Clubbing baby seals

Byoliveridley

Regarding the recent brouhaha that started with the EU banning Canada’s seal products, I confess to being in two minds about Canada’s sealing practices. Of course, clubbing baby seals to death seems barbaric, but so is confining pigs (intelligent and cute in the right circumstances!) to pens where they can barely move and slaughtering them, so is de-beaking chickens and cooping them up in ultra small cages, so is fattening cows with growth hormones, then slaughtering them. If you have any questions, I give you

and this:

and this too:

Okay, now that you have become part of the meatrix, why is industrial animal farming, which is way more destructive on the planet, the people involved and the animals completely and utterly acceptable while the (admittedly barbaric) “culling” of a small proportion of a wild population of seals is banned?

Yes, seals are cute, but so are chickens, baby pigs, calves, you name it, I even think most snakes are cute, it’s all optics anyway.

If you’re against the seal clubbing, you need to be against all current animal farming practiced in all of the Americas, and yes, Europe as well.

FAQs: The Atlantic seal hunt

Few facts in this debate go unchallenged. All sides agree on where and when. But the answers to how, why, and even how many aren’t as clear. 

Even the language is chosen carefully. Hunt or slaughter. Sea mammals or baby seals. Cherished tradition or economic disaster. Cod-eating nuisance or adorable innocent.

The images of the hunt are even more powerful, and seal hunt opponents know it. Most people find the pictures difficult to watch, but supporters say the same kind of thing happens in slaughterhouses — places where cameras aren’t allowed

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    Byoliveridley

    Gene defense in lead paint case rankles – Yahoo! News

    But one of the nation’s largest paint companies has another explanation — bad traits that were simply passed on in their genes. “Their argument is … they have a family history of poor performance. Basically, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” said Michael Casano, who is representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that seeks unspecified damages

    Well, take the Bell Curve, add dollops of greed and you can make a transparently racist argument that five families, all poor and black, of course, have some mysterious genetic defect that perfectly mimics the effects of lead poisoning on children.

    If not detected early, children with high levels of lead in
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    • Behavior and learning problems (such as hyperactivity)

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    • Hearing problems

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    Hmm, if all these symptoms were genetic in nature, I wonder if the lawyers that make this case would let their children ingest some lead paint everyday for a few years, I am sure their perfect genes will protect them? It would be a great control group, No?

  • The emperor's "new" climate policy

    Byoliveridley

    You mut have heard by now that the emperor of the US (I call him that because he thinks he is above the law and rules by fiat) announced a new meeting to tackle climate change issues. David Roberts of Grist broke it down and concluded that it was worse than nothing. It rejects targets, groups China and India with the developed world, which ensures that nothing will ever come out of his “meeting”, kicks everything down the road until after he has abdicated his throne in 2009, and tries to take advantage of climate change to push for free trade deals.

    But this article by Dana Milbank of the Washington Post caught my attention for the rather surreal exchange between a CBS reporter and the White House spokesman.

    Dana Milbank – As the World Warms, the White House Aspires – washingtonpost.com

    In this instance, you have a long-term, aspirational goal,” Connaughton answered.

    Aspirational goal? Like having the body you want without diet or exercise? Or getting rich without working?

    “I’m confused,” Axelrod said. “Does that mean there will be targets for greenhouse gas emission reductions, and that everybody will be making binding commitments?”

    “The commitment at the international level will be to a long-term, aspirational goal,” the Bush aide repeated.

    Axelrod had his answer. “Voluntary,” he concluded.

    “Well,” said Connaughton, “I want to be careful about the word ‘voluntary.’ “

    Yes, please do be careful, let’s not over promise and under deliver like we always do!

    Connaughton may want to be careful, but the plan the White House outlined yesterday listed no concrete targets or dates, no enforcement mechanism and no penalties for noncompliance. It also wouldn’t take effect until four years after Bush leaves office. It was, rather, a call to spend the final 18 months of the Bush presidency forming an aspirational goal.

    Umm, we’re not in 1985 any more, aspirational goals have long since been established, stabilization at 450 ppm C anyone?

