Is "grass-fed" beef ethical and ecological?
Environmental groups and natural food markets are telling consumers that "grass-fed beef" is ecologically and ethically superior to livestock fattened in feedlots. Are cattle who are castrated, branded with a hot iron, and forced to search for scraps of grass under a blazing sun or survive the wind and snow of a winter blizzard "happy" cows?
In its recent study Livestock's Long Shadow the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization reports:
- Livestock grazing is by far the single largest anthropogenic user of land. The total area occupied by grazing is equivalent to 26 percent of the ice-free terrestrial surface of the planet.
- The livestock industry is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent, a higher share than transportation.
- The livestock industry accounts for over 8 percent of global human water use. It is probably the largest sectoral source of water pollution, contributing to eutrophication, "dead" zones in coastal areas, degradation of coral reefs, human health problems, emergence of antibiotic resistance and many others. Global figures are not available but in the United States, with the world's fourth largest land area, livestock are responsible for an estimated 55 percent of erosion and sediment, 37 percent of pesticide use, 50 percent of antibiotic use, and a third of the loads of nitrogen and phosphorus into freshwater resources.
Grass-fed cattle trample riparian vegetation and break down streambanks. Livestock are the main cause of damage to riparian areas in the West, which are home to 70-80% of all western wildlife.
Grass-fed cattle are the primary (if not the only) reason for predator control in the West. Thousands of wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, coyotes, mountain lions and other wildlife are destroyed each year to protect livestock on public and private lands — at taxpayer expense!
Grass-fed cattle transmit disease to wildlife, including buffalo, elk and deer.
Whether grain-fed or grass-fed, beef production is an ecological disaster for the North American West.
"Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reforms. . . . If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
— Frederick Douglass, 1857
Stop Oil and Gas Drilling in Santa Fe County
Peace and Justice for Animals, an animal activist organization for this bioregion, adds its support in solidarity with many others who are opposed to Tecton (or any fossil fuel extractive industry) raping our last wild lands. The Galisteo Basin is home to a myriad of animal species, which have found refuge there. Where do the wildlife go when another destructive human industry ruins their ecosystem?
We are at the end of the Age of Fossil Fuels. It is time to stop. No more fossil fuel exploration, no more drilling, no more oil spills, no more raping of our natural world. In the Age of Global Climate Change, it is insane to continue to drill for more fossil fuels, which will only accelerate our climate problems.
The Governor, Legislature and County Commission must listen to The People. If they do not, we will make the decisions for them. We must speak for those who cannot.
A forum on wildlife in the Galisteo Basin will take place Friday, May 9, 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM at Santa Fe Community College, Board Room #223
Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
— Eugene V. Debs
U.S. campaign against terrorism targets animal activists
In 2006 six activists received jail sentences of three to six years for operating a website advocating the closure of the notorious animal-testing lab Huntingdon Life Sciences (also known as LSRI). The case against the activists and the organization Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty became known as the SHAC7 case. This is the first time anyone has ever been tried for the alleged crime of "animal enterprise terrorism" under the Animal Enterprise Protection Act of 1992.
To insure that the War on Terrorism, targets animal activists, a near-unanimous Congress passed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, increasing penalties for the alleged crimes enumerated in the Animal Enterprise Protection Act. The federal government now classifies as a terrorist, subject to 20 years in prison, anyone who causes "loss of profits, or increased costs, including losses and increased costs resulting from threats, acts or vandalism, property damage, trespass, harassment, or intimidation taken against a person or entity on account of that person's or entity's connection to, relationship with, or transactions with the animal enterprise."
Not content with AETA, the House of Representatives passed the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. The bill defines "ideologically-based violence" as "the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individuals political, religious, or social beliefs."
War threatens all life on Earth
No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, and Iran is years away from producing nuclear weapons. The USA is the only nation which has used nuclear weapons in war. According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the U.S. arsenal contains over 10,000 nuclear warheads. Meanwhile the U.S. Congress continues to provide bipartisan support to the Israeli military, known to have nuclear weapons. Modern tanks and aircraft (including helicopters) routinely use depleted uranium, a toxic radioactive by-product of the production of nuclear weapons and fuel for nuclear reactors.
In its National Security Strategy for the United States, the Bush-Cheney Administration has declared the policy of the U.S. government now includes the preemptive use of nuclear weapons. Originally developed in 2002 under the auspices of then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, the document continued the National Energy Strategy, developed by Vice President Cheney and his former colleagues in the oil industry. (Rice, now Secretary of State, is a former Chevron executive after whom an oil tanker was named.) The latest (2006) version adds the alleged threat of an Iranian nuclear weapons program to the list of reasons for maintaining U.S. military control over the world oil market.
Petroleum and other fossil fuels are major contributors to global climate change. In January 2004 the journal Nature reported that "15–37% of a sample of 1,103 land plants and animals would eventually become extinct as a result of climate changes expected by 2050. For some of these species there will no longer be anywhere suitable to live. Others will be unable to reach places where the climate is suitable. A rapid shift to technologies that do not produce greenhouse gases, combined with carbon sequestration, could save 15–20% of species from extinction."
How do people find it so easy to ignore the killing of innocent civilians, now dismissed as "collateral damage"? The rise of Nazi Germany offers a valuable lesson. The Nazi propaganda machine blamed Jews for the economic difficulties Germany experienced during the Depression of the 1930s. They claimed that Jews were not really human, and deserved to be treated as "lower" animals. The German people took pride in their advanced civilization, but most thought nothing of the killing involved in eating meat. It seemed natural to them, just as it seems natural to most Americans today, to distinguish "lower" animals from humans.
As Hunt Master of the Reich, Luftwaffe Marshall Hermann Goering instituted regulations to make hunting more "sportsmanlike." At the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, Goering described the ease with which the Nazis came to power in Germany:
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”
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