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  • Factory Farms poison our diets

    Conditions inside animal factory farms

    To understand the conditions present in these factory farms, you must first examine what the animals in these factory farms are eating. The factory farmer has redefined what constitutes animal feed in a ‘bottom line’ effort to save money. They seem to care little about the health or the happiness of the animal, and instead treat it like a product. The low quality standards placed on animal feed by these "farmers" prove that little consideration is being taken towards the animal or the consumer.

    For example, some of the "ingredients" commonly used in animal factory feed include: (think hard about this list the next time you order a hamburger…)

    • Excessive grains — Abnormally high amounts can make the animals sick, especially natural grass eaters like cattle. Their bodies are not designed to handle a corn-rich diet; as a result, these animals can form liver abscesses and excessively acidic digestive systems.

    • Plastics — For the many animals whose digestive systems still need roughage to move food through, these factories have turned to the use of plastic pellets instead of plant-based roughage to compensate for a lack of natural fiber in the feed.

    • Meat from members of the same species — The factory farming industry is turning farm animals into cannibals. Scientific research has linked this practice to the spread of both mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE) and avian bird flu.

    • Manure and animal waste — This can include cattle manure, swine waste, and poultry waste. It can also contain wood, sand, rocks, dirt, sawdust and other non-food substances.

    • Animal byproducts — This is often categorized as "animal protein products" and may appear as rendered feathers, hair, skin, hooves, blood, internal organs, intestines, beaks and bones. These may also include dead horses, euthanized cats and dogs, and road kill.

    • Drugs and chemicals (including dangerous antibiotics) — Drugs are frequently implemented in order to fight disease, control parasites and reduce animals’ stress from overcrowded living conditions. However, the antimicrobials used on some poultry promote the accumulation of arsenic inside their bodies. This is a highly carcinogenic chemical that can then contaminate the water supply near the farm, or emerge in the meat later eaten by consumers.

    In fact, an estimated 13.5 million pounds of antibiotics are used on factory farm animals every year in the U.S. These antibiotics are grossly overused and are especially dangerous because they aid in the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria — an urgent health problem that costs the American taxpayers billions of dollars every year.

    Factories of despair

    Factory farm animals endure great suffering through the entire process of being housed, fed, transported and slaughtered. Approximately 95% of factory-raised animals are subject to deplorable conditions such as overcrowding, hunger, thirst and sometimes-fatal weather extremes. Many times, they are kept conscious or even skinned alive during the process of slaughtering.

    The only significant law regarding the handling of factory animals is the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act. Although this law does require that slaughtered animals be rendered insensible to pain before the process begins, it is insufficient due to the actual wording of the law, which does not cover the handling of poultry. In addition, all other treatment of factory animals is condoned by default since it is not covered under the law. While many other industrialized nations have enacted restrictions on cruel factory farming practices, the U.S. lags behind other countries on the issue of animal cruelty. The torture of animals is well tolerated in the United States today. (And why not? The U.S. also tolerates the torture of war prisoners. This "civilized" nation has proven itself to be anything but civilized…)

    According to interviews with slaughterhouse workers included in Gail Eisnitz’s book Slaughterhouse, the end of an animal’s life is a torturous and abusive process. One employee elaborates on the abuse that animals endure by reporting, "On the farm where I work, they drag the live ones who can’t stand up anymore out of the crate. They put a metal snare around her ear or foot and drag her the full length of the building. These animals are just screaming in pain. The slaughtering part doesn’t bother me. It’s the way they’re treated when they’re alive. Dying animals unable to walk are tossed into the ‘downer pile,’ and many suffer agonies until, after one or two days, they are finally killed." Animals such as cows, calves, pigs and chickens are made to live truly horrible lives, however short, while being housed in factory farms."

    The routine torture of dairy cows

    Milking cows are treated like machines; confined from all other animals including their calves, they are made to stand on concrete floors in their own waste. In order to manipulate genetics and produce more milk, farmers pump the cows full of chemicals, hormones and antibiotics, many of which may make their way into the milk we drink and the cheese we eat.

