Quid pro quo: Dow Chemical, a major donor to President Trump’s inauguration committee, has recently received a major gift from the Trump administration: A rejection of a proposed Obama-era Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ban on the toxic pesticide chlorpyrifos, which the company makes. Pregnant women and their fetuses, young children and farmworkers are particularly at risk from this chemical, which has been linked to brain damage. “With this decision, the EPA continues to sideline science, put public health at risk, and roll back public safeguards in favor of private interests,” writes Kathleen Rest, the executive director of the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit science advocacy organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “The effort to ban chlorpyrifos might be stalled, but it’s not over. Our children deserve better. Let your elected representatives know that the EPA is taking us backward. They should hold the agency accountable.” (Photo credit: skeeze/Pixabay)
Environmental Advocates of New York: Under the Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency found there were no safe levels of the pesticide chlorpyrifos and proposed a national ban. The proposal was later rejected by the Trump administration. Chlorpyrifos is extremely toxic. It has been linked to neurodevelopmental defects—like ADHD, autism spectrum disorder and lower IQ. It also significantly impacts wildlife. The Trump administration suppressed a U.S. Fish and Wildlife analysis from being published that found chlorpyrifos threatens more than 1,200 endangered species. Dow Chemical—chlorpyrifos’ main manufacturer—has strong ties to this administration and even gave Trump’s inaugural committee one million dollars right before it reversed the ban on chlorpyrifos. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has the ability to be a leader on this issue and protect New York public health and the environment from this toxic pesticide. >>>Tell Governor Cuomo to fight Trump’s anti-science and anti-environment agenda and sign the bill banning chlorpyrifos in New York.
Change: If the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act is passed, the United States will have its first-ever general federal animal cruelty law. The PACT Act will allow the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies to crack down on malicious cruelty and the sexual exploitation of innocent animals. The legislation will build on the federal “animal crush” video law that was enacted in 2010, which banned the creation, sale and distribution of obscene videos that show animals being crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled or subjected to other forms of heinous cruelty. The PACT Act will also enable the federal government to prosecute malicious acts of animal cruelty on federal property such as military bases, federal prisons, airports and national parks. Additionally, it will enable federal authorities to crack down on the practice of bestiality, which often involves a subculture where animals are moved across state lines and information is exchanged on websites that enable the exploitation to happen. The legislation, which has broad bipartisan support, is endorsed by more than 200 law enforcement agencies across the country. >>>Urge Congress to pass the Preventing Animal Cruelty (PACT) Act.
PETA: Air France is the only major airline in the world that transports monkeys—either bred in captivity on squalid farms or snatched from the wild, torn away from their homes and families—to laboratories in the United States. Once in the U.S., they’re transported to dealers such as Primate Products and to laboratories—including Covance, one of the largest importers of monkeys in the U.S.—where they’re imprisoned and tormented in experiments. During an 11-month investigation at a Covance laboratory in Vienna, Virginia, a PETA investigator uncovered many horrors. For instance, workers struck, choked and screamed obscenities at frightened and “uncooperative” monkeys. As a result of the investigation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited and fined Covance for serious violations of the Animal Welfare Act and the laboratory eventually shut down. >>>Tell Air France that you refuse to fly with them until they adopt and adhere to a formal policy prohibiting the transport of monkeys to laboratories.
Cause for concern…
Deep thoughts: A man stands in knee-deep floodwater in Roman Forest, Texas, on August 28, 2017, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. A little more than a year later, the United Nations released a major climate report, which warned that by 2040, if greenhouse gas emissions continue at the current rate, there will more intense and frequent extreme weather events, coastlines submerged by rising sea levels, widespread species extinction and food insecurity. The report’s release may have increased public anxiety about climate change. “I remember being in sessions with folks the next day,” Andrew Bryant, a therapist, told Kaiser Health News. “They had never mentioned climate change before, and they were like, ‘I keep hearing about this report.’ Some of them expressed anxious feelings, and we kept talking about it over our next sessions.” A survey conducted in April by Yale and George Mason universities found that 62 percent of Americans are at least “somewhat worried” about climate change. Of those, 23 percent said they were “very worried.” (Photo credit: Jill Carlson/Flickr)
Leave no trace, please: Tourists gather near Upper Falls, one of two major waterfalls in Yellowstone National Park. Natural Habitat Adventures—the travel partner of the environmental nonprofit World Wildlife Fund—has become the first Yellowstone tour operator to achieve a zero-waste trip, reports Ali Wunderman on Condé Nast Traveler. “Yellowstone National Park has sustainability initiatives to address the waste generated by their four to six million annual guests, but imagine if each of those travelers took a few simple steps to ease the burden,” writes Wunderman, who joined a tou group of 12 on a seven-day, waste-free safari through wolf and bison territory. Whatever they couldn’t recycle had to fit in a quart-sized Mason jar. (Photo credit: julielepage/Flickr)
“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed. … We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.” —Wallace Stegner
Postcard perfect, for now: “The Breaks” are the heart of Montana’s big sky country and encompass the same untouched landscapes that inspired western painter Charles Russell, known as “the cowboy artist” for his romantic paintings of Montana and early western culture. The Trump administration wants to remove conservation protections across this pristine and beloved “Russell Country,” making parts of this region available for destructive and dangerous oil and gas development, further locking the nation into dependence on fossil fuels. (Photo credit: Bureau of Land Management/Flickr)
Pew Charitable Trusts: Central Montana’s Russell Country is characterized by varied, rugged landscapes. Pristine prairie, sliced by the Musselshell River, transforms to rough and craggy breaks approaching the Missouri River. One of the last places to be settled in the West, this sparsely populated section of the country remains almost as remote and wild as it was over 200 years ago. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has just published for public comment the long-awaited draft plan for managing some of this wild country. Unfortunately, the BLM’s recommendation continues the Trump administration’s unprecedented pattern of eliminating conservation protections for special areas in the region, opening up these special places to oil and gas development. >>>Urge the BLM to take a balanced approach and protect some of these wild remote public lands from future development.
