Animals
New Tech to Save the Whales
More whales are being killed by collisions with ships in busy shipping lanes. Off the coast of California, there was a record total of 27 whale strikes in 2018/19. Now US ocean scientists have developed a new whale-detection system that helps mariners reduce this risk. Whale Safe uses three technologies: an AI underwater recording system that detects whale calls; a mobile app for community scientists to record whale sightings; and a tool that provides near real-time forecasts of whale feeding grounds. The system, currently being tested, lets ships know when whales are nearby, so they can slow down to reduce the risk of collisions. weforum.org
Food
Latest From the Labelling Wars
The meat industry in Europe, the US and elsewhere, is fighting the rise of plant-based foods. Using court cases and legislation to try and force restrictive labelling on their competition e.g., to insist that foods labelled “burgers” or “sausages” can only come from slaughtered farm animals, the industry is claiming that labels such as veggie “burgers” for plant-based alternatives will confuse consumers. Research and plant-based food advocates refute the argument saying people know “there is no butter in peanut butter” and that “Girl Guide cookies don’t contain Girl Guides”! In a victory for current plant-based food labels, EU legislators recently voted against the meat industry’s claim.
the Climate Crisis
We’re late, we’re late for a very important date!
To prevent a catastrophic rise in global temperatures, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2018) advised that the world needs to cut its GHG emissions in half by 2030. This means emissions must fall by 5% each year for the next 10 years. According to Michael Mann, Professor at Penn State and one of the world’s leading climate scientists, if we delay the necessary action and emissions don’t start falling before 2025, we will need to cut them by 15% each year for the following five years until 2030. This is the price that will have to be paid for continued inaction. theguardian.com
words of wisdom
“The natural world is failing, the evidence is all around. It’s happening in my lifetime. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”
— Sir David Attenborough, legendary broadcaster and conservationist, from “David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet”, now streaming on Netflix.
”If you actually want to create global pandemics, then build factory farms.”
— Dr. Michael Greger, author, “Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching”.
Photo: Documentary, “Our Planet: Too Big to Fail”.
perspective
Photo: Pig factory farm and manure lagoon. Jo-Anne McArthur, We Animals Media.
Most Media Not Linking Climate Crisis to Animal Agriculture
A new study criticizes US and UK media outlets for a relative lack of coverage of the link between the climate crisis and animal agriculture. Researchers found that the volume of coverage between 2006 and 2018 remained low, and that when the issue was covered, consumer responsibility was mentioned more than that of governments or the livestock industry and factory farms.
The study, published in the journal Environmental Communication analyzes how much attention four “elite media” outlets: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and The Telegraph, paid to animal agriculture’s role in contributing to climate change.
The Guardian was singled out as having the highest volume of this type of coverage, and its “Animals Farmed” series was acknowledged specifically. However, researchers say an overall lack of coverage likely contributed to low public awareness of the link between the climate crisis and animal agriculture, and cited previous studies – in the US, UK, China and Brazil — that showed similar findings.
The study concludes that given the low media profile of the connection, this can be interpreted by the public that the issue is not important. So, despite the growing influence of social media, traditional media remain influential in people’s decisions about which issues matter most.
“This may be one of many obstacles to more effective interventions to reduce meat consumption in Western diets, which has been proposed by many research institutions,” the study said.
The researchers suggest that the low amount of media coverage may be explained by the reluctance of media sources such as governments, politicians and environmental NGOs to advocate for policies in this area and “from a general reluctance to take on powerful lobbying interests in the farming sector.”
“The range of options around personal dietary change was far more prominent in the media discussion of solutions than government policies, reforming agricultural practices or holding major animal food companies accountable for their emissions.”
The study reflects similar conclusions from other research showing that “meat consumption is the third rail of climate politics.” This is true in most countries where powerful lobbying by big food companies has significant influence on government policy, and where individual farmers have significant voting power because they are widely represented in almost all electoral districts.