    Just like beef cattle, many of these cows suffer from disease, reproductive problems and lameness due to the stress of the factory setting. They produce milk for about eight or nine years until they are no longer able, at which time they are slaughtered. One of the most frequently cited reasons for having to send a cow to slaughter, however, is mastitis — an excruciating swelling and irritation of the mammary glands caused by bacteria.

    It’s not only the adult animals that are treated cruelly: taken away from their mothers shortly after birth, male calves are most often raised for veal from the day after they are born. For anywhere from three to 18 weeks, they are kept chained by the neck in dark, cramped stalls, unable to move in any direction. They are fed a diet consisting mainly of a milk substitute that promotes rapid weight gain but low enough in iron to cause anemia, thus keeping the flesh pale. Many of them suffer from lameness, pneumonia and diarrhea. White veal consistently has been found to contain residues of carcinogenic growth hormones. (Think twice nice time before you order veal. Consuming this is directly promoting the torture of these mammals.)

    Beef cattle don’t have it much better. Many are sent to live in overcrowded feedlots where they are given an average of 14 square feet to roam after being castrated, dehorned and branded.

    Producing pork with yet more animal torture

    Pregnant pigs, also known as sows, are confined to metal crates that are a mere two feet wide. This constriction renders them unable to satisfy their own basic psychological needs or engage in almost any natural behavior. This causes a great deal of stress and suffering for the animal, many times enabling her to do little more than stand up and lie down. The sow rarely even has the capacity to full extend her limbs or turn around.

    This is a process that the sow must go through until she is unable to have children anymore, in which case she will most likely be slaughtered. These methods are inhumane and cause sows to experience frustration, fear, and physical ailments such as lameness, repetitive bar biting, soreness, head waving, sham chewing and crippling joint disorders.

    "Forced to lie and live in their own urine and excrement, the sows chew frenziedly on bars and chains, as foraging animals will do when denied even straw to eat or sleep on, or else engage in stereotypical nest-building with straw that isn’t there. Everywhere you see tumors, ulcers, cysts, lesions, torn ears — these afflictions never examined by a vet, never even noticed anymore by the largely immigrant labor charged with their care. When the sows leave their iron crates after four months of pregnancy, it is only to be driven and dragged into other crates just as small to give birth," according to Matthew Scully, author of the book Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy. "Then it’s back to the gestation crate for another four months, and so on, for about eight or nine pregnancies, until they expire from the sheer punishment of it, or are culled as too sick and weak to go on."

    And guess what? All this negative energy goes right into the meat that consumers swallow. Once consumed by a human, the energy of that meat is absorbed into that person’s system, making them feel sick, angry or afraid, just like the emotions of the animal from which the flesh was taken. Is it any wonder that meat eaters are the most angry, violent and war-mongering individuals in society today?

    Atrocious conditions for chickens

    Like pigs, chickens grow up in a similar state of disarray, forced to live through nearly intolerable conditions. Approximately six billion "broiler" chickens are produced and sold each year by the factory farmer to sources like supermarkets and fast food chicken restaurants. As many as 60% of supermarket chickens are infected with Salmonella enteritis. Another pathogen that can be spread from chickens to humans is Campylobacter, which can cause infection, illness or death.

    ###

    About the author: Mike Adams is a natural health researcher and author with a strong interest in personal health, the environment and the power of nature to help us all heal He has authored and published thousands of articles, interviews, consumers guies, and books on topics like health and the environment, reaching millions of readers with information that is saving lives and improving personal health around the world. Adams is an honest, independent journalist and accepts no money or commissions on the third-party products he writes about or the companies he promotes. In 2007, Adams launched EcoLEDs, a maker of energy efficient LED lights that greatly reduce CO2 emissions. He also founded an environmentally-friendly online retailer called BetterLifeGoods.com that uses retail profits to help support consumer advocacy programs. He’s also a noted pioneer in the email marketing software industry, having been the first to launch an HTML email newsletter technology that has grown to become a standard in the industry. Adams volunteers his time to serve as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and regularly pursues cycling, nature photography, Capoeira and Pilates.

