http://www.storyofstuff.com/

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

http://timeforclimatejustice.org/

Foie gras, the French term for “fatty liver,” is the product of extreme animal cruelty. It is the swollen, diseased liver of ducks and geese who are force-fed just up until the point of death before being slaughtered. Birds suffer tremendously, both during and after the force-feeding process, as their physical condition rapidly deteriorates. In just a few weeks, their livers swell up to ten times their normal size, and the birds can scarcely stand, walk, or even breathe. At this point, they are slaughtered, and their livers are peddled as a “gourmet” delicacy.

This brutal treatment is devastating to the health of the birds. In a matter of weeks, their livers swell up to ten times their normal size. Breathing and walking become difficult as the liver pushes against other organs, causing respiratory stress due to decreased air sac space in their lungs, and forcing the legs to move outward at an unnatural angle. Ducks at foie gras farms have been observed panting and struggling to stand, using their wings to push themselves forward when their crippled legs can no longer support them. Struggling to move causes infection-prone open pressure sores to develop and fester on their hocks (legs) and keels (chest area).

In this compromised state, depressed birds can no longer engage in normal preening behaviors, and this is compounded by the fact that they are denied access to water sufficient for them to engage in normal, instinctual behaviors. Their plumage becomes encrusted with filth, and most of them develop what foie gras farmers call “wet neck”-when their unpreened feathers curl up and become coated with dirt and oil.

http://www.nofoiegras.org/about.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSEDmyaJMKs

Contrary to the propaganda of bullfighting apologists, bulls are normally quiet and peaceful animals, and only react violently in self-defense, or the defense of their turf. For a number of hours prior to the bullfight, the bull is held in a tiny isolation cell, devoid of food, water, light or the company of his herd. This confuses and panics the bull, and debilitates him physically and mentally. Just before entering the bullring, the bull is harpooned. He begins the fight for his life already wounded and bleeding. Bullfights do not pit one brave man against one ferocious bull.Instead, a gang of thugs mob an animal who is wounded, crippled and debilitated before he ever enters the bullring.

The rider repeatedly slams his spear deep into the bull’s back and shoulders, ripping and tearing the muscles and tendons that would allow the bull to defend himself, and causing severe blood loss. The wounds and blood loss from the brutal spearing are incredible, and further destroys any claim that this is a fair fight. Often, the bulls are so thoroughly disabled by their torture they literally crawl or collapse completely in an attempt to escape their persecutors.

It is only after the exhausted, confused and terrified bull has endured hours of abuse, crippling wounds and incredible blood loss at the hands of bullfighters, that the brave matador displays his “courage.” The bullfighter performs tricks and humiliates the exhausted and dying bull who can barely stand and defecates and urinates uncontrollably.

Bullfighting propaganda claims that the sword should hit the heart and instantly kill the bull. This almost never happens. The best chance the bull has of a relatively quick death is when he is stabbed in the lungs, in which case he vomits blood out of his nose and mouth, and drowns in his own blood. Often the bull is stabbed over and over.

Once stabbed by the long sword, the bullfighters try to force as much movement as possible from the bull, so the sword will hack his insides to pieces and force him to go down, where he will endure more torture.
Finally the bull can no longer stand, and he goes down in complete submission. Then brave bullfighter, knife in hand, walks up to the exhausted, dying bull to cause more torment. The thug stabs the bull in the back of the neck, and then savagely rips the knife back and forth to destroy the bull’s spinal cord. The devastation of the knife renders the bull paralyzed, but still alive and alert. The paralyzed by still conscious bull is dragged around the bullring for the final pleasure of the bloodthirsty mob.

Apes and humans have common ancestors but should they have the same rights? An international movement to give them “personhood” is gathering pace.

What would Aristotle make of it? More than 2,000 years after the Greek philosopher declared Mother Nature had made all animals for the sake of man, there are moves to put the relationship on a more equal footing.

Judges in Austria are considering whether a British woman, Paula Stibbe, should become legal guardian of a chimpanzee called Hiasl which was abducted from its family tribe in West Africa 25 years ago.

The animal sanctuary where he has lived is about to close and to stop him being sold to a zoo, Ms Stibbe hopes that she can persuade the court he deserves the same protection as a child.

APES AND US Gorillas, bonobos, orang-utans and chimps are great apes Chimpanzees and bonobos differ from humans by only 1% of DNA and could accept a blood transfusion or a kidney All great apes recognise themselves in a mirror Elephants and dolphins show similar self-awareness Great apes can learn and use human languages through signs or symbols but lack the vocal anatomy to master speech Great apes have displayed love, fear, anxiety and jealousy In 1997 the UK government banned experiments on great apes but not on primates such as marmosets and macaques Sources: Ian Redmond, Charlotte Uhlenbroek Chimps genetically close to humans

Spanish MPs are also being urged to back a similar principle, one already endorsed by the Balearic parliament and held dear by the international organisation The Great Ape Project – that apes be granted the right to life, freedom and protection from torture.

So should apes such as those at London Zoo, which opens its Gorilla Kingdom on Thursday complete with gym and climbing wall, get the same rights as their zookeepers?

They need greater protection in the eyes of the law, says Ian Redmond of the UN’s Great Apes Survival Project, who believes welfare groups could use guardianship as a way to rescue ill-treated apes.

Some rights are conferred on apes but only because they are endangered. And the international trade ban is flouted in Africa and South-East Asia, where mothers are shot and their infants shipped off as pets, circus performers or lab animals. Vivisection on apes is banned in much of Europe but still goes on in the US and Japan.

