 20% of global ocean floor (Jonathan Amos, BBC News)
• 3,000 hospitals and schools add vegan burgers to menus (Nicole Axworthy, VegNews)
• How to reduce energy use during heat waves and peak demand days (Harvard University)

ICYMI…

“The southwestern states, in particular, have faced frequent and ongoing droughts over the past two decades, and traditional water supplies are failing,” writes Earth | Food | Life reporter Frederick Clayton, who explores how turning wastewater into drinking water can make existing water supplies go further (“The Southwest Offers Blueprints for the Future of Wastewater Reuse,” Truthout, April 17). “How a city can recycle wastewater depends largely on the geography of the area, financial resources—and, perhaps most importantly, the attitudes of the public.”

Parting thought…

“In terms of personal choices, let’s all think more carefully about where we get our protein from.” —Sylvia Earle

Reynard Loki is a writing fellow at the Independent Media Institute, where he serves as the editor and chief correspondent for Earth | Food | Life. 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 Yes! Magazine, Salon, Truthout, BillMoyers.com, Counterpunch, EcoWatch and Truthdig, among others.

Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and nature/animal 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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Questions, comments, suggestions, submissions? Contact EFL editor Reynard Loki at [email protected]. Follow EFL on Twitter @EarthFoodLife.