The elite media study shows “the farming sector is also much less mentioned than consumers. This may be an indication of a relative lack of media scrutiny of large-scale, intensive animal farming, which is linked to the draconian “ag-gag” laws in some states in the US which put strong restrictions on reporting on what goes on in such farms.”
on The horizon
Photo: Documentary, “Our Planet: Too Big to Fail”.
Turning off the Taps
The science is very clear that the biodiversity crisis and species extinction are as big a threat to our existence as the climate crisis. A new report, Bankrolling Extinction, shows how financial institutions are fueling the freefall of biodiversity.
In 2019, the world’s 50 biggest banks provided $2.6 trillion in loans and other credit to sectors with a high impact on biodiversity, such as forestry and agriculture. The report authors found that bankers had a “cavalier ignorance of – or indifference to – the implications, with the vast majority unaware of their impact on biodiversity.”
Influential thought leaders are urging the financial industry and governments to restrict the flow of capital to the carbon economy and help slow down the climate crisis.
Mark Carney, former governor of the central banks in England and Canada and a UN advocate on climate change, is calling for the finance industry to change their business models to recognize the risks of the carbon economy and the climate crisis. He has also called for CEO compensation to be tied to performance against the Paris climate goals.
Carney joins Sir David Attenborough and influential finance leaders in a powerful documentary called Our Planet: Too Big To Fail, designed to persuade the finance industry to be part of the solution. The new film, co-produced by the World Wildlife Fund and Jeremy Coller, Founder of the FAIRR investor coalition, lays out five ways the finance industry can help solve the climate crisis.
The influential scientist Sir Robert Watson has a three-part plan to tackle the issue. (Watson is the former chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). He says governments should first set an example in biodiversity-positive finance, by diverting harmful agricultural subsidies to promote a shift to less damaging activities.
Watson says that “agriculture is the leading cause of biodiversity loss today.” Agricultural subsidies, at $450 billion annually, are harmful to biodiversity and exceed the cost of paying farmers to use nature-friendly practices. Watson says that diverting harmful subsidies to pay farmers to protect biodiversity can lead to a net saving.
Second, governments should direct their development banks, which invest $2 trillion globally a year, to use their cash and influence to become global role models for reporting and reducing their impacts on biodiversity. And third, financial regulators and central banks could make biodiversity-risk-reporting a condition of licensing financial institutions.
100 influential environmentalists including Dr. Jane Goodall and Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org, recently called for the world’s top banks – including the IMF, World Bank and commercial banks — to stop funding factory farms due to the environmental damage inherent in the industrialized animal agriculture system, and the industry’s role in past and future pandemics from zoonotic sources.
and another thing
Most Canadians are unaware that Canada has links to the bear bile trade. Bear bile is extracted from their gall bladders for use in traditional medicines. Trading bear gall bladders is mostly illegal in Canada but it does exist due to loopholes in regulations arising from the patchwork of legislation across provinces and territories.
Bear populations in other regions of the world have declined significantly due to habitat loss and demands for their meat and organs. Currently, Canada has one of the healthiest populations of black bears. It would be a shame for that to end. worldanimalprotection.ca
Photo: Thomas Fuhrmann, Wikimedia Commons, CC 4.0.
Good news
Photo: Live animal export ship loaded with sheep and cattle bound for Israel from Australia. Bahnfrend, Wikimedia Commons CC 4.0.
We’re happy to report that a UK campaign to ban live calf exports — that we previously reported on in July — was successful! After a six-month legal battle, the Scottish government accepted that live exports of unweaned calves that breach maximum permitted journey times can no longer happen. This effectively halts a trade that can force calves to go for up to 23 hours without food and water. The policy awaits legislation. Here’s an in-depth look at the perils of the livestock shipping industry.
Animal welfare typically conflicts with profitability and productivity for food companies but new research from Faunalytics shows that campaigns that change societal expectations regarding improvements in animal welfare are effective at exerting pressure. Findings show that public concern for animal welfare has influenced 77% of companies surveyed to phase-out practices that severely confine animals such as gestation crates for pigs and cages for laying hens. However, there are often long lead times associated with implementing these changes as well as a lack of accountability.
