The Climate Crisis: 5 Key Reads From Earth | Food | Life

This dramatic photograph captures Dawes Glacier in Tongass National Forest, Alaska, calving from its 200-foot-high face. The blue coloration is from highly compressed ice crystals. “The Arctic is warming at a rate twice as fast as the rest of the planet,” writes EFL reporter Lorraine Chow for Salon. “Not only that, frozen Arctic soil—or permafrost—is starting to melt, causing the release of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.” (Photo credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory/U.S. Department of Energy)

Through the work of its writing fellows, freelance reporters and expert guest contributors, Earth | Food | Life covers the climate crisis from multiple angles, including the impacts of climate change, the role of the government, the energy and agriculture sectors, and solutions. EFL reporter Lorraine Chow explores the worst-case climate scenarios if humanity allows the global temperature to rise above 1.5° Celsius. EFL writing fellow Lucy Goodchild van Hilten figures out how to talk to kids about climate change—without freaking them out, and while having fun, too. Rainforest Action Network executive director and EFL contributor Lindsey Allen calls out big banks for going against their own standards in simultaneously undermining the climate and Indigenous rights. EFL reporter Daniel Ross explores how carbon capture, a climate solution that has been flying under the radar, can be a key piece in the fight against climate change. Scroll down for excerpts.…

Lorraine Chow on Salon: Today, around 30 percent of the global population suffers deadly levels of heat and humidity for at least 20 days a year. If emissions continue increasing at current rates, 74 percent of the global population—three in four people—will experience more than 20 days of lethal heat waves. (11 min read)

Lucy Goodchild van Hilten on Yes! Magazine: No matter how many times world leaders sit at a table to fix the climate problem, we can’t seem to get anywhere. The grown-ups are failing, and it’s the kids who are holding us to account. Around the world, children are taking action—they’re going on strike from school, calling on governments to do something, and filing lawsuits. They are willing to be bold in the face of indifference, and to shout louder than today’s failing leaders. We need to listen. And we need to hold their hands and do something, together. As grown-ups—parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, teachers, doctors, and friends—we can help by talking to kids about climate change and empowering them to be a part of the solution. (9 min read)

Lindsey Allen on Truthout: JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Crédit Agricole and 91 other global banks met in Washington, DC, to revise the Equator Principles, industry-led due diligence standards meant to prevent banks from supporting environmentally and socially harmful projects. On the very same day, in a bitter irony, many of those same banks re-upped their support for Enbridge, the Canadian company behind the Line 3 tar sands pipeline, which tramples Indigenous rights and is flatly incompatible with the goals of the Paris climate agreement. (4 min read)

Daniel Ross on Truthout: Time for action to stem the worst effects of climate change is quickly running out. If we’re to stay below or within range of that 1.5°C threshold, global carbon emissions must decrease by about 45 percent from 2010 levels by 2030, and we must reach zero carbon output around 2050. Energy sector carbon emissions, however, are still growing, not shrinking. What’s more, it won’t be enough to simply slash carbon emissions to zero. As the latest IPCC report points out, we’ll also need to suck up to 1 trillion metric tons of carbon from the biosphere over the 21st century. (9 min read)

Robert Engelman on Salon: Reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine add to the already strong case that those concerned not just about climate change but also biodiversity and indeed our capacity to sustainably feed future human populations should be thinking a bit more about world population. Happily, that future can be addressed constructively with strategies that already make sense for other reasons and support the childbearing intentions of women and their partners worldwide. (4 min read)

Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and animal/nature rights, and champions action; specifically, how responsible citizens, voters and consumers can help put society on an ethical path of sustainability that respects the rights of all species who call this planet home. EFL emphasizes the idea that everything is connected, so every decision matters.

Click here to support the work of EFL and the Independent Media Institute.

Questions, comments, suggestions, submissions? Contact EFL editor Reynard Loki at [email protected]. Follow EFL on Twitter @EarthFoodLife.

Take Action Tuesday: Speak Up for Clean Water, the Arctic, Wolves, Dogs and Pigs

Hiding from hunters: A gray wolf pup at the entrance to his den. Bowing to the interests of the livestock industry, Washington state officials have allowed the misguided and cruel killing of wolves, including wolf pups and endangered wolves. Activists have been putting pressure on state lawmakers to end this inhumane practice that threatens natural ecosystems. (Photo credit: Hillary Cooley/U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service via Flickr)

 

 

Center for Biological Diversity: Washington state is going on a killing-spree of endangered wolves, and it must be stopped. Last year, over Labor Day weekend, a helicopter sniper gunned down the sole adult male wolf of the Togo pack. He was the devoted father to two pups seen in this video. In a sick twist, the state admitted that killing him could force the remaining adult female to hunt livestock to feed the pups. In effect, the state has set her up to have conflicts with livestock, knowing they could kill her and the two pups next. Just weeks later, a sniper in a helicopter shot and killed a five-month-old wolf pup from the Old Profanity Territory pack. These wolves are living in the exact territory where the state slaughtered seven wolves from the Profanity Peak pack in 2016—leaving just one female to fend for herself with three pups. The state has killed 16 state-endangered wolves from four different packs, all at the bidding of a single cattle business. Another three were killed for other livestock operations. It’s a bloody legacy that can’t continue.
>>>Urge Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Director Kelly Susewind to stop killing endangered wolves just to line the pockets of a handful of cattle businesses.

