Society for the Advancement of Animal Wellbeing

Hayden Panettiere has joined celebs like Matt Damon and Bob Barker in condemning SeaWorld.

The actress/activist spoke to The Dish Rag about the unfortunate death of a SeaWorld trainer caused by Tilikum, a male Orca who has been in captivity for almost three decades.

“Honestly, it’s horrible what happened,” she says. “Three deaths by the same whale, by an animal that should be not be in captivity in the first place.

“Have you ever seen a parrot pullout it’s feathers? It’s from depression. How do you put an interactive, social animal, one of the smartest animals in the world… and you’re going to stick them in a tub and make them do tricks? How do you do that? Because they make money? It’s disgusting and Sea World is absolutely wrong. This is a big wake up call. How many more people are going to have to be killed? When are we going to realize that these animals are not supposed to be there?”

The documentary The Cove, of which Panettiere appears in, is up for an Oscar tonight.

To read the original article please click here.

Once upon a time, many steaks ago, Kate Moss was rumored to be a vegetarian.

Now she hosts parties with fur rugs on the floor, but she might try to please one of her best vegetarian friends, Stella McCartney by going vegetarian again for one day a week.

The Sun reported a source said, “Kate has spent time catching up with Stella during Paris Fashion Week and finally agreed to support her friend by going without meat for a day each week.”

Kate’s been snacking on raw and other vegetarian food lately and is thinking of dining once of week with Stella to keep the Meat-Free Monday vow.

The buddy system is a great way to achieve goals like maintaining a regular exercise routine or quitting smoking.

Is a meat-free sponsor what everybody needs to take the plunge to help themselves, the animals and the environment?

Read the original article here.

Going vegetarian can be part of a low-carbon life. Giving up meat in China has only become a trendy way of life in the past decade. But it's now catching on for a bigger reason. Today, in our 'My Low Carbon Life' series, Wang Mangmang finds out why people believe they can make a difference.

Look, smell, and taste. A vegetarian diet does not mean deprivation. But still, there needs to be a reason. Religious beliefs, health, animal protection, and saving the planet. This is why Lu Shi has been a strict vegetarian for thirteen years.

Lu Shi, a vegetarian, said, "The ancient Chinese believed when heaven is about to place a great responsibility on a great man, it always first frustrates his spirit and will, and exposes him to starvation. This is exactly how I felt when I started. But now I'm good. My vegetarian friends are happy to know what they eat can affect the climate. There are not many, but we stick to it and try to tell others that this is for a good cause."

But this lifestyle does not appeal to all. Meat lovers simply can't give up their favorites. Some wonder how a bite of meat relates to global warming. Another reason is expense.

This vegetarian restaurant is a favorite among the city's elite, but not so well known to the public. The manager says all the food here is organic. Average consumption per customer is around two hundred yuan.

Dong Ziyang, Manager of Jintai Catering Club, said, "The average age of our customers is under thirty-three years old. They're particularly interested in the concept of eating for a low carbon life. Young people are more environmentally aware and more open to new ideas. They love to be in the trend or lead the trend. So we're quite confident about the prospects."

To read the rest of this article or to watch the video, please click here.

The following excerpt is from the HSUS appeal:

A massive earthquake struck Haiti January 12, crippling the country's infrastructure and leaving untold numbers of people and animals injured or homeless. Humane Society International, The Humane Society of the United States, and the Humane Society Veterinary Medical Association are working with humanitarian relief agencies and other animal protection organizations to determine how we may best assist in this time of need, both immediately following this disaster and long-term.

We have a team on the ground in Haiti, providing emergency care to the animal survivors of this disaster and assessing conditions. We are working in partnership with a group from the Dominican Republic, Veterinary Care & Human Services, Caribbean Project.

When disaster strikes, HSI supports relief efforts to provide animal victims with life-saving food, water, shelter, and veterinary attention. We depend on your support to ensure that animals affected by disaster receive what they need to survive.

To find out more or to donate funds to the HSUS relief work please click here.

