This year, with the push to pass California's groundbreaking Proposition 2, there has been much focus, in the animal advocacy world and in the media, on the treatment of animals on factory farms. This past week, there has been a heavy media focus on what factory farms, and the livestock industry in general, do to our environment.
Sunday's New York Times (Nov 29) and the Wednesday December 3 North County Times from San Diego, focused on the chicken and hen industries. The Friday December 5 Chicago Tribune looked at the air pollution causes by belching, gaseous, cows, and both the New York Times front page and the International Herald Tribune covered those matters on Thursday, November 4, in an article that included various solutions, from the troublesome idea of saving the system by creating fuel from excrement, to the suggestion that the earth and everybody on it would fare better if we consumed less meat.
Sunday's (Nov 29) New York Times article, by Ian Urbina, was headed "Maryland Is Turning Pollution Spotlight to Its Huge Poultry Industry." In it we read of sheds where "20,000 to 35,000 chickens cramp the floors farther than the eye can see." But the focus is not on the cruelty to the animals, it is on the waterways destroyed by run-off from the farms.
It tells us:
"How to handle the 650 million pounds of chicken manure produced in the state each year has sparked a fierce debate between environmentalists and the state’s powerful poultry industry. State officials hope to bring Maryland in line with most other states next month by enacting new rules for where, how and how long chicken farmers can spread the manure on their fields or store it in outdoor piles."
We read:
"State officials have started to realize that there are consequences to being able to sell skinless, boneless chicken breast for just over $2 per pound when virtually no other protein source with so little fat is that cheap, Mr. Winegrad said.
"Environmentalists and state officials have also become frustrated that after more than a decade of spending over $100 million a year in state money on restoration efforts, the Chesapeake, unlike most other mid-Atlantic waterways, has only grown more polluted.
"As the phosphorous and nitrogen levels in the bay have grown, so have the algae that deplete oxygen needed by other aquatic life.
"In the past two decades, working oystermen on the bay have dropped to less than 500, from 6,000. The crab population has fallen by 70 percent."
And we read that "Environmental Protection Agency officials say that agriculture is the largest single source of pollutants and sediment in the Chesapeake Bay, accounting for over 40 percent of the nitrogen and phosphorous and over 70 percent of the sediment. "
The article reminds us of points made in Peter Singer and Jim Mason's terrific book "The Ethics of What We Eat," about the real cost of cheap food from factory farming. The taxpayer pays for cheap food in other ways such as the destruction of other industries, environmental devastation and the ensuing expensive clean-ups.
You'll find the full article on line at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/us/29poultry.html
The San Diego North County Times article, by Chris Bagley, is headed, "Egg farm warned over water quality violation." It is of particular interest to animal advocates as it looks at pollution from Armstrong farms, an egg ranch that helped lead the effort against Proposition 2.
We read of contaminated water "flowing onto neighbors' property and into nearby waterways" and of a warning from the State that "follows six similar warnings that San Diego County agricultural officials issued to Armstrong between April 2005 and August 2008 for allegedly allowing contaminated water to run onto neighboring land and storm drains in Valley Center and from a similar Armstrong operation in Ramona."
We learn that the Humane Society of the United States turned over those County records to the State water-quality agency, having acquired them after a hearing on Prop. 2 in which Armstrong said his business had "nothing to hide."
You'll find the full article on line at:
http://tinyurl.com/6nw3nx
The Chicago Tribune (Friday, December 5) included an Associated Press piece, from Bob Johnson, headed "Farmers turn up noses at EPA's idea to charge for pollution caused by belching, gaseous cows."
We learn that "the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases emitted by belching and flatulence amounts to air pollution."
A farmer against a proposed pollution tax on livestock suggested that it would cause more meat to be imported and said, "We'll let other countries put food on our tables like they are putting gas in our cars. Other countries don't have the health standards we have."
Many will see the irony in that comment given the beef export bans the US has faced due to its internationally renowned lax standards with regard to testing for Mad Cow Disease.
The article tells us that an "organization supporting the proposal hopes it forces the farms and ranches to switch to healthier crops." Perhaps not surprisingly, that particular organization is PETA. Bruce Friedrich is quoted:
"It makes perfect sense if you are looking for ways to cut down on meat consumption and recoup environmental losses. We certainly support making factory farms pay their fair share."
You'll find the full article on line at:
http://tinyurl.com/68reck
The article on the front page of the Thursday December 4 New York Times and the International Herald Tribune website is by Elisabeth Rosenthal and is headed, "From hoof to dinner table, a new bid to cut emissions."
It opens with a discussion of a farm in the Netherlands where producers "cook manure from their 3,000 pigs to capture the methane trapped within it, and then use the gas to make electricity for the local power grid."
