Author: timzimmermann

Can Clothing Save, I Mean Repair, The World?

In response to my lament about Greenpeace’s charge that Levis jeans are not environmentally friendly, I received an e-mail from Lukas B. Snelling, who thought he might have a solution for me (and anyone who would like to find more environmentally friendly, sustainable clothing):

I thought you might be interested in our company, Repair the World® apparel. We produce feel good, do good apparel that is both eco-friendly, and people friendly. We make all of our apparel from a unique fabric that is 100% recycled. We estimate this saves over 160 gallons of water per-product from entering the waste stream.

Sounds promising. And any company that claims to make clothing from a combination of recycled cotton scraps combined with recycled plastic Coke and Pepsi bottles, is definitely worth checking out.

Here’s some press release info:

“What really makes Reparel™ fabric special is that we’ve created a 100% recycled fabric
that does not sacrifice comfort. This is quite possibly the softest, most comfortable fabric
available on the market today.” said Alan Brown, Repair the World® Co-Founder.

Brown continued, “Organic cotton is great for some applications, but it still involves a
massive amount of energy and water to grow, harvest, and process. With Reparel™, we have eliminated much of that energy and water from the process and are left with a fabric that stands above organics for its environmentally friendly qualities.”

Reparel™ fabric also contains no additional dyes, as the recycled color cotton scraps are used to generate color. All water used in the finishing process is also treated on-site to assure that no hazardous effluents are released into the environment.

Repair the World® developed Reparel™ fabrics because of the company’s commitment to doing business in a socially and environmentally friendly manner. In addition to utilizing Reparel™ fabric in all of their available products, Repair the World® apparel also donates a portion of their profits back to the communities that help produce their clothing to provide individuals with opportunities for growth and self-sufficiency.

So what doesn’t it do? I have to say, I love the ambition and the vision. But will I love the clothing (I am reminded of the time my friend Kelley bought his wife a handbag made from recycled tires–it didn’t end well)? I’ll let you know.

Is There Such A Thing As Humane Meat, Dairy And Eggs?

PETA‘s president Ingrid Newkirk offers an emphatic “No,” in this HuffPost piece:

“Surely,” they ask, hopefully, “if I buy organic, humanely raised or free-range, that’s all good, isn’t it?”

Well, actually, no. You are just kidding yourself, I am obliged to tell them, and the animals you are trying not to hurt would tell you if they could that your valiant effort is not enough. I’m not just saying that because I object in toto to the willful consumption of meat, milk and eggs. I’m saying it because labels lie.

First, there’s no getting around the fact that, no matter whether the hen was fed pesticides or not, or whether she was given another 2 inches of space or not, she will still come to a painful and terrifying end. And her death will pretty much be a blessing, considering how distressing her daily life was before meeting the man with the knife. The labels will not mention any of that because they are a big fat fraud, as evidenced by yet another exposé that hit the news last week, this one courtesy of PETA Germany. This latest case was about “bio” foods, labeled as coming from humanely raised, “free range” chickens and revealed the hell that can lurk behind the shell.

Actually, meat consumption is destroying the planet, and so no meat, even humanely farmed meat, can truly be considered “ok.” Sorry, America (and the rest of the world that wants to eat–and die–like America).

But I completely agree with Newkirk that the labels used on our foods are a scam to try and fool us into thinking an animal has been raised on a bucolic small farm, with lots of fresh air, pasture to roam, and love. The labels have been completely corrupted by Big Food, and its army of lobbyists waving fistfuls of cash. So anyone who thinks “cage free” or “free range” or “organic” means you are dealing with a happy, humanely treated animal, better wake up. Those are just labels which indicate a slightly different form of factory farm torture.

That, however, doesn’t mean that all labels are misleading or unreliable. I think about this question of “humane” farming quite a lot, because while I am a vegetarian I am not a vegan. I could almost get there, but I can’t stand to drink coffee without a splash of Half And Half (I’ve tried every soy and almond milk alternative, believe me, and it is horrible in comparison). And I eat eggs for protein. (I also eat cheese and butter, but I could give those up easily).