Change: Those who want to protect the last slice of untouched nature in the U.S. from oil exploitation are running out of time. The Arctic Slope Regional Corporation is aggressively lobbying to open the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) to oil drilling—and they just might get their way. There is still time for those who want to protect the land and animals of ANWR to make their voices heard. Sign and share this petition before March 13th—when the time for public input comes to an end.
>>>Tell the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation to get out of ANWR.

League of Conservation Voters: The Trump administration is attacking the nation’s most essential clean water safeguards. By stripping bedrock protections for streams and wetlands, the EPA’s plan exposes drinking water sources to toxic pollution from oil and gas drilling, development and other sources. The agency is now accepting public comments, and it’s critical that voters show strong opposition now.
>>>Tell Trump’s EPA that you oppose their “Dirty Water” Rule.

Care2: Pigs are some of the most intelligent and sensitive animals on Earth. They even have the intelligence of a three-year-old human. Yet, they are treated like objects to be tortured, slaughtered and consumed as food. Thirty-eight states in the U.S. still allow farmers to keep sows used for breeding in cages called gestation crates. These crates are so tiny the pigs can’t even turn around. Then they are repeatedly, forcibly impregnated and made to give birth. It’s cruel and it must end.
>>>Urge the 38 states without laws against gestation crates to pass them.

PETA: According to documents obtained by PETA and disturbing reports from a whistleblower, the Louisiana State University (LSU) School of Veterinary Medicine has, for years, purchased dogs from a local animal shelter for use in deadly training laboratories. Worse yet, it appears that the shelter was knowingly cooperating with this deadly practice, marking the dogs it supplied to LSU as “releases” in its records and advertising that at least some of the dogs had been “adopted,” perhaps as part of a deceptive scheme to manipulate its shelter statistics.
>>>Urge LSU to end its practice of purchasing dogs from shelters for use in deadly training exercises.

This is not good…

Dangerous decibels: A humpback whale breaching Alaskan waters. Increasing human activity in the world’s oceans, including ship traffic and offshore energy exploration, which uses sonar and seismic air gun blasts, spells serious trouble and even death for a wide range of marine species up and down the food chain, from whales and dolphins to fish, squid, octopuses and plankton. (Photo credit: Navin75/Flickr)

Round of applause…

Beau soleil: A solar field in Vallée du Rhône, France. France is one of 18 nations—17 European countries and the U.S.—that have successfully decreased emissions from fossil fuels, mainly through energy efficiency and lowered demand. (Photo credit: Jeanne Menjoulet/Flickr)

Parting thought…

“I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look upon the murder of men.” —Leonardo da Vinci

Take Action Tuesday: Speak Up Against Dirty Energy, Shark-Finning, Seal Slaughter and Factory Farming

Make the switch: Climate activists pose with a symbolic anti-coal installation in Johannesburg’s Gandhi Square to call on the South African government to end coal power and switch on renewable energy instead. July 1, 2013. (Photo credit: Greenpeace Africa/Flickr)

 

 

350Africa: Banks are walking away from funding South Africa’s coal industry, including Nedbank and FirstRand Group, both of which pulled funding for Thabametsi, a proposed 630-megawatt coal-fired power station in Limpopo province. The impacts of climate change are being felt in South Africa today more than ever, and developing another power plant in a water-stressed region stands to threaten local communities. In order to avoid catastrophic climate change, no new coal infrastructure should be built.
>>>Urge the Development Bank of Southern Africa to publicly commit to not fund the Thabametsi coal-fired power plant and invest in renewable clean energy instead.

Compassion Over Killing: The Trump administration is letting slaughter plants kill at increasingly dangerous rates, going from a staggering 140 birds killed per minute (or more than two birds every single second) to 175. This misguided decision benefits only the meat industry at the expense of animals, workers and consumers.
>>>Tell the USDA to end the horror of high-speed slaughter.

PETA: In a matter of weeks, the largest annual slaughter of marine mammals on Earth begins in Canada. Many of the seals killed won’t have eaten their first solid meal or learned how to swim—yet they’ll be shot or viciously clubbed as their mothers watch in despair. Sometimes, it takes more than one blow to the head for a seal to die. And often, they’re left to die slowly and painfully on the ice. This cruelty continues, even though all major markets have banned seal-fur imports, including the U.S., the EU and Russia. Even though most Canadians also oppose the annual slaughter, their tax dollars are the only thing propping up this inhumane and unnecessary industry.
>>>Urge Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to end his nation’s cruel seal slaughter.

