In the early hours of Monday, November 9, I lost the only love of my life, Mina, to cancer. She was just 13 years old. You can read about our journey through cancer, chemotherapy,and our final days together on her blog, It’s OK To Talk About The Cancer.
At some point, I’ll pick up this blog again, but for now I’m only writing in Mina’s blog. It’s a very bleak and lonely world since she left me.
s.
Filed under: animal rights | Tagged: mina's blog | Leave a Comment »
Here’s an exciting press release from Farm Sanctuary about one of my favorite TV shows!
NEW YORK, NY – November 5, 2009 – Tonight’s episode of the hit FOX television show “Bones” (airing at 8 p.m./7 p.m. Central), starring vegan actress and Farm Sanctuary supporter Emily Deschanel, will prominently feature factory farming footage secured by Farm Sanctuary, the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization, as part of a plot-line surrounding a murder that takes place at a chicken farm.
The footage, which was requested by Deschanel, will educate thousands of mainstream viewers about the cruel conditions animals are forced to endure on factory farms. The episode also features a character who rescues a pig and asks her coworkers for donations so that she can sponsor her at a sanctuary.
To further raise awareness of the horrors of factory farming, FOX is featuring a special message from Deschanel on their website (fox.com/bones/) urging people to support Farm Sanctuary by sponsoring an animal in need.
To learn more about “adopting” one of Farm Sanctuary’s rescued animals, please visit farmsanctuary.org.
Farm Sanctuary is the nation’s leading farm animal protection organization. Since incorporating in 1986, Farm Sanctuary has worked to expose and stop cruel practices of the “food animal” industry through research and investigations, legal and institutional reforms, public awareness projects, youth education, and direct rescue and refuge efforts. Farm Sanctuary shelters in Watkins Glen, N.Y., and Orland, Calif., provide lifelong care for hundreds of rescued animals, who have become ambassadors for farm animals everywhere by educating visitors about the realities of factory farming. Additional information can be found at farmsanctuary.org or by calling 607-583-2225.
s.
Filed under: conservation | Tagged: bones tv show, david boreanaz, emily deschanel, factory farming | Leave a Comment »
My friend and co-blogger, Kestrel, devotes her time to a new project, Palm Oil Consumers.
The site is dedicated to informing the public about the consequences of our continued, and increasing, reliance on palm oil. You’ll find lists of palm oil derivatives and what products they’re used in, information about the rate of deforestation in Malaysia and Indonesia and the threats of extinction to wildlife there, as well as a Who’s Who of companies that use palm oil in their products and information about the source of the oil.
There’s also a blog at http://palmoilconsumers.wordpress.com/, with videos and more information about the effects of deforestation for oil palm plantations and the latest news about how palm oil consumption affects all of us.
Visit the site, add the blog to your reader and educate yourself and others on this intensely important subject. Palm oil is in EVERYTHING. Read labels, avoid products that contain palm oil from unverified sources, and tell everyone!
s.
Filed under: conservation | Tagged: oil palm farms killing orangutans, palm oil, palm oil consumers | 1 Comment »
I’d read an earlier piece on this horrible fad of learning to butcher animals in your home, but now it seems to include slaughtering them yourself, too. Read the latest DawnWatch Alert on this fad and Peter Singer’s call for a tax on meat, which is brilliant, in my opinion.
New York’s Sunday papers, October 25, included some fascinating articles about meat. The New York Times had a piece in the Sunday Styles section about classes in the skill of personally slaughtering and butchering the animals one intends to eat. The New York Daily News included a piece by Peter Singer suggesting that meat should be taxed at the sales level to help cover its disastrous environmental impact and its drain on health care.