COPENHAGEN–Tens of thousands have converged on Copenhagen to stop global warming, either through a new treaty or through protests demanding more dramatic measures. Thousands more have come to lobby those people, film them, and write about them.

And untold thousands of chickens, cows, and fish have died to feed them, revealing the reluctance of even the most concerned human beings to reduce their global warming impacts by giving up meat. (Full disclosure: this reporter sampled the pickled herring at an ancient canalfront tavern here, and found it delicious.)

If we can take the United Nations as representative of the world, its climate change conference as representative of world initiative on environmental conservation, we may glean a sense of which environmental practices are in and which are out.

Despite an array of benefits vegetarianism offers the environment, including dramatic potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, vegetarianism remains mostly out. Many delegates to this convention, like the people they represent, love their meat.

The average carnivorous American produces a ton and half more greenhouse gases than the average vegetarian American, according to a 2006 study by two University of Chicago geologists. Those greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide as well as more noxious varieties including methane and nitrous oxide that derive from flatulence and manure.

A 2006 UN study found that livestock contribute 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the transportation industry.

“Livestock’s contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale, and its potential contribution to their solution is equally large,” according to the UN study. “The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency. Major reductions in impact could be achieved at reasonable cost.”

There’s a massive encampment of protesters at Christiania, a self-proclaimed autonomous state near Central Copenhagen, planning their assault on the UN Climate Change Conference next week.

But during the first week, the most persistent protesters at the Bella Center sometimes clad in chicken suits, have been picketing the conference’s security gate with signs urging vegetarianism.

“We have only a short time to save the planet,” said Thi Thu Pham, a protester from Germany. “Technology takes a long time and need a lot of money and this is the easiest way. Everyone must be vegan to save the planet.”

Vegetarian choices are available at the 17 restaurants and cafes inside the Bella Center, including quiche and a hummus and squash goulash, plus puck-like patties made from beets, others that resemble garden burgers. But most delegates select the chicken or beef dishes.

Denmark has guaranteed participants a minimum of 65 percent organic food and beverages including fair-trade coffee and tea.

Meat is not the only target of ravenous consumption here. Thousands of reems of paper have been consumed to produce and reproduce the documents of the conference. Much more has been consumed to produce and reproduce the materials of advocacy that surround the conference.

Delegates can rarely cross a hallway without being handed a brochure, a booklet, a packet, a press release, by some group expressing an outrage, a hope, or an agenda.

Much of the paper used is recycled stock, and much of it will be recycled again, but most is unnecessary and probably ineffective. Somewhere in the history of each paper-wielding activist is a calculation that the environmental cost of the paper consumed is worth the benefit of the message printed upon it.

What’s in:

Recycling.

Recycling isn’t just in, of course, it’s obligatory. Recyling stations throughout the Bella Center feature bins for paper, plastic, “organic” waste, and other waste. The Media Center is collecting reporters’ dead batteries. Because there are many recycling bins, few trash containers, compliance is high, though not all participants have been as careful as they could be about sorting.

Public Transporation.

If you’re one of more than 100 heads of state arriving at the conference next week, the Danish Foreign Ministry will provide you with a sedan, a minivan, and a security detail. But if you’re almost anyone else, you’ll be arriving by bus, train, Metro, or bicycle. Private cars are not allowed near the center, including taxis, although its possible to park some miles away and transfer to a Metro train or shuttle bus. Participants are randomly offered rides home in one of several model electric vehicles at the site, all participants can receive a free transit pass, and there are more than 200 bright blue bicycles that participants can borrow.

Alternative energy.

The Bella Center is a low-lying Legoland of structures dominated by a single towering windmill, and the symbolism fits. Denmark is an alternative energy leader, deriving 20 percent of its energy from windmills. All of the energy used at the conference derives from renewable sources of electricity. The Bella Center underwent an efficiency overhaul before the conference, reducing its energy consumption by 20 percent.

Carbon offsets.