Care2: The process of shark finning is a cruel and wasteful practice. Fishermen cut the fins off while the shark is still alive, then throw the helpless animal in agonizing pain back into the ocean to drown, bleed to death or be eaten alive by another animal. This happens to more than 70 million sharks every single year, including sharks at risk of going extinct. The Canadian House of Commons is currently considering a bill which would ban the import and export of shark fins.
>>>Urge the Canadian government to end Canada’s cruel shark fin trade.

Last Chance for Animals: Rodeos and rodeo-type activities, such as bull riding, are exhibitions of animal cruelty that are sanctioned in the guise of competition. Due to events like bull riding, wrestling, calf roping and steer tailing, calves, steers, bulls, horses and other animals suffer horrific psychological and physical traumas, including broken limbs, cardiac arrest, punctured lungs, torn ligaments, ruptured organs, broken necks, crushed tracheas and more. While Los Angeles has become a national animal rights leader, cruel rodeos are still permitted there.
>>>Urge the Los Angeles City Council to prohibit the staging of rodeos and rodeo-type activities.

This is not good…

Under siege: Elephants Without Borders conducted a four-yearly survey with the Botswanan government and said there was a six-fold increase in the number of fresh or recent elephant carcasses in the northern part of the country amid obvious signs of poaching. Nearly 130 dead elephants were found in one poaching hotspot alone. Botswana is home to 130,000 elephants—a third of the total number in Africa, a continent where approximately 100 elephants are killed each day primarily to supply the demand for ivory and ineffective traditional Chinese “medicine.” (Photo credit: Brian Ralphs/Flickr)

Round of applause…

Honey, I’m home: Scientists are attempting to reintroduce seven South American species—jaguars, pampas deer, giant anteaters, macaws, peccaries and tapirs (pictured)—to the Iberá project, a wetland reserve in northern Argentina. Such rewilding projects are meant to reverse the ecological damage done when humans remove apex predators, usually through overhunting or habitat destruction. (Photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar/Flickr)

Parting thought…

“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.” —Ansel Adams

Take Action Tuesday: Speak Up for Antarctic Wildlife, Welsh Biodiversity and Yellowstone Bears

A little help, please: Adélie penguin feeding a chick. Adélie penguins have survived in Antarctica for almost 45,000 years, by human factors like commercial fishing and climate change could decimate them in just a century. The creation of a network of marine protected areas and reserves would go a long way to protecting their habitat. (Photo credit: Jerzy Strzelecki/Wikipedia)

 

 

Pew Charitable Trusts: In October 2016, the 25 member governments that make up the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) agreed by consensus to designate the world’s largest marine protected area in Antarctica’s Ross Sea. Commercial fishing is banned throughout an area that covers more than 2 million square kilometers, including the Ross Ice Shelf. The commission now has the opportunity to establish a network of marine protected areas and reserves throughout the Southern Ocean by 2020, which would protect critical penguin habitat.
>>>Urge the CCAMLR to designate MPAs in the Weddell Sea and in the waters off East Antarctica.

Care2: Wetlands are vital ecosystems on which many species depend for their survival. That’s why it’s so tragic that the Welsh government is on the brink of approving a project that just might destroy one of their most important wetland areas—the Gwent Levels. £1 billion has been invested in a 14-mile stretch of motorway that will cut across this precious area near Cardiff. If the project is approved, four sites of scientific interest will be affected during its construction and long after the motorway is built. Otters, water voles and countless species of insect and birds, including rare cranes, use the wetlands as a safe haven to breed, raise their young rest during migration.
>>>Urge the Welsh Assembly protect this rare biodiversity hotspot and to deny the motorway proposal.

Change: Bili the bonobo was born in England in 2008. His mother did not accept him, so he came to Frankfurt at the age of 3 months. Contrary to the claims of the Wuppertal Zoo, he was very well integrated into his group there before he was shipped to Wuppertal as a new breeding male. In the following weeks, they tried to integrate him into the group, but failed. The bonobo group began to attack Bili violently, resulting in him losing an ear, and left him severely traumatized in the bonobo concrete bunker. Now the zoo is planning to euthanize Bili.
>>>Urge the Wuppertal Zoo to immediately transfer Bili to the Ape Monkey Rescue Sanctuary in Wales.

PETA: While Yellowstone National Park is home to large populations of wild bears, Yellowstone Bear World breeds bears, holds them captive and forces the cubs to take part in cruel public encounters. Wild bear cubs naturally play, explore, and socialize with one another and their mothers for several years. But at Yellowstone Bear World, they’re taken away from their mothers prematurely, forced into close proximity with humans—who they would naturally shun—and are exploited for bottle-feeding encounters with the public as well as carted to crowded events to be used as props for tourists’ photos.
>>>Urge Yellowstone Bear World to stop using bear cubs as tourist photo props.