Though unfortunately it is featured in the Style Section instead of the crime section, Alex Williams’ article about classes in private meat butchering, titled “Slaughterhouse Live,” doesn’t simply present this trend as the best thing since sliced bread. The lead photo is chilling: the carcass of a pig laid out on her back, looking rather human, but for her decapitated sweet-faced head sitting next to the body, facing the camera. And though we read that the program is popular, Williams shares quotes such as the following from student Christian Rusby:
“That faint smell reminded me of being covered all over my arms in this animal’s death. It was more profound than I expected, because it was an olfactory experience, like a smell you remember from childhood. Every time I ate a tamale from this pig, I remembered it laying on a pallet and being shaved.”
Peter Singer is quoted in this New York Times piece, apart from having his own piece in the New York Daily News on the same day. Addressing the notion that people take the class because they want to be in touch with their food and where it comes from, he retorts:
“If you just say, ‘I’m in touch with their pain,’ that can be hypocritical, because you’re not experiencing their pain.”
Williams ends the article with a quote from a student, Jack Lahne, who wanted “a real understanding of where meat comes from.” Williams comments, “He got it.” He shares Lahnes’ words:
“Animals do not want to die. They can feel pain and fear, and, just like us, will struggle to breathe for even one single more second. If you’re about to run 250 volts through a pig, do not look it in the eyes. It is not going to absolve you.
“I truly believe that humane slaughter is important and possible, but, as I have been learning, here’s the truth about any slaughter: it is both morally difficult and really gross.”
While this article in the Style section could have been a fluff piece on a dark new fad, Williams did not handle it as such. It is well worth checking out, and it opens the door for letters to the editor from those who, without having to take the class have worked out what Jack Lahne came to realize. The article is online at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/fashion/25meat.html. The New York Times takes letters at letters@nytimes.com.
Peter Singer’s piece in the Sunday, October 25, Daily News, is headed: “Make meat-eaters pay: Ethicist proposes radical tax, says they’re killing themselves and the planet.” That lengthy heading does a good job of summing up a detailed and engaging article, cutting edge and unapologetic, as one would expect from Singer. While Singer’s tax point is based on the drain of resources caused by meat consumption, the article also discusses some of the horrors visited upon animals on factory farms and in slaughterhouses. It is well worth reading. And it is worth forwarding to all of your friends; papers note which articles get the most forwards.
You’ll find Singer’s piece online at http://tinyurl.com/ykw32mk. You can send a supportive letter to the editor to voicers@edit.nydailynews.com.
Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor. Remember that shorter letters are more likely to be published. And please be sure not to use any comments or phrases from me or from any other alerts in your letters. Editors are looking for original responses from their readers.
Yours and the animals’,
Karen Dawn(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited — leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)
Please go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com for a fun celeb-studded promo video and information on Karen Dawn’s book, “Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals,” which was chosen by the Washington Post as one of the “Best Books of 2008.” And check out Karen’s new blog at www.ThankingtheMonkey.com/blog!
s.
Filed under: animal rights, global climate change, veganism | Tagged: home slaughtering, meat tax, peter singer | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday I drove out to Poplar Spring Animal Sanctuary to help with morning chores. We had four days of steady rain so I was expecting some mud as I arrived around 8:30 a.m.
I couldn’t find a soul until I was walking past the house to the chicken barns and finally saw Dave. There was a couple of minutes of silliness as we both tried to yell to each other over a passing airplane. He told me that Terry was resting a little longer than usual after being up most of the night with the piglets, Morty and Izzy. Saturday night was their first night sleeping in their play pen in the heated gift shop, a move intended to allow Terry a couple hours of sleep between feedings. But the rain made it more difficult as she had to get fully dressed in rain gear just to cross the yard to the shop!
So, I visited the babies in their play pen and they were frantic for food! Morty is growing so fast you can almost see it. He’s at least twice the size of little Izzy, who seems to be recovering nicely from his illness of a week or two ago. You can read a lot more detailed information about these babies on Deb’s blog, Invisible Voices. She’s got a nice vid of Izzy and Morty on her site and it’s a good idea to add her site to your feed as her posts are always informative and thought-provoking. And … cute baby piglets!
