Our Oceans are Under Attack

myark · Nov 30, 2014

Build a Vegan Butcher Shop with The Herbivorous Butcher

https://www.kickstarter.com/project...cher-shop-with-the-herbivorous-bu?ref=popular
We're Aubry and Kale Walch, two siblings with a mission to open the world's first vegan butcher shop so we can expand our line of locally sourced, hand-crafted meat-free meats and continue to sell them directly to our customers year-round - both here in Minneapolis and around the country
We've created complex and flavorful products that will satisfy any herbivore, omnivore, and even self‐proclaimed carnivores. In addition to our five mainstays shown below, we've created a series of successful weekly specials like Maple-Glazed Bacon, Hawaiian Ribs, Andouille Sausage, Scarborough Chicken, Beer Brats, Mexican Chorizo, Pulled Pork, and Maple Sage Breakfast Sausages

Mr Efficiency · Nov 30, 2014

I like the way Chad has been re-located to the Southern Hemisphere on the Climate change vulnerability map shown above !

myark · Nov 30, 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DAzZNjcko0

The vegan butcher shop hit their $50.000 kickstarter goal moments ago and are celebrating victory on you tube

More people like them and the Oceans will be saved.

myark · Dec 1, 2014

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/30/tech/innovation/record-temperatures/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

CNN) -- The first ten months of 2014 have been the hottest since record keeping began more than 130 years ago, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

That may be hard to believe for people in places like Buffalo, New York, which saw a record early snowfall this year.

But NOAA says, despite the early bitter cold across parts of the United States in recent weeks, it's been a hot year so far for the Earth.

....

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/11/30/tech/innovation/record-temperatures/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

ImaginaryNumber · Dec 1, 2014

Leaked: The Oil Lobby's Conspiracy to Kill Off California's Climate Law | Bloomberg Businessweek

...A Powerpoint deck now being circulated by climate activists—a copy of which was sent to Bloomberg Businessweek—suggests that there is a conspiracy. Or, if you prefer, a highly coordinated, multistate coalition that does not want California to succeed at moving off fossil fuels because that might set a nasty precedent for everyone else.

Created by the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), one of the most powerful oil and gas lobbies in the U.S., the slides and talking points comes from a Nov. 11 presentation to the Washington Research Council. The Powerpoint deck details a plan to throttle AB 32 (also known as the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006) and steps to thwart low carbon fuel standards (known as LCFS) in California, Oregon, and Washington State. Northwest Public Radio appears to have been the first to confirm the authenticity of the deck, which Bloomberg Businessweek did as well, with WSPA spokesman Tupper Hull.

Specifically, the deck from a presentation by WSPA President Catherine Reheis-Boyd lays out the construction of what environmentalists contend is an elaborate “astroturf campaign.” Groups with names such as Oregon Climate Change Campaign, Washington Consumers for Sound Fuel Policy, and AB 32 Implementation Group are made to look and sound like grassroots citizen-activists while promoting oil industry priorities and actually working against the implementation of AB 32...

Hull describes AB 32 as “a stool with three legs”: cap and trade for stationary power sources (already in effect); low carbon fuel standards (which he characterizes as too aggressive); and the cap-and-trade program that goes live on Jan 1. “Lots of people—drivers, small business owners—don’t realize that they may be impacted by this.” Hull insists that WSPA has not created any opposition groups but has funded those that share its sincere concerns...
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ImaginaryNumber · Dec 1, 2014

Grey seals identified as killers behind mystery harbour porpoise deaths | The Guardian

A mutilated dead porpoise off the coast of Texel in the Netherlands. Photograph: WJ Strietman/Royal Society

Seals have been identified as the killers behind the mystery of dead porpoises found with distinct mutilations on Dutch beaches over the past decade.

The cause of large numbers of harbour porpoises washing up on the Netherlands coast was previously unknown and contested, but an eight year-long study concludes that grey seals have “learned a new trick” and are preying on them.

The author of the paper, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, said that there was no reason to think they would not attack humans as well...

