G_j
G_j's JournalTurn Off that Camera! Animal Cruelty Videos Being Blocked
http://abcnews.go.com/m/story?id=18337864&ref=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fsearch%3Fhl%3Den%26tbo%3Dd%26site%3D%26source%3Dhp%26q%3Dcameras%2Banimal%2Brights%26oq%3Dcameras%2Banimal%2Brights%26gs_l%3Dmobile-gws-hp.3...4035.27614.0.29714.30.26.3.1.1.1.581.5863.5j9j6j0j3j3.26.0.les%253B..0.0...1ac.1.2.mobile-gws-hp.zF5PE_IvxigTurn Off that Camera! Animal Cruelty Videos Being Blocked
By CINDY GALLI and BRIAN ROSS (@brianross) Feb 7, 2013, 9:58 AM
Fearing arrest under laws pushed by the agriculture industry, animal rights activists have halted undercover camera investigations into animal cruelty in five farm states, including Iowa and Utah where the laws went into effect last year.
"We are not conducting our investigations in those five states," said Nathan Runkle, executive director of Mercy for Animals, a group whose most recent hidden-camera exposé led to criminal charges against employees at the largest dairy farm in Idaho.
The Humane Society of the United States has also stopped its hidden-camera investigations in those states as a result of what it concedes has been a victory for the agribusiness industry.
"If you think that chilling speech and closing the curtain on our food production is winning, then yes, they've won," Wayne Pacelle, CEO and president of the Humane Society of the United States, told ABC News.
..more..
Ancient wolf DNA to show how predator became man's best friend
Source: Telegraph uk
Ancient wolf DNA to show how predator became man's best friend
7:54AM GMT 11 Feb 2013
A study of ancient wolf bones and DNA could help scientists understand how the predators were tamed by our ancestors to become man's best friend.
The research could show that domestication took place 35,000 years ago, two and a half times longer ago than can currently be proven.
Experts are split on how the process began, with some insisting dogs were domesticated once in East Asia and spread from there, while others suggest it happened in several places at different times.
The project, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, will enable researchers from Durham and Aberdeen Universities to use the latest DNA techniques on bones, teeth and remains found across Asia and Europe.
.. More...
Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9861852/Ancient-wolf-DNA-to-show-how-predator-became-mans-best-friend.html#sections
Btw, wolves have been under
deadly assault.
http://www.defendersblog.org/2013/01/wolf-advocates-across-the-west/
The Meat Industry Now Consumes Four-Fifths of All Antibiotics
http://m.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/02/meat-industry-still-gorging-antibioticsThe Meat Industry Now Consumes Four-Fifths of All Antibiotics
By Tom Philpott on Fri. February 8, 2013 3:00 AM PDT
Last year, the Food and Drug Administration proposed a set of voluntary "guidelines" designed to nudge the meat industry to curb its antibiotics habit. Ever since, the agency has been mulling whether and how to implement the new program. Meanwhile, the meat industry has been merrily gorging away on antibioticsand churning out meat rife with antibiotic-resistant pathogensif the latest data from the FDA itself is any indication.
The Pew Charitable Trusts crunched the agency's numbers on antibiotic use on livestock farms and compared them to data on human use of antibiotics to treat illness, and mashed it all into an infographic, which I've excerpted below. Note that that while human antibiotic use has leveled off at below 8 billion pounds annually, livestock farms have been sucking in more and more of the drugs each yearand consumption reached a record nearly 29.9 billion pounds in 2011. To put it another way, the livestock industry is now consuming nearly four-fifths of the antibiotics used in the US, and its appetite for them is growing.
--- Of the Salmonella on ground turkey, about 78% were resistant to at least one antibiotic and half of the bacteria were resistant to three or more. These figures are up compared to 2010.
Nearly three-quarters of the Salmonella found on retail chicken breast were resistant to at least one antibiotic. About 12% of retail chicken breast and ground turkey samples were contaminated with Salmonella.
Resistance to tetracycline [an antibiotic] is up among Campylobacter on retail chicken. About 95% of chicken products were contaminated with Campylobacter, and nearly half of those bacteria were resistant to tetracyclines. This reflects an increase over last year and 2002.
More drones in the hands of the good guys
make us all safer..,Or something
like that...
Activists aim to halt wolf-hunting season, Referendum sought to stop Michigan law
Source: Toledo Blade
Activists aim to halt wolf-hunting season
Referendum sought to stop Michigan law
Animal advocates across Michigan are collecting signatures to stop the potential hunting of gray wolves, which were protected by the state for nearly 50 years after they were hunted to near extinction.