Terry came out before we slogged through the mud and wet hay of the goats and sheep barn, and asked me to help feed the babies. I held the bottle while Morty sucked it dry in a matter of a few minutes. He’d occasionally let go of the nipple and nudge my hand with his nose. Terry said that’s what he’d do if he were nursing from his mother – nudge her nipple to get more milk to flow. I just held the bottle at a higher angle for him.
After feeding it was time to put on their special sweaters so they could join us outside. Izzy’s sweater is pink and fluffy and it was the smallest one Terry could find. It took both of us to hold his legs inside the leg holes because he was screaming and squirming. We decided to let Morty go for a bit without his snazzy red sweater, because he seemed not to be so cold.
Izzy explores the cold outdoors pretty in pink
Morty and Izzy rooting around for tasty treats
Where Morty goes, Izzy follows
How cute are they?
I left after we finished the pig yard, which was about three inches deep in stinky mud. (Deb and I called it boot-sucking mud and she suggested it could be a blues song.) As I was changing out of my boots into my shoes at my car, I saw Wilbur the pig making a beeline for me. Yes, he used the slide-through spot in the fence to escape the yard – again! I wanted to get a picture of him but I was too busy keeping him from dragging off my boot bag! Dave finally saw Wilbur and herded him back to the proper side of the fence. I always enjoy these one-on-one encounters with the various animals at the Sanctuary. It doesn’t happen often, but it always feels as if they’ve singled me out for a moment of their time.
There’s something about being out there, even in crappy weather, that makes me feel calmer and … useful. All the non-human animals at the Sanctuary are the happy endings that millions of their kind never get. It’s a powerful message, even for vegans, that all lives are valuable, all creatures feel joy and pain and suffering, and doing anything to give them a more normal life is time well spent.
Filed under: animal rights, veganism | Tagged: boot-sucking mud, morty and izzy, poplar spring animal sanctuary, wilbur the pig | 1 Comment »
No one likes to talk about human overpopulation as the number one crisis facing our planet. Environmentalists and wildlife protectors don’t like to talk about it because they likely have children, and there’s the idea that having as many kids as you want is a God-given right and mentioning that “right” as a cause for climate change and planetary destruction won’t bring in the donations.
That silence is deadly. Here the world waits for the U.S. to take the lead on climate change and the best we can do is a useless cap-and-trade bill that has no chance of actually limiting greenhouse gas emissions. There are too many loopholes, including the “offsets” that industry insists they must have, and no clear plan for just how many credits for emissions the big polluters can buy. Not included at all in this bill are greenhouse gases from farms, which emit 35-40 percent of all methane emissions, “(which have 23 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide), 65 percent of nitrous oxide (which is 320 times as warming as carbon dioxide) and 64 percent of ammonia, which contributes to acid rain” according to the 2006 UN report “Livestock’s Long Shadow.”
Food production for an exploding human population is a major source of global warming pollution. There is talk now among wildlife protectors about designating more wildlife parks and reserves for agriculture and animal farming. Dr. Richard Leakey, noted anthropologist, wildlife protector, and head of Wildlife Direct, in an interview for “Kenya Imagine” said the following:
Population growth is, as far as I am concerned, is probably the single most worrying factor for the planet. We can look at a farm, we can look at a national park – we can say the carrying capacity of that area is “x.” If we look at the planet, the carrying capacity for our planet has been exceeded. This planet has too many people on it. How we address this I don’t know. But I am certain if we don’t address it, many of the good efforts being made to cut carbon dioxide emissions and to find alternative sources of energy won’t have the desired effect. It has got to be linked and conceptualised in a way that stabilises the human population and ultimately brings the numbers down.