  • The Solar Farmer

    The irrigation works with a central pivot. These plots look like large green circles from the sky. But roads in the prairies create a checkerboard. The result is four unfarmed corners on each checker, which provide amazing space for harvesting the sun in another way: with solar panels.

    Kunugi, as well as five other farmers, recently each had a 10 kilowatt (kW) photovoltaic (PV) solar system installed on their property. In the summer months, most of the energy generated from these systems will go to the farmers pivot irrigation and in the winter, it will go to the pool of electricity in the grid.

    Jack Gilleland is another one of these farmers. He pays $8,000 a year to power his irrigation system and will see that number cut in half with his PV system. "The best part is I’ll save money by producing my own green power from the sun," he says.

    The project will save the farmers money for three main reasons. The first one is a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture managed by the local Resource Conservation & Development (RC&D). The second is a $4.50 buy down per watt from Xcel Energy, the local utility. The last part of the equation is a federal tax credit of up to 30% of the upfront costs for a business such as a farm.

    But money will only make a project work with the right people. The main driver was Jim Mietz from the San Luis Valley RC&D. While others talked about the possibility of such a project, Mietz went ahead and initiated it. He also received help from Ravi Malhotra who works with iCAST, a non-profit that partners with communities to bring appropriate technology to the people who need it.

    iCAST helped with the project design, development of the bid and managed the proposals to eventually pick the best bid, which ended up being Direct Water and Power Corporation. The company is installing the PV systems at the six farms, one of which includes Paul Newbenefit’s.

    Newbenefit is excited about the experience he, and the other farmers, will gain noting, "if we can learn something from it and encourage the solar industry, we’ll be happy… we are at a fantastic place for solar and we will [all] benefit."

    American producers like Kunugi, Gilleland and Newbenefit are joining the renewable energy revolution. The fact is they have good access to renewable resources like solar or wind energy. It’s usually just a question of ironing out the details and that’s where organizations like iCAST come in.

    This all leads to greater energy autonomy where we work with the forces of nature, farming the sun that just comes back every morning. As Kunugi says, "I just wish I could have gotten into it in a bigger way."

    Raphael Shay is the Outreach Coordinator at iCAST, where he bridges iCAST’s projects with the people who need them most. iCAST is a Denver, Colorado based organization that facilitates appropriate technology, business, and infrastructure development projects.

  • Depleted uranium enduring risk

    By Oct. 29, 70 per cent of U.S. air strikes were in support of the Northern Alliance armed forces, most guided by the U.S. Special Forces on the ground. The MQ-1 Predator drone with Hellfire missiles was operating over Taliban forces, directing air attacks and launching missiles.

    By Nov. 5 the number of individual air missions was up to 120 per day, adding F-16 and

    F-15 fighter-bombers out of U.S. bases in Kuwait.

    The turning point in the war to oust the Taliban government came on Nov. 6 at Mazar-e Sharif, a key city in the northern plains. Attack aircraft rained down hundreds of MK82 500-lb bombs. B-52 bombers used carpet bombing to kill thousands of Taliban forces. It was here that U.S. forces dropped the first BLU-82 Daisy Cutter bomb, each weighing 15,000 lbs, producing devastation over a 600-yard radius. All the weapons used by the U.S. air attack included depleted uranium shielding.

    Depleted uranium (DU) is produced during the uranium enrichment process. The U-235 used to produce fuel for reactors generating electricity is removed, leaving the U-238 isotope. The material is extremely dense and increases the penetration ability of weapons; it is used to coat shells and warheads on missiles and bombs. On impact, the shell, with its uranium and traces of americium and plutonium, vaporizes and becomes very tiny particles of radioactive dust. When it is inhaled it can stay in the body, emitting radiation.

    The DU used in U.S. weapons comes from the uranium mines in Saskatchewan.

    In the 1991 Gulf war, DU was delivered almost exclusively with shells from tanks and ammunition used by aircraft. It is used in all armour-piercing ordnance. In the wars in Bosnia in 1995 and Kosovo in 1999, NATO allies added DU missiles and bunker busting bombs. Thousands of DU bombs and missiles have been used by U.S. forces in the Afghan and Iraq wars. A typical bunker bomb contains 1.5 tonnes of depleted uranium.