This is not good…

Mother’s milk: The natural lifespan of a cow is 20 years. But mother cows trapped in the dairy industry are confined in inhumane conditions, forcibly inseminated so that they are regularly pregnant and lactating, and forced to experience the emotional anguish of having their calves taken away from them. Around a third of the 9.3 million dairy cows in the U.S. are slaughtered each year for their meat, along with 500,000 of their male calves, making the dairy industry directly connected to the meat industry—something that many people, including ethical vegetarians who consume dairy, don’t realize. (Photo credit: Oregon Department of Agriculture/Flickr)

Round of applause…

The company she keeps: Ariana Grande performing in 2014. “I love animals more than I love most people, not kidding,” the singer said in an interview with The Mirror, explaining why she switched to a vegan diet in 2013. “I was raised on meat and cheese, so I’ve had enough for anyone’s normal lifespan.” (photo credit: Lindsay Neilson/Flickr)

Parting thought…

“We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it.” —Albert Schweitzer

Take Action Tuesday: Speak Up for Child Workers, Bumblebees, Kangaroos and Orcas

Bitter fruit: A child worker opens a cacao seed pod. Surrounded by sweet white pulp are the bitter cocoa beans used to make chocolate. There are an estimated 2 million children working in the cocoa sector in West Africa, according to a 2014 report from Tulane University. (Photo: U.S. Department of Labor)

 

 

Rainforest Rescue: Chocolate has a dark side: Millions of children are forced to work on plantations, with little hope of pulling themselves out of poverty. In many places, the expanding plantations are eating their way into protected rainforest areas. As Germany is the largest cocoa market in the European Union, regulation with teeth can only be realized if the German government is on board. The German cabinet, however, disagrees over how to deal with the issues of deforestation and child labor. While the Development Ministry is in favor of a proactive approach, the Agriculture Ministry is digging its heels in.
>>>Urge German Federal Minister of Food and Agriculture Julia Klöckner to promote cocoa sector regulations that help prevent child labor, human rights violations and deforestation.

Humane Society of the United States: The Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture (PACT) Act will make it a federal crime to commit malicious cruelty to an animal on federal property or in interstate commerce. Federal law already prohibits animal fighting, as well as the creation and trade in obscene video depictions of animals being crushed, burned, drowned, suffocated, impaled or subjected to other forms of egregious cruelty—but the underlying cruelty itself is not banned. The PACT Act will create a federal anti-cruelty statute that complements the cruelty laws in the 50 states.
>>>Urge your representative to co-sponsor H.R. 724, the Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act.

NRDC: The rusty patched bumblebee’s population has plummeted in recent decades due to habitat loss, pesticide use, climate change and other threats—leading to its official endangered species listing in 2017. But more than a year later, the U.S. Department of the Interior has failed to set aside protected habitat for the bee—violating the Endangered Species Act.
>>>Tell the Interior Department to follow through on bee protections.

Total Liberation International: Despite being Australia’s national symbol, millions of kangaroos are slaughtered—the largest land-based killing of wild animals in the world. In 2018 alone, nearly 7 million kangaroos will be killed. Many of these kangaroos end up as pet food sold on Chewy.com, a leading online retailer of pet food and supplies. This is an Australian government-sanctioned bloodbath and Chewy is complicit. It is a mass-scale profit-driven slaughter of kangaroos for their meat, leather and pelts. Adult kangaroos are shot. Hundreds of thousands of joeys (baby kangaroos) are clubbed, shot or decapitated after their mothers are killed. And, larger young but non-pouched orphaned kangaroos are left to die. Like the African elephant, kangaroos could be eliminated completely due to slaughter on a massive scale.
>>>Urge Chewy to stop supporting the slaughter and stop selling kangaroo meat.

Southern Resident Killer Whale Chinook Salmon Initiative: The 75 remaining wild critically endangered salmon-eating southern resident orcas off the coast of Washington state are dying from starvation, leaving an effective breeding population of less than 30—near the point of no recovery. More than 50 percent of their diet comes from salmon in the Columbia Basin, half of which are from the Snake River System. The orcas can be saved if they can access this salmon, which can be done only if the state government breaches the Lower Snake River Dams.
>>>Urge Senator Patty Murray and Governor Jay Inslee to direct the Army Corps’ General Helmlinger and Bonneville Power Administration’s Elliot Mainzer to begin breaching dams in 2019.