A referendum challenge to a new state law could delay the creation of a hunting season for the animals by a year and a half. In December, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed into law Public Act 520, which gives the state Natural Resources Commission the power to decide whether a wolf-hunting season should be held.
Various estimates place the wolf population at fewer than 700, with the vast majority in the Upper Peninsula.
Sen. Tom Casperson (R., Escanaba) sponsored the bill. The measure designates wolves as a game animal and authorizes the Natural Resources Commission to establish a game season.
Senate Bill 996, also sponsored by Mr. Casperson, would build upon provisions in law to ensure livestock owners receive fair and timely compensation for animals killed by wolves, coyotes, or cougars.
..more..
Read more: http://www.toledoblade.com/Politics/2013/02/04/Activists-aim-to-halt-wolf-hunting-season.html
US carbon emissions fall to lowest levels since 1994
Source: Guardian
Friday 1 February 2013 06.34 EST
US carbon emissions fall to lowest levels since 1994
Energy-saving technologies and a doubling in renewables led to the reduction in climate pollution, new figures show
--
America's carbon dioxide emissions last year fell to their lowest levels since 1994, according to a new report.
Carbon dioxide emissions fell by 13% in the past five years, because of new energy-saving technologies and a doubling in the take-up of renewable energy, the report compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) for the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE) said.
The reduction in climate pollution even as Congress failed to act on climate change brings America more than halfway towards Barack Obama's target of cutting emissions by 17% from 2005 levels over the next decade, the Bloomberg analysts said.
By the end of last year, America's emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions had fallen 10.7% from the 2005 baselines.
.
..more...
Read more: http://m.guardiannews.com/environment/2013/feb/01/us-carbon-emissions-lowest-levels
Does your kid want to protect wolves?
http://action.keepwolvesprotected.com/page/s/kids-for-pups?utm_source=em013113&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=KeepMIWolvesProtectedDoes your kid want to protect wolves?
If so, send us a fun picture of your son or daughter with a Keep Michigan Wolves Protected sign. Create your own sign or download and print our sign:
I want to protect wolves because...! (pdf)
You can also make your own creative sign for why your kid wants to keep Michigan's wolves protected. We'll be posting the pictures on our Facebook page. And we may even use it in a campaign ad!
~ ~~~
http://www.keepwolvesprotected.com/about
Keep Michigan Wolves Protected is a coalition of conservation groups, animal welfare organizations, wildlife professionals, hunters, ranchers and other Michigan citizens working to protect Michigan's fragile wolf population.
Wolves have been on the protected list in Michigan for nearly 50 years. There are fewer than 700 wolves in Michigan and their numbers are only now starting to recover. It's not right to spend decades bringing the wolf back from the brink of extinction only to turn around and allow them to be killed for sport.
Its already legal in Michigan to kill wolves in order to protect livestock or dogs. The wolf population is simply not large enough to support the hunting of wolves for sport. It's unnecessary and reckless given the decades spent trying to protect the wolf population in Michigan.
People don't eat wolves, and it's just pointless trophy hunting for no good purpose. Wolf hunting may involve especially cruel and unfair practices, such as painful steel-jawed leghold traps, hunting over bait, and even using packs of dogs to chase down and kill wolves.
In December 2012, after Michigan state politicians rushed a 'lame duck' bill through the House and Senate, Governor Snyder signed legislation into law that would designate wolves a "game" species and authorize the Natural Resources Commission to establish a hunting season.
Keep Michigan Wolves Protected is seeking to collect more than 225,000 signatures of Michigan voters to place a referendum on the ballot. If we are successful, a proposal will appear on the Michigan statewide ballot in 2014 that would allow voters to choose whether or not to enact the legislature's wolf hunting law.
It is the goal of Keep Michigan Wolves Protected to preserve the longstanding Michigan prohibition on the trophy hunting of this iconic species.
[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]
Wolf Slaughter Continues in the Rocky Mountains
http://howlingforjustice.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/wolf-slaughter-continues-in-the-rocky-mountains-by-james-william-gibson-earth-island-journal/Wolf Slaughter Continues in the Rocky Mountains
by James William Gibson (Earth Island Journal)
Fantasies of killing become increasingly bizarre
Lynne Stone, longtime wolf advocate and executive director of Northern Idahos Boulder White Cloud Council in Ketchum, couldnt help but laugh. For the last two years she has routinely petitioned the Idaho Dept of Fish and Game for every single Big Game Mortality Report filed on wolves killed by hunters several hundred of them since the animals lost Endangered Species Act protect. Hunters and trappers are required to send in the report along with the skull and pelt for examination. In mid-January Stone ran across a November 2012 report that stated, DNA came back as a domestic dog, a light-skinned one.
