Go vegetarian to save planet, scientists tell Government

Scientists from the University of East Anglia analysed existing data
on the nutritional and environmental effects of different kinds of
foods.

Eating less beef, sugar, and cheese, as well as drinking less tea and
coffee, were recommended, as well as eating more pulses and cereals.

The report was commissioned by the Food Standards Agency to try to
change the way people cook and eat.

Other recommendations included eating more seasonal produce to reduce
transportation and switching to microwave ovens and pressure cookers
to use less energy in preparing food.

The report suggests that schools, hospitals and other public bodies
should be expected to lead a change in national behaviour by putting
food on their menus which has contributed little to greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions.

The report noted: "The highest GHG emissions are associated with beef,
cheese, coffee, tea and cocoa consumption."

--
full story:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/foodanddrinknews/8079534/Go-vegetarian-to-save-planet-scientists-tell-Government.html

U.S. Interior Department proposes international ban on the trade in polar bears

Animal rights groups today praised the U.S. Department of the Interior
for submitting a proposal to ban the international trade in polar
bears.

If approved by the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora at its meeting next March
in Qatar, the proposal would make commercial trade in polar bears
illegal. Currently, international commercial trade is regulated.

The ban would not apply to native subsistence hunting of polar bears.

"International trade in polar bear parts and products is exacerbating
the devastating impact that climate change is already having on the
polar bear," said Teresa M. Telecky, director of wildlife for Humane
Society International.

--
full story:
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2009/10/us_interior_department_propose.html

Arctic Geese Skip Migration as Planet Warms

No Longer Just Summer Birds Discovery News Video Sept. 16, 2009 --
In the Fall of 2007, tens of thousands of small arctic geese called Pacific brant (Branta bernicla nigricans) decided not to go south for the winter.

For these long-haul migratory birds, it was a dramatic choice -- they usually spend the cold months munching their favorite eel grass in the waters off Mexico's Baja peninsula. But changes in Earth's climate have so affected them that the barren windswept lagoons of western Alaska are looking more and more appealing.

The trend is likely to continue, according to a new study, affecting not only brant but a host of migratory birds around the globe.

David Ward of the United States Geological Survey in Anchorage has been studying brant behavior for nearly three decades.

When he began back in the 1970s, only around 4000 birds toughed out the winter in Izembek Lagoon, a 25-mile long stretch of protected water on the Alaska Peninsula. Two autumns ago, the number had climbed to 40,000 -- nearly 30 percent of the total population.

"The birds normally wait for a storm system to come down through the Aleutians," Ward said. "They catch the tail winds down south. But the track of storm systems is a little different now."


WATCH VIDEO: Is Alaska America's poster child for climate change? Related Content:
Full story:http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/09/16/birds-migration-warming.html

Major Victory for Ivory Coast's Rainforests as Oil Palm Successfully

Major Victory for Ivory Coast's Rainforests as Oil Palm Successfully Resisted

- Finally the oil palm scourge threatening primary rainforests and life giving ecosystems worldwide faces a setback as local protests are again successfully supported internationally by Ecological Internet, Rainforest Rescue and others.

April 25, 2009
By Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet (EI)
http://www.ecoearth.info/newsdesk/
CONTACT: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org

Côte d'Ivoire's (Ivory Coast) main palm oil company, Palmci, on Friday announced it was abandoning a major plantation scheme in the south of the country after opposition by environmentalists to destruction of 12,000 hectares (29,700 acres) of primary rainforests. Tanoé Swamps Forest is one of the last remaining old growth forests in the country and the last refuge for three highly endangered primates -- the Miss Waldron's Red Colobus, the Geoffroy's colobus and the Diana roloway -- as well as home to many endangered plant species.

In June of 2008, Ecological Internet and Rainforest Rescue of Germany initiated the first major international campaign against the Tanoé Swamps Forest oil palm project and in support of local opposition. Leading global consumer products company Unilever was then poised to destroy Ivory Coast's rainforests as both investor and customer, after having just made a supposed commitment -- falsely heralded by some -- to rainforest protection and certified oil palm, but starting in 2015.

EI President Dr. Glen Barry explains, "6,257 people from 92 countries sent 407,131 protest emails, resisting Unilever's greenwash, and making this a global rainforest controversy. Again, together we have proven the power of global citizens working within loose transnational coalitions, connected by the Internet, to confront ecocide wherever it is occurring. Never doubt that ecological protest, online and in person, can make a real difference for Earth. As with all rainforest 'victories', this bears continued watching as Palmci is scouting other areas."