    I love the emperor and his merry band of climate advisers!

  • Why land use is critically important for climate change

    Byoliveridley

    That’s the argument from a new paper published in Science today, written by Princeton University’s Tim Searchinger and others. The upshot? Clearing out forests to use the wood for bioenergy clearly has an environmental cost, but that’s simply not accounted for in any of the prevailing climate-change programs. Kyoto, the European cap-and-trade plan, and the House climate bill all treat bioenergy as carbon-neutral; nobody counts the effect of disappearing forests.

    via Environmental Capital

    In my long blog post earlier this morning, I briefly alluded to the fact that proposed Canadian climate change legislation explicitly excludes land use. Well, bad idea! I am surprised this is being trumpeted as a major new finding, hasn’t it been obvious for at least the last few years that biofuel carbon neutrality is very dependent on how land use patterns change?

  • |

    Bisphenol A – Getting More Powerful Everyday

    Byoliveridley

    So is it Mondays with Bisphenol?? You know what, the scary thing about this chemical is that its acute (short term, immediate) toxicity at high doses, which is the only safety testing that is ever done, does not correlate with all the subtle effects that are seen at low doses (chronic). Here’s another study where ambient level exposure to bisphenol A interferes with prostate cancer treatment by making the tumor cells androgen independent, so the standard testosterone deprivation therapy will not work any more.

    Environmental Health News: New Science

    A common plastic molecule to which virtually all Americans are exposed may interfere with the standard medical treatment for prostate cancer, according to new experiments with human prostate tumors implanted into mice. The doses of the plastic molecule, bisphenol A, were chosen specifically to be within the range of common human exposures. Tumor size and PSA levels were significantly greater in exposed animals just one month after treatment.

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    This is one powerful (if not actually more dangerous) chemical. it is so ubiquitous that finding a substitute is not going to be easy.

  • The Oil Drum takes down cellulosic ethanol

    Byoliveridley

    talisk2.jpgA guest poster at the oil drum throws a little water over cellulosic ethanol (pouring a little water over scotch – good, over raging hype machines, even better).

    What’s the moral in all of this? If corn ethanol is marginal on an energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) basis, it is very difficult to argue that biomass grown to make ethanol will be any better. To be blunt, if there are concentrated stocks of waste biomass in place, such as at lumber mills, then biomass ethanol probably makes sense. Otherwise, it appears to be more or less equivalent to corn based ethanol – in other words, a wash.

    Overall, it’s a good take down. I am always leery about believing farm/agriculture promises because there’s way too much subsidy money involved for people not to have a vested interest in promoting some new plant or the other. Unfortunately, I know nothing about farming 🙁 , so I can’t judge his assumptions.

    Why can’t we just agree to consume less (energy that is, not scotch)

  • |

    How NAFTA infringes on local environmental regulations

    Byoliveridley

    Dow AgroSciences is considering using the controversial investor-protection provisions of the North American free-trade agreement to seek compensation from the federal government over Quebec's ban on the cosmetic use of pesticides.

    The company, a maker of the weed-killer 2,4-D, filed a notice of intent to submit a claim to arbitration under NAFTA in late August. The 27-page legal action was posted yesterday on the Foreign Affairs website, where it is listed as a dispute to which Canada is a party.

    via globeandmail.com: Ban on pesticides may face NAFTA test

    Here is Sierra Club’s assessment of 2,4-D. It is not as bad as, say, DDT, but not something an average householder would ever need to use. Limiting use and exposure is in everyone’s best interest except Dow’s, which is why they have filed this lawsuit.

    I would say it infringes on a province’s right to set strict health and safety standards for its people, but if we accept that corporations have more rights than people, we would expect this kind of lawsuit to happen with more frequency.

    Note that a much more egregious actor, lindane, which was deregistered by even the Bush EPA is subject of a similar challenge in Canada, and Bisphenol A is probably next.

    Can’t blame the companies for exploiting loopholes (that they no doubt inserted, of course), but it seems that countries should always have the right to enforce stricter standards if they so desire.

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