For the Animals / Environment

[4dogknight]

A while back someone, I think it was DMBchic, posted her concern about wild horses on government property that were going to be rounded up and sent to meat processing plants.

Today I received a news release from HSUS (The Humane Society of the United States) concerning this very topic. Below is a 'snip' from the release and the link to the HSUS site.

"Wild horses, a beloved and cherished symbol of our nation's
heritage, have been protected from sale and slaughter for over 30 years. However, a stealth amendment -- snuck into a massive budget bill at the end of last year -- has allowed these horses to be commercially sold once again.

In recent weeks, at least 41 wild mustangs were sold by the
government and then, within days, resold to an Illinois
slaughterhouse. We cannot let this continue.

Congress will be considering the Rahall-Whitfield amendment to ensure that tax dollars are never used for sales of wild horses that could lead to their slaughter. This week, when this
amendment is being considered, we must reach every single member of the U.S. House of Representatives and secure their votes for the Rahall-Whitfield amendment.

:: TAKE ACTION -- Contact your U.S. Representative and urge him or her to vote YES on the Rahall-Whitfield amendment."

Here is the link (http://www.hsus.org/index.html) to the HSUS site. The mustang story is on the first page center.

Time is of the essence on this because this amendment is going up for a vote this Thursday, May 19th.

Your assistance and participation in this matter is appreciated.

4dogknight

[4dogknight]

Update from HSUS:

HOUSE VOTES TO RESTORE FEDERAL PROTECTIONS FOR AMERICA’S WILD HORSES

Amendment Bans Commercial Sale and Slaughter of National Symbol

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, DC (May 19, 2005) – The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the nation’s largest animal protection organization, is applauding Congress for passing the Rahall-Whitfield amendment today in a landslide vote of 249-159 to restore the 34-year-old ban on the commercial sale and slaughter of wild free-roaming horses and burros that was lifted in the closing days of the last Congressional session.

“This is a huge victory for the animals, driven by an enormous outpouring of public concern, and The Humane Society of the United States is grateful that Congress acted to save our nation’s wild horses from the slaughterhouse,” said Nancy Perry, vice president of government affairs for The HSUS. “These animals are an integral part of our landscape and deserve to be treated with dignity and compassion. We urge the Senate to follow suit.”

“The House has sided with horse protection over horse slaughter, “said Wayne Pacelle, president and C.E.O of The HSUS. “Wild horses are majestic icons of the West, and they should be treated with dignity and respect. We are enormously grateful for the leadership of Nick Rahall (D-WV) and Ed Whitfield (R-KY) in advocating for the horses.”

The amendment, attached to the Interior appropriations bill, was sponsored by Nick Rahall (D-WV) and Ed Whitfield (R-KY) in response to stealth legislation introduced by Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) that gutted federal protections of wild horses and passed with no hearing or debate as part of the Omnibus Appropriations Bill. The Burns amendment reversed longstanding federal policy that banned wild horses from being sold at auction and subsequently shipped to slaughter plants.

Since its passage, 41 wild horses were sold at auction by the Bureau of Land Management and immediately sent to slaughter by the purchasers.

Protection for wild horses in the United States was originally mandated under the 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act in response to the shootings of hundreds of thousands of horses and burros and the slaughter of horses for pet food and human consumption in Europe.

The Humane Society of the United States is the nation’s largest animal protection organization representing more than nine million members and constituents. The non-profit organization is a mainstream voice for animals, with active programs in companion animals and equine protection, disaster preparedness and response, wildlife and habitat protection, animals in research and farm animal welfare. The HSUS protects all animals through education, investigation, litigation, legislation, advocacy, and field work. The group is based in Washington and has numerous field representatives across the country.

-30-

4dk - so it's not over yet - the Senate has to vote but I think the fact that the information concerning the plight of these magnificent animals is out there now, I don't foresee a problem. But then who knows with the climate in the Senate being the way it is these days, anything can happen. Take the high road Senators and do the just thing!