 

This is not good…

 

Round of applause…

Call of the wild: On January 28, a California state court judge upheld protection for gray wolves under the state’s Endangered Species Act. The ruling rejected a challenge from the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of the California Cattlemen’s Association and California Farm Bureau Federation, two trade associations supporting beef producers. “Wolves are not yet close to recovered in California, said Joseph Vaile, executive director of Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center. At a time when the Trump administration is hostile to endangered species conservation, it is critically important that the state of California help recover wildlife like the iconic gray wolf.” (Photo credit: Retron/Wikimedia Commons)

Parting thought…

“The butterfly flitting from flower to flower ever remains mine. I lose the one that is netted by me.” —Rabindranath Tagore

Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and animal/nature rights, and champions action; specifically, how responsible citizens, voters and consumers can help put society on an ethical path of sustainability that respects the rights of all species who call this planet home. EFL emphasizes the idea that everything is connected, so every decision matters.

Click here to support the work of EFL and the Independent Media Institute.

Questions, comments, suggestions, submissions? Contact EFL editor Reynard Loki at [email protected]. Follow EFL on Twitter @EarthFoodLife.

Take Action Tuesday: Speak Up for Monkeys, Dogs and Dolphins—and Against a Fracked Gas Pipeline

Fracking fracas: Williams Transco has proposed a new 23.4-mile, 26-inch diameter pipeline in New York to expand its existing Williams fracked gas transmission system. The pipeline will originate in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, travel across New Jersey and ending in the Rockaway Peninsula in New York City. Opponents cite threats to air quality, water quality, marine animals and natural ecosystems—and “dire impacts from the further burning of fossil fuels.” More than 11,000 Americans have signed a petition to block the project. (Image: Action Network)

 

 

350.org: Earlier this month, Governor Andrew Cuomo delivered his annual State of the State address, where he committed to a Green New Deal for New York, including a $1.5 billion investment in wind power, directives for state agencies to study fossil fuel divestment, and a new goal of 100 percent clean power by 2040. But he didn’t say anything about stopping fracked gas infrastructure projects—and there’s no such thing as a “Green New Deal” that includes pipelines. Unless Cuomo takes action, the Williams fracked gas pipeline could be built right in New York Harbor.
>>>Urge Governor Cuomo to block the permits for the Williams pipeline.

Citizens for Alternatives to Animal Research and Experimentation: In a laboratory at John Hopkins University, a group of monkeys spend their lives as research subjects for brain experiments. Two of these monkeys—Aragorn and Isildur—were recently used in experiments to investigate which region of the brain is involved in human gambling. Aragorn has been confined and used in these types of experiments for nearly 10 years. This madness has consumed $2.5 million in federal dollars since 2015, supposedly informing scientists about the human brain’s involvement in human gambling behavior. These twisted and unnatural experiments are not simply callous, they are also totally unnecessary. Using methods that enable non-invasive brain monitoring, neuroscientists can directly study blood flow and electrical activity in the human brain as willing participants carry out tasks with computers or simulated casino games, including people with actual gambling disorders.
>>>Urge the National Institutes of Health and Johns Hopkins University to put an end to these cruel experiments and immediately release the monkeys to a sanctuary.

Born Free: Dolphins are self-aware and wide-roaming, and they have complex social and emotional lives. How would anyone still consider it acceptable to confine them in tanks for entertainment? Sadly, the Tropicarium aquarium in Budapest, Hungary, is proposing to do just that—despite a ban on the imports of dolphins into the country. To date, the aquarium has not applied for an exception to allow the import of dolphins, but plans have been published in the media.
>>>Urge the Hungarian Minister of Agriculture to uphold Hungary’s ban on dolphin imports.

Care2: As Spain’s hunting season comes to an end, so do the lives of the dogs who were used to help hunters track and kill game. The worst part? This Spanish tradition of executing these dogs is performed by the animals’ owners. During the annual hunting season in parts of rural Spain, each hunter purchases around 10 to 70 Spanish greyhounds, called galgos. Dogs who don’t perform during the season are abandoned and left to starve to death, thrown down wells, shot or, more traditionally, hung. An estimated 100,000 galgos are killed each year by their owners. The root of this rampant killing is the fact that hare coursing—the cruel sport of using galgos to hunt down live rabbits—is still legal in Spain.
>>>Urge the Spanish government to end the ritual killing of hunting dogs by banning the cruel “sport” of hare coursing.

V.I. Dolphin Voices: Dolphins will be held captive for financial gain and entertainment at a new dolphin enclosure built by Coral World Ocean Park located within Water Bay, St. Thomas, a body of water that has been deemed as unsafe for swimming and fishing by the Virgin Islands government. It is cruel and unhealthy for dolphins to be confined and permanently housed—especially in a body of water that is so frequently polluted by pathogens.
>>>Urge Carnival Cruise Lines to not market and/or sell cruise ship excursions to the future dolphin enclosure at Coral World Ocean Park in St. Thomas.

Parting thought…

“Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.” —Mark Twain

Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and animal/nature rights, and champions action; specifically, how responsible citizens, voters and consumers can help put society on an ethical path of sustainability that respects the rights of all species who call this planet home. EFL emphasizes the idea that everything is connected, so every decision matters.

Click here to support the work of EFL and the Independent Media Institute.