Iregi Mwenja, a researcher on Wildlife Direct, has posted more than once about the threat to wildlife from a growing human population. Recently, he posted: “With the population of the world at 9 billion in 2050, we may have 370 million people facing famine worldwide. FAO says more land is needed to increase food production by 70 percent in 2050. In a country like Kenya where land is scarce now and famine is the order of the day, the situation will be grave serious in 40 years time when human population will have grown to over 60 million people. We may be forced to sacrifice some land in our protected areas to feed this overblown human population! If you don’t want to contribute to this catastrophe, let us limit the number of kids per couple to 2. Please read the BBC NEWS article below for more details on the FAO report.”
Read that again: Food production must increase 70 percent over the next 40 years to feed the growing human population. What does that mean?
More factory farms and far more greenhouse gas emissions promoting global climate change than can be regulated or capped-and-traded. The BBC story states that “Climate change, involving floods and droughts, will affect food production.” Climate change is already having a devastating affect on food production and vice versa. Thousands of farmers in India have committed suicide because of crop failures due to drought. Deforestation in the Amazon to make room for cattle farms and soybean farms to FEED THE CATTLE has caused the loss of more than 150,000 square kilometers of rainforest in Brazil between 2000-2008. Loss of forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo is putting gorillas at risk of extinction, which will put humans at risk of extinction, too.
How’s that? How can the loss of a fellow Great Ape species have anything to do with human survival? Turns out that gorilla dung is a major component in forest growth. We need rainforests to turn carbon dioxide into clean air and to deter the greenhouse effect. Gorillas, according to Ian Redmond, the UN ambassador for the Year of the Gorilla, “are herbivores, feeding on fruit and plants. The digested food, as it passes through their systems, helps seeds to germinate. … The full extent of the gorillas’ role in propagation is unclear. But Redmond said a number of plant species could not flourish without them, or wild elephants, the other large mammal crucial in germination.” The gorillas “caught up in the region’s civil wars, preyed on by poachers, and crowded out of their homes by mining and logging industries – are already endangered across Africa. …But Redmond’s argument could help give the animals a new level of protection.” Economists have suggested spending $15 billion on reforestation as a “cheap” way of cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
“Redmond said gorillas were crucial in maintaining the lifecycle of the rainforests in the Congo basin. The forests themselves suck up more than 1bn tonnes of carbon every year.”
“This is what the species are for. They are not ornaments. They are not just interesting things to study. They are part of an ecosystem,” he said.”
We are the only species of Great Apes on this planet who seem not to know their place in an ecosystem. If we continue to allow human populations to grow and crowd out all the wildlife until they’re all extinct, and use up all the forests until they’re gone … what will we have left? A planet full of nothing but humans and a ruined environment that can no longer support life.
“It is only if you bring numbers down that we will be able to find a way for resource utilisation per capita to increase. It is the only way you are going to deal with poverty and unless you deal with poverty, the situation can only spiral downwards. This is a massive problem and the solutions are not simply condoms versus draconian measures such as one child per family. It has to be looked at in different countries in different ways. I think there has to be a commitment everywhere to slow and stop population growth. I do believe that we have been set back a long way by the opposition to family planning that is being shown by some of the religious groups and by some of the more conservative governments such as the current US administration.” – Richard Leakey, in an interview published during the Bush Administration
Resources
Filed under: conservation, global climate change, overpopulation | Tagged: blog action day, climate change, human overpopulation, ian redmond, iregi mwenja, richard leakey | 2 Comments »
Here’s a DawnWatch Alert about Jonathan Safran Foer’s essay about giving up animal flesh. It’s long but very good and if you haven’t read it already, sit down and read it!
The Sunday October 11 edition of the New York Times Magazine is called “The Food Issue.” You’ll find many strong articles in it, all available online at www.nytimes.com/magazine. Of special interest is a piece by Jonathan Safran Foer, entitled “Against Meat.” While the article does include various facts and figures as to the impact of meat consumption on our health, the environment, and the animals, it is not a fact-filled didactic article. It is, instead, an essay on one man’s struggle with the ethics of meat eating, grounded in tales of his grandmother’s kitchen, and written in the tender and highly personal style of the renowned author of the luminescent novel, “Everything is Illuminated.” I think the last lines of this piece are among the most beautiful final lines that I have ever read. Treat yourself to the article, which you will find online at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/magazine/11foer-t.html.
