Animal farming in EU worse for climate than all cars
Less and better animal farming is crucial in the fight against climate breakdown, but it is also essential in preventing new pandemics.
Greenhouse gas emissions from animal farming in the EU account for 17% of the EU’s total emissions, and do more damage to the climate than all cars and vans put together, according to new analysis. The scale of the problem means that the EU cannot reach the goals of the Paris climate agreement, and avoid the worst impacts of climate breakdown, without a reduction in the number of farm animals, said Greenpeace.
The analysis by Greenpeace also found that yearly emissions from animal farming rose by 6% between 2007 and 2018. The increase, the equivalent of 39 million tonnes of CO2, would be like adding 8.4 million cars to European roads.
Science is clear, the numbers as well: we can’t avoid the worst of climate breakdown if politicians keep defending industrial production of meat and dairy.
Marco Contiero, Greenpeace EU agriculture policy director
The new calculations, using UN Food and Agriculture Organization data and other peer-reviewed scientific research, estimate that animals on European farms emit the equivalent of 502 million tonnes of CO2 per year. When including indirect greenhouse gas emissions, coming from animal feed production, land use, deforestation and other land-use change, the total annual emissions attributable to European animal farming are the equivalent of 704 million tonnes of CO2.
Greenhouse gas emissions from animal farming in the EU are:
More than all cars and vans on European roads (656 million tonnes of CO2 per year)
More than the total emissions, from all sectors, of Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary (647 million tonnes of CO2 per year)
More than 18 times the emissions of the biggest and most polluting coal station in Europe, Poland’s Bełchatów power plant (38 million tonnes of CO2 per year)
Inbred lion cubs ‘victims of neglect rife in Bulgaria’s decaying zoos’
Country’s government accused of issuing permits to places that fail EU standards
Two inbred lion cubs in a Bulgarian zoo are victims of “systemic neglect of animal welfare in the country’s zoos”, according to an animal-rescue charity.
Simba and Kossara, who are less than three months old, were the result of breeding between a brother and sister and were abandoned by their mother when she was unable to care for them.
They were discovered very weak, curled up in a small box, just days after being born. After being moved to another “inappropriate” zoo, the pair are now still suffering in a small enclosure with a concrete floor, according to the charity Four Paws.
Inbreeding and poor conditions are rife at zoos in Bulgaria, which operate in breach of minimum standards set by the EU, it’s claimed.
The country is believed to have 24 lions and 15 tigers in captivity, of which only a handful are being looked after properly, the animal-welfare organisation says.
Bulgaria’s state zoos, built during the Soviet era, are “underfunded and decaying”, and the government is accused of granting zoo permits without checking whether EU standards of care for animals and conservation are met – illegal under EU rules.
Simba and Kossara were born in cramped conditions at a zoo in early July, but after being discovered “in a critical state”, they were moved to a clinic in Sofia, and from there to a second zoo.
Four Paws said its offer to rehome the animals at a sanctuary in the Netherlands had been repeatedly ignored.
Barbara van Genne, of the organisation, said: “They are among the most recent victims of the authorities’ negligence. The cubs have been taken from one inappropriate enclosure to another, and neither is equipped for their species-appropriate long-time care.
WAV Comment – We are trying to get them senior jobs at the EU in Brussels – then they can let rip all day long telling the truth !
Swearing parrots separated after telling folk where to go
5 October 2020
Five African grey parrots at a Lincolnshire zoo believed to be a bad influence on each other.
Five foul-mouthed parrots have been separated after learning to swear at a Lincolnshire zoo.
The parrots – named Billy, Elsie, Eric, Jade and Tyson – joined Lincolnshire Wildlife Park’s colony of 200 grey parrots in August. But soon after, they started encouraging each other to swear.
“We saw it very quickly – we are quite used to parrots swearing but we’ve never had five at the same time,” Steve Nichols, CEO of the wildlife park, told PA. “Most parrots clam up outside, but for some reason these five relish it.”
The parrots have since been distributed to different areas of the park so they do not “set each other off”.
No one had complained about the parrots, Nichols said, but they were separated for the sake of young visitors and in the hopes that they would pick up natural calls from the other African greys.
The UK has a lot of very old and excellent organisations which campaign long and hard for improvements to animals welfare. Here ids a link to our other site, Serbian Animals Voice (SAV), which has a section devoted to animal organisations; including links to their own web sites. Check it out sometime:
The good animal welfare conscious people living in the UK made the subject just one of the reasons why the UK voted to divorce itself from the uselessness of the EU a few years ago. We (WAV and SAV) have always attempted to show the utter failures of the EU when it comes to improving standards for animals. EU Regulations mean nothing, are hardly ever enforced, which results in massive animal suffering.