### MORE ###

This recent victory highlights the growing effectiveness of Ecological Internet's "Earth Action Network" [1], particularly working with Rainforest Rescue on U.S. biomass energy issues. In the past few months, EI's global network of tens of thousands of ecological sustainability citizen activists have significantly contributed to victories to begin ending the use of corn ethanol biofuels (while highlighting the dangers of 2nd generation biomass based biofuel), exposed the charlatan nature of proposed climate geo-engineering schemes, stopped the midnight raid upon Oregon's wild forests, and fearlessly and at great expense confronted those greenwashing FSC's approval for industrial first time logging of primary forests.

Dr. Barry continues, "oil palm development, logging and other industrial development of ancient primary and old growth forests -- certified or not -- is a crime against Earth and humanity. Earth, and all her creatures including humans, cannot exist without old forests. Their full protection and restoration is a global ecological imperative or all life may end. If you care about you and your family's water, air, food and shelter in the future, you will commit now to continued, escalating ecological protest on rainforests and climate, and thus to save being."

### ENDS ###

[1] Current Earth Action Network alerts: http://www.ecoearth.info/shared/alerts/

Discuss this release at:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2009/04/release_major_victory_for_ivor.asp

Ecological Internet provides the world's largest and most used climate and environment portals at http://www.climateark.org/ and http://www.ecoearth.info/ . Dr. Glen Barry is a leading global spokesperson on behalf of environmental sustainability policy. He frequently conducts interviews on the latest climate, forest and water policy developments and can be reached at: glenbarry@ecologicalinternet.org

MEAT THE TRUTH PREMIERE IN NEW YORK, MAY 17TH AT NEW YORK FILM ACADEMY

THE NICOLAAS G. PIERSON FOUNDATION (NGPF) WILL PRESENT THE VERY FIRST
DOCUMENTARY ON LIVESTOCK FARMING?S CONTRIBUTION TO THE EMISSION OF
GREENHOUSE GASES, IN NEW YORK. THE NYC PREMIERE OF MEAT THE TRUTH WILL
BE HELD AT NEW YORK FILM ACADEMY ON MAY 17TH.

The film, presented by the Dutch Party for the Animals? leader
Marianne Thieme, forms an addendum to earlier documentaries on climate
change, which failed to address one of the biggest causes of global
warming. Numerous reports produced by renowned scientists from the
World Watch Institute, the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the
United Nations, the Profetas project and the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC), were translated by researchers at the NGPF
and the Free University Amsterdam into a concise visual document,
which explains the impact of meat consumption on climate change, the
use of natural resources and hunger in the world.

The film acts as an erratum to earlier films on climate change, such
as AL GORE?S AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, which while convincingly drawing
attention to the issue of global warming, failed to mention one of the
most important causes thereof. Meat the Truth demonstrates that
worldwide the livestock industry is a far greater cause of global
warming than all of the cars, trucks, planes and ships added together.
The issues of the impact of livestock farming on water shortages and
the unequal distribution of food resources are also raised in this
documentary.

At the end of the film, practical solutions to tackle climate
change at the level of the individual consumer are presented. The
solutions have been calculated by scientists at the VU University
Amsterdam and make it pertinently clear just how simple it could be to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions in large amounts. Here is just one
example: if all people in the US decided to eat no meat for three days
a week, then they would save almost 300 megatons of greenhouse gas
emissions. This would have a greater impact on the climate than
replacing all US cars with Toyota Prius models. Even if people in the
US didn?t eat meat for just one day a week, that would make a huge
difference. It would save 99.6 megatons of greenhouse gas emissions.
This would save 46 million return flights from New York to Los Angeles
and back from Los Angeles to New York.
The NGPF is the scientific bureau of the Party for the Animals; the
worlds? very first party for ?non-humans? to be represented in
parliament. For the documentary Meat the Truth, the producers filmed
in Washington DC, Norfolk (Virginia), Seattle and Amsterdam. Many
celebrities participated in the making of the film such as Pamela
Anderson, Bill Maher, Emily Deschanel, Tony Denison, James Cromwell,
Elaine Hendrix, Kate Flannery , Debra Wilson Skelton, Joy Lauren, Esai
Morales, Wayne Pacelle, Howard Lyman, and many others. Meat the Truth
was produced by Claudine Everaert and Gertjan Zwanikken of Alalena
Media Productions. The film will be shown in movie theatres and art
house cinemas throughout the world (Amsterdam, New York, Washington
DC, Los Angeles, Beijing, Singapore, Barcelona, Dresden, Sao Paulo and
Brussels) and will then be released on DVD.
The Nicolaas G. Pierson Foundation believes that the film will make a
valuable contribution to the social discussion about a transition to a
more plant-based and thus also a more humane society. The NGPF also
hopes that the film will provide a showcase for prominent scientific
reports, which have thus far proved inaccessible to the general public.