Then please send an appreciative letter to the editor, sharing your reasons for choosing a plant based diet. The Magazine section takes letters at magazine@nytimes.com.
Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor. Remember that shorter letters are more likely to be published.
I send thanks to both Susan Clay and Lew Regenstein, as I so often do, not just for their constant support and beautiful work for the animals, but in particular for making sure we all saw this article.
Yours and the animals’,
Karen Dawn(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited — leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)
Please go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com for a fun celeb-studded promo video and information on Karen Dawn’s book, “Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals,” which was chosen by the Washington Post as one of the “Best Books of 2008.” And check out Karen’s new blog at www.ThankingtheMonkey.com/blog!
s.
Filed under: animal rights, factory farming, veganism | Tagged: against meat, jonathan safran foer, ny times food issue | 1 Comment »
I’ve seen this story in a few tweets, so here’s Karen Dawn’s synopsis of the NY Times front page story. If you eat meat, you need to read this and learn the dangers of your choice.
The Sunday, October 4, New York Times has an article on the front page, titled, “The Burger That Shattered Her Life.”
The piece, by reporter Michael Moss, opens with a description of a young woman permanently paralyzed after having eaten an e-coli tainted burger. It then describes the process by which the burger got to her dinner plate.
It reminds us that “hamburger meat is often an amalgam of various grades of meat from different parts of cows and even from different slaughterhouses.”
Of the hamburger in question we learn: “The ingredients came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay, and from a South Dakota company that processes fatty trimmings and treats them with ammonia to kill bacteria.”
We read about cattle arriving at slaughterhouses smeared with the feces they’ve been living in at feedlots, which is often inadvertently spread to the meat as workers slice away at the carcasses or when “large clamps that hold the hide during processing sometimes slip and smear the meat with feces …”
The article makes it clear that testing for e-coli is beyond lax. We read:
“An Agriculture Department survey of more than 2,000 plants taken after the Cargill outbreak showed that half of the grinders did not test their finished ground beef for E. coli; only 6 percent said they tested incoming ingredients at least four times a year.”
And:
“Many big slaughterhouses will sell only to grinders who agree not to test their shipments for E. coli, according to officials at two large grinding companies.”Even after the outbreak that paralyzed the woman on whom the article focuses, we learn that Cargill, the production plant from which that meat had come, “agreed to increase testing of finished ground beef … but would not test incoming ingredients.”
We read about Department of Agriculture (USDA) investigation of Cargill and learn that “investigators discovered that their own inspectors had lodged complaints about unsanitary conditions at the plant in the weeks before the outbreak, but that they had failed to set off any alarms within the department. Inspectors had found ‘large amounts of patties on the floor,’ grinders that were gnarly with old bits of meat …’”
Moss also tells us of USDA slaughterhouse inspection reports that were released by the department through the Freedom of Information Act with blacked out details of Cargill’s grinding operation. The reporter comments:
“Those documents illustrate the restrained approach to enforcement by a department whose missions include ensuring meat safety and promoting agriculture markets.”
That conflict of interest and the resulting danger to the U.S. food supply is covered in depth in Fast Food Nation. I also look at it, often citing Fast Food Nation, in Thanking the Monkey, pages 187-193.
You’ll find the whole fascinating New York Times article online.
Check it out, and please e-mail it to all of your friends. You can read some of the readers’ comments and post your own beneath the article. And most importantly, please send a letter to the editor. Few of the comments either discuss the treatment of the animals on feedlots and in fast-paced slaughterhouses, or note how easy and healthful it is to live without consuming them. That is ground we can cover in letters to the editor.
