Religion in Nature

I have never felt a close relationship with a god or higher being or what have you but I have always felt this encompassing power by nature. To step outside and be overwhelmed with the songs of birds and the laughter of the breeze. To be in awe at the sunlight brushing through the tree tops, and the soil supporting my feet. Nature has always calmed me and always offered a solace from normal life, this is why sitting outside is meditation, and hiking and camping are ways to practice my religion. As long as mountains and seas, and trees exist I will never need a steeple or a pew.

He Said, She Said

“Humans are classified as omnivorous creatures. This means that humans are capable of surviving on a variety of food sources, and indeed thrive on a broad-spectrum diet that includes grains, fruits, vegetables, and protein sources.” (Opposing Viewpoints), a quote from the article “Vegetarianism” from Opposing Viewpoints, the rest of the article explains how humans we in fact meant to eat meat, which is a topic that has been debated in and out. Well wouldn’t the meat industry love that. Humans were meant to eat meat, it is natural so buy more meat products. While humans are consider omnivores, it is shown through the millions of vegetarians and vegans across the world, that you can survive and thrive on a meat free diet. A Huffington Post article by Kathy Freston, titled “Shattering The Meat Myth: Humans Are Natural Vegetarians,” explains, “our hands are perfect for grabbing and picking fruits and vegetables. Similarly, like the intestines of other herbivores, ours are very long (carnivores have short intestines so they can quickly get rid of all that rotting flesh they eat).” (Freston, 5), The rest of the article explains the biological reasons as to why humans are actually meant not to consume flesh.  We only have one pair of sharp teeth that are generally meant to cut through tough materials like meat. We do not have sharp talons to catch and shred apart prey. We are a general feeble species, offering little intrinsic defense, relying on outside tools to protect ourselves. The debate as to whether or not humans should eat meat is in the air. Obviously, we can, but should we? Well we can survive off of a vegetarian diet and it is socially acceptable It is all a matter of preference, but if you are to eat meat, just be conscious of the choices that you make. A steak can represent something so much more, a long line of factory farm abuse and neglect.

      The number of animals used for science and research is well into the millions. The Opposing Viewpoint, “Research Animals” states, “Live animals are used in modern medical research because some of their bodily systems mimic those of humans. This makes them useful test subjects for drugs, vaccines, and other products intended for humans.” (Opposing Viewpoints). This is both costly and constantly ethically questioned. The alternative is a bioassay, where tissue similar to that of a human is grown, and tested on. They can measure the potency of a chemical inside in of a product. These are grown in a lab, not involving any live animals. This whole topic is striving to prove the ethical considerations of animal testing.
It is natural for humans to disagree, it is natural for humans to be compassionate, what is not natural is forcing animals to do jobs to fill human needs. People will always dismiss vegetarianism as a diet for hippies, and say there is nothing wrong with testing on animals because it will benefit humans in the end. It all comes down to choice, whether or not you chose a product that is tested on animals, or eat a quarter pounder. Hopefully someday the choices the majority of the public makes will be beneficial to the natural world in addition to our own.

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      "Vegetarianism." Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.

         Freston, Kathy. "Shattering The Meat Myth: Humans Are Natural Vegetarians." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 11 June 2009. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.

        "Research Animals." Animal Rights. Kim Masters Evans. 2009 ed. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Information Plus Reference Series. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.

Neanderthals and 18th Century Farmers

Humans have been consuming other animal’s flesh since human beings and animals were in the same place, it is a primal instinct. The ancient Neanderthals knew they were more powerful then select animals and hunted them to provide food for themselves and their communities. In the early 1920’s, the first factory farm came to life, due to an over shipment, a farmer-wife duo was left with over 400 chicks. They decided to try to raise them all at the same time. They probably could have never imagined what the industrial agriculture industry would evolve into: disease, greed, inhumanity, pollution, and death, all because of an over shipment of chickens.