Hunters operating just west of Yellowstone National Park killed seven radio-collared wolves from
October through December, including the famous, often photographed 832F, the majestic female
alpha of the Lamar Canyon pack.
Buy a wolf tag, shoot a dog, claim it was a wolf, get bragging rights and a dog-skin rug, she chuckled Life is wonderful in 3rd world Idaho. Is anyone missing a light-colored mutt? Maybe its time folks put orange vests and hats on their dogs.
Gallows humor is all wolf supporters have left. In February 2011, Congress removed gray wolves in the northern Rockies from protection by the Endangered Species Act, the first time a species has ever been delisted for political reasons. Before that, the US Fish and Wildlife Services reintroduction of wolves to the northern Rockies in the mid-1990s appeared to be one of the greatest conservation successes in decades. Wolves had been killed off in the West in the late nineteenth and early centuries. But while tourists from all over the country came to Yellowstone in hopes of seeing Cinderella or Limpy many of the wolves became named in the Rockies a reactionary political movement developed against the animals.
Extreme Wealth and Inequality is un ethical!
http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/cost-of-inequality-oxfam-mb180113.pdfThe cost of inequality: how wealth and income
extremes hurt us all
The world must urgently set goals to tackle extreme inequality and extreme wealth
It is now widely accepted that rapidly growing extreme wealth and inequality are harmful to
human progress, and that something needs to be done. Already this year, the World Economic
Forums Global Risk Report rated inequality as one of the top global risks of 2013. The IMF and
the Economist agree. Around the world, the Occupy protests demonstrated the increasing public
anger and feeling that inequality has gone too far.
In the last decade, the focus has been exclusively on one half of the inequality equation - ending
extreme poverty. Inequality and the extreme wealth that contributes to it were seen as either not
relevant, or a prerequisite for the growth that would also help the poorest, as the wealth created
trickled down to the benefit of everyone.
There has been great progress in the fight against extreme poverty. Hundreds of millions of
people have seen their lives improve dramatically an historically unprecedented achievement
of which the world should be proud. But as we look to the next decade, and new development
goals we need to define progress, we must demonstrate that we are also tackling inequality- and
that means looking at not just the poorest but the richest5. Oxfam believes that reducing
inequality is a key part of fighting poverty and securing a sustainable future for all. In a world of
finite resources, we cannot end poverty unless we reduce inequality rapidly.
That is why we are calling for a new global goal to end extreme wealth by 2025, and reverse the
rapid increase in inequality seen in the majority of countries in the last twenty years, taking
inequality back to 1990 levels.
Extreme wealth and inequality are reaching levels never before seen and are getting
worse
Over the last thirty years inequality has grown dramatically in many countries. In the US the
share of national income going to the top 1% has doubled since 1980 from 10 to 20%. For the
top 0.01% it has quadrupled8 to levels never seen before. At a global level, the top 1% (60 million
people), and particularly the even more select few in the top 0.01% (600,000 individuals - there
are around 1200 billionaires in the world), the last thirty years has been an incredible feeding
frenzy10. This is not confined to the US, or indeed to rich countries. In the UK inequality is rapidly
returning to levels not seen since the time of Charles Dickens. In China the top 10% now take
home nearly 60% of the income. Chinese inequality levels are now similar to those in South
Africa, which are now the most unequal country on earth and significantly more unequal than at
the end of apartheid. Even in many of the poorest countries, inequality has rapidly grown.
Globally the incomes of the top 1% have increased 60% in twenty years. The growth in income
for the 0.01% has been even greater.
Following the financial crisis, the process has accelerated, with the top 1% further increasing their share of income. The luxury goods market has registered double digit growth every year
since the crisis hit. Whether it is a sports car or a super-yacht, caviar or champagne, there has
never been a bigger demand for the most expensive luxuries.
..more..
If this Anti-Trapping petition gets 100,000 signatures in 30 days
If this Anti-Trapping petition gets 100,000 signatures in 30 days the Obama administration will have to address it. Please consider signing and sharing. Thank you!
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/ban-trapping-america-all-other-civilized-countries-have-already-done-based-cruelty-and-torture/4vhVGVbz
Profile Information
Gender: MaleCurrent location: NC
Member since: 2003 before July 6th
Number of posts: 40,372