Day: June 5, 2019

Environmental, General News

Global: Today, 5th June, is ‘World Environment Day’.

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Today, 5th June, is World Environment Day.

 

https://www.standard.co.uk/futurelondon/cleanair/world-environment-day-2019-uk-theme-air-pollution-un-a4159936.html

https://www.worldenvironmentday.global/what-causes-air-pollution#agriculture

 

Created in 1974 by the UN, World Environment Day happens every June 5. Hosted by a different country each year—this year it’s China—the day seeks to raise public awareness of environmental issues.

“The celebration of this day provides us with an opportunity to broaden the basis for an enlightened opinion and responsible conduct by individuals, enterprises and communities in preserving and enhancing the environment,” says the UN’s website.

 

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How much pollution we breathe in is dependent on many factors, such as access to clean energy for cooking and heating, the time of day and the weather. Rush hour is an obvious source of local pollution, but air pollution can travel long distances, sometimes across continents on international weather patterns.

Nobody is safe from this pollution, which comes from five main human sources. These sources spew out a range of substances including carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, nitrogen oxide, ground-level ozone, particulate matter, sulphur dioxide, hydrocarbons, and lead–all of which are harmful to human health.

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Agriculture

The major sources of air pollution from agriculture include livestock, which produces methane and ammonia, rice paddies, which produce methane, and the burning of agricultural waste. Methane emissions contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone, which causes asthma and other respiratory illnesses. Methane is also a more potent global warming gas than carbon dioxide – its impact is 34 times greater over a 100-year period. Around 24 percent of all greenhouse gases emitted worldwide come agriculture, forestry and other land-use.

There are many ways to reduce air pollution from agriculture. People can move to a plant-based diet and/or reduce food waste, while farmers can reduce methane from livestock by optimizing feed digestibility and improving grazing and grassland management.

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Industry

In many countries, power generation is a leading source of air pollution. Coal-burning power plants are a major contributor, while diesel generators are a growing concern in off-grid areas. Industrial processes and solvent use, in the chemical and mining industries, also pollute the air.

Policies and programmes aimed at increasing energy efficiency and production from renewable sources have a direct impact on a country’s air quality. At the moment, 82 countries out of 193 have incentives that promote investment in renewable energy production, cleaner production, energy efficiency and pollution control.

Transport

The global transport sector accounts for almost one-quarter of energy-related carbon dioxide emissions and this proportion is rising. Air pollution emissions from transport have been linked to nearly 400,000 premature deaths. Almost half of all deaths by air pollution from transport are caused by diesel emissions, while those living closest to major traffic arteries are up to 12 percent more likely to be diagnosed with dementia.

Reducing vehicle emissions is an important intervention to improve air quality, especially in urban areas. Policies and standards that require the use of cleaner fuels and advanced vehicle emissions standards can reduce vehicle emissions by 90 percent or more.

Household

The main source of household air pollution is the indoor burning of fossil fuels, wood and other biomass-based fuels to cook, heat and light homes. Around 3.8 million premature deaths are caused by indoor air pollution each year, the vast majority of them in the developing world.

Out of 193 countries, 97 countries have increased the percentage of households that have access to cleaner burning fuels to over 85 percent. However, 3 billion people continue to use solid fuels and open fires for cooking, heating, and lighting. The adoption of cleaner, more modern stoves and fuels can reduce the risks of illness and save lives.

 

Day Mask Challenge:

https://www.worldenvironmentday.global/get-involved/world-environment-day-mask-challenge

 

On World Environment Day, soak in these amazing Earth photos

 

It’s a day to see the environment through what may be a slightly different lens: 50 incredible images of our planet:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/06/amazing-earth-photos-world-environment-day/

 

 

 

Farm Animals, Live Transport

Reality and lies about animal farms

 

ferkel am Tellerjpg

One should picture such a plate on all commercials!
On cigarette packs, it is not a problem !!

bilder in Zigarettenschachtelpg
Supermakts deliver themselves a price battle, which offers a 400-g-package of pork minute- steaks at the promotional price of 1.99 Euro instead of 2.79 Euro, the other lowers the price for the same “product” to 1.45 Euro! Just to name one example of many. It is the poor animals that are suffering !!!

Consumers are increasingly rejecting cheap meat from factory farming, so the discounters and supermarkets increasingly resort to tricks. “My butcher shop”, so one advertises.

kuh im Bio schlachthofpgFoto: ARIWA: Cow in the “Bio” slaughterhouse -Germany.

 

But who now believes that the “butcher” is right in the neighborhood, is wrong.

And even the “Mühlenhof” from the supermarket chain “Penny” and “Gut Ponholz” from the “Netto” chain does not exist.
Beware of advertising terms such as “from the region” or “from here”, because the term “region” is not protected by law.
Recently, the discounters advertise with new meat seals, but even here there are hardly any improvements in animal husbandry.