            Many people do not see, or care to think about the issues with factory farming. Those who do not care about animals will not care about animals, no matter how many sob stories are told. Most of them need logic because their empathy is not in check. Well it is more than just this helpless animal with its big round eyes, that’s confined to a cage no bigger than itself. Here is some logic for those nonbelievers, an article from the Us Library of Medicine and National Institute of Health titled, How sustainable agriculture can address the environmental and human health harms of industrial agriculture, a collaboration between Leo Horrigan, Robert S Lawrence, and Polly Walker,

     “The industrial agriculture system consumes fossil fuel, water, and topsoil at unsustainable rates. It contributes to numerous forms of environmental degradation, including air and water pollution, soil depletion, diminishing biodiversity, and fish die-offs. Meat production contributes disproportionately to these problems, in part because feeding grain to livestock to produce meat--instead of feeding it directly to humans--involves a large energy loss, making animal agriculture more resource intensive than other forms of food production. The proliferation of factory-style animal agriculture creates environmental and public health concerns, including pollution from the high concentration of animal wastes and the extensive use of antibiotics, which may compromise their effectiveness in medical use. At the consumption end, animal fat is implicated in many of the chronic degenerative diseases that afflict industrial and newly industrializing societies, particularly cardiovascular disease and some cancers.” (Horrigan, Lawrence, Walker 1)

            Allow me to elaborate. A typical family owned small farm lets their cows graze, these cows only eat the grass that grows, which allows more the grow back. They drink the water that is set out for them and are able the move as they please. These kinds of cows are happier and much healthier than those confined to a metal building, eating protein enriched food that is not meant for their palate. They are often fed using AFO’s or Animal Feeding Lots, the EPA states that these lots,

“…are farms or feedlots where animals are kept and raised in confined areas for at least 45 days over a 12-month period. AFOs cluster animals, feed, manure and urine, wastewater, dead animals, and production operations on a small land area. Feed is brought to the animals rather than the animals grazing in pastures, fields, or on rangeland.” (EPA.gov).

This creates mass amounts of wastewater and animal fecal matter, that all ends up in some ones water source, because the land cannot properly break it all down. Factories in general are synonymous with pollution, we imagine these tall dusky towers that produce awful smells, gases and various wastes. As factory farming is often referred to as Industrial Agriculture, that’s is just it; an industry whose only concern is making top dollar profits. Similarly they are factory like buildings, producing smog, mass amounts of animal waste and contaminated water. The problem with this is animal waste contains nitrate and phosphorus, which is fine in small doses, but when you have thousands of cow, pig, and chicken waste entering the environment, the environment can not naturally break it down fast enough.

Factory farms are not only inhumane, leaving the farm animals with massive tumors, sores, and deadly illness’. But the workers are still using their bodies for meat even though they are contaminated. People who are not concerned with animal lives, are surely concerned with their own lives, and if “Industrial Agriculture” continues to grow at the rate it is, there will be no healthy meat left in this country. In addition we are an example to other countries that need to feed more people with less, if they pick up on the way we raise farm animals, there will be no healthy meat left in the world. It is incredibly important we change the way we raise farm animals, we should take a lesson from the hard working farmers from centuries ago, who knew the only way to get the best meat, best milk, or best eggs, is treat the animal with the upmost respect and compassion that they so deserve.

                                               

                                                               

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Horrigan, Leo, Robert S. Lawrence, and Polly Walker. "How Sustainable Agriculture   Can Address     the Environmental and Human Health Harms of Industrial Agriculture." Research Review. NCBI, n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2013

"What's the Problem?." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2013.

Pocahontas Got It Right (Post 3)

            A moral is defined by the Merriam Webster dictionary as “concerning or relating to what is right and wrong in human behavior.” Right and wrong is black and white, something can not be “somewhat right” or “right under a certain circumstance” or “wrong only sometimes.” So why can some one own- and love their pet, but turn right around and support the killing of an animal that has been through more abuses then the human mind could imagine possible, just for their dinner plate.

Suffering is a universal concept, there is suffering in humans where there is lack of food, government support, or education. Yet there is suffering in animals in every nation, no matter how advanced it may be. In the US we have a tendency to over do things, as to show off to other nations. Well as to follow tradition our animal cruelty rates are higher than every other nation in the world, including the ones that eat domestic pets. Do Something states, “Over 100 million animals – mice, rats, dogs, cats, rabbits, monkeys, birds, among others – are killed in U.S. laboratories for chemical, drug, food, and cosmetics testing every year.” (Dosomething.org) This is more than any other country that tests on animals.

In an article by Michael J Thompson called, Why We Have Ethical Obligations to Animals: Animal Welfare and the Common Good, he shares, “Seeing our ethical obligations as grounded not in animals and their intrinsic value or their intrinsic qualities but rather in the ways our relations toward them can be evaluated is crucial.” (Thompson 194.) Meaning we should not treat animals well because they can do much for us, but treat them well just because of the symbiotic relationship we live in with them.  They need us and we need them.