Too many people: A large crowd disperses after a Muse concert in Paris on June 23, 2007. Three decades ago, there were 5 billion people on Earth. Today, there are 7.7 billion. By 2050, humans will number 9.7 billion and the population will continue to surge, reaching nearly 11 billion by 2100. “Our planet cannot withstand such numbers,” writes paleontologist Peter Ward in his book “The End of Evolution.” As Robin McKie, science and environment editor for the Observer, reports, 10 billion humans means that “every forest, valley and piece of land will have to be turned to agriculture to feed us.” (Photo credit: James Cridland/Flickr)
Be the change: Love animals and want to make a difference? One of the most powerful things you can do is to lobby for pro-animal legislation. “Whether they’re city council members, state representatives or U.S. Senators, elected officials care—or ought to care—what their constituents think,” says the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), a nonprofit advocacy group whose mission is to protect animals through the legal system. “By sending letters and emails supporting pro-animal measures that are on the legislative agenda, you can help convince these politicians that the voters who put them in office want to see animals protected from cruelty and neglect. And if there are no pro-animal items on the agenda, you can help change that, too. Tell lawmakers what types of animal protection laws you would like to see introduced and passed.” To help ordinary citizens become animal defenders, ALDF has put together a handy toolkit: “Working With Legislators.” (Photo credit: Ana Francisconi/Pexels)
“Keep close to Nature’s heart … and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.” —John Muir
We need his howl: A male wolf from the Wenaha pack in Oregon was fitted with a radio collar on August 4, 2010. The restoration of America’s wolves has been hailed as one of the biggest successes of the Endangered Species Act since it was passed in 1973. But the important work of wolf recovery is still ongoing. Delisting the gray wolf will halt four decades of progress in its tracks and threaten their recovery by unwarranted and unsustainable killing. That is exactly what has happened in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, where premature delisting—hailed by livestock ranchers—has led to the cruel, senseless and ecologically harmful killing of thousands of wolves. (Photo credit: Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife)Male wolf from Wenaha pack was fitted with a radio collar on Aug. 4, 2010. Aug. 4, 2010. ODFW photo. Download high resolution image.
Defenders of Wildlife: The Department of the Interior is trying to prematurely strip Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections from nearly all gray wolves in the lower 48 states. This—as Idaho’s tragic example proves—could be a death sentence for wolves, who are intelligent, closely bonded animals who play a vital role in nature. We need them more than ever to preserve biodiversity, strengthen ecosystems and reduce disease. They deserve our compassion, respect and legitimate efforts to coexist with them in the remaining places wild enough for wolves to roam. There is still time to speak out against national wolf delisting by adding your public comments by July 15. >>>Tell the Department of the Interior to protect America’s wolves by keeping them on the ESA list.
Lady Freethinker: For a dog, the gruesome dog meat industry is Hell on Earth. The animals are bound, crammed into tiny, rusty cages with dozens of other dogs, and transported to meat markets or slaughterhouses. Hungry, thirsty and suffering disease and broken bones, these terrified animals must then watch their cage mates tortured and killed as they wait for their turn. Because many people believe dog meat is more tender and provides more health benefits if the animal suffers during death, dogs are often hung, beaten or electrocuted by the butchers. While some countries have laws barring killing dogs and selling them for food, many of these regulations are unenforced. A new resolution introduced by the Los Angeles City Council aims to pressure governments throughout Southeast Asia to end the brutally cruel dog meat industry, in which tens of millions of dogs are tortured and killed for food in Vietnam, South Korea, Indonesia, Cambodia, China and other nations. >>>Urge Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to support and work to pass Councilmember Bob Blumenfield’s resolution CF 19-0002-S101 urging governments listed to ban the sale of dog meat and enforce animal cruelty laws.
Citizens for Alternatives to Animal Research and Experimentation: Tucked away in the beautiful Rocky Mountains of Montana, a government laboratory is carrying out painful and sickening experiments, infecting animals’ brains with deadly prions to study Chronic Wasting Disease, which causes great suffering to infected animals and is characterized by emaciation, abnormal behavior, loss of bodily functions and death. In one study, 19 monkeys had holes drilled into their skulls through which infected deer/elk tissue was injected into their brains, while 21 monkeys were force-fed the infected tissue. Most of the monkeys used for the CWD experiments were captured from the wild before they were infected more than 13 years ago, and kept alone in cages, isolated from each other and from the world before they died. After years of misery, the results of these grotesque animal experiments are vague and mixed, summarized by a published scientific review that concluded a “high level of uncertainty” regarding possible transmission of CWD to humans. These atrocious experiments are not only cruel and inconclusive, they are unnecessary. In a new study conducted at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories, a cerebral organoid model made from human cells, or a “mini-brain,” was used to study a deadly prion disease that affects humans known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). >>>Urge the National Institutes of Health to replace these inconclusive and cruel experiments on animals with cerebral organoids.