So I have looked into labels and whether there are any that can be trusted to help me find eggs and dairy from humanely treated animals. After researching the question (and discovering that there are multiple contradictory and confusing standards) I have come to rely on one that I trust: Certified Humane (argh, website appears to be down for the moment). The eggs that I eat, for example, are “Certified Humane,” which basically means that the chicken lives like you would expect a chicken on a mythical fram to live–free of preventive antibiotics, and with acces sto plenty of light, chicken entertainment, and pasture. Yes, they cost a little more, but $3.50 a dozen seems a reasonable price for what in my house we call “non-torture” eggs.

Finding “non-torture” milk is a little harder. Happily, “Certified Humane” has just produced an app that you can use to find where you can buy Certified Humane products near you. You will see that its main limitation is that there just aren’t that many products, or choices (Whole Foods looms large). But this is a process, and we are dealing with a food production system, as Newkirk points out, in which 95 percent of the products sold to Americans come from tortured animals. Certified Humane is slowly but surely adding farms and their products to the Certified Humane label, but farmers and producers need to know there is a market out there for Certified Humane food. So it never hurts to let your grocery store manager know that you would like to see “non-torture” products on the shelves, though feel free to use other language.

One last note about this dilemma. I actually quizzed some PETA employees on this last summer. I wanted to know whether there was a moral problem eating an egg from a happy chicken that wasn’t on hormones or antibiotics, and spent its days running around like normal chickens do. At first they explained that as vegans, and as PETA employees, they don’t believe that humans should be exploiting animals, or using animals for human purposes. Fine, I said, but pressed them to identify a moral problem with a “happy” egg. There really isn’t one, they conceded.

Reassured, I moved on to milk, and asked about the moral questions around consuming milk or cheese from a dairy cow that was treated to a normal life in a pasture and was producing milk as a result of pregnancy, and not as a result of artificial hormones. The cow gets pregnant, gives birth to a calf, and the milk flows. “Ah,” they responded. “That’s fine when the calf is a female and can grow up to be a dairy cow. But what do you think they do with the male calves?”

Damn, I hadn’t thought about that. Of course, they end up being sold for slaughter. So even if the cows are treated humanely, and the milk production is natural, the process doesn’t work out so well, or humanely, for the male calves.

That sticks with me as I splash Half And Half into my coffee every morning. And I’ll keep trying to develop a taste for black coffee (or, more likely, I’ll make a switch to black and green tea). But for anyone who is not (yet) vegan, the least you (and I) can do is take the trouble, and pay the extra costs required, to find products from humanely treated animals. Laziness or saving a few cents on a gallon of milk or a dozen eggs can never justify the extreme cruelty of industrial farming.

At least these cattle from North Woods ranch look like they are enjoying life.

In the end–for health, environmental, and moral reasons–I think Newkirk is entirely correct that humanity should move toward learning to feed itself without exploiting animals. But that is a huge leap, and it is probably counterproductive to tell people that there are no humane alternatives to veganism when there are.

They aren’t perfectly “humane,” as I discovered, which is why I’ll keep trying to make that final leap to veganism. But anyone who adopts a Certified Humane Standard for whatever animal products they happen to eat will be doing a lot to relieve some of the simply incomprehensible suffering that human food production (and consumption) inflicts on animals.

Is Nothing Sacred?

Damn, Levis are just about the only thing I wear. And Greenpeace says they are screwing up the environment by using hazardous chemicals in their supply chain. I’ve got to have pants, so if this is true Levis better sort it out. After all, I’ve been wearing Levis happily based on the fact that Good Guide says they are, well, “good.”

At least it looks like a fun protest.

When (Not) Seeing Is Important

As regular readers will know, I like to say “Seeing Is Important” because seeing helps people understand (and believe) the reality of what goes on in the world, whether at a marine park or a factory farm.

So I was struck by the following tidbit in Elizabeth Batt’s report on legal threats made against Dr. Ingrid Visser over her reports about orca Morgan’s experience at Loro Parque.