In Thanking the Monkey's Chapter 7, "The Greenies," I take a look at such efforts in the section headed, "What if the Shit Don't Stink?" I discuss my concern that instead of overturning an ethically bankrupt system of food production, scientists, and even some environmentalists, will attempt to keep the system, making various efforts to clean it up -- like trying to fix a gaping hole in the hull a sinking ship with scotch tape. The New York Times article, however, commenting on the Netherlands efforts acknowledges, "much more needs to be done, scientists say, as more and more people are eating more meat around the world."
We read:
"What to do about farm emissions is one of the main issues being discussed this week and next, as the environment ministers from 187 nations gather in Poznan, Poland, for talks on a new treaty to combat global warming. In releasing its latest figure on emissions last month, United Nations climate officials cited agriculture and transportation as the two sectors that remained most 'problematic.'"
We learn that Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Nobel Prize-winning United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who is described by Rosenthal as "a sober scientist," says people should eat less meat to control their carbon footprints. He says, "I'm not sure that the system we have for livestock can be sustainable." And he suggests that the most attractive near-term solution is for everyone simply to "reduce meat consumption" which, Rosenthal notes, is "a change he says would have more effect than switching to a hybrid car."
The article reminds us:
"The trillions of farm animals around the world generate 18 percent of the emissions that are raising global temperatures, according to United Nations estimates, more even than from cars, buses and airplanes.
It continues:
"But unlike other industries, like cement making and power, which are facing enormous political and regulatory pressure to get greener, large-scale farming is just beginning to come under scrutiny as policy makers, farmers and scientists cast about for solutions."
We read of the "high tech" proposals and learn that California is looking at systems similar to the excrement conversion system being tried in the Netherlands. But we read:
"Other proposals include everything from persuading consumers to eat less meat to slapping a 'sin tax' on pork and beef."
Claes Johansson, chief of sustainability at the Swedish agricultural group Lantmannen is quoted:
“Of course for the environment it’s better to eat beans than beef...." Though his group recommends labeling different meats according to their contribution to global warming.
The article tells us:
"Every step of producing meat creates emissions. Flatus and manure from animals contain not only methane, but also nitrous oxide, an even more potent warming agent. And meat requires energy for refrigeration as it moves from farm to market to home.
"Producing meat in this ever-more crowded world requires creating new pastures and planting more land for imported feeds, particularly soy, instead of relying on local grazing. That has contributed to the clearing of rain forests, particularly in South America, robbing the world of crucial 'carbon sinks,' the vast tracts of trees and vegetation that absorb carbon dioxide."
Yet Rosenthal comments:
"But any suggestion to eat less meat may run into resistance in a world with more carnivores and a booming global livestock industry." And the article discusses other solutions being attempted.
It is lengthy, detailed and fascinating article, which can be found on the New York Times website at
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/science/earth/04meat.html
or on the International Herald Tribune website at
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/04/healthscience/04meat.php
(Thanks to Stig Harder for that link.)
All of the articles cited above provide wonderful opportunities for letters to the editor. Readers in San Diego should send a note to the North County Times, which takes comments on the same web page as the article or letters at http://www.northcountytimes.com/forms/letters/editor.php
The Chicago Tribune takes letters at http://tinyurl.com/4lsug
The New York Times, widely distributed nationally, publishes letters from all over the country and the International Herald Tribune, of course, takes letters from all over the world. You can write to those papers at letters@nytimes.com
and letters@iht.com
Be sure not to use any comments of mine in your letters as the editors are looking for original notes from people who have read the article and will notice identical thoughts.
Best of all, the information in the above articles can be cited in letters to your local editor where you have the greatest chance of being published and of reaching people who have not yet read this information. Some smaller papers publish close to 100% of letters they receive, and a huge survey of readers from hundreds of papers found the "letters to the editor" page to be one of the most widely read newspaper sections. So why not take a few minutes, for the sake of the animals and the environment, to jot off a letter to your local paper? Don't hesitate to ask me for help if you have trouble finding the correct address for a letter to your editor. Be sure to include your full name, address and telephone number when sending a letter to the editor.
Finally, the next administration's Secretary of Agriculture and Secretary of the Interior will have much power over the issues discussed in the articles above, and over countless other issues impacting animal welfare. I have written many times in these alerts, and in Thanking the Monkey, that animal protection is not an issue of the Left. Some of the Democrat's animal welfare bogeymen being proposed for the above positions prove that point. Please visit the following HSUS page where you can learn about the differences between the proposed legislators, and from where you can send letters urging the President Elect to make animal friendly choices, for the the animals, the environment and our health. Go to
https://community.hsus.org/campaign/HSLF_2008_obama_cabinet/nap7mtnwe3
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 to read reviews of Karen Dawn's new book, "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals” and watch the fun celebrity studded promo video.
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Date: Sat Dec 6 22:12:39 2008