Cause for concern…
Reality bites: By the end of the century, more than 3 million new cases of dengue fever could crop up in Latin America and the Caribbean every year if global warming isn’t kept below 1.5° Celsius, warn scientists from the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom and the Universidade do Estado de Mato Grosso in Brazil, in a new study. The hotter and wetter conditions that are being ushered in by climate change allow mosquitoes like Aedes aegypti (pictured), a common vector of dengue fever and yellow fever, to thrive. (Photo credit: Muhammad Mahdi Karim/Wikipedia)
Sea battle: Oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill approaches the coast of Mobile, Alabama, on May 6, 2010. Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives passed three amendments to the FY20 Interior, Environment and Related Agencies funding bill (H.R. 3052), blocking the expansion of offshore oil drilling activities in the Atlantic, Pacific and eastern Gulf of Mexico for fiscal year 2020. The vote “underscores the strength and bipartisanship of opposition to dirty and dangerous offshore drilling, said Diane Hoskins, campaign director at Oceana. “President Trump’s radical offshore drilling plan threatens our fishing, tourism and recreation industries that rely on a clean and healthy ocean. It’s now up to the Senate to follow in the House’s footsteps to protect our coast.” (Photo credit: Petty Officer 1st Class Michael B. Watkins, U.S. Navy/Wikipedia)
Forest fighters: On June 25, more than fifty Waorani leaders and community members gathered outside of the Presidential Palace in Ecuador’s capital city of Quito to call on people around the world to “Stand with the Amazon,” sending a warning to the government—which is trying to sell their land to fossil fuel companies—by turning in the signatures of over 122,000 people who have signed the Waorani people’s urgent declaration in defense of their rainforest territory. (Photo credit: Amazon Frontlines)
Amazon Frontlines: On April 26, the Waorani people of Ecuador won a historic court ruling protecting half a million acres of their territory in the Amazon rainforest from being earmarked for oil drilling. The ruling voids the consultation process with the Waorani undertaken by the Ecuadorian government in 2012, indefinitely suspending the auctioning of their lands to oil companies. The verdict also disrupts the contemplated auctioning of 16 oil blocks that cover over 7 million acres of indigenous territory, providing an invaluable legal precedent for other indigenous nations fighting to protect their lands from development. But the government’s appeal threatens this historic verdict and the land that it aims to protect. >>>Tell the Ecuadorian government to respect the court’s ruling and the Waorani’s decision to not sell their land.
Farmworker Justice: Farmworkers and their families are regularly exposed to high levels of pesticides in the fields where they work and in the communities where they live. Their exposure results in thousands of reported pesticide poisonings, illnesses and injuries each year. Unfortunately, farmworkers’ children cannot avoid exposure due to the proximity of their homes, schools and playgrounds to the fields where pesticides are applied, and are exposed to chlorpyrifos through airborne drift, water contamination and residues on their parents’ work clothes. In 2000, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned the use of the pesticide chlorpyrifos in residential settings because it posed unacceptable risks to young children. But farmworkers and their children across the country are still exposed to chlorpyrifos due to its use on apples, strawberries, broccoli, cherries, corn, almonds, citrus fruit, Christmas trees and other products. The EPA’s double standard on the health of farmworkers and their children must end. >>>Urge the Environmental Protection Agency and Congress to ban all agricultural uses of the highly toxic pesticide chlorpyrifos.
PETA: Breaking eyewitness footage shows elephants who were forced to participate in the cruel Chitwan Elephant Festival in Nepal being repeatedly struck and gouged with bullhooks—spear-like weapons with a sharp hook on one end—and their ears being violently yanked. Mahouts (handlers) also beat frightened elephants with other weapons, such as sticks and makeshift wooden knives. One mahout can be seen repeatedly jabbing a baby elephant behind the ear to force her to “play” football. Right after the match, eyewitnesses saw that she was suffering from several fresh, painful and bloody wounds. Since hearing from activists, Renault, MINISO, Carlsberg Group, United Beverage, Kumari Bank, Mega Bank, JGI, Chaudhary Group, Everest Insurance and Hotel Seven Star have cut ties with the event. However, Mount Everest Group and NRNA, which sponsored or advertised at the festival last year, have no plans to stop supporting it. >>>Tell Mount Everest Group and NRNA to stop supporting the cruel Chitwan Elephant Festival.
Cause for concern…
Japan’s shame: Despite international criticism, Japan has resumed commercial whaling for the first time since 1986. Whales were driven to the brink of extinction in the 19th and early 20th century due to overhunting. Though the International Whaling Commission (IWC) issued a moratorium on whaling in 1986, Japan has continued to kill whales under the guise of scientific research, while whale meat has been sold in the country. Last year, Japan withdrew from the IWC, so it is no longer subject to its rules. Cetaceans—whales and dolphins—are among the most intelligent animals in the world. They possess complex communication skills, cooperative lifestyles and social interactions and learning. Japan “is out of step with the international community,” said Sam Annesley, executive director of Greenpeace Japan. (Photo credit: Australian Customs and Border Protection Service via Global Panorama/Flickr).
