animal.writes : sit.wilbur.sit

So, one of the biggest driving forces of vegetarianism vs. eating meat (for me) is that I am coming to terms with my feelings about how there is very little difference between the animals we use for food and the animals we keep as companions. One of the most startling cases of this is our friend the pig. Pigs are highly intelligent, complex creatures who on a cerebral level, share so many qualities with man's best friend, the dog. And yet people have a rather stone age impression of them as just being filthy, dumb animals that serve no other purpose than to "taste delicious". Hopefully after reading this, you'll feel a little differently about how YOU regard these fine and gentle little creatures!

Fun facts about pigs!

• Pigs, much like dogs, have a powerful sense of smell
• Also like their canine counterparts, pigs are extremely loyal
• Pigs are *smarter* than the average 3 year old child
• These smartypants pigs have been known to play videogames!
• Smashing the stereotypes of "sweaty pigs" and "eat like a pig": they cannot sweat and do not ever, in nature, over-eat
• Mother pigs SING to their piglets when nursing them... AWWWW!

With these two beautiful and similar species of animals receiving SUCH opposite types of treatment from humans, isn't it up to us to demand that all pigs receive the same amount of love and care that we shower our dogs with? Can you imagine if dogs were commonly slammed head-first into the ground, beaten with metal rods or having their teeth cut out without any painkillers?! There would be riots in the streets!!

Please take a moment to sign a petition that demands better and more humane treatment for these wonderful babies! You can sign here.

Thanks from Rabbit AND the pigs of the world!

animal.writes : no.safe.haven

Ugh. The NRA is at it again! In a reckless about-face on the issue triggered by pressure from the radical leaders of the National Rifle Association (NRA), the National Park Service is considering a change in the law that would allow park visitors to carry loaded weapons in national parks.

According to the HSUS, allowing loaded weapons will give cover to poachers who would take aim at park wildlife. Currently, the presence of a loaded weapon is the main clue available for rangers in discovering and identifying poachers.

Please speak out against this by visiting this site and telling the U.S. Fish and Wildlife that this is NOT OK!!

We can't afford to not protect those who are defenseless!

roar!

ROAR: Return of a Rabbit!

Folks, I'm back by popular (read: Muse's) demand! I've been on hiatus the past several months with really substandard reasoning.. Work got very busy and writing professionally doesn't leave much time (or desire for a creative outlet through writing) as one might expect!

While I was gone, a few fabulous things have happened! For starters, I am and have been a full-time, gung-ho, zucchini-slinging, salad-dressing, Portobello-grilling, carrot-thumping vegetarian! Yes, I've returned to the wonderful world of meat-freedom after a 14-or-so year stint of cheeburgers and porkchops. It was pretty hard at first, since I was raised on meat-n-taters and I really didn't know where I was going to go with a life sans beef stroganoff or hotdogs. Perish the thought! But, it's been about 3 months now and it was far and away the best thing for my body, mind and spirit.

The personal highlights for me, to date, have been:

1. Not feeling like the douchey-est hypocrite on the planet. How can someone who deeply cares about animal welfare even CONSIDER eating them?! (Plus I'm a rabbit and we eat greens!)
2. Experiencing (and really liking) a lot of new veggie-friendly foods that I would have turned my rabbit-nose up at in the past.
3. You cannot call yourself an environmentalist, or claim to care about the environment IF YOU EAT MEAT. Victory! I can now proudly shout: "Me=Environmentalist!" from the mountaintops! Bonus!

Yep, if you read the post on reducing meat consumption, you'll find a host of jaw-dropping statistics on what the meat industry does to our green planet! I'll be posting more info on that in the near future..

What I would like to implement on this site will be various regular spots where people can link to sites that inform you about different issues (global warming, health + safety, animal protection, conservation, etc.) that will aid you in speaking out to the powers that be. If the particular cause touches you, please take a moment to sign a petition or send a pre-written letter (or your own letter).. if the cause doesn't particularly touch you, please take a moment to sign or send the message because I wouldn't bother putting it here if it was not of great importance!

Outside of that, I come across tips and tricks to green-ify your home or office, fun freebies and eco-friendly products, etc. all the time. So check back often to see what the daily.goodie will be! (Name of this is still TBD!)

That's it for now.. welcome back, post comments and ask questions! If you want to find out more about a particular topic, let me know!

Ta!

meat.reducers.unite

If it's good enough for a Beatle, it's good enough for us!

A recent convo between Laurie David (Founder, StopGlobalWarming.org) and Sir Paul McCartney revealed some interesting and frightening statistics!!

A long-time vegetarian and environmentalist, Paul shared his thoughts regarding an important link between these two spheres of interest. He drew statistics from a 2006 UN report on the subject.

"According to the report, an astounding 18 percent of global warming emissions come from raising cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys and other animals we eat. That's 40 percent more than all the world's cars, SUVs, airplanes, and other modes of fossil-based transportation, which combined account for 13 percent. For further comparison, every house, residential and office building in the world accounts for just 8 percent."