Reality: Also in the “farmer next door” is violated when driving the animals in the slaughterhouse building against animal protection regulations. It is forbidden to use electric shock devices systematically, even on the head, but still common practice!
A beef that struggles for hours is not only powered by two electric motors at the same time. The workers also turn his tail painfully and kick the animal with their feet. Some cattle are specifically sprayed with water, so that the electric shock hurts even more and they finally go to their deaths.

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In the pig farms the animals are crowded. In these so-called organic animal factories, 5000 pigs are controlled by one person. Their tails are cut and their teeth are ground down, because otherwise they will bite each other’s tails out of boredom, get sick and need antibiotics.
After a short life they are then slaughtered by modern slaves keepers at an insane pace that bring animals from life to their deaths.

Germany is the world’s largest meat producer and make subsidies possible!

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About 60 million pigs are slaughtered annually in Germany!
In 2016, Germany’s slaughterhouses produced 8.25 million tons more meat than ever before. And in order to be able to produce these millions of tons of meat, animals suffer excruciatingly in factory farms. In all factory farms, also in the bios and in the “regional”.
In Germany, 50,000 piglets per day (!!!) are thrown into the garbage container. They are garbage and are not needed.

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In Germany about two million animals are slaughtered on day. Livestock carriers travel non-stop through Germany and stop at the slaughterhouse. The animal welfare breaches of animal transport have increased. The state closes its eyes, the EU is interested in a shit about animal welfare and laws during transport.

They are cruel pictures and we often hear them screaming. Every day we see them driving, the trucks, their cargo: animals! In “livestock farming”, as in all other economic sectors, it is all about money. Time is money and therefore everything has to go fast – and how such transports run you see in the video!

 

https://netzfrauen.org/2018/01/12/agrarindustrie/

 

The “animal welfare” from next door!

 

These pictures in this video come from a pigsty with 1,500 animals near the city of Ulm, Germany. The shots have with hidden camera animal rights activists from the SHOKO. e.V. (I’ve translated the most important part of it, but the pictures speak for themselves)

From the outside, it is a stable like any other.

And yet the activists wanted to know what it looks like behind this facade.
Already in the floor they found dying, injured, dead animals.

schweine soko pgImage: SOKO

The bays are so full that the ground is no longer visible. The stable is in a catastrophic hygienic condition. The columns are full of excrement, mice and cockroaches are the only creatures who feel good in this hell!

soko bilderpg.jpgImage: SOKO

Important Information: the operator of the stable is employed in the district office, in the department “agriculture”. The man who runs this stable is sitting next door to the responsible authorities, who should intervene against such conditions long ago!

The animal rights activists have documented clear criminal offenses: apart from decaying carcasses, they find dead animals or animals dying. A pig is emaciated, unable to stand in his own urine, it should be extinguished.
Others are already in the trash, left to their fate.

soko verletztes Schweineg.jpegImage: SOKO

Many have huge ulcers, are sick, they have open wounds and can not get up.
One is particularly noticeable and cruel: bitten ears, bitten off tails and cannibalism. Conditions that are a common practice in each stable because of monotony, but in this stall fell the animals whole pieces of meat!

Facing the mass catastrophic situation, the stable looks like a hospital.

Schwein-AbzessImage: SOKO

There are 40 kilograms of antibiotic found.
Because most animals are seriously ill, the farmers try to keep them alive with medication to make their way to the slaughterhouse.
And thus the profit.

This meat bears the seal QS (Quality Systems) and this stall even took part in the “Animal Welfare” initiative, an industry campaign that has as its goal the alleged improvements in the stables.

The SOKO activists want to know how these animals are subsequently marketed.

They come, for the most part, under the name of a butcher who advertises regional products.
And exactly the operator of this horror stall gave an interview in the newspaper of the butcher and said: “I want the animals to be fine”!! The rest of the animals land allover in German supermarkets. Hidden cameras show how this stable handles the no longer viable animals.

Ulm District Court on 15 March 2019 sentenced the pig owner to three years’ imprisonment for animal cruelty.

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https://www.presseportal.de/pm/110736/4219602

 

My comment: And if not every stable has the same horror, that does not mean that the other stables fulfill the conditions required by the animal welfare legislation.

Germany, the country with the largest power in Europe, likes to advertise with the slogan “we have the best animal protection law in Europe”.
Animal welfare is indeed in the Basic Law in Germany, but organizationally, it is located at the Ministry of Agriculture. Too often, the interests of industry and business outweigh the welfare of the animals.

Germany needs its own animal protection ministry. Only then can we speak of a properly progressive animal protection law.

“For the animals today all peoples are more or less barbaric, it is hypocritical and grotesque if they emphasize their supposedly high culture at every opportunity, and daily commit the terrible atrocities against millions of defenseless beings.” (Alexander von Humboldt)

My best regards, Venus