Nothing but net: Divers release a seal entangled in derelict fishing gear, a common problem that leads to injury or death for many marine species not targeted by the fishing industry, including whales, dolphins, seals, turtles and marine birds. Last month, volunteers with the California-based nonprofit Ocean Voyages Institute traveled on a crane-outfitted cargo sailboat from Hawaii to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where they retrieved 40 tons of abandoned fishing nets during a 25-day expedition. “Our success should herald the way for us to do larger clean ups and to inspire clean ups all throughout the Pacific Ocean and throughout the world,” said the group’s founder Mary Crowley. “It’s not something that we need to wait to do.” (Photo credit: NOAA Marine Debris Program/Flickr)
Forest fighters: On June 25, more than fifty Waorani leaders and community members gathered outside of the Presidential Palace in Ecuador’s capital city of Quito to call on people around the world to “Stand with the Amazon,” sending a warning to the government—which is trying to sell their land to fossil fuel companies—by turning in the signatures of over 122,000 people who have signed the Waorani people’s urgent declaration in defense of their rainforest territory. (Photo credit: Amazon Frontlines)
On April 26, the Waorani people of Ecuador won a historic court ruling protecting half a million acres of their territory in the Amazon rainforest from being earmarked for oil drilling. The ruling voids the consultation process with the Waorani undertaken by the Ecuadorian government in 2012, indefinitely suspending the auctioning of their lands to oil companies. The verdict also disrupts the contemplated auctioning of 16 oil blocks that cover over 7 million acres of Indigenous territory by providing an invaluable legal precedent for other Indigenous nations fighting to protect their lands from development. But the government’s appeal threatens this historic verdict and the land that it aims to protect.
Earth | Food | Life editor and chief correspondent Reynard Loki has been covering this important developing story. In his first report, which was published by AlterNet, Salon, Nation of Change and EcoWatch, Loki examines the court case that the Waorani people from Ecuador’s Pastaza region brought against the government of President Lenín Moreno, which been aggressively trying to auction their land to the fossil fuel industry in the hunt for oil. Loki also looks beyond the court case, analyzing how extractive industry could impact one of the world’s most biodiverse regions that is part of the Amazon rainforest, the health of which is critical to the planet’s climate-regulating system.
A group of Waorani assemble near an oil development area on their territory. (Photo credit: Mitch Anderson/Amazon Frontlines)
In his second report, which was published by openDemocracy (translated into Spanish and Portuguese), AlterNet, Salon, Common Dreams and Nation of Change, Loki examines the Waorani’s landmark legal victory, which immediately and indefinitely suspended plans to auction Indigenous territory to oil companies, protecting at least for now up to 7 million acres from development. The ruling, which represents a major setback for the Ecuadorian government, also provides a legal precedent for other Indigenous nations across the Amazon and around the globe who are fighting against the development of their ancestral lands.
Media appearances
Several media outlets invited Loki to be interviewed about his reporting on the Waorani’s resistance to oil development in Ecuador. On May 10, Loki appeared on WORT radio 89.9 FM, an affiliate of the Pacifica Network, where he was interviewed by host Esty Dinur for the weekday talk show “A Public Affair.” On June 7, he was interviewed by Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) program director Janine Jackson for CounterSpin, a weekly program of media criticism airing on more than 150 stations around the country. On June 12, Loki again appeared on WORT radio, where he was interviewed by host Jan Miyasaki for their weekday news talk show “8 O’Clock Buzz.” And on June 14, he was interviewed by Thom Hartmann, host of the Thom Hartmann Radio Program, which is syndicated by Pacifica, and simulcast on Free Speech TV Network on Dish Network and DirectTV, and on radio stations, American Forces Radio, and Sirius/XM. Live in the U.S., Africa, Europe and across North America, more people listen to or watch the Thom Hartmann Program than any other progressive talk show in the world.
Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and animal/nature rights, and champions action; specifically, how responsible citizens, voters and consumers can help put society on an ethical path of sustainability that respects the rights of all species who call this planet home. EFL emphasizes the idea that everything is connected, so every decision matters.
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Questions, comments, suggestions, submissions? Contact EFL editor Reynard Loki at [email protected]. Follow EFL on Twitter @EarthFoodLife.
When nine lives aren’t enough: Shelter animals in Utah, Missouri, Ohio and Wyoming who don’t end up being adopted must face a horrible death: asphyxiation in a gas chamber. This cruel method of euthanasia is condemned by most animal welfare experts, who recommend the significantly less traumatic method of lethal injection. (Photo credit: Thomas Park/Unsplash)
Care2: In four U.S. states, animal shelters have a special way to dispose of unwanted pets. They cram the animals into gas chambers, where they spend their last moments slowly asphyxiating to death. The process is terrifying, filled with panic and can take 30 minutes or even longer. This inhumane practice is almost universally condemned by animal welfare experts, who agree that the only appropriate option is euthanasia by injection. This alternative, while still extremely upsetting and tragic, is at least fast and minimally traumatic when performed by someone who has received humane euthanasia training. But in the states of Utah, Missouri, Ohio and Wyoming, that final kindness is not guaranteed for any shelter animal. Twenty-eight U.S. states have already banned the use of gas chambers in animal shelters. That’s not enough. >>>Tell Congress to make sure every animal is provided with a humane, dignified death by banning the use of asphyxiant gases to kill shelter animals.
Shark Stewards: Shark finning is the unsustainable and inhumane practice of cutting off a shark’s fins, often while the shark is still alive, and discarding the body into the ocean. The fins are used in shark fin soup and other dishes. Once an expensive dish limited to the nobility, shark fin soup is now widely sold to millions of consumers. As economies grow in Asia, a dish once reserved for the elite is now available to the middle class, and is in huge demand among many communities in China and around the world, including across the United States. Although shark finning is illegal in the U.S., the sale and trade of fins is still allowed in most states and shark fins are imported and re-exported, contributing to shark finning and other illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing of sharks. The shark fin trade is increasing shark catch, placing more pressure on threatened species and driving overfishing of many shark species. >>>Urge Congress to pass HR 737 The Shark Fin Sales Elimination Act of 2019.