There's now a huge trend in Europe called "Meat Reducing", where along with recycling and eschewing plastic bags, people are eating meat at LEAST one day less per week.

Try being a "Meat Reducer" right away!! It's the smallest thing you can do to help save the environment, not to mention your health and the well-being of my little farm friends!!

animal.writes

And we're back with another bit of animal writes.

Today's topic comes from my friends at the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Basically, Senate and House members will be meeting to iron out their differences over their final versions of the Farm Bill.

The protection measures that we are fighting to get through are as follows:

- The use of former or stolen pets in research. (Click here)
- Puppy imports (Click here)
- Strengthening the federal dogfighting law (Click here)
- Animal Welfare Act (AWA) Accountability (Click here)

What can you do to help ensure that these issues be enforced legally? Take a minute or 2 (I don't know how fast you can click and type) to fill out this letter to our local congress, urging them to include these measures in the Farm Bill.

I've already sent mine, please help me strengthen our government's awareness of these critical issues!!

green.back

OK, OK, so it's not THE most original post title, as it was basically lifted from Mr. Migraine's office's new initiative to cut down on waste in the workplace: Go Green, Get Green.

How super fabulous is that?!

According to Mr. M., his company is holding a contest to come up with great ways to reduce waste around the office, with a grand prize of $150! Just imagine how many energy-efficient light bulbs and rolls of recycled toilet paper that would buy!!

I'm going to offer up some suggestions on this, mainly since I spearheaded an initiative at my former prison (read: office), to be as green as possible!

• Switch over to recycled paper products - printer/copy paper usage can be DEADLY to forests given how much we go through in a single workday! This can also include filing folders, calendars, notebooks, business cards, brochures, pamphlets, paper towels, toilet tissue (see above!) etc..
  
• Buy office supplies in bulk. Look, the delivery truck is coming now ANYWAY.. save in fuel and emissions by having things delivered in fewer trips!!
• Engage in more tele/video conferences. Rather than meet in person and waste more fuel, emissions, etc. in traveling - hold your meetings electronically!
• Enforce the total shutting down of computers, lights, electronics of any kind across the board at the close of the business day. LOADS of energy is wasted needlessly from having computers, printers, copiers, lights, etc. on standby or sleep mode all night long. (This would save the company quite a lot of money on their energy bill as well!!) Just make sure that things are definitely shut off - unplugged would be ideal.. but I know how many calls to the IT guy would ensue...
• Keep a normal, regulated temperature at all times. How many of us suffer needlessly at the hand of the almighty Central Air Conditioning of Abominable Strength (yes, ca-ca)?!?!?! By keeping the thermostat at a reasonable temperature, you can save bundles of energy!
• Provide training to the employees on how to properly print, copy, fax. I know this sounds moronic, but I can't tell you HOW MUCH paper (and ink!) gets WASTED because people do not know how to use these machines and have to trial-and-error their way through REAMS of paper!! Get them taught correctly right away and avoid this mess altogether.
• And of course, MAKE SURE YOUR OFFICE HAS A RECYCLING PROGRAM IN PLACE!! At least we can make something positive come out of those office jerks who think they're too smart or important to attend their copy machine training!
  

So there's my first round of idears for greenery. If you have any other nifty tips to add, please share!

*Edit: I found a great site that offers 10 tips for greening up at work.. there are a few repeats from my list, but with a bit more expansion! Enjoy!

trader.joys

So the boy and I went to our favorite new grocery store Trader Joe's last night. I'm sure most of you are familiar with it, but in case you haven't had your own personal TJM (Trader Joe's Moment), allow me to give you the lowdown.

Trader Joe's offers the widest variety of organic, natural and non-processed foods and produce for the absolute lowest prices around. Sure there's Whole Foods and a litany of other local health food shops but they are generally overpriced, even in comparison to your average run-of-the-mill grocery store.

Anyhoo.. in our plight to be conscious consumers and shop at places and for products that are not only good for us but also for the environment, we decided to bring along a couple of our sustainable and reusable recycled plastic totes to carry our groceries home with! Upon seeing our highly eco-LOGICAL effort in bringing our own bags, the uber-friendly staff at the checkout counter entered us in a raffle to win LOADS of free goodies from the store!!

The raffle will be decided on later in the week, but the moral of the story here is that being kind to your environment often has its own secret hidden benefits! Even if your local supermarket doesn't honor you with raffle prizes, try to bring your own bags with you instead of wasting paper and plastic (it takes the Earth 10,000 years to break down a plastic bag, people!!)

If you can get to a Trader Joe's, they do sell their tote bags in-store. You can also get some nifty canvas bags here or plastic bags here.

Added bonus: FREE BAG!

animal.writes

Good morning! Today I am introducing a new and recurring section dedicated to my favorite cause of them all: Animals. The goal here will be to frequently post important information, news related to animal rights, ways to help support their best interests, etc. You know - animal writes.