Questions, comments, suggestions, submissions? Contact EFL editor Reynard Loki at [email protected]. Follow EFL on Twitter @EarthFoodLife.

Take Action Tuesday: Speak Up for Whales, Dolphins, Giraffes and Public Lands

Free no more: Beluga whales at the Georgia Aquarium. Activists are calling for the release of over 100 whales—orcas and belugas—who are being held captive in tiny enclosures in the Russian port city of Nakhodka. (Photo credit: Diliff/Wikipedia)

 

 

Change.org: More than 100 whales—orcas and belugas—are being held in tiny enclosures on Russia’s Pacific Coast in the city of Nakhodka. This is the largest number of marine animals ever to be held captive in such small temporary spaces. Some of them have been there since July 2018. Marine mammal experts claim that the animals will be sold to Chinese aquariums and are concerned that they will die if they are kept in these stressful conditions much longer.
>>>Urge the Minister of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation Dmitry Kobylkin to immediately transfer these whales to a responsible party to be rehabilitated and released back to their natural habitat.

 

Pew Charitable Trusts: America’s public lands help define us as a nation. They are precious and prized—as sources of clean air and water; as wildlife habitat; as quiet havens of solitude. The public lands package being considered in Congress would preserve cool mountain streams, desert canyons and rivers, granite peaks, and other special places to the National Wilderness Preservation System.
>>>Urge your senators and representative to ask their leadership to protect wilderness and uphold bedrock environmental protections.

 

Care2: “Bama Bayou” is a proposed $300 million dollar project that will transform the small town of Orange Beach, Alabama into the next big summer destination. If approved, it will include tanks, pools and holding facilities where captive dolphins will live their entire lives and be forced to perform. Dolphins who live in the wild can live up to 50 years, but in captivity, a 25-year lifespan is considered long. These intelligent, emotional animals deserve to be in the wild.
>>>Tell the Orange Beach City Council that the bayou would be better without dolphin cruelty.

 

African Wildlife Foundation: About 40 percent of Africa’s giraffe population has been decimated in the last 30 years. Poachers are targeting the species for its body parts and skin—and a recent AWF study found that giraffe meat is being passed off as beef or goat in butcher shops. This heartbreaking development worsens the effects of habitat loss and human encroachment, which have been wreaking havoc on giraffe populations for decades.
>>>Tell the Kenya Wildlife Service that you support a recovery and action plan to save the giraffe.

 

Paws 4 a Cause NZ: In the quiet of New Zealand forests, hidden from public view, tens of thousands of animals are dying. Screaming. Squealing. Writhing. Convulsing. Fluttering. Suffering. These animals have been poisoned by helicopter drops of lethal 1080 (sodium fluoroacetate) poison baits. These poison baits are dropped by New Zealand government to target rats, stoats and possums. But the poisons are indiscriminate, and can cruelly kill any animals who ingest baits or a poisoned carcass.
>>>Urge New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to ban 1080 poison.

 

Parting thought…

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” —Martin Luther King Jr.

Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and animal/nature rights, and champions action; specifically, how responsible citizens, voters and consumers can help put society on an ethical path of sustainability that respects the rights of all species who call this planet home. EFL emphasizes the idea that everything is connected, so every decision matters.

Click here to support the work of EFL and the Independent Media Institute.

Questions, comments, suggestions, submissions? Contact EFL editor Reynard Loki at [email protected]. Follow EFL on Twitter @EarthFoodLife.

Ecuador Drilling Plans in Yasuní National Park Threaten Indigenous People

Paradise lost: Ecuador’s Yasuní national park, one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, was “once a beacon of hope for global conservation,” writes Jonathan Watts, global environment editor for The Guardian. But the lure of oil has marred that view—and a sensitive ecosystem. (Photo credit: Buster&Bubby/Flickr)

Amazon Watch: Ecuador’s president recently named Marcelo Mata Guerrero to lead the country’s environmental agency. A career oil executive, he is expected to grant an environmental license for new oil drilling deep inside Yasuní National Park—widely regarded as one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet. The project would allow multiple drilling platforms, 200+ wells, pipelines and access roads, and it would threaten the very existence of the Tagaeri-Taromenane indigenous people living there in voluntary isolation.
>>>Urge Minister Mata to protect Yasuní from oil drilling.

Katherine Sacks, FoodPrint: Are you resolving to live in a more eco-conscious way in the new year? Here’s a list of resolutions you can commit to in 2019 to lower your “foodprint.” You could start out small and pick just one. Or pick one for just a month. Or try one once a week. Or, if you are a champion (or a superhero), you could try all seven at once.
>>>7 New Year’s resolutions for a more sustainable 2019.

Caroline Cox, Center for Environmental Health: Glyphosate has been found in over 70 percent of oat-based breakfast cereals served in U.S. schools. Exposing children, with their developing bodies, to a chemical that can cause cancer and hormone dysfunction is wrong. It’s especially wrong for children simply eating breakfast at school, who often are from low-income families.
>>>Tell the CEO of General Mills to get rid of glyphosate in Cheerios and other cereal products by switching to organic oats.