Rainforest Rescue: The Caribbean: the name conjures up images of pristine white beaches, deep blue water and breathtaking coral reefs. Yet a local government seems oblivious to the ecological treasure just off its coast: The Cayman Islands want to ramp up mass tourism by building a new port for mega cruise ships—on top of a reef. The project would destroy twelve hectares of coral and other seabed forever. The sand and other solids disturbed by the dredging work would turn crystal-clear waters into an opaque soup, choking stationary underwater life forms as the sediment settles on them. The coral reef that has grown and thrived for centuries as a highly biodiverse ecosystem would be replaced by concrete. >>>Urge the Cayman Islands government to protect the Caribbean marine environment from the cruise industry.
Cause for concern…
Ghost story: A loblolly pine forest lined with dead trees at the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center in Grasonville, Maryland, in 2011. Since the mid-1800s in the Chesapeake Bay area, over 150 square miles of trees have turned into “ghost forests.” These large stands of dead trees—appearing up and down the Mid-Atlantic and Gulf Coast shores—are what Matthew Kirwan, a professor at William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science, calls “the best indicator of climate change on the East Coast.” (Photo credit: Alicia Pimental/Chesapeake Bay Program/Flickr)
Dog days: June is National Pet Preparedness Month. As we head into the start of hurricane and tropical storm season, with an increased threat of tornadoes and extreme weather, pet guardians can protect their dogs, cats other domestic animals during emergencies by being prepared in case disaster strikes. (Photo credit: Sharon McCutcheon/Unsplash)
Lucky few: Nearly 30 dogs were moved from a live dog warehouse in Yulin, China, to veterinary care during a rescue jointly conducted by Humane Society International and China Animal Protection Power on June 12, 2016. Throughout many parts of Asia, stolen pets and street animals suffer terrible abuse for the dog and cat meat trade before being killed through horrific means, such as beating or hanging. Animal rights activists are imploring China—as the country with the largest dog and cat meat trade in the world—to show leadership by ending the annual “festival” in Yulin, as well as the outward display of animal cruelty and officially ban the dog and cat meat trade in the country. (Photo credit: Mai Zi/CAPP)
Humane Society International: Right now across China, pets are being stolen, roaming dogs—owned and unowned—are violently grabbed from the streets and slaughterhouses are filled with terrified dogs. This cruelty supplies the country’s dog meat markets and the annual dog meat “festival” happening this week in Yulin. But this is only the beginning of their suffering. The journey to Yulin is a ruthless and appalling one. Crammed on top of each other and transported in trucks for days without food or water, some won’t make it alive. For those who do, they’ll wait, frightened and helpless, until it’s their turn to be pulled by the neck with iron tongs and beaten to death for someone’s meal. >>>Urge Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang to end Yulin and the dog and cat meat trade once and for all.
Environmental Advocates of New York: New York is on the verge of passing the strongest climate legislation in the country. The Climate and Community Protection Act (CCPA) would rapidly transition the state’s economy off of fossil fuels, invest 40 percent of the state’s climate fund into low-income communities and communities of color, and set high wage standards to make green jobs. >>>New Yorkers, tell your legislators to pass the CCPA.
Cause for concern…
Killer tans: When you swim with sunscreen on, corals can absorb toxic chemicals like oxybenzone, which disrupts their reproduction and growth cycles, causing bleaching, which can kill entire coral colonies. Coral reefs, which contain Earth’s most diverse ecosystems, provide habitats and shelter for countless marine species, protect coastlines from storms and maintain healthy water quality, already face numerous threats, including ocean acidification, coastal development, pollution and over-harvesting for the coral trade. Thankfully, some sunscreens are “coral safe,” as they don’t contain oxybenzone. (Photo credit: chezbeate/Pixabay)
Supporting sodbusters: State lawmakers across the United States have introduced 39 soil health bills this year alone, with more than 250 such bills introduced in statehouses and Washington, D.C., over the past two legislative sessions. These lawmakers are listening to farmers and scientists who understand that regenerative farming practices like cover crops and rotational grazing help prevent soil erosion, lower toxic runoff intro waterways, support biodiversity, improve soil moisture and nutrient content and sequester carbon, while increasing profits. (Photo credit: Binyamin Mellish/Pexels)
Concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) often store animal waste in massive, open-air lagoons, like this one at Vanguard Farms in Chocowinity, North Carolina. Bacteria feeding on the animal waste turns the mixture a bright pink. (Photo credit: picstever/Flickr)
Factory farms are exempt from reporting requirements under the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. Now a new tool can provide solid evidence of the environmental harm they can cause.
By Tia Schwab, Independent Media Institute
It has been almost a year since Hurricane Florence slammed the Carolinas, dumping a record 30 inches of rainfall in some parts of the states. At least 52 people died, and property and economic losses reached $24 billion, with nearly $17 billion in North Carolina alone. Flood waters also killed an estimated 3.5 million chickens and 5,500 hogs.
A lesser-known impact of the devastating hurricane was revealed through satellite photos released after the storm. Excessive rainfall flooded concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in low-lying areas, carrying riverbed sediment and animal waste previously stored in open-air lagoons into nearby waterways and then into the Atlantic. The difference between the photos, taken just five months apart before and after the storm, is striking.
