BLOG ACTION DAY

A powerful guest post by blogger Not Honey

No one likes to talk about human overpopulation as the number one crisis facing our planet. Environmentalists and wildlife protectors may not 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” 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 70 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 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 this BBC NEWS article for more details on the FAO report.”

To reiterate: 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

• Catholic Church calls upon Christians to give birth to more children
• Catholic Church Expects Defeat Of Philippines Family Planning Bill, Drafts Alternate Measure
• “Do Offsets Really Help Reduce Emissions?”
• Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options
• Wildlife Direct
• Kenya Imagine – Leakey on Climate Change in Kenya
• Bushmeat East Africa blog
• BBC News, “Food Production Must Rise 70 Percent”
• Independent, “1500 Farmers Commit Mass Suicide In India”
• Mongabay.com,”Future Threats to the Amazon Rainforest”
• Guardian UK, “Wildlife expert claims gorilla dung is critical to containing climate change”
• Population Connection: Education and Action for a Better World

This post from IFAW will give you the details but in a nutshell, while Europe and the United States are banning cat and dog fur imports from China, Canada refuses to do so” in fear such action could weaken Canada’s position against the banning of seal products by other countries.”

I’m not going to post details here about the horrendously vicious treatment of cats and dogs in China for this industry but the information is there for all who still don’t know the details.

As per usual I am not anticipating much coverage of this by the mostly lame media in Canada but was pleased to see the Globe published an online article.

There is no shortage of reasons why decent people should boycott Canada. To name a few:

“First Nations quality of life ranks 63^rd, or amongst Third World conditions, according to an Indian and Northern Affairs Canada study that applied First Nations-specific statistics to the Human Development Index created by the United Nations.”

Refusal to sign a moratorium on bottom trawling.  Bush signed it but Harper wouldn’t even though Canada doesn’t bottom trawl.

Canada’s earth destroying Tar Sands Project, dubbed “the most destructive project on earth.” Here are ten facts about the Tar Sands.

Standard practices in farm animal care in Canada are far behind those of other industrialized countries.

The largest annual slaughter of marine mammals in the world.

Antiquated federal animal protection laws worse even than many third-world countries.

At the Poznan Climate talks, Canada earned the distinctive title of “Colossal Fossil” for obstructing the talks and also placed next to last in a comparison of countries’ climate change performance.

Canadians are looting the DRC (Congo) for mineral wealth cashing in on the country’s instability to reap huge profits, leaving behind a wake of ecological, human and wildlife costs.

Cashing in on the American ban on horse slaughter, Canada is fast becoming the horse slaughter capital of the world.

The Canadian government ignores the horrifying abuse exposed at this foie gras factory and does nothing in spite of a campaigns for action.

It is easy for a government not to act when so few of its citizens care.

The Melbourne Zoo in Australia has produced a short and powerful video on the devastation to orangutans caused by palm oil cultivation and a call to action for better labeling laws.

Palm oil is in more than 40% of the products on store shelves from food to household cleaning products.

While in North America, labeling laws require ingredients to be listed accurately, such is not the case in many other countries.

Also, many products imported to North America do not follow labeling requirements. Often palm oil will be called “vegetable oil.”

Congratulations to the Melbourne Zoo for taking the initiative.

Watch Don’t Palm us Off

and take action.

For more information:

What does palm oil have to do with orangutans?

Palm Oil Action Group

Cruel Oil: How Palm Oil Harms Health, Rainforest and Wildlife

Palm Oil Consumers.com

Watch the trailer.
(click play, then go to the youtube link)

On September 21st / 22nd,  a 90 minute film about climate change set in the future, will launch internationally.

Go to the Age of Stupid website and find out more.

Just when I thought I had learned the depth of depravity of the pork industry, I found this new piece of information:

from Twyla Francois of Canadians for Ethical Treatment of Farm Animals (CETFA)
and
posted on Youtube

“Millions of piglets are killed inhumanely each year in Canada by PACing – Pounding Against Concrete. Many survive the practice but are thrown into the garbage bins regardless. There they suffer for upwards of 7 days as the rendering trucks come to pick them up only once a week.