            Though everyone has morals, they are translated differently from person to person. It is a universal concept but not seen the same way between all people. Animals have lived in close relationship with humans since the dawn of time, the creation of humans. Their kind was on the planet before human kind. We take and take and take from them. We need food, slaughter a pig. We are afraid a cosmetic may be harmful to humans, just test it on a mouse. Because they can not retaliate, they can not stand up and say “actually I do not want a growth on my face so no, I will not try your makeup.” Human beings live in a world that they think is all theirs, they see something they want or need they take it with no consideration of the consequences it could pose. And they are not stopped which fuels this need. If we keep taking and taking the world will be rid of elegant jungle cats due to illegal poaching, small creatures, essential to their ecosystem will be gone due to fur trapping, and nearly all meat and dairy will be diseased from the lack of regulation or care. Maybe when the human world sees the horrors animals go through, then finally there will be a stop to the abuse, neglect and pure ignorance toward our four legged counterparts.  

And I leave you with this incredibly relevant song

"You think you own whatever land you land on

The Earth is just a dead thing you can claim

But I know every rock and tree and creature

Has a life, has a spirit, has a name"

                        

Word count (527)

         Thompson , Michael J. "Join Academia.edu & Share your research with the world." Why We Have Ethical Obligations to Animals: Animal Welfare and the Common Good. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2013.

"11 Facts About Animal Cruelty." Do Something. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Nov. 2013.

Puppies, Foxes, and Beavers, Oh My! (The Fur Industry is killing our friends)

Puppies, what a delightful word, filled with connotations of cold nosed little furballs tromping around a fenced in yard, yet puppies in cages being sold for their pelts, not so delightful. Now the United States may be above these puppy mills, but that does not exclude American companies and desingers that buy from Chinese manufactures who use beloved domestic cats and dogs as a winter coat. Why in a world with so many innovations, including acrylic made fibers do producers and consumers continue to buy and sell our precious house pets on a “fashionable” coat. Sarah LeTrent quoted in a CNN article, “Joshua Katcher who crafted the animal-free men's shoes for Vaute's presentation, said the use of leather and fur is tough to rationalize now because of the technological advances of faux products.” (LeTrent, 21) So the same look without the expense of an actual life.

Cruella Deville was a fictitious evil character who went after adorable little Dalmatians to create the “coat of all coats.” Why is this wrong in a children’s movie yet in real life, it is widely practiced? Money, this is just an efficient way of making money, because those lovely little animals run rampant in overpopulated cities. Scheming designers see it as an opportunity to maximize their profits with no consideration to that cold nose. 

Now it is not just typically domestic animals but also those caught in the wild. Every animal is essential to its own ecosystem. When a certain animal is taken out of its ecosystem, especially in such large numbers, as in fur trapping, this results, not only in its own population dwindling, but those who prey on it. In addition those that it preys on are effected by overpopulation which leads to competition and eventually a dwindling population of its own. A by product of tanning, the process of turning an animal hide into a palpable product, is phosphorus, as David Suzuki states in his online journal, “The elevated phosphorus loading that has occurred and continues to occur in all of these lakes will have adverse effects on the aquatic ecosystems. The increased growth of algae and aquatic macrophytes will ultimately create oxygen deficit and likely result in fish kills” (Suzuki, 17.) Fish kills are exactly what one would expect they are, because of the lack of sunlight, due to the over production of algae, phytoplankton are not able to create oxygen for pond organisms, like nekton (free swimming organisms. i.e. fish, turtles) die off.

The act of attaining fur is not only atrociously inhumane, but it ruins the relationship between humans and animals. Domestic and wild animals alike, every one is important. Not only is the fur industry ruin habitats for important species, it is also effecting human health, which seems to be the issue the general population pays attention to. It is incredibly easy, when you are shopping and something appears to have fur on it, just read the label, it takes all of ten seconds. If it says rabbit fur, kindly put it back on the shelf, if man made, go for it, you got yourself a new jacket! If we do put limits or even a stop to the fur trade industry, then beautiful and essential animals could one day be obsolete. Animals belong in nature and in loving homes, and their fur does not belong on the backs of over indulgent human beings.  

Some animals used for their fur:

On Second thought maybe they should just be banned because of how unattractive they are...

LeTrent, Sarah. "Fur on the catwalk: Is it worth the controversy?." CNN. Cable News Network, 15 Feb. 2013. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.