Prior to the screening, the VEGGIE PRIDE PARADE will take place. For
more information: _www.veggieprideparade.org_[1]

MEAT THE TRUTH PREMIERE NEW YORK

DATE: May 17th 2009
SCREENING TIMES: 5pm and 7 pm
LOCATION: New York Film Academy
ADDRESS: 100 E 17th Street, New York, NY
ADMISSION: FREE!RESERVATIONS:
_newyork@meatthetruth.com_[2]

_www.meatthetruth.com_[3]



Links:
------
[1] http://www.veggieprideparade.org/
[2] mailto:newyork@meatthetruth.com
[3] http://www.meatthetruth.com/

INDIGENOUS NATIVE AMERICAN PROPHECY PART#3

HAPPY EARTH DAY TODAY AND EVERY DAY!

INDIGENOUS NATIVE AMERICAN PROPHECY PART#1

HAPPY EARTH DAY TODAY AND EVERY DAY!

WE ARE ALL ONE!

HAPPY EARTH DAY TODAY AND EVERY DAY!

Breaking News!ERA ToPropose Climate Protection!

*** BREAKING NEWS *** BREAKING NEWS *** BREAKING NEWS ***


EPA formally declares global warming to be a threat to Americans' health and well-being.
Go to the Green Room to share your views on today's action.
In an historic decision moments ago, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson issued a proposed ruling that global warming pollution "endangers" Americans' health and well-being.

Today's action sets the stage for using authority under the Clean Air Act to establish national emission standards for large global warming emitters.

EDF's deputy general counsel Vickie Patton says that with today's announcement, "The U.S. is taking its first steps as a nation to confront climate change. EPA's action is a wake up-call for national policy solutions that secure our economic and environmental future."

The EPA is now expected to begin developing national emission standards for new motor vehicles and new coal-fired power plants, the nation's two largest sources of global warming pollution.

Today's action comes as Congress prepares to take its own historic steps toward enacting a cap on global warming pollution.

Next week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will begin hearings on comprehensive energy and climate legislation and move quickly to a vote on the bill. Chairman Henry Waxman has committed to moving the bill -- the American Clean Energy and Security Act -- out of committee by Memorial Day.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she intends to bring the bill to the House floor this year.

With EPA's decision as a backdrop, we will continue our all-out campaign to pressure Congress to pass a cap on America's global warming pollution as the most effective way to stop global warming and unleash our clean energy future.

Please go to the Green Room to share your thoughts on today's announcement.

Thanks for your activism and support.

Sincerely,
Sam Parry
Director of Online Membership and Activism
Environmental Defense Fund

Human Global Warming: What are the Main Causes?

Written by Brian Liloia




To understand how humans cause global warming, it is important that you are aware of the link between your daily activities and the greenhouse effect. Furthermore, once you understand this, it is easy to see that you have the power to help stop global warming from getting worse.

The primary way humans cause global warming is by burning fossil fuels. This increases the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, which leads to an increase in the Greenhouse Effect.



How Your Daily Activities
Contribute to the Problem
Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have been using fossil fuels to power machines. Now, nearly everything you consume, nearly every product you buy, and many of your daily activities involve the use of fossil fuels. You contribute to global warming:

When You Drive or Fly
Every time you drive a car, carbon-rich auto exhaust enters the atmosphere. The use of jet fuel in plane travel adds even more to your carbon footprint than does car travel.

When You Eat Meat and Exotic Foods
The food industry, especially the meat industry, is one of the primary sources of greenhouse gases, according to some recent studies.

Eating food that is shipped long distances adds to greenhouse gas emissions. Consider the fact that the average food item you eat travels over 1000 miles from farm to fork. In addition, conventional agriculture uses massive amounts of petroleum-based fertilizers.