The UK voted ‘out’ of the EU after 40+ years as a member, so that it could take back control of pathetic legislation which ‘member states’ are forced to comply with. We wish many other current member states had the willingness to do the same.
The UK officially leaves the EU at the end of 2020.
This will be with or without a trade deal. If there is no deal, then the UK moves over to WTO rules regarding the EU. So until the end of 2020; the UK still has to comply with EU regulations; including the pathetic ones associated with animal ‘welfare’. ‘Welfare’, which includes live animal transport; stalls in which sow pigs are forced to rear their young, rabbit farming, foie gras and much more.
In 2021 the UK will be able (through UK government legislation) to introduce new laws which will meet the wishes of the public and greatly improve animal welfare standards as they wish; one being to stop the live transport (export) of farm animals; an issue we have campaigned about for the last 30+ years.
The current UK government is ‘Conservative’; and will probably remain so for the next 3 or 4 years. It has a big majority of MP’s (Members of Parliament) – around 80; who should be able to vote through legislation with a degree of ease.
It is only through intensive lobbying and providing the evidence that we, as welfare groups, can be a voice for animals – a voice that eventually brings change. We trust that from 2021 onwards when the UK is free from the uselessness of the EU, stronger and larger animal welfare laws will be passed into UK law.
Here is a video just released by the ‘Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation’ (CAWF) which outlines the future prospects for UK animals and their legislation. There are many speakers from the UK government; people who will help to get the new legislation through into (UK) law.
Animal Welfare Matters is a new film by the CAWF filmed by a Cannes Film Festival award winning film maker. It urges for an end to live animal exports for slaughter and fattening, pig farrowing crates, cages for egg laying birds and calls for the introduction of clear mandatory labelling so consumers can make an informed choice.
Speakers include:
Rt Hon Lord Goldsmith, Minister of State (Minister for Pacific and the Environment)
Rt Hon Theresa Villiers MP
Rt Hon Sir Roger Gale MP
Sir David Amess MP
Henry Smith MP
John Flack former MEP
Elise Dunweber Chairman, Esher And Walton Conservative Women’s Organisation
Peter Hall (AM) Director, Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation
Lorraine Platt Co-Founder, Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation
Chris Platt Co-Founder Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation
It is never easy; you don’t give over 30 years of your campaigning life only to fail; global live animal transport bans have been that for me and I am still fighting. People and campaigners have the tenacity to fight through to the end; and they will – eventually winning.
Sentient animals deserve better; and with our input we hope they will get it.
Please watch the video below; and gain strength that we in the UK are moving forward now into 2021 for changes.
If only the EU was not ‘all talk and do nothing’ then animals throughout the EU would do better. That is a matter for citizens of existing member states to vote and make the changes.
Regards Mark.
We are not politically associated with any plitical party – we simply provide the data and let you, the voters, make the choices.
The French Minister for the Ecological Transition, Barbara Pompili, announced on 29 September 2020 the gradual ban on the use of wild animals in travelling circuses and on mink farming. As well as the end of the captivity of dolphins and orcas in inadequate dolphinaria, and the implementation of support to improve the detention of wild animals in zoos.
These measures include a ban on the reproduction of wild animals and on the deliverance of authorisation for new travelling establishments with animals. For animals currently in circuses, estimated to be around 500, solutions will be found on a case by case basis.
Although more than 20 Member States have adopted bans or partial bans on all circuses involving wild animals, and more than 400 French cities have banned their presence, the measures announced will only apply to travelling circuses and not to other shows involving wild animals. The minister did not give a detailed timeline, explaining she prefers implementing a process to reach the objectives as quickly as possible.
Dolphinaria
The measures announced include immediate bans on the creation of new establishments with orcas or dolphins and on the reproduction of captive orcas and dolphins. The end of captivity of orcas is planned within two years and of captive dolphins within seven years. The minister even mentioned the idea of a sanctuary to welcome the current captive animals in the three existing parks. The government will invest 8 million euros in the reconversion of circuses and dolphinaria personnel.
Mink farming
The end of mink farming is planned within five years, giving a due date to the remaining four farms left in France. Brigitte Gothière, co-founder of L214 pays tribute to this measure, saying France finally catches up to other European countries, some of which were among the biggest fur producers.