Footage of this same practice has been taken around the world – most recently in The Netherlands.

Please, don’t support this cruelty. Reduce or eliminate your consumption of pork or only buy from certified free-range farms.”

Now the Canadian government will take our ethically earned tax dollars and  bail out these people.

Sows in gestation crates

A refresher on some of the many other horrors of the pork industry

a) Atrocities against pigs as a daily practice and way of life through
factory farming practices such as tail docking and neutering without anaesthetic, weaning babies at two weeks and imprisoning sows in tiny crates where they cannot turn around or even lie down comfortably.
Read more…

b) burning pigs alive

Note on the live burnings: The federal government is currently determining eligibility criteria producers must meet for pork industry bail-out funds. The decision is expected by late September.
TIME IS CRITICAL! PLEASE CONTACT MINISTER RITZ AND DEMAND THAT THE BAIL-OUT FUNDING ONLY BE AVAILABLE TO PRODUCERS WHO INSTALL SMOKE DETECTORS AND SPRINKLER SYSTEMS.
Contact Gerry Ritz, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-foods
http://www.gerryritzmp.com/contact.php

c) Production of superbugs and lethal viruses such as MRSA and Swine Flu

d) Contamination of ground water through manure lagoon (lakes)

e) Air pollution and making residents around confinement operations sick with respiratory illnesses

f) Filling children up with chemicals and plastics

g) Expecting tax payers to pay for their financial problems

Learn more about factory farming.

Read Time Magazine’s just published article:
Getting Real About the High Cost of Cheap Meat

Stop the Live-Burnings (circulate this pdf flyer)

The following is a MEDIA RELEASE from:
Canadians for Ethical Treatment of Farm Animals (CETFA)

Charred remains of mother pigs burned to death in gestation crates

Farm animals continue to die horrific deaths with no changes to the farm building code.

Toronto, August 24, 2009: Despite repeated calls to the Canadian Commission on Building and Fire Codes to amend the code to protect farm animals in barns, animals continue to die in large numbers in barn fires.

“Less than a month ago a barn fire in Alberta took the lives of another 15,000 pigs”, said Twyla Francois, Head of Investigation for Canadians for the Ethical Treatment of Food Animals. “The attached photos from the fire show charred sows in gestation crates and animals whose bodies exploded, forcing their internal organs and unborn piglets outside their bodies. These horrific images exemplify the grave nature of the massive loss of living beings in Canadian barn fires, and the need for substantial and immediate improvements to the Farm Building Code of Canada.”

“The national code for farm buildings contains only minimal standards and does not adequately protect animal lives”, said Stephanie Brown, spokesperson for the Canadian Coalition for Farm Animals. “The code states that neither sprinklers nor smoke alarms are required for farm buildings unless there is a minimum of one person occupancy per 40 square metres. Animals are not considered occupants. The protection of farm animals who live in these buildings is not a consideration. Changes to the code are desperately needed now.”

We are recommending changes that require all new commercial farm buildings housing animals to include sprinklers and alarms to detect smoke and fire; use of non-toxic, non-carcinogenic fire retardants on wood surfaces; installation of fire walls, and mandatory inspections by the local fire chief”, said Liz White, Leader of the Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada. “We are also asking that existing commercial farm buildings which house animal populations be required to be retrofitted to meet similar standards to new barn structures and that the capital costs associated with implementing the above fire-prevention measures should be tax deductible.”

“Industry cannot be allowed to dictate the fire prevention standards for barns. We know that many fires are preventable and bending to industry pressure is unconscionable”, said Francois. “We are asking the Canadian Commission and provincial governments to implement immediate changes to fire code regulations across the country.”

For information: Twyla Francois 204-296-1375, twyla.1@mts.net,  Stephanie Brown 416-9204984, brown@idirect.com, Liz White 416-462-9541, liz@animalalliance.ca

For video, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz270bj4o0Q

and for photos, visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/cetfa/

Stop the Live-Burnings (Circulate this Flyer)

Burned sows in gestation crates

Heaped, charred bodies, market-weight pigs

She tried to escape

burned sows in gestation crates

As we read about the bailout of pork producers with our tax dollars,  it is time to review some points about this industry’s vile “farming” practices.