“Apes are special because they are so closely related to us,” says Mr Redmond. “Chimpanzees and bonobos are our joint closest living relatives, differing by only one per cent of DNA – so close we could accept a blood transfusion or a kidney. Gorillas are next, then orang-utans.”

If you take a chimp away from its family groups it’s a real wrench Charlotte Uhlenbroek Hiasl the chimp

But there is a stronger cognitive argument, he says, because the apes’ intelligence and ability to reason demands our respect.

“Show a gibbon a mirror and the reaction suggests he or she thinks the reflection is another gibbon. But all the great apes have passed the ‘mirror self-recognition’ test and soon begin checking their teeth or examining parts of their body they couldn’t see without the mirror. This self-awareness surely suggests that they know they exist.”

Family ties

Apes also share a range of human emotions, says zoologist Charlotte Uhlenbroek, who thinks they should be afforded legal protection enshrined in law.

The great apes: Status check In pictures

They have a similar lifespan to humans and form strong family bonds which they maintain for life, she says. And apes have displayed a tenderness which could be described as love, anxiety when separated, and fear, jealousy and trauma.

“If I was an alien from Mars and looked at human society and a society of apes then in terms of the emotional life I would see no distinct difference, although we live very different lives because of language and technology.”

Giving them rights does not mean throwing open all the cage doors because some zoos are important to preserve the species, but it is vital to establish a principle that apes should not be treated like objects, she says.

Daniel Sokol, a medical ethicist, says apes possess cognitive and emotional faculties that make them worthy of moral consideration.

Orang-utans can kiss and cuddle

“Justice and consistent thinking require that we treat non-human animals who share morally-relevant properties in a respectful way, and that surely means giving them the opportunity to flourish and not be tortured or subject to cruel or degrading treatment.”

But Steve Jones, professor of genetics at University of London, says human rights are a construct which can’t be imposed on animals.

“Where do you stop? It seems to be that being human is unique and nothing to do with biology. Say that apes share 98% of human DNA and therefore should have 98% of human rights. Well mice share 90% of human DNA. Should they get 90% of human rights? And plants have more DNA than humans.”

I’ve yet to see a chimp imprisoned for stealing a banana Professor Steve Jones

Chimps can’t speak but parrots can. Defining creatures and allowing them rights based on criteria invented by one group is itself an enormous breach of human rights, he says, and one need look no further than Austria in 1939 to see why.

“Rights and responsibilities go together and I’ve yet to see a chimp imprisoned for stealing a banana because they don’t have a moral sense of what’s right and wrong. To give them rights is to give them something without asking for anything in return.”

There is a moral case to make about animal welfare, he says, but it has nothing to do with science.

Arctic sea ice melt ‘even faster

A widespread Arctic melt would have major impacts on wildlife

Arctic sea ice is melting even faster than last year, despite a cold winter.

Data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) shows that the year began with ice covering a larger area than at the beginning of 2007.

But now it is down to levels seen last June, at the beginning of a summer that broke records for sea ice loss.

Scientists on the project say much of the ice is so thin as to melt easily, and the Arctic seas may be ice-free in summer within five to 10 years.

I think we’re going to beat last year’s record, though I’d love to be wrong Julienne Stroeve

“We had a bit more ice in the winter, although we were still way below the long-term average,” said Julienne Stroeve from NSIDC in Boulder, Colorado.

“So we had a partial recovery. But the real issue is that most of the pack ice has become really thin, and if we have a regular summer now, it can just melt away,” she told BBC News.

In March, Nasa reported that the area covered by sea ice was slightly larger than in 2007, but much of it consisted of thin floes that had formed during the previous winter. These are much less robust than thicker, less saline floes that have already survived for several years.

After a colder winter, ice has been melting even faster than last year

A few years ago, scientists were predicting that Arctic waters would be ice-free in summers by about 2080.

Then computer models started projecting earlier dates, around 2030 to 2050.

Then came the 2007 summer that saw Arctic sea ice shrink to the smallest extent ever recorded, down to 4.2 million sq km from 7.8 million sq km in 1980.

By the end of last year, one research group was forecasting ice-free summers by 2013.

“I think we’re going to beat last year’s record melt, though I’d love to be wrong,” said Dr Stroeve.

“If we do, then I don’t think 2013 is far off any more. If what we think is going to happen does happen, then it’ll be within a decade anyway.”

Rising tide

Countries surrounding the Arctic are eyeing the economic opportunities that melting ice might bring.

Canada and Russia are exploring sovereignty claims over tracts of Arctic seafloor, while just this week US President George Bush has urged more oil exploration in US waters – which could point the way to exploitation of reserves off the Alaskan coast.

But from a climate point of view, the melt could bring global impacts accelerating the rate of warming and of sea level rise.

“This is a positive feedback process,” commented Dr Ian Willis, from the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge.

“Sea ice has a higher albedo (reflectivity) than ocean water; so as the ice melts, the water absorbs more of the Sun’s energy and warms up more, and that in turn warms the atmosphere more – including the atmosphere over the Greenland ice sheet.”

Greenland is already losing ice to the oceans, contributing to the gradual rise in sea levels. The ice cap holds enough water to lift sea levels globally by about seven metres (22ft) if it all melted.

Natural climatic cycles such as the Arctic Oscillation play a role in year-to-year variations in ice cover. But Julienne Stroeve believes the sea ice is now so thin that there is little chance of the melting trend turning round.

“If the ice were as thick as it was in the 1970s, last year’s conditions would have brought a dip in cover, but nothing exceptional.

“But now it’s so thin that you would have to have an exceptional sequence of cold winters and cold summers in order for it to rebuild.”