Friday, April 6, 2012
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
"WHY HAVEN'T WE HEARD ABOUT THIS BEFORE?"
As one of you said in class after learning that animal agriculture accounts for 51% of the global greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming, “Why haven’t we heard about this before?” This is a great question that has no one simple answer, but it’s worth exploring. Indeed, why are so many people uninformed about factory farming?
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Nick Cooney
Nick Cooney
Nick Cooney’s presentation was very informative to me discussing many things I was not aware of before this class. The most shocking was that of the environmental issues. I was not aware that industrialized farming created so many issues from global warming to dead zone spots. I really feel outraged that the government hasn’t put stronger regulations on these industries if they are harming animals so much as well as us being the number one cause of environmental damage.
Nick Cooney
Nick Cooney
Nick Cooney's Presentation
Nick Cooney
Joseph Chism
Nick Cooney
Nick Cooney
Nick Cooney Presentation
Nick Cooney
Nick Cooney's factory farming presentation
I found Nick Cooney’s in class presentation on factory framing practices extremely informative. Going into his presentation I felt that he was going to reinforce the same information we have previously covered in the reading this semester. Also, before taking this course I had seen the film Food, INC. that explains some practices of factory farming. The part of the presentation that absolutely shocked me was the devastating effects factory farming has on the environment. I had no idea that more green house gases are released from factory farming then from cars. This fact angered me. Why is this type of information not on the news, in newspapers and on billboards? Is money really that important that the government can over look the best interest of the entire planet and future generations that will inhabit our planet? Apparently it is. It would me wrong of me to just blame the government for what factory farming is doing to the planet. In general Americans love to eat—especially meat—including myself in this statement. I also find it highly improbable that the entire world or even our country would become vegan or vegetarian. So what can be done? I feel the American government should make all its citizens aware of the effects that factory farming is having on our planet. Then let the people choose to cut back on the amount of animals they are eating or not.
Nick Cooney's Presentation
Nick Cooney Presentation
Nick Cooney's presentation
Nick Cooney’s presentation on Factory Farming was very interesting. One aspect of the presentation I found the most interesting was the impact on the environment. I knew that factory farming was the cause of a big portion of the global warming issue, but I didn’t know that it was the biggest factor. Factory farm animals produce 170 times more waste than humans do. Some of it is used for fertilizer but most of it leaks into water or is absorbed into the atmosphere. Knowing that the massive amount of waste the factory farm animals produce is ruining our planet, makes me want to change the way I eat. I don’t think I can completely stop eating meat and meat products but I can definitely cut down on my meat intake.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
presentation
Nick Cooney's Presentation
Nick Cooney's Presentation
Nick Cooney's Presentation
Factory Farming - Nick Cooney
Nick Cooney Presentation
Nick Cooney and Factory Farming
Nick Cooney - Factory Farming
For the most part, Nick Cooney's presentation on factory farming provided me with a lot of new information that I'd ever never heard, or taken into account before. For me, I enjoyed hearing about the advancements being made, and the progress of the struggle for rights of non-human animals, especially for animals in the factory farming industry. He presented facts about the rise of veganism and vegetarianism, as well as information about countries and states that have eliminated cruel factory farming procedures, such as battery cages and gestation crates. Sometimes the topics surrounding factory farming can become a little redundant and depressing; it was refreshing to hear good news for once. Though the fight is far from over, it’s slightly comforting to know that the cruelty surrounding factory farming is being noticed. Hopefully with just a few states outlawing cruel factory farm animal practices, we can hope to see other states and nations follow suit in the near future.
Vegetarianism
TWB#4 Nick Cooney's Presentation
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ETHICS
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Circuses
This article is voicing the "real" agenda for the anti-circus dilemma. First, the author focuses on the difference of animal cruelty and animal training. Today, the line that separates the two is often blurred. Especially when it comes to training animals in the circus. Trainers take advantage of the fact that they can discipline the animals and since they feel superior to the animals, they mistreat them but claim that they are just training them, hoping that people looking in will see them as doing good for the animals. Next, the article focuses on the fact that circuses fail to "meet minimal regulatory standards." The circuses get inspected often times, but there is no harsh treatment for the circuses that have unfit conditions.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Cock Fighting
This website defines cockfights and gives breif information about the sport. It also shows a video clip and gives a list of websites that lead to more information about cock fighting and what is being done to try and ban it. This website is biased. It takes the side that cock fighting is wrong and that states need to crack down on their laws because it is illegal and a felony in every state.
The website states that "in a cock fight, two roosters fight each other to the death while people place bets. Cockfighters let the bird suffer untreated injuries or throw the birds away like trash afterwards. Besides being cruel cock fighting often goes hand in hand with gambling, drug dealing, illegal gun sales, and murder."
In these fights, birds wear razor-sharp blades on their legs which cause injuries like punctured legs, broken bones and peirced eyes. Most of them do not survive. This website also talks about how parents take their children to see cock fights which could leave their children to think that violence is okay.