To ensure the conference would be carbon-neutral or better, the Danish government estimated the amount of carbon likely to be expended, including the emissions incurred by the travel of visiting delegates and members of the press: 40,548 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents. It offset those emissions by spending 700,000 euros to replace coal-burning kilns used to manufacture bricks in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Twenty new Danish-funded kilns will operate with higher efficiency and lower emissions. They will use half as much coal to produce just as many bricks, reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 100,000 tons per year. The old kilns were notorious for polluting the city and contributing to lung disease.

Tap not bottled: Bottled water is available in vending machines throughout the conference for 20 kroner, or about $3.65 a bottle, its standard price throughout Denmark. But tap water stations have been located throughout the Bella Center to encourage participants to forego the bottled, and its bottles, and to drink filtered tap water instead.

To read the original article please click here: http://trueslant.com/jeffmcmahon/2009/12/11/copenhagen-vegetarianism/

The picture on many milk cartons shows cows grazing on a pasture next to a country barn and a silo — but the reality is very different.

More and more milk comes from confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), where large herds live in feedlots, awaiting their thrice-daily trip to the milking barn. A factory farm with 2,000 cows produces as much sewage as a small city, yet there's no treatment plant.

Across the country, big dairies are coming under increased criticism for polluting the air and the water. In New Mexico, they're in the midst of a manure war.

Manure Management

Everyday, an average cow produces six to seven gallons of milk and 18 gallons of manure. New Mexico has 300,000 milk cows. That totals 5.4 million gallons of manure in the state every day. It's enough to fill up nine Olympic-size pools. Every single day.

To read the full article please click here.

The on-line 51% campaign launched by SAAW has been a huge success. Thousands of people have visited the site and sent letters to Copenhagen delegates, reminding them of the vegetarian solution to global warming.

In the international headlines this week following the comments of Lord Stern, Al Gore, Dr. Pachauri and Dr. James Hansen, environement ministers around the world have been calling for a reduction in meat consumption in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The UK's environment secretary Hilary Benn issued a report in which the collaborating scientists called for a 30 per cent reduction in the number of farm animals bred for meat to prevent rising temperatures and rising sea levels. To read the original article published in the Daily Mail newspaper, click on the following link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230781/Decade-soaring-temperatures-ahead-Health-Secretary-warns-real-present-danger-posed-climate-change.html#ixzz0XtT8tUQ2

Earlier on this week the Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh suggested that the world should adopt a vegetarian diet in order to tackle climate change. Nobel Laureat and head of the International Panel on Climate Change Dr. Pachauri said ''I'm happy that the minister is agreeing with me on this,'' Dr Pachauri said.

''If you look at the beef cycle today, you first clear forests, which increases emissions, then you feed cattle all kinds of food grain, which is energy intensive, and then you kill and refrigerate these animals, and then they are transported long distances. Then you buy it and refrigerate it. If you count all the emissions associated with this entire cycle, it is huge.''

You can read the full story here: http://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/india-offers-nobeef-climate-solution-20091122-isrd.html

Remember to visit www.51percent.org and keep spreading the message!

In order to inform the public and our leaders of the fact that at least 51% of greenhouse gas emissions come from the livestock sector, SAAW International has launched the 51% campaign. For more information and on-line resources including banners please visit www.51percent.org

This action is vitally important especially since the Copenhagen Climate Summit is just around the corner! So please start spreading the word and writing to your environment ministers and EPAs and provide them with the information so that they can make informed decisions regarding climate policy, which should include a national policy of promoting the plant based diet! You can send a personalised letter to EPA officials and environment ministers attending COP15 by clicking here.

Yours sincerely,

Society for the Advancement of Animal Wellbeing

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Agriculture Department and the Vermont state agriculture agency said they pulled operating licenses on Friday for a Vermont slaughter plant after viewing footage of mistreated veal calves.

The footage was from the Humane Society of the United States, which said it conducted an undercover investigation at Bushway Packing Inc of Grand Isle, Vermont, in August and September.

The video footage showed veal calves being "kicked, slapped and repeatedly shocked with electric prods and subjected to other mistreatment," the Humane Society said in a release.

To read the full article please click here.