The New York Times takes letters at letters@nytimes.com.
Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor. Remember that shorter letters are more likely to be published. And please be sure not to use any comments or phrases from me or from any other alerts in your letters. Editors are looking for original responses from their readers.
I send thanks to Lew Regenstein and Tim Gorski for making sure we all saw this article.
Yours and the animals’,
Karen Dawn(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited — leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)
Please go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com for a fun celeb-studded promo video and information on Karen Dawn’s book, “Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals,” which was chosen by the Washington Post as one of the “Best Books of 2008.” And check out Karen’s new blog at www.ThankingtheMonkey.com/blog!
s.
Filed under: animal rights, factory farming | Tagged: animal cruelty, factory farming, there's shit in the meat | Leave a Comment »
Come out and hear Dr. Lucy talk about her experience treating Rwanda’s wild mountain gorillas, plus stories from her book, “The Rhino With Glue-on Shoes.”
WHO: Dr. Lucy Spelman (see bio below)
WHAT: Lecture & Book Signing “Taking Care of Wild Animals, One Patient at a Time:The Rhino with Glue-on Shoes—and More”
WHERE: Signature Theater in Arlington, with a book signing afterward at Busboys & Poets. There is plenty of parking.
WHEN: 7 p.m., Monday October 5, $10 admission
Mohan, the rhino with glue-on shoes Phot: Jessie Cohen NZP
In this lecture—geared to animal lovers of all ages—Lucy gives the audience a fascinating and up-close look at wild animals, the dedicated professionals who care for them, and the dynamic relationships that exist between doctor and patient. She highlights some of the essays from her recent book, “The Rhino with Glue-on Shoes” which includes 27 heart- warming short stories written by today’s top zoo and wildlife vets. Co-edited with her friend and colleague, Dr. Ted Mashima, this compilation is filled with the real-life medical drama that ensues when patients range in weight from several tons to less than an ounce, and their symptoms include broken bones and upset stomachs.
Taking care of wild animals is an experience that comes with plenty of surprises, especially since vets can’t communicate (at least not in words) with their sometime dangerous patients. Imagine treating an anorexic eel, or fixing a kangaroo’s broken neck. Lucy continues with a few stories of her own from her most recent veterinary adventures with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Uganda. She describes the challenges associated with treating an endangered species in its own habitat, and the importance of adopting a more inclusive, integrated “one-health” approach to conservation. The health of the gorillas is inextricably linked to the health of their ecosystem, and all who live there—including humans. Her stories offer hope that humans and animals can do better than coexist, together they can thrive.
Nyandwi snare removal in Rwanda
Come listen to Dr. Lucy recount tales of discovery, compassion, and cutting-edge animal medicine. Books will be available for sale and signing.
Dr. Lucy H. Spelman is a veterinarian committed to the study and advancement of health care for wild animals. She is also a world-renowned zoo and wildlife vet who has held several leadership positions. Her patients include endangered animals in far-flung parts of the globe-giant pandas in China, Asian elephants in Burma, giant river otters in Guyana, and mountain gorillas in Rwanda. She is a former director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoo and has just returned from central Africa after managing the field programs for the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project for nearly three years. She has also worked as a consultant for Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel, and has been filmed at work for television. Lucy is currently a visiting Assistant Professor at Brown University where she initially earned her bachelor’s degree (A.B.) in biology (1985.) After receiving her D.V.M. from the University of California at Davis (1990), she completed her post-doctoral training at North Carolina State University and passed her specialty boards the next year (1994), becoming the 43rd member of the American College of Zoological Medicine and the first to achieve this status right out of her residency. Her latest accomplishment is the publication of “The Rhino with Glue-On Shoes,” a collection of heart-warming stories written by zoo and wild animal vets about their patients. The book was published in hard cover last year and has just come out in paperback (June 23, 2009.) Lucy co-edited the book and contributed the story that gives the book its title about a rhino with sore feet. For more, go to www.drlucyspelman.com.