A new online, first-of-its-kind, tool offers a practical solution that could curb the demand for wild animal products in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). It supports the substitution of wild animal-based traditional medicine products with plant-based alternatives. The database was spearheaded by World Animal Protection who contracted Professor Steven Given, former Academic Associate Dean at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, to compile the necessary information.
These products are a main driver for the trade in wild animals and have been associated with public health risks such as the current pandemic. Users can search the online database for alternatives to specific wild animal parts or browse a list of plant-based alternatives to each wild animal ingredient. Read more about this new resource here or look at the database here.
data points
1. A recent study in the journal Nature presents more evidence of how industrialized agriculture is harming the environment, biodiversity and contributing to the climate crisis. The study focuses on how agriculture is the largest source of nitrous oxide (see above chart).
Why this matters. Nitrous oxide (N2O) is one of the most powerful greenhouse gasses, up to 280x more potent than CO2. In the farming sector, it comes from fertilizers and manure. Without a course correction, the study says current intensive farming methods threaten our ability to meet the Paris climate goals.
What can we do? Given that 30% of crops are fed to farm animals, eating less meat means less mono-cropping for animal feed, thus less fertilizer and fewer animals producing manure. All of which reduces N2O emissions and helps slow down the climate crisis.
2. Supporters of plant-based foods point out that plant-based food supply chains offer many advantages over those of animal protein because they are shorter, faster, more predictable, more stable, and can be quickly halted or ramped up depending on demand. It takes years to grow a cow but not to build a factory — which takes up far less land than livestock and is more environmentally-friendly — all for the same amount of protein.
The Deeper Dive
Graphic from interactive tool comparing regional eating habits with the Planetary Health Diet. Click on link below to see how your region is doing.
Eating Healthier: How Are We Doing?
The Planetary Health Diet (PHD), from the prestigious EAT Lancet forum, is the gold standard for measuring which are the best foods to eat — for us and the planet. The PHD recommendations are based on two crucial factors: what is healthy and what is sustainable.
And we can see how we’re doing thanks to a new interactive tool from Carbon Brief that tracks how the eating habits of each major region stack up against what is ideal for our own health and the health of the planet. To use the tool click here and then choose the tab “How Does Meat and Dairy Consumption Vary Around the World.”
A few factoids from the food habit mapping tool:
Canadians and Americans eat 6x more meat than the PHD standard for health and sustainability.
They also eat more eggs, dairy and poultry than anywhere else globally.
Consumers in the EU and Central Asia eat 4x more red meat than the PHD recommends.
People in East Asia and the Pacific region consume the most fish and seafood -- and at an unsustainable level. But they also eat 3.5x more red meat than the PHD standard.
Global consumption of pulses, beans, whole grains and nuts are far below the recommendations for what is healthy for people and the planet.
And while your mother’s advice to “eat your vegetables” was right, only consumers in North Africa and the Middle East do this at a healthy and sustainable rate.
There’s more on the PHD below showing how to eat healthier and more sustainably.
charting our path
Chart: Planetary Health Diet, eatforum.org
Healthy Food Plates For a Sustainable Planet
What we put on our plates matters. As we saw in The Deeper Dive above, the influential Planetary Health Diet (PHD) is the best guide to healthy eating (for us and the planet).
Issued by the authoritative EAT Lancet forum, the PHD was developed by leading global experts on food and climate, and based on a rigorous examination of all the evidence about how we can improve our health, transition to more sustainable food systems and help avoid worsening the climate crisis.
It emphasizes a plant-forward diet where whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes comprise a greater proportion of foods consumed. Meat and dairy occupy significantly smaller segments than whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes.
In addition to the targets set within each section, the suggestion is that the average adult requires 2500 kcal per day, which varies based on age, gender, activity levels and health profiles.
To learn more about the PHD, check out their weekly meal planner, see some examples below.
Photos: Planetary Health Diet, eatforum.org