[manskater]

YAY -- I did get through on the link and was able to participate. Thanks 4DK.

[4dogknight]

A couple of newspaper articles concerning the environmental front. Read at your own amazement, especially the one about the eels.

‘Extinct’ wildflower found in California (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7984143/)
{snip}
"A flower long thought to be extinct was rediscovered in a California state park — more than six decades after it was last seen, scientists said Wednesday.
The pink wildflower Eriogonom truncatum, known as the Mount Diablo buckwheat, was found in a remote section of a Contra Costa County park about 30 miles (48 kilometers) east of San Francisco. The plant resembles baby's breath used in floral arrangements.
The last reported sighting of the flower was in 1936, according to the University of California at Berkeley.
"We've been calling the Mount Diablo buckwheat the holy grail for botanists (in the region)," said Barbara Ertter, curator of western North American flora at Berkeley's Jepson Herbarium.
The find drew comparisons to the recent discovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker in Arkansas. Sometimes called the "Lord God" bird because of the exclamation many people are said to utter upon seeing it, the large woodpecker was thought to have been extinct for decades before a kayaker found one in February 2004."

{snip}
"The location is being kept secret, but the dozen-plus plants were found on a property preserved by the conservation group Save Mount Diablo."


‘Eel City’ seen near undersea volcano (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7984261/)

{snip}
"Scientists exploring an emerging undersea volcano near the islands of American Samoa in the South Pacific were so amazed to find eels living in the newly formed lava that they nicknamed the population "Eel City."
Hundreds and perhaps thousands of purplish-gray eels about a foot long were swimming around and hiding in the nooks and crevices at the summit of the new volcano at a depth of about 2,000 feet (600 meters), Craig Young, director of the University of Oregon's Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, said Wednesday.
"We were astounded," said Young. "Many of us had worked on hydrothermal vents in other parts of the ocean and had never seen or heard of anything like this before."

{snip}
"We want to figure out why we have only one kind of animal living around hydrothermal vents with nothing else but microbial mats as a source of food," said Young.
"I suppose it's possible they migrate up the water column and feed in the water column and migrate back down to the cracks and crevices to hang out. But it seems odd that a deep-sea fish that would normally be experiencing 2- to 5-degree Centigrade (35.6 degrees to 41 degrees Fahrenheit) water would be seeking out water that is warmer."
As for the new volcano, Staudigel said it would be kept under close observation."


Little-known L.A. fault sparks big worries (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7983127/)

{snip}
"A little-known fault that runs under Los Angeles into its suburbs could cause the costliest earthquake in U.S. history and kill as many as 18,000 people if it shifts, geologists said Wednesday.
The Puente Hills fault has caused quakes of magnitude 7.2 to 7.5 at least four times in the past 11,000 years, said the teams at the U.S. Geological Survey and the Southern California Earthquake Center at the University of Southern California.
This is rare, but building codes and emergency planning should take the risks into account, the quake experts said."

{snip}
"The Puente Hills fault runs under Los Angeles County and adjacent to Riverside and San Bernardino counties.
A quake of magnitude 7.2 to 7.5 would kill anywhere between 3,000 and 18,000 people, would displace between 142,000 and 735,000 households, and cause up to $250 billion in property damage, the researchers report in the journal Earthquake Spectra.
That would make it the costliest disaster in U.S. history, the researchers said"

Comment: The article also gives a number of tips, re. preparing for an earthquake, what to do during an earthquake, etc.


4dk

[4dogknight]

And yet another article from usatoday.

Pacific Northwest salmon plan violates species act, judge says (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-05-26-salmon_x.htm)

{snip}
"A federal judge in Oregon rejected the Bush administration's main plan for saving salmon in the Pacific Northwest when he ruled Thursday that the 10-year, $6 billion effort violates the Endangered Species Act.
Environmentalists said that the decision by U.S. District Court Judge James Redden in Portland could help a campaign to partially remove four federal dams on the Snake River in eastern Washington state in an attempt to increase salmon survival as the fish travel to and from the Pacific Ocean.