    In August 2003 Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor used a Geiger counter to test several sites in Baghdad near where bunker-buster bombs and missiles had fallen. He found radiation readings that were between 1,000 and 1,900 times higher than normal background radiation readings. DU weapons are still being extensively used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    After the 1991 Gulf War, birth defects and leukemia rose dramatically in the areas around Basra where these weapons were used. By 2003, the U.S. Defense Department admitted that over 200,000 Gulf War veterans had filed for compensation for death, illness or disabilities.

    The veterans refer to this as "Gulf War Syndrome." In the first Gulf War, the U.S.-led coalition suffered 148 deaths.

    Since then 8,000 veterans of this war have experienced early death.

    In 1996 the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring that DU weapons were illegal "weapons of mass destruction." In 2002, the U.N. Human Rights Convention passed a resolution urging a ban on the use of any DU weapons. We will have to wait to find out the impact of these weapons on the people of Afghanistan and the men and women in the U.S., Canadian and NATO armed forces.

    – Warnock is a Regina political economist and author.

    This is an extract from his forthcoming book Afghanistan: The Creation of a Failed State, to be published by Fernwood in 2008

  • Climate urgency builds parliamentary support for Simultaneous Policy

    To eliminate the fear of first-mover disadvantage, SP’s range of global
    measures is to be implemented simultaneously, only when all or sufficient
    governments have signed up. By posing no-risk to any nation’s international
    competitiveness, simultaneous action removes excuses for inaction and delay
    and opens the way to far more robust policies being adopted than relatively
    weak agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol. Contraction & Convergence, a
    powerful international framework designed to combat global warming, is one
    measure that has been put forward for potential inclusion in SP’s package of
    global problem-solving measures.

    To secure sufficient international political will for the implementation of
    SP, citizens around the world who support it, known as Adopters, tell
    politicians that they will be voting in all future national elections for
    any candidate, within reason, who has signed the pledge to implement SP
    alongside other governments, or they encourage their preferred party to
    support SP. In this way, competition between candidates is intensified to a
    point where politicians who fail to support SP risk losing their seats to
    those who do. With more parliamentary seats and even entire national
    elections being won or lost on fine margins, only a relatively small number
    of Adopters may be needed to make it in the vital interests of the main
    politicians and parties to support SP.

    Celia Barlow’s pledge to implement SP follows vigorous local campaigning by
    Brighton and Hove’s SP Adopters Group, chaired by Barnaby Flynn. Local
    Adopter groups meet regularly around the UK and recruit new Adopters, so
    building the pressure on politicians to sign the SP Pledge. Caroline Lucas,
    the Green Party MEP who will stand at the next election in the neighbouring
    Brighton Pavilion constituency, has already signed the SP Pledge and
    competing candidates from other parties are expected to follow.

    Adopting SP is free. Please go to
    http://www.simpol.org/en/main/Concept.htm#Adopt  For further information
    visit www.simpol.org or contact Diana Trimble. For Barnaby Flynn, contact
    07799 603042.

  • Pathways to a low carbon future – We can do it!

    The evening will focus on strategies for achieving change at a community level, overcoming regulatory obstacles and the challenges we face as we make the transition to a sustainable lifestyle. As Tim Winton put it recently on The Generator, “We have had the technology to reduce our footprint for some time. Most of the challenges are human.”

    The evening will include musical interludes, snippets of new and well respected films as well as presentations from the main speakers. The evening will finish with questions from the audience and a call for community action from the audience.

    Introduced by Byron Shire Mayor Jan Barham, the speakers are well known in their fields and popular speakers.

    Tim Winton has built The Permaforest Trust as a not-for-profit education centre and demonstration farm in Barkers Vale in the Tweed Valley. He is well known as a speaker on Permaculture, Peak Oil and transitional lifestyles.

    Dr Sally MacKinnon is a director of the Ethos Foundation, founder of the Gondwana Centre and deeply involved in the Australian water, energy and sustainable development industries.

    Giovanni Ebono is founder and producer of the popular radio show, The Generator, author of Sydney’s Guide to Saving the Planet and editor of Sustainable Living for Dummies.

     

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