Before-and-after photos of the coastline near Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune on April 12, 2018 (top), and then on September 19, 2018 (above), after Hurricane Florence dumped near-record amounts of rainfall. The dark brown liquid spilling into the Atlantic captured in the September 19 image is a mix of rainwater, riverbed sediment and waste from those factory farms within the 100-year flood plain that were inundated with more than 20 inches of rain in the matter of a couple of days. (Photo credit: Landsat 8/NASA via Environmental Working Group)
Generally, CAFOs dispose of animal waste by spraying it as fertilizer and storing the excess in massive underground pits or open-air lagoons, where sulfur-eating bacteria often turn the mixture bright pink. Given that cropland can absorb only so much, a good deal of the waste ends up in groundwater, rivers, streams, and the ocean. In fact, agriculture is the leading cause of pollution in the nation’s rivers and lakes, according to the EPA, much of it emanating from large-scale factory farms.
Floods can have even more devastating consequences for water quality. The risk is particularly pressing for North Carolina, a state regularly smacked by hurricanes, because it houses more than 2,200 hog CAFOs and 3,900 poultry CAFOs, and produces up to 10 billion gallons of animal waste a year. These estimates come from the Environmental Working Group.
One problem is that they are just that –– estimates.
The truth is no one really knows how much factory farm waste is escaping into our environment because no federal agency collects consistent and reliable information on the number, size, and location of large-scale agricultural operations, nor the pollution they’re emitting. This means there is considerable variation on how thoroughly states track and monitor CAFOs. Without this information, no one can monitor and hold CAFOS accountable for mismanaged waste and related health and environmental damage.
Stanford Law Professor Daniel Ho and Ph.D. student Cassandra Handan-Nader are hoping to change that. In a paper published in Nature Sustainability in April, they show how a new algorithm can help put CAFOs on the map. Their research focused on hog and poultry operations. The latter can contribute as much nutrient runoff to watersheds as pig operations but are largely unpermitted in North Carolina and therefore much harder to detect.
The Clean Water Act requires permits for CAFOs that discharge pollutants directly into federally regulated waters. However, permits are not required for facilities that may discharge pollutants, say, if there was a break in the manure storage tank or a hurricane. An estimated 60 percent of CAFOs do not hold permits, reported the EPA in 2011, and so monitoring these facilities for unintentional pollution is nearly impossible.
Due to the lack of information about CAFOs and the failure of the government to provide oversight, several environmental and public interest groups have conducted their own studies of the issue. Several of these organizations have hired contractors to manually scan satellite images or physically identify facilities by plane or car. But this process is time- and resource-intensive. For North Carolina alone, contractors need about six weeks to manually scan satellite images on Google Maps, according to the Environmental Working Group.
Ho and Handan-Nader’s automated approach could accomplish the same task in less than two days.
The development is a welcome one in an industry notoriously lacking in transparency. Around 25 states have pushed for “ag-gag” laws, which criminalize undercover filming or photography at factory farms without the consent of the owner. Nine states have passed these laws, and legislation is pending in two additional states, Kansas and North Carolina. In Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming, ag-gag laws were later struck down in higher courts as a violation of free speech and equal protection.
Proponents of ag-gag laws argue that they protect the animal agriculture industry, and farm owners’ privacy. Critics say it gives factory farmers license to continue practices that are dirty, unsafe, and cruel. “This project helps mitigate a dangerous dearth of information about CAFOs,” says Katie Cantrell, executive director of the Factory Farming Awareness Coalition. “Because CAFOs are exempt from reporting requirements under the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, many communities across the United States are subjected to contaminated drinking water and dangerous levels of air pollutants, with little political recourse.”
The Public Health Menace No One Knows About
The health and environmental impact of CAFOs is indeed enormous. “CAFOs are large-scale facilities that house thousands if not tens of thousands of animals in very small spaces,” says Ho. “One CAFO can produce as much manure as a medium-size city in the United States”—with one critical difference: A medium-size city in the United States is required under the Clean Water Act to have a municipal wastewater treatment plant. CAFOs have no such treatment plant.
When animal manure escapes from CAFOs into nearby water sources, it can have devastating health consequences for people and ecosystems. Manure can contain nitrogen and phosphorus, pathogens such as E. coli, growth hormones, antibiotics, chemicals used as additives to the manure or to clean equipment, animal blood, and silage leachate from corn feed, reports the National Association of Local Boards of Health. Ammonia is also often found in surface waters surrounding CAFOs. When exposed to air, ammonium converts into nitrate, and elevated nitrate levels in drinking water have been connected to poor general health, birth defects, and miscarriages. For infants, it can mean blue baby syndrome and even death.
The New York Times recently exposed the devastating effects of nitrate contamination from animal manure in low-income farmworker communities in California’s Central Valley. The widespread application of chemical fertilizers and dairy cow manure has made the water unsafe for drinking, cooking, and even showering. Camille Pannu, the director of the Aoki Water Justice Clinic at the University of California, Davis, likens the situation to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan. “Flint is everywhere here.”
Tying Data Patterns to Factory Farms
To put factory farms on the map, the Stanford team figured out how to teach a computer algorithm to analyze data patterns. They got help from Google’s advances in image learning, the USDA’s National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP), and the Environmental Working Group and Waterkeeper Alliance.
The environmental groups supplied locations of CAFOs they had collected manually. The researchers matched those locations to NAIP satellite images, hand-validating the presence of CAFOs using these same processes. Once CAFOs were confirmed, the team combined this information with open-source image-recognition tools released by Google, which were already trained to identify different types of objects, buildings, people and animals in photos.