       Suzuki, David. "The impacts of the mink industry on freshwater lakes in Nova Scotia: An overview of concerns ." David Suzuki Foundation . N.p., 25 Apr. 2011. Web. 30 Oct. 2013.

Word count (567) Not counting citation and photo captions

Childrens Books Taught Me Everything I Know about Animals (Central Argument)

“The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

-Mahatma Gandhi

I was raised being told, that all living things should be respected, and as I have grown older I can see, this is not just some romantic, “hippie” way of looking at the world, this is the only way to get the most out of life. Since humans are apparently superior to all other animal species, we feel the right to use animals to fill various needs, such as instructional tools, food sources, fashion and entertainment. 
        A Well Fed World found, “Nearly 10 billion (10,000,000,000) farm animals die each year in the U.S. alone to produce meat, dairy and eggs.” (A Well Fed World 1), this number is outstanding and is only the a statistic for our nation, discluding the rest of the world. On a yearly basis, since the "invention" of factory farming, the quality of farm animals life has vastly diminished. Icanimal.com stated “In 2009, there were approximately 300 fur farms in the United States... In 2011 over 3 million mink were killed for their pelts in the U.S” (lcanimal 1), and the number has only grown since then. A pelt skinned from a helpless animal can provide the same warmth a faux fur one made with acrylic fibers could. Fur is not fashion, it is wearing the carcass of a dead animal. The National Anti-Vivisection Society projected, “Today, in the American educational system alone, an estimated six million animals are dissected every year. Perhaps even more shocking, millions of animals of various species are intentionally “purpose bred” or “harvested” from the wild for the sole purpose of killing and dissecting them in the misguided name of science education.” (Navs 2) Frogs and other small animals and amphibians stolen from their homes to be used for dissection, make up a vital part of their ecosystem. Not to mention the vast amount of other ways of learning about animals. It is an oxymoron, to kill and animal just to learn about that animal. 
      And what for? A pot roast dinner? A mink vest? To learn the anatomy of a frog? While these things may seem normal, there are other, humane options that offer the same experience. Meatless Monday has turned into the cool thing for suburban moms to do, now meatless products are being snatched up almost as quickly as those repackaged white Styrofoam containers. Faux fur looks and feels the same as real fur, but for much less money (and if it was made in china there is a possibility it’s made from a dog or cat hide.) The programs on teachkind.org feature alternatives to dissecting real animals, offering a humane approach to biology lessons. 
       Only due to few genetic differences, we humans are not cooped up in cages awaiting death, only to be mutilated after ward, like our furry counterparts. Unlike humans offering their organs or bodies for donation, animals lack the ability to give their consent does not mean that we can use, and abuse their bodies. As Anders Schinkel illuminates, "There is quite a long-standing tradition according to which the morally proper treatment of animals does not rely on what we owe them, but on our benevolence; animals should be treated with 'compassion and tenderness.'" (Schinkel 3.) Just as humans should respect and honor each others bodies, and minds, animals bodies and minds, though less developed are still a pertinent addition to the world as a whole.

    Chicken factory farming            Cats to be used for dissection 

The fur industry 

                                      

Citations


"Factory Farms." A Well-Fed World. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.


Fur Trade Facts." Last Chance for Animals -. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.


"DISSECTION IN THE CLASSROOM." Dissection in the Classroom. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.


Schinkel, Anders. "Martha Nussbaum on animal rights." Ethics & the Environment 13.1 (2008): 41+. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 28 Oct. 2013.

My life in photos (Part 1)

I spent my entire senior year engulfed in art, out of the 8 classes I took, half were art. This was a piece from my concentration portion of my AP 2D design portfolio, I scored a 5 out of 5, it's one of my proudest achievements.

This is a piece from the breadth section of my portfolio, this was one of my favorites I took all year because it reminds me of the abandoned mental hospital by my house, where I spent many days photography the urban decay. My county tore it down this summer, it was like a rite of passage for all the local kids to survive "Henryton" 

The colors look funky on this screen. I took this in Maine last summer, It was such a nice low key vacation, and I got to sit and sketch the bay for a couple of hours, it was incredibly relaxing.

I took this on my phone so the quality is not too good. But the signifigance of this photo is that I took it on my last day of senior year, I went to the reservoir by my school before it started, it was such a bittersweet day. High school ended but the best summer of my life to date started, and I started the next chapter in my life.

This was a photo that I took in Granada, Spain, last summer. My sister was studying there so I went to visit her, I fell in love with the culture, the art, the people, the food, the language, it is definitely a place I would happily go back to.