"I am an animal" - Nature Notes

I apologize if my response to you seemed a bit snippy there, goinghome.... But I do know which side I’m on.

That's indeed what I understood you to be saying earlier, A McF.

To the magic of possibilities, goo goo or other!

Posts in between are creating this sort of atmosphere, for me anyway

tumblr_nh04n2uvwb1tqtn0mo1_500.gif


I'm adding the link to the earlier Save the Soil thread, which is very relevant

"From the beginning of the world, the creatures and plants were our lifeboat that got us to where we are now. Now we must be a lifeboat for them." - Robin Wall Kimmerer
 
I do, too. I am SO in awe of nature. I prefer birdsong to most music. A wild orchid, a delicate little butterfly, a beautiful sunset - it's all so lovely and amazing. But it's us who attribute "poetic" and "beautiful" and "amazing" to it.
Yep.
I don't think nature knows that it's beautiful and inspiring. My dogs don't appreciate a spider web or a butterfly - they just trample on it, whereas we stop to admire it. What is all this beauty there for if not to be admired?

Maybe not, but does it need to know it’s beautiful and inspiring?

Well, yes we can admire it, actually so few do, which is the real problem. It’s really there to serve various purposes, manly it’s own survival. All those sweet scents and pretty colors to attract bugs to spread its seed to other flowers, and what we think of as beautiful bird song, is mostly birds fighting and being territorial. We know all this, but it’s still a delight to the ear and eyes, it’s real and it’s comforting.
 
These anecdotes of cats giving humans CPR etc, that's all very sweet, but they're anecdotes.



I don’t know. That person said their cat never acts like that, and for it to all of a sudden jump on her chest and howl in her ear? Guess it’s harmless to believe or not.
 
well if you cared you'd bring him back a feather boa!!

also thanks for reminding me i have baileys!! i completely forgot!! (im not fasting yet because i just discovered the existence of ben & jerry's mint ice cream with brownies (instead of gross chocolate chips which are to me what raisins are to you) and i have to get my fill of it before i begin fasting or im going to be thinking about it ALL THE TIME.) (im nearly sick of it now.)

It could be a little difficult to find a feather boa in the Alps, though.

That said, I saw this yesterday:

Screenshot 2023-01-10 at 10.09.55.png


I wonder ... was the deer gay or the hunter?

Well, good luck with your fast. As soon as I get home I'm going to start a radical fast, too - I want the covid vaccine and the possible damage it's done out of my body. (Which doesn't mean that I regret getting it, I've fared very well through this pandemic, only had a very mild case of covid and am generally healthier than before, but still, I want it all out of my body now.)
 
It could be a little difficult to find a feather boa in the Alps, though.

That said, I saw this yesterday:

View attachment 87680

I wonder ... was the deer gay or the hunter?

Well, good luck with your fast. As soon as I get home I'm going to start a radical fast, too - I want the covid vaccine and the possible damage it's done out of my body. (Which doesn't mean that I regret getting it, I've fared very well through this pandemic, only had a very mild case of covid and am generally healthier than before, but still, I want it all out of my body now.)
wow, that place looks so rustic!

thanks for the luck! i have three days off now so that should get me started, since the first three days are always the hardest, in regards to my mood.

good luck on yours! i'd want that shit out of me too.
 
whatcha doin' in the alps, bun bun?! skiing?

I wish I could, but I have all these issues with my leg, my eyes, my balance. Hopefully next year.

I'm just walking and breathing mountain air. Been to a few concerts and Mozart's birthplace. <3
 
I wish I could, but I have all these issues with my leg, my eyes, my balance. Hopefully next year.

I'm just walking and breathing mountain air. Been to a few concerts and Mozart's birthplace. <3
nah , skiing's a nonsensical waste of good scenery. my favourite part of it was always sitting in the lodge or going for lunch.

also, if i was there id be eating ALL the mozartkugeln!!!!!!!!
 
nah , skiing's a nonsensical waste of good scenery. my favourite part of it was always sitting in the lodge or going for lunch.

also, if i was there id be eating ALL the mozartkugeln!!!!!!!!

I would eat all the Mozartkugeln, too if it wasn’t for all that awful marzipan :sick:
 
How wild turkeys were rescued from extinction in America -
"...by the end of the nineteenth century this particular fowl had nearly become extinct, hunted down, crowded out. The last known wild turkey in Massachusetts was killed in 1851... [in 1914] heartbroken ornithologists tried to reintroduce the wild turkey into New England, without much success. Then, in the early nineteen-seventies, thirty-seven birds captured in the Adirondacks were released in the Berkshires, and their descendants are now everywhere, hundreds of thousands strong, brunching at Boston’s Prudential Center, dining on Boston Common, and foraging alongside the Swan Boats that glide in the pond of Boston Public Garden.." - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/28/the-return-of-the-wild-turkey

iu

 
A step to banning animal testing of medicines?