In receiving this information, the algorithm was retrained to identify CAFOs by looking for certain visual cues. “Swine farms were identifiable by compact rectangular barns abutted by large liquid manure pits, and poultry by long rectangular barns and dry manure storage,” note the researchers in their report. The algorithm could then be applied to unscanned locations to identify unseen CAFOs.
Handan-Nader explains this process as the retraining of an existing technology. “Instead of working with a baby, we got a toddler, who knows what an arm is, but maybe doesn’t know what an entire person looks like,” says Handan-Nader. In this case, the arm is a building, and an entire person is a CAFO.
To improve the tool’s accuracy, the team also fed the algorithm photos of stadium bleachers, airplane hangars, and mobile home parks, which only appear to match the CAFO visual cues. “Just as humans learn from being tricked, so does a computer,” says Handan-Nader.
There’s another way to look at the research effort, she added. They were “very unglamorously looking at poop for months and months.”
It paid off. Ho and Handan-Nader identified 15 percent more poultry farms than what was found through a manual census. The researchers estimated their algorithm could identify 95 percent of existing large-scale facilities using fewer than 10 percent of the resources required for a manual census.
“Dr. Ho’s work makes my job much easier,” says Soren Rundquist, the director of spatial analysis at the Environmental Working Group. “While humans will always need to validate and quality check computer-generated results, any innovation for locating CAFOs will make the process much more efficient. This is paramount when keeping up with an industry that can grow quickly, having an immediate impact on the environment and public health.”
Replacing Guesswork With Evidence
The tool works with conventional satellite imagery, but future iterations could be trained to identify new spectral signatures, like building materials, lagoons, or actual discharges into waterways. The tool could also help detect other forms of environmental degradation, like oil spills. Stephen Luby, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, is already using a similar technology to track brick kilns, a huge source of air pollution.
Katie Cantrell envisions using the tool to provide solid evidence of the harm done by factory farming. “This mapping project provides an invaluable resource for advocates at the local, state, and national level,” she says. “They can use it to document correlations between the location and density of CAFOs and socioeconomic data, health data such as asthma and mortality rates, and air and water pollution data, that can hopefully help drive better regulation and protection of front-line communities.” Adds EWG’s Rundquist, “The need for this utility is becoming more important as public information around these operations becomes more opaque and unavailable.”
In the meantime, Missouri voted last month to prevent counties from passing more stringent laws regulating CAFOs. Now, local standards for health and environmental protection cannot be tougher than those of the state. In doing so, Missouri joins seven other states this year who have considered strengthening protections for CAFOs, which raises the question: Who is strengthening protections for our environment and local communities?
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Tia Schwab is a news fellow for Stone Pier Press, a San Francisco-based environmental publishing company with a food focus. She recently graduated from Stanford University, where she studied human biology with a concentration in food systems and public health. She was born and raised in Austin, Texas, and she is passionate about using storytelling to create a healthy, just, and sustainable food system.
This article was produced as part of a partnership between Stone Pier Press and Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
White Coat Waste: Currently, federal government labs experiment on about 50,000 dogs, cats, primates, rabbits and other regulated animals each year (which excludes mice and rats). Virtually all of these animals will be killed—even if they’re healthy at the end of testing. But new legislation introduced by Reps. Brendan Boyle (D-PA) and Jackie Walorski (R-IN) would reduce the number of animals killed after government experiments. If passed, the Animal Freedom from Testing, Experimentation and Research (AFTER) Act (HR 2897)–—nicknamed Violet’s Law after the rescued ex-laboratory dog who inspired it—would require government labs to try to retire survivors to sanctuaries or adopt them out to loving homes. This would be a first in American history. >>>Urge Congress to pass the AFTER Act to save the lives of tens of thousands of retired laboratory animals.
World Wildlife Fund: Eight million metric tons of plastic end up in the world’s oceans every year. There are already an estimated 150 million metric tons of plastic in the oceans because this problem was ignored for decades. This has serious consequences for people’s well-being and livelihoods and causes injury and death to fish, sea turtles, whales, birds, coral reefs and other marine life. We urgently need a legally binding United Nations agreement to end marine plastic pollution by 2030. >>>Ask the world’s governments to take immediate action to end the plastic crisis before it’s too late.
Change.org: Poachers kill an elephant every 15 minutes on the African continent. Now, after five years of prohibition, the ban on elephant hunting in Botswana has been lifted, putting some 130,000 elephants—the largest elephant population on the continent—under threat. In 2017, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council, 74% of travel to Botswana was by tourists, generating $686.6 million and contributing to 26,000 jobs that year. A main reason tourists travel to Botswana is to see wildlife. If anti-poaching units are not restored, the number of wildlife will continue to dwindle—endangering the survival of species and negatively impacting the economy. >>>Urge President Mokgweetsi Masisi to restore the anti-poaching units to protect its elephant population—and its economy.
Compassion Over Killing: Sales of almond, soy, coconut and other plant-based milks are soaring, on track to reach $20 billion by 2020. Meanwhile, consumer demand for dairy is tanking as Americans become aware of just how cruel the dairy industry is to cows, how it has cheated consumers, and the havoc that dairy milk can wreak on our bodies. Big Dairy is desperate, and it’s turning to the FDA to help squash the rise of plant-based milks. In 2010, the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) urged the federal government to block the use of words like “milk” and “cheese” on the labels of dairy-free products. Six years later, that hasn’t worked, so the NMPF is back at it, this time by whipping up members of Congress to write to the Food and Drug Administration about how such labeling is “misleading and illegal.” Truly misleading, however, are current dairy product labels, which do not state what’s really inside: bovine mammary secretions, produced by cows and comprising just the right mix of proteins and hormones for their calves to grow hundreds of pounds in mere months. If it is in NMPF’s own interest in ensuring that labels “clearly identify the true nature of the food,” as noted in its 2010 petition, why not clearly identify dairy as “cow milk?” >>>Tell the NMPF to make it easier on shoppers to know the “true nature of the food” they’re buying by clearly labeling its products as “cow milk.”