Links for further exploration have been provided for each point.

a) Atrocities against pigs as a daily practice and way of life through
factory farming practices such as tail docking and neutering without anaesthetic, weaning babies at two weeks and imprisoning sows in tiny crates where they cannot turn around or even lie down comfortably.
Read more…

b) burning pigs alive

c) Production of superbugs and lethal viruses such as MRSA and Swine Flu

d) Contamination of ground water through manure lagoon (lakes)

e) Air pollution and making residents around confinement operations sick with respiratory illnesses

f) Filling children up with chemicals and plastics

g) Expecting tax payers to pay for their financial problems

Learn more about factory farming.

Read Time Magazine’s just published article:
Getting Real About the High Cost of Cheap Meat

An Action Alert from Twyla Francois and the team at
Canadians for Ethical Treatment of Farm Animals (CETFA)

This gestation crate sow's attempts to escape are captured in this photo (photo credit: CETFA)

In just the last 20 months, nearly 80,000 animals have been burned alive in barn fires in Canada. News of barn fires have become a weekly event, each one killing thousands of animals.

Pig barns are the most affected with producers even stating in the media that they are tempted to do the same as prices for hogs are so low.

This is premeditated cruelty.

Why is the federal government not acting to protect these pigs?

CETFA urges all Canadians to contact their MLA or MPP demanding that fire codes for barns be added as criteria for whether hog producers receive federal bail-out funding – which is, after all, our tax dollars. We have a say in this issue!

Become involved. No one else is protecting these animals.

WATCH and CIRCULATE CETFA’s VIDEO:
STOP THE LIVE BURNINGS!

for more photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cetfa/

Mel Hurtig’s book, The Truth about Canada,  published in April 2008,  is something all those in this country who choose to wallow in complacency and denial need to pick up.

Meanwhile, get a taste by watching these three eye-opener videos with Mr. Hurtig and learn about what is happening to this once promising country.

The Videos

Part One: Media Ownership and the Radical Right in Canada

Part Two:
Some OECD (Organization for Ecoomic, Co-operation and Development) Comparison Studies
on the distribution of income in Canada

Part Three:
Canada at Home; Canada and North America; Canada in the World; Revitalizing Canada
includes Mel’s five steps for revitalization

Now go read the book!

The Truth About Canada: Some Important, Some Astonishing, and Some Truly Appalling Things All Canadians Should Know About Our Country
by Mel Hurtig

I posted some time ago about Mfalme, the Minke whale made of discarded flipflops gathered by volunteers from the beaches of Kenya.

What a beautiful boy he is and what a shame he was fated to be beached in a park in Mombasa instead of  touring museums worldwide to educate about marine pollution and resultant death of marine life.

Mfalme, the flipflop whale

You can read more about Mfalme here and also watch a short and informative BBC video about the project.

Dipesh Pabari, Kenyan blogger and conservationist was one of the originators of the Mfalme project and he alerted me to two new fabulous art projects he and others from Camps International’s Kenyan groups have created.

First, meet Pata Pata Pata or Father Flipflop, a whale shark also made of flipflops collected from beach cleanup volunteers.

Take the time to read the blog posts about this project as well as enjoying these wonderful photos.

welding the frame together

on his way

Pata Pata Pata

And the latest Camps International Kenya art project tackles another urgent crisis: the plight of elephants.

These days elephants are on the fast track to extinction thanks mostly to the Chinese lust for ivory trinkets but also from climate change and human-wildlife conflict.

Here is an example of what happens to an elephant caught in a snare set by “hunters” poaching animals for  meat illegally in Kenya. This one was lucky as the horrific wound was treated by a Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) vet.

An elephant being treated from a snare wound: photo credit/Mara Triangle blog

The Camps International Camp Tsavo group had been recycling wire snares confiscated by the anti-poaching bush patrols for the purpose of creating a life size baby elephant.

Have a look at the result! Congratulations to the group for creating this beautiful sculpture out of materials used to cause untold suffering and death.

A good use for snare wire!