Filed under: Mountain gorillas, endangered species, wildlife conservation | Tagged: dr. lucy, dr. lucy spelman, lecture, Mountain gorillas, rhino with glue on shoes, rwanda mountain gorillas | Leave a Comment »
Here’s a recent DawnWatch Alert that’s worth sharing with all your dairy-loving friends:
Yesterday’s Washington Post report on the livestock industry’s devastating effect on antibiotic effectiveness is followed today (Friday, September 18) with a front page New York Times story on the industry’s impact on the safety of drinking water supplies. The article, by Charles Duhigg, is titled, “Health Ills Abound as Farm Runoff Fouls Wells.”
We read about millions of gallons of dairy farm cow waste being spread on nearby fields every year, then seeping into the groundwater that feeds wells, and we read:
“Yet runoff from all but the largest farms is essentially unregulated by many of the federal laws intended to prevent pollution and protect drinking water sources. The Clean Water Act of 1972 largely regulates only chemicals or contaminants that move through pipes or ditches, which means it does not typically apply to waste that is sprayed on a field and seeps into groundwater.”
We learn that special rules created for the biggest farms are largely ignored and that “regulations passed during the administration of President George W. Bush allow many of those farms to self-certify that they will not pollute, and thereby largely escape regulation.”
And as to the seriousness of the problem:
“Agricultural runoff is the single largest source of water pollution in the nation’s rivers and streams, according to the E.P.A. An estimated 19.5 million Americans fall ill each year from waterborne parasites, viruses or bacteria, including those stemming from human and animal waste, according to a study published last year in the scientific journal Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology.”A county official sums up the route of the problem:
”One cow produces as much waste as 18 people … There just isn’t enough land to absorb that much manure, but we don’t have laws to force people to stop.”
The article makes it clear that we don’t have those laws because, “a powerful farm lobby has blocked previous environmental efforts on Capitol Hill.”
Check it out — it is a fascinating, if disturbing, read. And please forward it to all of your friends thereby spreading the word and also letting the paper, which tracks “most e-mailed” stories, know that people want to read about the shenanigans of the livestock industry and the impact on our health.
You can join in a lively discussion taking place in the comment section on that web page, where the writer is responding to many comments and the editors are singling out some of the most interesting.
Then please also send a letter to the editor, helping to ensure that the discussion stays alive on the editorial page. You may wish to discuss any of the other ills of factory farming, including the unconscionable cruelty to animals, or to make the point that is obvious to so many of us: it is time for people to radically change their eating habits.
The New York Times takes letters at letters@nytimes.com.
Always include your full name, address, and daytime phone number when sending a letter to the editor. Remember that shorter letters are more likely to be published. And please be sure not to use any comments or phrases from me or from any other alerts in your letters. Editors are looking for original responses from their readers.
My thanks go to Mark Langley for making sure we didn’t miss this story.
Those interested in reading more on this issue will find the impact of farm waste on the water supply covered extensively in Thanking the Monkey in a section beginning on page 274, headed “Fighting Factory Farm Filth.” The powerlessness to fight those farms, due to the strength of the farm lobby, is covered in a section, beginning on page 305, headed “The Best Government Money Can Buy.”
Yours and the animals’,
Karen Dawn(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts if you do so unedited — leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line. If somebody forwards DawnWatch alerts to you, which you enjoy, please help the list grow by signing up. It is free.)
Please go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com for a fun celeb-studded promo video and information on Karen Dawn’s book, “Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals,” which was chosen by the Washington Post as one of the “Best Books of 2008.” And check out Karen’s new blog at www.ThankingtheMonkey.com/blog!
All this for a cheap burger.
s.
Filed under: environment, global climate change | Tagged: dairy farm waste, farm runoff, livestock industry antibiotics | 1 Comment »
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