Asha & Jia Kirkpatrick (aged 11 & 8), Leighton Buzzard, UK: Sisters Asha and Jia love orangutans. They are big fans of Orangutan Jungle School on BBC Channel 4. “We were really upset when they saw that the orangutans are being killed and orphaned as their jungle homes are destroyed by companies that want cheap palm oil,” they write in their petition. “We want it to stop now.”
>>>Join Asha and Jia in urging Kellogg’s to stop using these suppliers immediately and to tell the public exactly which palm oil companies they buy from.

Care2: Animals like elephants, rhinos and lions—despite their vulnerable or endangered status—are legally hunted in South Africa. Trophy hunters argue that their activities and the money they pay to take big African game actually creates an incentive for locals to protect these vulnerable species. But according to research by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, trophy hunting has negative impacts on wild populations, and legal hunting and poaching are closely linked.
>>>Urge the South African government to ban trophy hunting.

Alexa Frandina-Brown, PETA: After activists pointed out that more than 150 dogs have died during the Iditarod’s history and that off-season tours keep mushers’ kennels in business, Merit Travel Group—which operates CruiseExperts Travel and AlaskaShoreExperts.com—dropped dogsledding excursions. It’s time for Discover Holidays to join the competition by ending its sale of these activities.
>>>Urge Discover Holidays to remove all dogsledding excursions and replace them with activities that showcase Alaska’s beauty and culture without promoting cruelty.

Parting thought…

“There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.” —Marshall McLuhan

Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and animal/nature rights, and champions action; specifically, how responsible citizens, voters and consumers can help put society on an ethical path of sustainability that respects the rights of all species who call this planet home. EFL emphasizes the idea that everything is connected, so every decision matters.

Click here to support the work of EFL and the Independent Media Institute.

Questions, comments, suggestions, submissions? Contact EFL editor Reynard Loki at [email protected]. Follow EFL on Twitter @EarthFoodLife.

Take Action Tuesday: Speak Up for Kittens, Chickens, the Climate and an Eco-Friendly Christmas

Unconscionable: Even though 75 percent of Americans want to end taxpayer-funded experiments on cats, the USDA continues to conduct deadly and wasteful experiments on kittens.

 

 

White Coat Waste: U.S. taxpayers are funding a USDA laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland, that breeds up to 100 kittens a year for wasteful experiments, feeding the two-month-old kittens parasite-infected raw meat, collecting their feces for three weeks, and then killing and incinerating them—even though they’re healthy and adoptable. The USDA is being sued for hiding details about the experiments from taxpayers and Congress.
>>>Urge your Representative to co-sponsor the KITTEN Act (HR 5780) to de-fund these horrific experiments (via phone or online webform).

Compassion in World Farming: The chicken on the McDonald’s menu comes from factory farms, where the birds are bred to grow so big, so fast, they can’t even support their own weight. Their unnaturally large chests can cause the birds to suffer from chronic pain, leg deformities, and heart attacks. Despite the fact that other big names like Subway, Burger King and Sonic have already committed to treat chickens better, McDonald’s is lagging behind.
>>>Urge McDonald’s to commit to better animal welfare standards for chickens in their supply chain.

Prairie Protection Colorado: In October, the Denver Board of Water Commissioners began killing prairie dogs on a small plot of land off Quebec Avenue that they own in Denver, Colorado, for what they claimed were “neighbor complaints.” This colony is not harming anyone and is located in one of the only prairie communities left in this area. No developments are planned to occur here and Denver Water is killing only to get rid of what they see as a “pest.”
>>>Tell the Denver Board of Water Commissioners to stop killing prairie dogs.

350.org: The world’s leading climate scientists have warned there are only 12 years left to keep global warming to a maximum of 1.5C, and just two years to stop fossil fuel expansion for good. Even half a degree more will significantly worsen the risks of drought, floods, extreme heat and poverty that hundreds of millions of people are already feeling.
>>>Tell world leaders to protect the climate by banning fossil fuel development.

PETA Australia: Last week, the Australian government released draft advice for a new heat-stress test for measuring animal-welfare standards on board ships that take live sheep to the Middle East, where animals endure abuse and methods of slaughter that would be illegal in Australia. The draft advice recommends that these ships be allowed to reach no higher than a wet-bulb temperature of 28°C. Since air temperatures reach over 45°C in the Middle East during the summer, such rules could prevent the industry from shipping live sheep for much of the year—and may make it no longer financially viable ever to send animals on these terrible voyages of despair.
>>>Urge Prime Minister Scott Morrison and federal Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources David Littleproud to adopt rules prohibiting ships exporting live animals from traveling during the hottest months of the year.