"New medicines need not be tested in animals to receive U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, according to legislation signed in late December 2022. The change—long sought by animal welfare organizations—could signal a major shift away from animal use after more than 80 years of drug safety regulation. In place of the 1938 stipulation that potential drugs be tested for safety and efficacy in animals, the law allows FDA to promote a drug or biologic—a larger molecule such as an antibody—to human trials after either animal or nonanimal tests. The Center for a Humane Economy, a nonprofit animal welfare organization and key driver of the legislation, and the nonprofit Animal Wellness Action, among others that pushed for changes, argue that in clearing drugs for human trials the agency should rely more heavily on computer modeling, “organ chips,” and other nonanimal methods that have been developed over the past 10 to 15 years. “Animal models are wrong more often than they are right,” says Don Ingber, a Harvard University bioengineer whose lab developed organ chip technology now being commercialized by the company Emulate, where he sits on the board and owns stock. Last month, Lorna Ewart, chief scientific officer at Emulate, Ingber, and colleagues published a study highlighting the potential of this technology. The company’s liver chips correctly identified 87% of a variety of drugs that were moved into human studies after animal studies, but then either failed in clinical trials because they were toxic to the liver or were approved for market but then withdrawn or scaled back because of liver damage. The chips didn’t falsely flag any nontoxic drugs. Article goes on to discuss new testing alternatives and the opposing viewpoint that animal testing is still necessary. It remains unclear just how much the new law will change things at FDA. Although the legislation allows the agency to clear a drug for human trials without animal testing, it doesn’t require that it do so. What’s more, FDA’s toxicologists are famously conservative, preferring animal tests in part because they allow examination of a potential drug’s toxic effects in every organ after the animal is euthanized..." - https://www.science.org/content/art...ug-trials?mc_cid=e429d5fd1a&mc_eid=cb009e1e09
 
A step to banning animal testing of medicines?

"New medicines need not be tested in animals to receive U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, according to legislation signed in late December 2022. The change—long sought by animal welfare organizations—could signal a major shift away from animal use after more than 80 years of drug safety regulation. In place of the 1938 stipulation that potential drugs be tested for safety and efficacy in animals, the law allows FDA to promote a drug or biologic—a larger molecule such as an antibody—to human trials after either animal or nonanimal tests. The Center for a Humane Economy, a nonprofit animal welfare organization and key driver of the legislation, and the nonprofit Animal Wellness Action, among others that pushed for changes, argue that in clearing drugs for human trials the agency should rely more heavily on computer modeling, “organ chips,” and other nonanimal methods that have been developed over the past 10 to 15 years. “Animal models are wrong more often than they are right,” says Don Ingber, a Harvard University bioengineer whose lab developed organ chip technology now being commercialized by the company Emulate, where he sits on the board and owns stock. Last month, Lorna Ewart, chief scientific officer at Emulate, Ingber, and colleagues published a study highlighting the potential of this technology. The company’s liver chips correctly identified 87% of a variety of drugs that were moved into human studies after animal studies, but then either failed in clinical trials because they were toxic to the liver or were approved for market but then withdrawn or scaled back because of liver damage. The chips didn’t falsely flag any nontoxic drugs. Article goes on to discuss new testing alternatives and the opposing viewpoint that animal testing is still necessary. It remains unclear just how much the new law will change things at FDA. Although the legislation allows the agency to clear a drug for human trials without animal testing, it doesn’t require that it do so. What’s more, FDA’s toxicologists are famously conservative, preferring animal tests in part because they allow examination of a potential drug’s toxic effects in every organ after the animal is euthanized..." - https://www.science.org/content/art...ug-trials?mc_cid=e429d5fd1a&mc_eid=cb009e1e09

Don Ingber is usin' technology in a real positive way.
Let's hope they start listen' to'em.
 


"It's actually entirely possible for us to have a meat production system that is better for human heath, as well as for the climate and for the animals themselves." So says Sigal Samuel of Vox at 8:02 in this video telling us the next pandemic could come from a factory farm. Well, actually, Sigal Samuel, that's not entirely true. Small farms have their own pandemic risks: Sentient Media | On Small Farms, the Threat of Zoonotic Disease Still Looms Large.

The study argues that extensive livestock production also comes with its own pandemic risks. First, because animals spend most of their time outside the barn, roaming freely in large, remote areas, extensive farms often require more labor than factory farms, increasing the number of potential hosts for an emerging infectious disease (EID). Second, higher rates of human–livestock contact and poorer biosecurity measures result in “different, but not necessarily lower, EID risks than higher-yielding systems producing the same amount of food,” the authors write.
Farmed animals often come into contact with diseased wildlife, quickly spreading the infection to the rest of the farm. Animal waste, which is often used as manure on land, is another potential source of disease transmission from livestock to wild animals and water contamination. The lack of adequate ventilation also expels pathogens into the air, thereby increasing the risk of transmission to communities that live around factory farms.

On low-yield farms, the risk of exposure and subsequent spillover of a zoonotic disease is heightened by the sheer amount of land the farms use. Their size creates more opportunities for direct and indirect contact between infected wildlife and farmed animals. In this new cycle of disease transmission, livestock and their handlers become intermediate hosts for novel pathogens.