"It's time to seriously look at removing obsolete dams," said Jan Hasselman, a lawyer with the National Wildlife Federation, one of the groups that filed the lawsuit leading to Thursday's decision.

Federal officials did not say what the administration's next step will be, but they defended the government's efforts to restore salmon populations. "Our efforts to protect salmon are yielding measurable improvements, and we are hard at work on recovery plans," Bob Lohn, the northwest director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's fisheries service, said in a written statement.

Redden's ruling in the lawsuit brought by 15 conservation and fishermen's groups is the third time since 1990 that federal courts have rejected government plans for managing federal dams on the Snake and Columbia rivers to assist salmon."

{snip}
"The administration could appeal the decision, or it could rewrite the plan and submit it for Redden's approval. The judge is also considering a request by environmental groups, such as the National Wildlife Federation, to force the government to allow more water to flow down the two rivers to improve salmon survival."

4dk

[Krista]

Ive been keeping up with the Wild Horses amendment etc. I was glad to see they voted to protect them again. I get emails periodically with updates.

[4dogknight]

Global Warming Will Increase World Hunger (http://enn.com/today.html?id=7835)

{snip}
Global warming is likely to significantly diminish food production in many countries and greatly increase the number of hungry people, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said Thursday.

FAO said in a report that food distribution systems and their infrastructure would be disrupted and that the severest impact would likely be in sub-Saharan African countries.

"There is strong evidence that global climate is changing and that the social and economic costs of slowing down global warming and of responding to its impacts will be considerable," said the report by FAO's Committee on World Food Security.

Many scientists fear rising temperatures, blamed mainly on heat-trapping gases from burning fossil fuels, will melt ice caps, raise sea levels by almost a metre (three feet) by the end of this century and bring more floods, droughts and storms.

Global warming would increase the amount of land classified as being either arid or insufficiently moist in the developing world."

Comment: Yeah I know, this administration doesn't believe there is Global Warming and the article is from the ENN (Environmental News Network) but what if this administration is wrong and the rest of the world is right, as I suspect they are - are we not shooting ourselves in the foot and in the least, throwing the baby out with the bathwater?

4dk

[4dogknight]

Bush, Out in the Cold (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-warm19jun19,0,599357.story?track=tothtml)

{snip}
"By this time, believing that global warming is only a theory is akin to saying the same thing about evolution. And just as creationists shouldn't be allowed to remake schools' curriculum on fossils, naysayers on climate change cannot hide from the damage caused by fossil fuels. Both areas of study are backed by robust evidence accepted by scientists around the world.

June could almost be designated Greenhouse Month for the new urgency governments and businesses have expressed in recent weeks about controlling emissions — mostly from burning oil and coal — that contribute to global warming. In this climate, so to speak, it's disheartening to find President Bush clinging to his old ploy of calling for ever more research before doing something."

{snip}
"The U.S. National Academy of Sciences and 10 similar groups from other nations called earlier this month for immediate action on global warming, saying world leaders must "acknowledge that the threat of climate change is clear and increasing." Two days later, a group of 23 multinational corporations similarly urged "action by both the private and public sector … initiated now." The group included Ford and oil giant BP.

Some U.S. companies are pushing for tighter regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. This might be enlightened self-interest in part. Some can make money by selling less-polluting energy sources such as windmills; others fear that if they don't get involved, lawmakers will pass a hodgepodge of state regulations. That's fine. Their motivations don't matter as much as their recognition that the time for action has arrived."

{snip}
"Bush last week accepted the resignation of a senior official of the White House Council on Environmental Quality whose tinkering with reports on climate change was revealed in the New York Times. Philip Cooney — a former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute, a major foe of greenhouse gas regulations — reportedly edited U.S. scientists' reports on global warming to make the phenomenon appear more dubious and less serious.