Cause for concern…
Slippery slope: Today’s banana production has environmental and social costs that are not reflected in the prices consumes pay at the register. Those costs are “externalized onto smallholder farmers and the employees of banana plantations, as well as onto the land itself,” writes Joe Fassler of New Food Economy. (Photo credit: Gratisography/Pexels.com)
Back from the edge? Angalifu, a male northern white rhinoceros at San Diego Wild Animal Park, who died from age-related natural causes in 2014. There are only two known northern white rhinoceroses, both of which are female; unless there is an unknown male somewhere in Africa, this subspecies is functionally extinct. But for the first time, scientists have transformed cells from the northern white rhinoceros into stem cells that could help save this and other species from going the way of the dodo. (Photo credit: Sheep81/Wikipedia)
“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.” —E. O. Wilson
Our cousins need our help: Along with the common chimpanzee, the bonobo is the closest extant relative to humans. But they are endangered due to poaching for bushmeat and habitat destruction. “I fell in love with these amazing animals a few years ago when I narrated ‘The Bonobo Connection,’” writes actor and activist Ashley Judd. “It is a tragic irony that this peaceful species is only found in one of the most war-ravaged countries on Earth. Now that the Congo is rebuilding after years of conflict, groundbreaking efforts are underway to protect and study bonobos.” (Photo credit: Reflexiste/Flickr)
Ashley Judd and the Bonobo Conservation Initiative: Bonobos are the world’s least-recognized great ape, and humanity’s closest living relative. This endangered species lives exclusively in Africa’s Congo Basin, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Only an estimated 15,000 bonobos remain in the wild—poaching and habitat loss are pushing them to the brink of extinction. Bonobo societies are matriarchal, and unlike our other closest relatives, chimpanzees, are incredibly peaceful. Female-led groups of bonobos are highly empathic, and use affection rather than aggression to resolve conflict and to strengthen social bonds. >>>Urge the Democratic Republic of the Congo to protect our closest living relatives and their rainforest home.
Change.org: Chickens on factory farms are bred to grow so big, so fast, that they often collapse under their own weight. Many live in constant pain, and they are vulnerable to broken legs and heart attacks. These smart and social birds spend their entire lives in crowded, dimly-lit sheds without even a perch to rest on. Restaurants like Subway, Burger King, Sonic and many more have already committed to criteria that reduce the suffering of chickens. They are switching to healthier breeds and giving chickens more room to roam. If all of these other companies can do it, why can’t McDonald’s? >>>Urge McDonald’s to stop using chickens who are bred to suffer.
ASPCA: New York has one of the country’s highest number of dog retailers. At any given point, there are approximately 2,000 puppies for sale throughout the state. Pet shops often source their puppies from out-of-state, low-welfare, commercial breeding facilities (a.k.a. puppy mills), then offer them up to unsuspecting customers as healthy, high-quality puppies from responsible breeders. This practice is deceptive and leaves families to bear the costs associated with this cruel industry. New Yorkers have an opportunity to make a huge difference for pets this year by supporting a bill to prohibit the sale of dogs, cats and rabbits in pet stores across the state. >>>New Yorkers, tell your legislators to support A.6298/S.4234 to End Puppy Mill Cruelty in New York State.
Audubon California: In 2017, the Trump Administration reversed decades of government policy—by both Democratic and Republican administrations—to dramatically weaken the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The MBTA has been the foundation of protections for migratory birds in North America for more than a century, saving billions of birds. The federal government now says it will no longer prosecute unintentional killing—called incidental take—of birds from commercial and industrial activities, including massive avian crises caused by oil spills like Exxon-Valdez or Deepwater Horizon. California Assembly Bill 454, authored by Assembly Member Ash Kalra, will ensure California’s birds are protected. The oil industry’s main lobbying arm in Sacramento has declared its opposition, and is fighting hard to so that polluters and other industries can kill birds without any consequences. >>>Urge the California Assembly to vote yes on AB454.
Cause for concern…
Imperiled pups: Anti-vaxxers are choosing not to vaccinate their pets against harmful diseases, according to veterinarians. Now, the United Kingdom branch of the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) has issued a warning to pet owners who are endangering their cats and dogs lives by ignoring science and not getting them vaccinated. “There is real concern that we will see an increase in the frequency of these serious and preventable diseases, with resulting animal suffering, if the number of vaccinated animals falls,” RSPCA veterinary director Caroline Allen told The Sun. (Photo credit: Torsten Dettlaff/Pexels)
Smarter logging: A toucan rests in a tree in Guyana’s Iwokrama Rainforest. The small South American nation is pioneering an approach to protecting the trees that cover nearly its entire area. Armed with an inventory of its trees, the Guyana Forestry Commission makes scientific decisions about which ones can be harvested while maintaining overall ecosystem health. This sustainable approach has helped Guyana decrease its annual deforestation rate to 0.048%, one of the lowest rates across the continent. (Photo credit: M M/Wikimedia Commons)
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