This is the gate at the entrance to Loro Parque’s Orca Ocean as it was last June (and was when I was there last year):

And this is the same gate in July 2011 (and presumably today):

Notice a difference? Visser has used her camera to tell Morgan’s story at Loro Parque in devastating detail. So Loro Parque took measures to make it hard or impossible for visitors to see what is going on with the orca outside of shows.

It’s an obvious response. But when an industry or corporation is blocking access, and becoming less transparent, it is a sign that all is not well inside, and that the industry is afraid of what the public might think if they truly understood what goes on behind closed doors (and hastily erected fences). For that sort of business “Not Seeing Is Important.”

Batt publishes one other “A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words” picture taken by Visser. It shows SeaWorld’s Chief Zoological officer, Brad Andrews, taking in the orca show alongside Kiessling.

SeaWorld, despite protestations to the contrary, has long had a very close working relationship with Loro Parque, and helped launch its orca program. If Morgan is used for breeding it will bbe very interesting–and telling–to see where the calves go.

Anyhow, I doubt that fences or legal threats can slow Visser down. And her work is making a difference, judging from the number of people who have signed this petition calling for Morgan’s release. The Dutch court will issue a ruling on Morgan’s fate on Dec. 13. Whether it calls for the revisitation of the Dutch ministry decision to send Morgan to Loro Parque or not, Visser will have accomplished something very important simply by making so many people aware of Morgan’s story.

 

What Came Before–Extended Version

Sorry to start your week off with such a stark, brutal look at pig farming in America. But it is what it is, and anyone who raves about bacon and pork should at least have the courage to know what it takes to put those things on their plate.

This is an extended version of an earlier video from Farm Sanctuary, about a pig named Nicky that escaped from an Iowa factory farm during a flood (apparently natural disasters have freed more than pigs). Before you watch, here’s a little background about pig intelligence and studies that show pigs are able to use mirrors as a tool to find food:

The finding is just one in a series of recent discoveries from the nascent study of pig cognition. Other researchers have found that pigs are brilliant at remembering where food stores are cached and how big each stash is relative to the rest. They’ve shown that Pig A can almost instantly learn to follow Pig B when the second pig shows signs of knowing where good food is stored, and that Pig B will try to deceive the pursuing pig and throw it off the trail so that Pig B can hog its food in peace.

They’ve found that pigs are among the quickest of animals to learn a new routine, and pigs can do a circus’s worth of tricks: jump hoops, bow and stand, spin and make wordlike sounds on command, roll out rugs, herd sheep, close and open cages, play videogames with joysticks, and more. For better or worse, pigs are also slow to forget. “They can learn something on the first try, but then it’s difficult for them to unlearn it,” said Suzanne Held of the University of Bristol. “They may get scared once and then have trouble getting over it.”

Researchers have also found that no matter what new detail they unearth about pig acumen, the public reaction is the same. “People say, ‘Oh yes, pigs really are rather clever, aren’t they?’ ” said Richard W. Byrne, a professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of St. Andrews. “I would recommend that somebody study sheep or goats rather than pigs, so that people would be suitably impressed to find out your animal is clever.” His feigned frustration notwithstanding, he added, “if you want to understand the evolution of intelligence and social behaviors, it’s important to work on animals like pigs that are not at all closely related to us” but rather are cousins of whales and hippos.

And here is how we treat them. How can this in any way be morally acceptable?

Safety Bar?

Check out this picture which someone just sent me (not sure where it comes from; apologies in advance to any potentially outraged photographer).

I’m posting it as a follow-up to my post on SeaWorld whale interaction protocols, because it really captures the fact that the safety bars which are required for head tactile in shows really wouldn’t offer much protection to a trainer if a whale decided to go after the trainer.

It also illustrates that “close contact”–even with a barrier–can mean, well, REALLY close.