“This is a new behaviour. They’re normally fish eaters, they can eat a large fish, around half a metre. It’s a switch from fish-eating to mammal-eating. I don’t think it’s indicative of lower fish stocks, they just learned a new trick,” Mardisk F Leopold, who led the research, told the Guardian.

“They are very social and when they go hunting, they do it alone, so it was surprising they can transfer this behaviour to others. It’s not just one seal. This is everywhere along the Dutch coast.”...
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This particular photo shows a porpoise that allegedly was killed by a Gray seal, but it doesn't appear that much of the porpoise was actually eaten by the seal. Maybe the two species compete for food sources (larger fish), and the seals were merely eliminating a food competitor, but not eating them after killing them??

myark · Dec 1, 2014

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11366729

The world is in the grip of a new oil shock. The shock is that prices are collapsing.
Last week crude oil dipped briefly below US$70 a barrel. That's about one-third cheaper than in June. Prices are back at levels not seen since September 2010, when demand was still in a post-GFC slump.
The big reason is that US production is going through the roof.
Never mind President Barack Obama's big talk about green technology and carbon emission targets, America has fracked its way to the verge of energy self-sufficiency. It is becoming clear that this will have enormous economic and political ramifications.
The controversial practice of fracking - effectively squeezing the last drops of oil and natural gas out of the ground by pumping chemical solutions into the earth at high pressure - has rapidly restored the US as a fossil fuel superpower.
Of course this is all short-term stuff against a historic backdrop of global warming. You needn't be a hardcore greenie to see that this latest fossil fuel surge will cost us - or our children - eventually. You just have to read the science.

myark · Dec 2, 2014

Comfortably Unaware: What We Choose to Eat Is Killing Us and Our Planet

In Comfortably Unaware, Dr. Richard Oppenlander tackles the crucial issue of global depletion as it relates to food choice. We should all be committed, he tells us, to understanding the reality and consequences of our diet, the footprint it makes on our environment, and seek food products that are in the best interest of all living things. His forthright information and stark mental images are often disturbing-and that's how it should be. As the guardians of Planet Earth, we need to be shaken out of our complacency, to stop being comfortably unaware, and to understand the measures we must take to ensure the health and well-being of our planet-and of ourselves

ImaginaryNumber · Dec 2, 2014

Evolution and the American Myth of the Individual | New York Times

At least part of the schism between Republicans and Democrats is based in differing conceptions of the role of the individual. We find these differences expressed in the frequent heated arguments about crucial issues like health care and immigration. In a broad sense, Democrats, particularly the more liberal among them, are more likely to embrace the communal nature of individual lives and to strive for policies that emphasize that understanding. Republicans, especially libertarians and Tea Party members on the ideological fringe, however, often trace their ideas about freedom and liberty back to Enlightenment thinkers of the 17th and 18th centuries, who argued that the individual is the true measure of human value, and each of us is naturally entitled to act in our own best interests free of interference by others. Self-described libertarians generally also pride themselves on their high valuation of logic and reasoning over emotion.

Philosophers from Aristotle to Hegel have emphasized that human beings are essentially social creatures, that the idea of an isolated individual is a misleading abstraction. So it is not just ironic but instructive that modern evolutionary research, anthropology, cognitive psychology and neuroscience have come down on the side of the philosophers who have argued that the basic unit of human social life is not and never has been the selfish, self-serving individual. Contrary to libertarian and Tea Party rhetoric, evolution has made us a powerfully social species, so much so that the essential precondition of human survival is and always has been the individual plus his or her relationships with others.

This conclusion is unlikely to startle anyone who is at all religious or spiritual. When I was a boy I was taught that the Old Testament is about our relationship with God and the New Testament is about our responsibilities to one another. I now know this division of biblical wisdom is too simple. I have also learned that in the eyes of many conservative Americans today, religion and evolution do not mix. You either accept what the Bible tells us or what Charles Darwin wrote, but not both. The irony here is that when it comes to our responsibilities to one another as human beings, religion and evolution nowadays are not necessarily on opposite sides of the fence. And as Matthew D. Lieberman, a social neuroscience researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, has written: “we think people are built to maximize their own pleasure and minimize their own pain. In reality, we are actually built to overcome our own pleasure and increase our own pain in the service of following society’s norms.” ...