The websites video clip gives the most in depth look at cock fighting because it explains and shows how the cock fight is set up as well as the dead and injured birds. They are set up with orange scratch lines in the video. They also found a shelter where these cock fighters were breeding chickens and realized that it was also an animal cruelty case which made things worse. These chickens did not have access to water and were in very bad shape. This was a cock fight the the HSUS helped bust open.
Live Pigeon Shoots
A historic Pennsylvanian gun club that has hosted Ernest Hemingway and Annie Oakley has surreptitiously restarted a century-old tradition of holding live pigeon shoots, reigniting the ire of animal rights groups and putting the state's porous animal cruelty legislation in the crosshairs.
The Philadelphia Gun Club has been fined $160 following a recent incident in which a member was spotted firing his rifle at birds that had been released from spring-loaded traps along the banks of the Delaware River, about 32 kilometers north of Philadelphia.
"Live pigeon shoots are a practice similar to cockfighting or dog fighting, where it is largely an underground circuit of the same people who follow it around," said Heidi Prescott of The Humane Society of the United States. "The Philadelphia Gun Club had shut them down, but apparently started them up quietly again, and we don't know when."
Horse Carriage
The ASPCA's stance on horse carriages:
The ASPCA believes that carriage horses were never meant to live and work in today's urban setting. In addition to the dangers of working in congested areas, these horses spend their days directly behind cars, trucks and buses, inhaling their fumes. Given the constraints and challenges that New York City presents, and as the primary enforcer of New York City's carriage horse laws, the ASPCA does not believe New York City can meet the needs of its horses. Neither the New York City environment nor the current law can provide horses with the fundamental necessities to ensure their safety and well being.
For all of these reasons, the ASPCA is a supporter of New Yorkers for Clean, Livable & Safe Streets, an organization dedicated to improving New York City's quality of life through education and advocacy. NYCLASS advocates viable alternatives to carriage horses that will not only relieve the City government of its financial burden, but will also avoid the safety and quality of life issues caused by the carriage horse industry.
The ASPCA supports Intro. 86, Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito's legislation to phase out carriage horses in New York City, replacing horse drawn carriages with alternative, fuel-powered classic cars. These cars can provide rides for tourists, offer jobs to workers currently in the carriage horse industry and maintain the historic feel of the tours.
Kapparot
"Kapores is a custom carried out before Yom Kippur. Some do it in the days preceding Yom Kippur, others on the evening beforehand or in the early morning of the day preceding the Holy Day. It is observed by both men and women. Each man takes a live rooster, and each woman takes a hen. Pregnant women take both a rooster and a hen since they may give birth to a male. Preferably the chicken should be white. Some authorities say that one should not search out a white chicken, but if there is a choice, a white one should be chosen. Why? Because in Isaiah it says. 'And if your sins be like scarlet, they shall become as white as snow.'"
Santeria
The article is a listing of various conflicts, controversies and court cases around animal rights under Santeria. Examples range from a witch-hunt in Mexico to a First Amendment Supreme Court case.
CIRCUS
http://www.animalsaustralia.org/media/in_the_news.php?article=1995
In her article, “The Controversy Comes to Town,” Terra Sword talks about a specific case regarding the banning of circuses in an Australian city of Lismore. Circus owner Jan Lennon was denied the right to perform with her animals and the rest of the Stardust Circus crew when animal rights advocate Amber Hall took the matter into her own hands and joined forces with the Lismore City Council to prevent their ability to do so. Sword skillfully switches points of view to address each side of the argument and get incites from both parties.
In the article, Hall claims that, “animal circuses are inherently cruel with animals constantly confined to cages, pens, and trucks,” also mentioning that “Lismore City Council has declared animal circuses as cruel and thus against the social values of community.” Holder of a law degree, she tried to and succeeded in convincing the City Council to deny Lennon the right to perform. Her desires of doing so were in attempts to achieve the goal of decreasing the popularity of animals in the circus, the accomplishment of which would bring her, and the rest of the animal rights activists, closer to the passing of the law that would actually ban the practice as she believes that even though “it is still lawful to have animals in a circus, that doesn’t make morally acceptable.”
On the other side of the ring however, Lennon is attempting to fight for “the only life she’s ever known.” The circus owner claims that she’s had the lions “forever and a day,” also adding that “they’ve been born and bred in captivity and don’t know any other life,” which indeed brings up a good point in the argument. Who is to judge if lions are content with the life they have at the zoo? Like Lennon mentions, they don’t know life otherwise, and “don’t know what the wild is.” If the circus was to go out of business and the lions were to be let go there is a potential that they indeed would not survive in the wilderness. Even though some, and in this case Hall, may argue that the lion’s life and participation in the circus is “absolutely pathetic” and perhaps even unnatural for an animal who has perpetually been called the “King of the Jungle,” so may the life of a modern day actor be criticized similarly.
Animal abuse is, of course, immoral in any case and should be prevented the best way possible. However, if “anyone can come and watch a training session [at the circus] any time they want, and there is never any cruelty,” and if one truly devotes themselves to the upbringing and wellbeing of the animals like Jan Lennon claims she does, why not let the show and its participants go on?