Zoos
Regarding zoos, the measures provide for economical support for the improvement of the welfare of certain species, for instance polar bears. The minister also mentioned that in shows involving wild animals, the public will be prohibited from touching the animals.
5,000 pets found dead in boxes at Chinese shipping depot
At least 5,000 pets were found dead in cardboard shipping boxes last week at a logistics facility in Central China, likely casualties of a miscommunication in the supply chain of China’s thriving mass-breeding industry.
Only a couple hundred animals were saved, and authorities have launched an investigation into the grim discovery in Henan Province, a local animal rescue group told CBS News on Wednesday.
“The station was cluttered with express boxes with thousands of animals that had already died, and the entire place reeks of rotting bodies,” said Sister Hua, the founder of animal rescue group Utopia. She doesn’t use her real name, saying she prefers to keep attention on the animals rather than her personally.
“It was like a living hell,” she told CBS News in a phone interview on Wednesday.
The animals included rabbits, guinea pigs, cats and dogs, all held in plastic or metal cages wrapped in cardboard boxes with breathing holes. They had been left in the boxes without food or water for about a week before they were discovered at the Dongxing Logistics station in Henan’s Luohe city.
“It was obvious they died of suffocation, dehydration and starvation,” said Hua.
Chinese law prohibits the shipping of live animals in normal packaging. Hua said it was likely the animals were bought online as pets but left stranded at the logistics depot because of a delayed collection, as the logistics company involved may have refused to sign off on a shipment violating transport laws.
Through an undercover investigation, our Italian member Essere Animali revealed terrible violence on a pig farm supplying Beretta cured meats.
For 6 weeks, one of our investigators worked at a farm supplying the Fratelli Beretta brand, documenting terrible violence against pigs – even sick pigs – and extremely poor sanitary conditions. Some of the footage was broadcast on TG1 and handed over to the competent authorities in order to lodge a complaint against those responsible.
The images show a worker pulling out a pig’s teeth with pliers because he had been biting other pigs’ tails. A brutal and illegal operation, carried out without anaesthesia or subsequent treatment and which increases the possibility of having to resort to antibiotics. During transport, pigs are moved violently, kicked, hit with blunt objects, grabbed by the ears, lifted off the ground or thrown down by a tractor. As shown in the footage and confirmed by the words of the owner, whenever emergency kills on site are needed pigs are stunned using a captive bolt gun without immediately having their throats slit as required by law. This treatment causes pigs to endure interminable agony.
The sanitary conditions are also very worrying: the pigs are in constant contact with the wet floor that is covered with excrement. Their food is also contaminated with faeces, as the edges of the feeders are too low.
And I mean…In every factory farm in the world, cows are “artificially inseminated” so that milk is continuously produced from their bodies
“Artificially inseminated” is the definition of the milk mafia, that is their language.
In reality, they are raped!
It’s not the only crime against a cow.
After birth, the mother and child are separated immediately.
Milk is for human animals, this perverse habit of still breastfeeding strange milk has only been kept by human animals.
The rape of female animals is very little discussed in public.
Because the ruling species have denied their victims all abilities that are similar or even equal to those that human women would experience if they were raped.
How else would it be possible to exploit cows as milk machines for the rest of their lives, to rape them and still make it legal?
And now we’re back to the language!
So that we get unpunished for our daily murders of animals, we have developed the language of the perpetrators.
If we play down the brutal rape of female animals with “artificial insemination”, then we secure the freedom to treat animals as it suits us.
But animals know the same emotional states as we humans; Fear and pain shake them every time they are raped, and with this, we commit a crime that is not punished only because animals cannot defend themselves.
We want to smash this death machine in the next 10 years.
We have to act politically and put governments under pressure
We have to educate and do street work for the masses.
We remain loyal to the animals and want to stop animal abusers
Unpublished and shocking images inside the ships transporting live animals from Portugal to Israel
5 October 2020
The images were collected inside the ships that regularly transport cattle and sheep from Portugal to Israel.
The videos reveal the shocking reality of live export by showing animals huddled together, without space, injured and sick. The videos also show serious and repeated violations of national and international legislation.
The images are starting to be released within the framework of the newly created European Parliament’s commission of inquiry, which will investigate violations of European legislation that regulates the transport of live animals. Additional images will be delivered to the European Commission, the media and the national authorities that requested them.
These images are unpublished and were captured on several trips throughout 2019. The videos show the animals’ ear tags, confirming their Portuguese origin. The responsibility of the Portuguese State for compliance with the applicable legislation only ends at the moment of disembarkation, no inspection is foreseen on board.
World Animals Voice 