...The sanctification of the rights of individuals and their liberties today by libertarians and Tea Party conservatives is contrary to our evolved human nature as social animals. There was never a time in history before civil society when we were each totally free to do whatever we elected to do. We have always been social and caring creatures. The thought that it is both rational and natural for each of us to care only for ourselves, our own preservation, and our own achievements is a treacherous fabrication. This is not how we got to be the kind of species we are today. Nor is this what the world’s religions would ask us to believe. Or at any rate, so I was told as a child, and so I still believe.
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ImaginaryNumber · Dec 2, 2014

Studies predict more bird losses than gains from climate change | Arizona Daily Star

...the study from the U.S. Geological Survey offers bleak forecasts for several other birds, many of them grassland species that spend the winter in Southern Arizona. The already-rare Baird’s sparrow, the chestnut-collared longspur and the sora are among those that spend at least part of the year in Arizona and that will lose significant amounts of breeding range in this country in 60 years, the study predicts. The Baird’s sparrow, in fact, could lose almost all of its range in the U.S.

Overall, the study, which looked at 50 bird species in this country, sees far more future declines than gains ahead. Only six species studied, including the quail and wren, are expected to increase their U.S. breeding range by at least 20 percent by 2075 — the quail and wren species are likely to nearly double their ranges by then...

In the northern U.S., the biggest land-use change involves irrigated agriculture, in which cornfields planted for future ethanol production are replacing grasslands and pasture. In the Pacific Northwest and the southeastern U.S., the biggest changes will be from the clearing of forests for lumber, in areas where “forests are managed like a crop,” said Terry Sohl, a USGS physical scientist and the study’s author.

The study came out this month, a few months after an earlier USGS study issued similarly pessimistic forecasts for a much smaller number of bird and mammal species of the Southwest due to future warming...

Some of these gaining species may encounter a lag time that could strain their ability to adapt to changing temperatures. It could take months or years for the landscapes farther north to catch up with warming temperatures, Sohl said.

“The climate will change faster than the habitat can keep up with it,” Sohl said. “You’ll have stressed habitat and stressed species that have a very hard time adapting to new conditions.”

There’s no way to know how lag times will affect the entire group of 50 species that he studied.

“It will vary by species,” he said...
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myark · Dec 2, 2014

A clear indication that we are natural herbivores is the fact that eating meat causes us so many health problems. Meat-eaters face a higher risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, osteoporosis, and obesity. Natural carnivores can eat lots of animal fat without getting heart attacks, but humans can’t. In fact, a low-fat vegan diet has been shown to not only prevent but also reverse heart disease in humans. People who avoid animal protein also have dramatically lower rates of prostate, colon, and breast cancer.

The invention of factory farms has made animal protein cheap and plentiful. But that doesn’t change our basic biology. Humans are natural herbivores, but we have chosen to eat something that is unnatural and unhealthy for us—meat.

Read more: http://prime.peta.org/2009/10/yes-its-true-humans-arent-meant-to-eat-meat#ixzz3KmG9hhMQ

myark · Dec 3, 2014

http://gentleworld.org/are-your-condoms-vegan/

Are Your Condoms Vegan?

Yes, you may be surprised to learn that the majority of condoms available on the market are produced using the animal product casein. Casein, a highly profitable byproduct of dairy farming, is the principal protein in milk, and it finds its way into all sorts of places one would never expect.

Case in point… As explained on the website of Glyde Condoms:

“To make condoms from raw latex, various processes are required, which in turn consist of several different steps. And one of the ‘helping hands’ during rubber-making is casein… As most manufacturers use it to make the rubber smooth and fine, most condoms cannot be called ‘vegan’ at all.”

Quite right, Glyde! As we know from issues such as the refining of sugar and alcohol, the use of ingredients such as bones, gelatin and casein in processing is another way the animal industry makes money from their “waste,” contributing to the profitability of animal-using businesses.

Thankfully, just as with many other traditionally non-vegan items, there is an abundance of animal-free alternatives available.

Glyde

Glyde is a company that proudly describes its product as “the vegan condom,” and is certified vegan by The Vegan Society.