Eating beef and drinking milk also adds to greenhouse gases, since cows emit significant amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas even more potent than carbon.

When You Use Electricity
Although some power generation is now being done with solar and wind energy, the chances are high that the electricity you use is generated from coal-burning power plants.

When You Move Into
A New Development
If you decide to move into a new suburban development near the edge of town, you’re increasing the profits developers get from cutting down trees and paving over farm land. When farms and forests disappear, the land loses the ability to absorb carbon, and emissions from other activities have an even greater effect.

What You Can Do
The effects of global warming have the potential to be devastating to humanity and the planet, which is why you must act now.

Related Articles:

How Do Humans Cause Global Warming


How to Prevent Global Warming on Your Way to Work

Ways to Prevent Global Warming Through Natural Building


Why Going Vegetarian for One Day Will Help Stop Global Warming

(Image credit: flickr via db™)

An Antarctic Ice Shelf has disappeared

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One Antarctic ice shelf has quickly vanished, another is disappearing and glaciers are melting faster than anyone thought due to climate change, U.S. and British government researchers reported on Friday.

They said the Wordie Ice Shelf, which had been disintegrating since the 1960s, is gone and the northern part of the Larsen Ice Shelf no longer exists. More than 3,200 square miles (8,300 square km) have broken off from the Larsen shelf since 1986.

Climate change is to blame, according to the report from the U.S. Geological Survey and the British Antarctic Survey, available at pubs.usgs.gov/imap/2600/B.

"The rapid retreat of glaciers there demonstrates once again the profound effects our planet is already experiencing -- more rapidly than previously known -- as a consequence of climate change," U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement.

"This continued and often significant glacier retreat is a wakeup call that change is happening ... and we need to be prepared," USGS glaciologist Jane Ferrigno, who led the Antarctica study, said in a statement.

"Antarctica is of special interest because it holds an estimated 91 percent of the Earth's glacier volume, and change anywhere in the ice sheet poses significant hazards to society," she said.

In another report published in the journal Geophysical Letters, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that ice is melting much more rapidly than expected in the Arctic as well, based on new computer analyses and recent ice measurements.

The U.N. Climate Panel projects that world atmospheric temperature will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius because of emissions of greenhouse gases that could bring floods, droughts, heat waves and more powerful storms.

As glaciers and ice sheets melt, they can raise overall ocean levels and swamp low-lying areas.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Xavier Briand)

Climate Change? Try, Climate Breakdown

Climate Change? Try, Climate Breakdown
What's clear from Copenhagen is that policymakers have fallen behind the scientists: global warming is already catastrophic
by George Monbiot

The more we know, the grimmer it gets.

Presentations by climate scientists at this week's conference [1] in Copenhagen show that we might have underplayed the impacts of global warming in three important respects:

Partly because the estimates by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [1] (IPCC) took no account of meltwater from Greenland's glaciers, the rise in sea levels this century could be twice or three times as great [2] as it forecast, with grave implications for coastal cities, farmland and freshwater reserves.
Two degrees of warming in the Arctic (which is heating up much more quickly than the rest of the planet) could trigger [3] a massive bacterial response in the soils there. As the permafrost melts, bacteria are able to start breaking down organic material that was previously locked up in ice, producing billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide and methane. This could catalyse one of the world's most powerful positive feedback loops: warming causing more warming.
Four degrees of warming could almost eliminate [4] the Amazon rainforests, with appalling implications for biodiversity and regional weather patterns, and with the result that a massive new pulse of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere. Trees are basically sticks of wet carbon. As they rot or burn, the carbon oxidises. This is another way in which climate feedbacks appear to have been underestimated in the last IPCC report.
Apart from the sheer animal panic I felt on reading these reports, two things jumped out at me. The first is that governments are relying on IPCC assessments that are years out of date even before they are published, as a result of the IPCC's extremely careful and laborious review and consensus process. This lends its reports great scientific weight, but it also means that the politicians using them as a guide to the cuts in greenhouse gases required are always well behind the curve. There is surely a strong case for the IPCC to publish interim reports every year, consisting of a summary of the latest science and its implications for global policy.

The second is that we have to stop calling it climate change. Using "climate change" to describe events like this, with their devastating implications for global food security, water supplies and human settlements, is like describing a foreign invasion as an unexpected visit, or bombs as unwanted deliveries. It's a ridiculously neutral term for the biggest potential catastrophe humankind has ever encountered.