The obvious bottom line is that there simply isn't anywhere near enough land for this dream of "happy farms," if you want to feed 8 billion on meat. For that, you need factory farming. And for every convert to veganism in the lush West, there are far more people in the developing world whose economic tide is rising and who want to ditch their rice gruel for bacon cheeseburgers.

The solution is not simple. A widespread switch to non-intensive systems without a significant change in diets would require considerable expansion of agricultural land, says Bartlett. The accompanying habitat loss would further increase the risks of zoonotic disease.

However, the study’s authors do not foresee significant reductions in global meat consumption anytime soon, and most experts agree. “Meat consumption per person is starting to fall in some countries but is rising rapidly elsewhere,” says Dr. Andrew Balmford, Professor of Conservation Science at the University of Cambridge and senior author of the study.

Changes in diet are not forthcoming. Zoonotic diseases will persist, and woe to the animal victims. When you're on the track to the gas chamber or the bolt gun, things are timed. But when hundreds of you need to be culled all at once, there's no time consider dispatching you with any mercy, and you're shoveled into a pit and buried alive.

 
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"It's actually entirely possible for us to have a meat production system that is better for human heath, as well as for the climate and for the animals themselves." So says Sigal Samuel of Vox at 8:02 in this video telling us the next pandemic could come from a factory farm. Well, actually, Sigal Samuel, that's not entirely true. Small farms have their own pandemic risks: Sentient Media | On Small Farms, the Threat of Zoonotic Disease Still Looms Large.




The obvious bottom line is that they're simply isn't anywhere near enough land for this dream of "happy farms," if you want to feed 8 billion on meat. For that, you need factory farming. And for every convert to veganism in the lush West, there are far more people in the developing world whose economic tide is rising and who want to ditch their rice gruel for bacon cheeseburgers.



Changes in diet are not forthcoming. Zoonotic diseases will persist, and woe to the animal victims. When you're on the track to the gas chamber or the bolt gun, things are timed. But when hundreds of you need to be culled all at once, there's no time consider dispatching you with any mercy, and you're shoveled into a pit and buried alive.


What pigs go through, so that people can have their 'bit of bacon' to titillate their appetites. I understand the lust for bacon, as I used to be a fan of it, but to see footage like this and to go on eating it, I find it hard to comprehend. The double think involved in eating meat after seeing something like this, is so ingrained, from childhood. People become hardwired to do it, and it takes an epiphany to give it up.
 
People become hardwired to do it, and it takes an epiphany to give it up.

With the ubiquity of the internet over the last twenty years, the experiment has been run, and the results are not good for the animals. The abolitionist message has had the greatest technological means with which to evangelize, "the likes of which this world has ever seen before," and the numbers of the persuaded are still mired in the single percent digits. There are surely a ton of people who have seen factory farm footage shared on social media. They're just not moved. A collective shrug: "mmm bacon" and "vegans r annoying af."

I wonder if 17th, 18th, and 19th century Britons and Americans would have budged on slavery if footage of the cruelty of the plantation had been as available to them as factory farming footage is available now (in spite of ag-gag laws). The anti-slavery message took centuries to get sufficient momentum because it was reliant on the slow-moving winds of word of mouth, pamphlets, essays, and art. And even then, slavers were still willing to go war for it. No, none of this will end until humanity itself comes to an end.
 
What seems to be happening, along with only a slow rise in real vegan/vegetarian numbers, is a general growth in the habit to eat less meat, and for people to become 'flexitarians' - https://theconversation.com/meat-consumption-is-changing-but-its-not-because-of-vegans-112332
and
https://www.euromonitor.com/the-rise-of-vegan-and-vegetarian-food/report

Peruse here too at your peril - https://ourworldindata.org/land-use

"Humanity knows nothing at all. There is no intrinsic value in anything, and every action is a futile meaningless effort". This was the epiphany from which Masanobu Fukuoka developed his regenerative One-Straw Revolution method of farming. Full book in different translation here - https://library.uniteddiversity.coop/Permaculture/The_One_Straw_Revolution.pdf
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Incidentally, see this juicy report of a memorable festival I attended, featuring 'this farming man'!
https://musicismthought.wordpress.com/2011/07/04/morrissey-lights-up-hop-farm/

And, after hearing a gentle croaking last night on locking the door, this is what i found in my pond today

2023.02 pond.jpg
 
What seems to be happening, along with only a slow rise in real vegan/vegetarian numbers, is a general growth in the habit to eat less meat, and for people to become 'flexitarians'

A problem, however: even if meat consumption per capita declines marginally, meat consumption overall rises if population growth outpaces the converts to plant-based or "flexitarian" diets. Faunalytics | Global Animal Slaughter Statistics & Charts 2022. And that's just animals slaughtered for their meat. A yen for dairy is rising even faster. IDFA | U.S. Dairy Consumption Hits All-Time High in 2021.

Dairy-Consumption-1-1024x683.png
 
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