Marisa Pettit, RESET: Want your Christmas to be green, not white, this year? And celebrate the festive season with glow in your heart and a squeaky clean conscience? From ethical gifts to sustainable decoration and fair trade food, we show you how.
>>>Get 6 tips for an eco-friendly Christmas.

Parting thought…

“The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?” —Jeremy Bentham

Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and animal/nature rights, and champions action; specifically, how responsible citizens, voters and consumers can help put society on an ethical path of sustainability that respects the rights of all species who call this planet home. EFL emphasizes the idea that everything is connected, so every decision matters.

Click here to support the work of EFL and the Independent Media Institute.

Questions, comments, suggestions, submissions? Contact EFL editor Reynard Loki at [email protected]. Follow EFL on Twitter @EarthFoodLife.

Take Action Tuesday: Speak up for Children, Communities of Color, Rainforests and Gray Wolves

Food for thought: One in five children live in poverty, and they rely on school lunches to meet some or all of their nutritional needs. (Photo credit: National Institutes of Health)

S.E. Smith, Truthout: More than 12 million children in the U.S. experience food insecurity — and that doesn’t just mean they don’t always know when their next meal is. The backpack program, which is often administered through a food bank that partners with a school, is just one tactic being used by advocacy groups and schools to combat hunger and poverty.
>>>Fight child hunger this winter by supporting a backpack program.

Rainforest Rescue: Policymakers and industries in more than 20 countries have signed on to a “Biofuture Platform” that would use biofuels, bioplastics and biomaterials as an alternative to fossil fuels. The consequences for land, food production, ecosystems and human rights would be dire.
>>>Urge governments to reject the misguided Biofuture Platform and embrace real solutions such as reducing consumption, protecting ecosystems and promoting agroecology instead.

Ju-Hyun Park, 350.org: In 2014, after years of grassroots organizing, Governor Andrew Cuomo bowed to public pressure and banned fracking in the state of New York. But that hasn’t stopped the progress of a massive new fracked gas infrastructure project — the Williams Northeast Supply Enhancement Pipeline, which would stretch along the floor of New York Harbor for 23 miles, passing by Staten Island, Coney Island, just 4 miles south of the Rockaways. There’s no new demand for the gas that this pipeline would carry, and it endangers coastal communities, most of which are low-income communities of color.
>>>Tell Governor Cuomo to stop the Williams Pipeline.

Kevin Mathews, Care2: The House of Representatives passed a bill to remove protections from the gray wolf in the U.S, which would allow hunters and landowners to shoot the wolves at whim. Before these protections were instituted, the gray wolf was nearly wiped out entirely in the same way. The measures taken have helped the wolves to rebound to over 5,000, which is still way under what the population used to be. Although they may not be considered “endangered” anymore, reviving hunting is a recipe for decimating the population all over again.
>>>Urge Senate Energy & Natural Resources Chair Lisa Murkowski and the U.S. Senate to reject this bill .

Patagonia: Tasmania’s takayna/Tarkine is a 495,000-hectare region in northwestern Tasmania and one of the last undisturbed tracts of ancient rainforest in the world. The area is a crucial habitat for sixty of Tasmania’s rare and endangered species including the Tasmanian giant freshwater crayfish, the Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle and the iconic Tasmanian devil. Despite its immense ecological and cultural value, it remains unprotected and at the mercy of destructive extraction industries, including logging and mining.
>>>Urge Tasmanian State Premier Will Hodgman to nominate takayna/Tarkine for World Heritage protection to protect it from extractive industries.

The Hunger Site: The fast fashion industry promotes cheaply made products that are “in style” for a single season, and then pushes out the next style as fast as the first. It is the second greatest pollution-causing industry on the planet and a huge exploiter of women and children.
>>>Tell the CEOs of Zara, H&M and Forever 21 to stop exploiting people and harming the planet by buying low-quality goods from unethical suppliers.

PETA: Since 2017, Johns Hopkins University experimenter Shreesh Mysore has received more than $800,000 in tax-funded grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to conduct cruel and useless tests on barn owls, in which he restrains the birds, cuts into their skulls and inserts electrodes into their brains — even though the evidence is overwhelming that data from experiments on animals can’t be reliably applied to humans.
>>>Urge NIH not to squander taxpayer dollars on Mysore’s cruel and worthless experiments and instead to redirect funds to modern, superior, non-animal research methods.

Parting thought…

“It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.” —John Locke

Earth | Food | Life (EFL) explores the critical and often interconnected issues facing the climate/environment, food/agriculture and animal/nature rights, and champions action; specifically, how responsible citizens, voters and consumers can help put society on an ethical path of sustainability that respects the rights of all species who call this planet home. EFL emphasizes the idea that everything is connected, so every decision matters.

Click here to support the work of EFL and the Independent Media Institute.

Questions, comments, suggestions, submissions? Contact EFL editor Reynard Loki at [email protected]. Follow EFL on Twitter @EarthFoodLife.