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Jonathan Vaughters: The Smartest Take On Doping In Cycling I’ve Seen

Jonathan Vaughters unburdens himself to ESPN Magazine, and gives a fascinating explanation of how the moral, practical and competitive considerations made cycling a completely doped sport. Example:

“My first two years racing [1994 and 1995], I raced clean and there was no testing whatsoever for [the blood-boosting hormone] EPO in Europe. I would be barely hanging on the back of the peloton, finishing 130th. You were stuck sitting on someone’s wheel just praying the race would slow down at some point. Then I’d come back to race in the U.S. and win — it was amazing the difference when it was all 180 guys on EPO in those European races. The race is just faster and faster and faster because everyone always has the energy for a counterattack.

“It’s against the law of nature in the pack that the guy spending 30 percent more energy pulling in the wind for kilometers on end for his team leader can suddenly somehow still hang in there for third or 13th place. The race is just faster and faster and faster because everyone always has the energy for a counterattack. Fleche Wallonne in 1994 [when riders from the same team finished 1-2-3] was the seminal moment, when it went from individuals to team-based doping. So you had an en masse decision, with doctors and managers and riders saying, OK, gig’s up; we’ve gotta do this. And the attitude among the riders was: This is medication given to me by the team doctor. He told me I need to take it.

“With EPO in the 1990s, that was the first time in the history of sport where you had a totally undetectable drug that definitively gave a performance gain to everyone, and there wasn’t a downside. By 1996, in big races like the Tour de France, I think doping was very close to 100 percent prevalent.

Vaughters who is now part-owner, and manager of a racing team, also believes in a Truth And Reconciliation approach to getting the whole story out. It’s well worth reading his whole interview.

Inside SeaWorld: Waterwork And Protocols For Working Killer Whales After Dawn

With OSHA and SeaWorld headed back to Judge Welsch’s court in January to discuss the timing and specifics of the abatement of the dangers OSHA identified in its 2010 citations of SeaWorld Florida, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at what protocols SeaWorld has been using to define how trainers should interact with killer whales since Dawn Brancheau was killed in February 2010.

The protocols will presumably be a part of the January hearing. And what comes out of that hearing–what Judge Welsch decides regarding SeaWorld’s desire for more time to work out a comprehensive abatement plan and what he does in response to OSHA’s contention that SeaWorld has not been adequately abating the dangers and needs to be in compliance–could have a big impact on what SeaWorld’s killer whale shows will look like in the coming year and beyond, particularly if Welsch decides that the practices that are in place right now are not adequate protection for trainers.

Moreover, as a backdrop to the approaching abatement hearing, SeaWorld continues to move steadily forward in its waterwork desensitization program. I reported over the summer that SeaWorld was going to initiate waterwork desensitization in its medical pools, where the floors can be raised. And I also pondered SeaWorld’s potential strategy and timeline for trying to restore waterwork to its shows. That waterwork desensitization has now progressed to the point where the med pool floors have been left completely down, so that both killer whales and trainers are not beached or standing, but swimming. In California, for example, at least four whales (including Orkid) have been in the med pool, and held under control on a hand target, while a trainer floats nearby. In Texas, they have had Tuar, for one, conduct a perimeter swim past a floating trainer. SeaWorld management has told trainers it will not conduct waterwork in a pool that doesn’t have a rising floor. That makes me wonder whether and when SeaWorld Florida might consider moving waterwork desense and training to G pool (which is where the first rising floor was installed).

But back to the January abatement hearing. To set the context, here are some excerpts from Judge Welsch’s ruling last May upholding OSHA’s citations of SeaWorld:

As with Tilikum, the Secretary proposes that for performances, SeaWorld either install physical barriers between its trainers and killer whales, or require its trainers to maintain a minimum distance from the killer whales. This proposed abatement is technologically feasible; SeaWorld has been using it since February 24, 2010. SeaWorld has banned waterwork with its killer whales during performances, and trainers perform drywork from behind barriers.The proposed abatement is also economically feasible. SeaWorld did not argue that performing drywork from behind barriers or banning trainers from waterwork during performances affected it economically. SeaWorld’s killer whales, including Tilikum, have continued to perform in shows at Shamu Stadium without the presence of trainers in the water with them. Trainers perform drywork from behind barriers or at a minimum distance.