French Letter

For our readers in the UK (or those able to pay extra for shipping), French Letter boasts that their condoms are not only vegan and made from fair-trade rubber, but are also carbon neutral. Way to go!

Unique

For vegans who prefer an alternative to latex, Unique Condoms are made from a synthetic polyethylene resin called At-10, which is approximately three times stronger than latex and can be manufactured to one third the thickness. In the reviews I read, people were raving about them!

According to the webstore Roots of Compassion:

“The condoms are not certified vegan, but the producer assures us that they’re vegan. They never came in touch with animal products and have not been tested on animals.”

myark · Dec 3, 2014

Just when you thought you’d heard it all from Rush Limbaugh, that he’d finally scraped the bottom of the barrel and couldn’t get any nuttier, he surprises you and says something that leaves you in slack-jawed wonder. During the broadcast of The Rush Limbaugh Show on Friday, the conservative radio host claimed that the First Lady is pushing “militant vegetarianism” on the American public because she believes in “big government” and that it needs to have “as much control over people and the country and life as possible.” Limbaugh then stated that there is a tick in Texas that makes people allergic to beef and radical liberals will probably start mass producing the ticks to force the public off of beef and make them vegetarians.

Limbaugh started the segment by ripping Michelle Obama (natch) over statements she had made at lunch earlier this week. He then used that as a segue to rail against the First Lady’s initiative to promote better nutrition and end childhood obesity, claiming that it is her way to impose government in our lives. Limbaugh also said that everything is political with Democrats. Therefore, the First Lady isn’t interested in promoting a better lifestyle. Instead, she is merely pushing a political agenda. Just for good measure, El Rushbo included global warming with this as he feels the two are related.

myark · Dec 3, 2014

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11368328

Auckland must prepare for climate change – scientist
Aucklanders need to prepare for the wide-ranging impacts that climate change will have on their city, a leading scientist says.

Independent climate scientist Dr Jim Salinger, author of the book Living In a Warmer World, will explain what climate change will mean for New Zealand's largest city in a public lecture at AUT University tomorrow evening.

Dr Salinger believed there was not enough awareness of what several degrees of warming -- and potentially more than a metre of sea level rise -- within this century could mean for Aucklanders, as well as all Kiwis.

"In my personal view, people who live on the coast are not aware -- but when their homes become uninsurable, they'll be very aware."
According to present projections, the mean temperature in New Zealand could be 2C higher by the end of the century -- and even between 3C and 4C higher if no action is taken to curb the world's carbon emissions.

Rising ocean temperatures and ocean acidification was also altering marine life, moving fisheries southward, threatening shell fisheries, and changing life cycles.
But Dr Salinger said climate warming was just one of several pressures on fisheries, and reducing fishing pressure could only help the situation.

ImaginaryNumber · Dec 3, 2014

The Next Big Climate Question: Will India Follow China? | New York Times

For more than 20 years, international climate talks have been dominated by a schism between those who created the problem of climate change (largely the United States and nations of the European Union) and those who would greatly contribute to it moving forward (largely China and India). But as climate negotiators meet in Lima, Peru, this week and next, and news reports are full of gloomy predictions that the negotiations will produce little, there are increasing signs that this stalemate may have been broken. This emerging shift is due in large part to China and its decision to break ranks and join the United States in making commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

One critical question now is whether India — the country that has stood by China’s side in climate talks and is now the world’s third-largest emitter — will follow suit in a meaningful way at the Lima negotiations. And there seems to be a surprisingly high chance that India will.

China and India share a common domestic problem — one that has motivated China’s leaders to act, and could motivate India’s. That is, the fossil fuels that cause climate change also produce local air pollution. This has risen to deadly levels, with all of the Chinese and Indian cities that the World Health Organization monitors for air pollution failing the organization’s test for acceptable levels of airborne particulate, widely believed to be the most dangerous air pollutant for human health. More than half of these cities also fail their own countries’ particulates standards...

...But results matters more than motives. If India follows China — and the countries make good on their pledges — it’s possible that history books will ultimately judge this moment as a turning point when the world first collectively took meaningful actions to confront climate change.
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Our Oceans are Under Attack

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