Bush also rebuffed British Prime Minister Tony Blair's attempts to make him take the topic seriously. Blair plans to make more aggressive action against greenhouse gases a top priority at the July meeting of the Group of 8 industrialized nations. The Washington Post revealed last week that Bush administration officials have succeeded in weakening the G-8 plan for joint action, working behind the scenes to alter key sections.

During Blair's visit to Washington, Bush stuck to calling for voluntary reductions and more study (unedited, we hope, by industry flaks). "We want to know more about it," Bush said of climate change. We do too. But with this administration, extended research on global warming has become an excuse for inexcusable inaction."

4dk - granted this article is in the form of an editorial but that does not mitigate the facts presented.

[manskater]

"We want to know more about it," Bush said of climate change

4dk- the article may be an editorial but Bush's above quote is just unbelievable. Does he live in a box??

[4dogknight]

Two Visions Of Energy (http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050620/two_visions_of_energy.php)

{snip}
In an action that barely made the inside section of most newspapers, the Senate last week voted for a more sane energy future.

By a narrow 52-48 margin, the Senate approved a plan that would a require electric power companies to use such renewable sources as wind, solar and geothermal power or biomass fuels to generate at least 10 percent of their electricity by 2020.

It's hardly a radical notion. Nineteen states already have similar state requirements. And a 20 or 25 percent target would have been better. But the so-called "renewable portfolio standard" is a step in the right direction—one that the federal Energy Information Administration says would diversify our energy supply, reduce natural gas demand and price and save money for consumers.

The renewable power plan, advanced by New Mexico Democrat Jeff Bingaman, may come to symbolize a vision of our energy future being forged in the Senate—a pragmatic, incremental, yet optimistic approach that could begin steering our country in a better direction, one less dependent on fossil fuels and foreign sources of energy.

But this vision soon will collide with a darker vision of energy policy that has emerged from the House of Representatives—a policy favoring special interests over the national interest—one based on campaign contributions, harm to taxpayers and protection of polluters.

COMMENT: Read the article for the 'dark side" details. Clue: there is a definate special interest Texas connection.

4dk

[4dogknight]

Senator Aims to Kill Agency That Tracks Salmon (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/23/AR2005062301915.html?referrer=email&referrer=email)

{snip}
"Angered by a federal court order that spills water over federal dams to save endangered salmon in the Pacific Northwest, Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) has inserted language into a Senate energy bill that would kill an agency that keeps score on the survival of fish as they swim through the heavily dammed Columbia and Snake rivers.

The federal government has spent far more money trying to prevent the extinction of Northwest salmon than it has on any other endangered species. Craig's move would eliminate the Fish Passage Center, which for more than two decades has been collecting and analyzing data that document how effective that multibillion-dollar federal effort has been."

{snip}
"The manager of the Fish Passage Center, Michele DeHart, said her staff collects "data that is accurate and, yes, it does show that the federal hydro system kills fish."

The federal court order that requires summer spill over dams in the Snake River means that some of the electricity that could be generated by those dams is being forgone -- at an estimated cost of about $67 million over the three summer months. Much of the data on fish survival that supported the order, which was made last month by a federal judge in Portland and has been appealed by the Bush administration, was gathered and analyzed by the Fish Passage Center.

"Maybe this is one of those deals where when you don't like the message, you kill the messenger," DeHart said."


4DK

[EigthAv]

Protecting animals and a clean environment are sometimes at odds with each other.Who is eating the horse meat???? Take away the eaters and there will be no incintive to slaughter the horses for food.Our way over-rated dogs are taking in oxygen,returning carbon dioxides and methanes,creating noise and air pollution,sometimes attacking innocent civilians, and they will eat horse meat,cow meat and human meat,if you feed it to them.Plants make far more logical pets in the 21st century,imo.

[4dogknight]

EigthAv, another cute / clever post and yet again completely without substance.

Thank you for your opinion and be sure post again when you have something more germane to the topic.