Later in his ruling he writes:

Prohibiting waterwork and using physical barriers and minimum distances eliminate the trainers’ exposure to the recognized hazard of working with killer whales. Proximity to the killerwhales is the factor that determines the risk to the trainers. Dr. Duffus stated, “The fundamental fact with captivity is the proximity. . . . The fact of the matter is simple proximity. . . If you’re close to a killer whale, they can potentially inflict harm” (Tr. 851).

Welsch, as far as I can tell, never defines a minimum distance the trainers should maintain if they are not separated from a killer whale by a barrier. But he clearly seems to believe that maintaining some sort of gap is both proper and feasible abatement. OSHA’s view seems to be that the minimum distance should be whatever distance is required to keep trainers safe. What that distance is, and what Judge Welsch believes it needs to be, presumably is something that the January hearing might clarify.

What Welsch might not know as the hearing approaches is that despite his apparent belief that SeaWorld trainers have EITHER been working from behind barriers during shows since February 2010 OR maintaining a minimum distance , the reality is not quite so clear-cut; that in fact there continue to be plenty of instances in which SeaWorld trainers have direct contact with the whales during drywork, with no barrier and no minimum distance. The Side By Side segment of the SeaWorld One Ocean show, for example, regularly features trainers rubbing down, and hugging, whales on the slideout.

Here’s a sequence from an August 2012 show at SeaWorld Florida:

This is from an October 2012 show, also at SeaWorld Florida.

So what are the protocols that trainers follow for such interactions? Interestingly, it is not at all clear that the OSHA citations and Judge Welsch’s ruling had Continue reading “Inside SeaWorld: Waterwork And Protocols For Working Killer Whales After Dawn”

How Marine Mammal Trainers (Would Like To) See Themselves

Just shared this on my Facebook page, and can’t resist posting it here.

It’s the opening video for the 2012 IMATA (International Marine Animal Trainers Association) conference, which just started up in blood-stained Japan Hong Kong.

Has there ever been an industry that strains so greatly to seem noble and idealistic in its purpose?

Methinks they doth protest too much (I think the psychiatrists call it “overcompensation”)….

A Dolphin Bites Back

So, most of you have probably seen news of the stir created by a SeaWorld dolphin that nipped a little girl who was feeding it.

Here’s the video:

You have to feel sorry for the girl, but she and the family at least learned a little something from the dolphin perspective on a life spent begging for food from paying tourists (and thankfully, the damage doesn’t look too bad).

If you want to know how odious the “petting pool” moneymaking strategy is, then I recommend “Biting The Hand,” an excellent report from Whale and Dolphin Conservation that explains the problems and dangers to both the petters and the pettees.

I don’t have much to add, other than to say petting pools (and this little girl) are one more example of how all the people who head to marine parks because they “love” dolphins do not really love dolphins. They just love the idea of being with dolphins, and having a relationship with a dolphin (superficial as it might be). What they never seem to consider is what their “love” (and willingness to spend money to fulfill their fantasies) means for the dolphins. That is not real love, and it would be nice if more parents would explain that instead of indulging their little dolphin-lovers.

https://i0.wp.com/www.glasswings.com.au/comics/sdcc1999/Dolphin.jpg

Anyhow, here is how one SeaWorld insider responded when I asked for any insight into what happened with the little girl:

Two things: the little girl was holding the fish tray and not even paying attention to the dolphin; and in recent years these dolphins have increasingly received more and more of their total base of food from these public feedings, so you have hungry animals. SeaWorld charges ridiculous prices for just 4-5 smelt so it’s a huge money-making venture. Not ideal for the animals in a lot of ways, including it not being a proper way to manage healthy weight. The more dominant dolphins get most of the fish so you see overweight animals and this type of management causes aggression when you condition animals to compete for food. I hate it.

Yep. Me too.