I think we should call it "climate breakdown". Does anyone out there have a better idea?

MEAT AND GLOBAL WARMING

FROM DAWNWATCH:The current issue of Audubon magazine includes a terrific and accidentally animal friendly column about the impact of diet on the environment. Why do I write accidentally animal friendly? While there is a common assumption that environmentalists are concerned with animal suffering, the assumption is too often false. The Audubon Society is the perfect case in point. In Thanking the Monkey I refer to the group as the "Audubowhunt Society" as my tribute to the method that was chosen to remove 60 deer who were damaging Audubon's 285 acre reserve. While the decision to remove the deer may be a more complex ethical issue, there is no ethical grey area around bow hunting. The percentage of clean kills is low, with at least one study documenting that only 50% of deer shot in bow hunts are recovered by the hunter. Bow hunting is not a practice that shows concern for animal suffering.

The Audubon society, however, like many environmental groups, helps save countless millions of animals as it protects their habitat. So like the article featured in this DawnWatch alert, the group is accidentally animal friendly -- just as one might say that many people who chose a plant-based diet strictly for ethical reasons find themselves accidentally fantastically healthy!

The article, in the Viewpoint section, is headed "The Low-Carbon Diet" and sub-headed, "Change your lightbulbs? Or your car? If you want to fight global warming, it's time to consider a different diet." The writer, Mike Tidwell, discusses in length how much he loves the taste of meat. And he writes:

"My carnivore's lust goes beyond the DNA level. It's in my soul. Even the cruelty of factory farming doesn't temper my desire, I'll admit. Like most Americans, I can somehow keep at bay all thoughts of what happened to the meat prior to the plate."

Then he proposes a change in diet that mercifully could spare billions of animals the horrors of factory farming and the slaughterhouse, even though that is not the concern that drives him.

Tidwell writes,
"So why in the world am I a dedicated vegetarian? Why is meat, including sumptuous pork, a complete stranger to my fork at home and away? The answer is simple: I have an 11-year-old son whose future-like yours and mine-is rapidly unraveling due to global warming. And what we put on our plates can directly accelerate or decelerate the heating trend."

In the discussion that follows we read about the melting of the Antarctic sheet. We are told that warming greenhouse gasses from livestock constitute "more than the emissions of all the world's cars, buses, planes, and trains combined." We learn that "half of all the grains grown in America actually go to feed animals, not people" and "that means a huge fraction of the petroleum-based herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers applied to grains, plus staggering percentages of all agricultural land and water use, are put in the service of livestock."

Tidwell writes, "Here's the inconvenient truth about meat and dairy products: If you eat them, regardless of their origin and how they were produced, you significantly contribute to climate change. Period. If your beef is from New Zealand or your own backyard, if your lamb is organic free-range or factory farmed, it still has a negative impact on global warming....Even poultry, while less harmful, also contributes. "

Tidwell tells us that many Americans seem to think that giving up meat is not an achievable aim, yet he writes:
"But as a meat lover at heart, I've been a vegetarian (no fish, minimal eggs and cheese) for seven years, and trust me: It's easy, satisfying, and of course super healthy. With the advent of savory tofu, faux meats, and the explosion of local farmers' markets, a life without meat is many times easier today than when Ovid and Thoreau and Gandhi and Einstein did it."

The article is one of the most succinct and compelling I have read about the impact of animal product consumption on the environment. Please check it out and spread the word. You'll find it on line at:
http://www.audubonm agazine.org/ features0901/ viewpoint. html

Then please thank the Audubon society for turning its attention to this vital issue of environmental protection. While Tidwell has written that the cruelty of factory farming never tempered his desire for meat, other Audubon members who read the magazine may feel differently, so please do include a reference to the moral issue of animal cruelty if you are so moved. If you are new to animal advocacy and know little about factory farming, please go to Farm Sanctuary's site www.FactoryFarming. com to learn more and to see the photos, which will tell you more than I ever could on the written page.

The Audubon Magazine takes letters at editor@audubon. org and asks that you include your name, city and state.

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 http://tinyurl.com/9mve9r if you would like to see an NBC news piece on Karen Dawn's new book, "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals” or go to www.ThankingtheMonkey.com for reviews and a fun celeb-studded promo video.