4dk

[4dogknight]

Does dirty air cool the climate? (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2005-06-30-dirty-air_x.htm)

{snip}
"Over the past several decades, industrial countries have made major strides in cleaning up pollutants roiling from smokestacks. But some researchers now say this progress could have a troubling side effect — accelerating the pace of global warming.

The reason: Tiny pollutant particles, once airborne, can reflect sunlight back into space, easing temperatures in what is known as aerosol cooling. By cleaning up industrial pollution, countries are reducing the effect of this cooling.

Nobody is recommending that nations halt efforts to curb pollution.

Still, when this factor is taken into account, global warming could outpace the level now forecast by climatologists, a team of European climate scientists reports in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature. Already, climate estimates sponsored by the United Nations foresee average temperatures rising by about 10 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100."

{snip}
"The results, published a week before the G-8 summit in Scotland, are likely to add urgency to British Prime Minister Tony Blair's efforts to keep climate change a headline issue.

But Mr. Blair has been unable to convince President Bush to support mandatory targets and timetables for emissions reductions. The White House's preferred approach instead focuses on reducing the US economy's carbon intensity — the amount of carbon emitted per unit of economic output — by 18% over 10 years. It relies heavily on research and market forces to encourage adoption of technologies to achieve its goals."

COMMENT: "It relies heavily on research and market forces to encourage adoption of technologies to achieve its goals." Or in other words if big business (read oil here) doesn't want to play, well then Bush and his cronies are against it.
Then there is the issue of GW never changing his mind once he has an idea no matter how far fetched, idiotic or coounter-productive it is.

4dk

[4dogknight]

Just catching up on my reading and found the following article in yesterday's LA Times.

Antifreeze Makers Face the Bitter Pill (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-antifreeze19jul19,0,6269995.story?track=tothtml)

{snip}
"The audience in the hearing room Monday was a bit unusual for Capitol Hill — it included six dogs and their owners — but the issue before a Senate subcommittee was a serious one: legislation requiring antifreeze manufacturers to add a bittering agent to prevent accidental ingestion by pets and children.

"I'm not usually one to want more government laws," said Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), the panel's chairman, "but this is a reasonable way to prevent harm to humans and animals."

About 1,400 children and 10,000 household pets ingest antifreeze each year, said Sara Amundson, legislative director of the Doris Day Animal League, an advocacy group in Washington. Ingesting one teaspoon of antifreeze can kill a cat, she said; two tablespoons can kill a 10-pound dog.

According to government toxicology guidelines, the minimum lethal dose for a 150-pound man is 4 ounces, Amundson said — meaning that "it takes far less to kill a child."

{snip}
"The legislation … would avoid the potential inconsistency and practical difficulty of manufacturers complying with what could become a patchwork of various state and local mandates," Jeffrey Bye, vice president of Prestone, a unit of Honeywell International Inc., told the panel. Prestone is the largest manufacturer and supplier of antifreeze in North America.

For the same reason, the Consumer Specialty Products Assn., a trade group for manufacturers of a variety of household items, also favors the federal bill.

"State-specific products are not practical for national distribution," said Bill Lafield, an association vice president. "Manufacturers do not control the distribution of their products at a state-by-state level. For example, we deliver to 11 Wal-Mart warehouses across the country, and our products are then distributed to approximately 3,000 stores."

COMMENT: This is a good thing. While a number of states have passed and eight others are considering this type of legislation and there is at least one product on the market with the bitter additive, there is nothing to protect animals, children and the environment across the board.

It has been mentioned that we could solve the problem with informational messages but if one does not have companion animals and/or children will it matter if some anti-freeze is spilled on the floor of the garage or in the driveway ---on the off chance that a neighbor's animal or child might wander by and...............

Folks, this stuff kills and it is not a pretty way to die!

4dk

[Krista]

There isn't a reason for them NOT to pass this. Too many animals and kids get sick from this. There's no reason for it.