Following the same idea used in the blog about seafood, I'm going to start with a PETA-certified list of companies that STILL do testing on animals. According to resources, an estimated 50 to 100 MILLION vertebrate animals are used annually in testing and killed either during or after the experiments!! ** Animals bred for research then killed as surplus, or used for breeding purposes, are not included in the figures**

Before going on to the list, let me include some information about what we're really concerned with here.

There are dozens of categories of experimentation involved, including:

• Basic Research (behavior, development, functioning)
  
• Applied Research (related to the treatment or cure for disease in humans and animals)
• Xenotransplantation (transplanting living cells, tissues or organs from one species to another)
• Toxicology Testing (safety testing of products such as medicines, pesticides, food additives, household chemicals, etc.)
• Cosmetics Testing (duh.)
• Drug Testing (see above)
• Defense Research (animals bred by the military to develop weapons, vaccines, battlefield surgical techniques, and defensive clothing)

I plan to expand on these issues more in the future, as I'm quite certain that few of us really grasp what is involved with much of today's animal testing. But for now, onto the list!

Most of you are probably thinking "Wow, that's sad, but what can I really do about it.." Here's what you can do! Be a conscious consumer. Know your products, where they came from, and how they got you in the first place. Feel good in purchasing products manufactured by people who have NOT maimed, tortured and killed precious animal life to give you a better scented candle or shampoo or bleach or vitamin.

Here's a sampling of some well-known companies that have made it their mission to eliminate animal testing!!

• Abercrombie & Fitch
• Aubrey Organics (not well-known, but woo hoo!!)
• Aveda
• Avon
• Basis
• Bath & Body Works
• The Body Shop
• Bonne Bell
• Burt's Bees
• Clinique
• Conair
• Donna Karan Beauty
• Estee Lauder
• Hard Candy
• Liz Claiborne
• M.A.C. Cosmetics
• Method (my personal favorite!!)
• Pathmark (home brand products - I wonder if that includes their vodka?)
• Tom's of Maine
• Trader Joe's
• Victoria's Secret
• Wet 'n Wild

For a fully comprehensive list of companies that do NOT test on animals, go here!

Now as for the bad guys... the following companies, unfortunately, continue to manufacture products that ARE tested on animals. Please review this list and keep these companies in mind when you're out doing your shopping!!

• Arm & Hammer
• Chesebrough-Ponds (Vaseline, Ponds)
• Church & Dwight (Aim, Arrid, Brillo, Close-up, Lady’s Choice, Mentadent, Nair, Orange Glo International, Pearl Drops)
• Clairol (Aussie, Daily Defense, Infusium 23, Procter & Gamble)
• Clorox (ArmorAll, Formula 409, Fresh Step, Glad, Liquid Plumber, Pine-Sol, Soft Scrub, S.O.S., Tilex)
• Colgate-Palmolive Co. (Hills Pet Nutrition, Mennen, Palmolive, SoftSoap, Speed Stick)
• Cover Girl
• Dial Corporation (Dry Idea, Purex, Renuzit, Right Guard, Soft & Dri)
• Helene Curtis Industries (Salon Selectives, Thermasilk, Unilever)
• Johnson & Johnson (Aveeno, Clean & Clear, Listerine, Lubriderm, Neutrogena, Rembrandt, ROC)
• L’Oréal U.S.A. (Biotherm, Cacharel, Garnier, Giorgio Armani, Helena Rubinstein, Lancôme, Matrix Essentials, Maybelline, Ralph Lauren Fragrances, Redken, Soft Sheen, Vichy)
• Max Factor
• Mead
• Mennen Co. (careful to not get their jingle stuck in your head!!)
• Olay Co./Oil of Olay
• Oral-B
• Pantene
• Pfizer (BenGay, Desitin, Listerine, Lubriderm, Plax, Visine)
• Playtex Products (Banana Boat)
• Procter & Gamble Co. (Clairol, Cover Girl, Crest, Gillette, Giorgio, Iams, Max Factor, Physique, Tide)
• Reckitt Benckiser (Easy Off, Lysol, Mop & Glo, Old English, Resolve, Spray ’N Wash, Veet, Woolite)
• Sally Hansen
• Schering-Plough (Bain de Soleil, Coppertone, Dr. Scholl’s)
• S.C. Johnson (Drano, Edge, Fantastik, Glade, OFF!, Oust, Pledge, Scrubbing Bubbles, Shout, Skintimate, Windex, Ziploc)
• SoftSoap Enterprises
• Suave
• Unilever (Axe, Dove, Lever Bros.,)

For a fully comprehensive list of companies that DO test on animals, go here!

Happy shopping!!

polar.bare

This is giving me agita.

Polar bears are starving and drowning.

How can we be allowing this to continue?? Certain conservationist groups have worked tirelessly to get the polar bears protected under the Endangered Species Act. However, federal bureaucrats are illegally delaying the decision to include these gorgeous, magnificent creatures under the act.

Please take all of 2 minutes to visit this link and sign a petition to tell the Bush administration to immediately list the polar bear as an endangered species.

You may not care a great deal about this cause, but it certainly will not hurt you to take a moment to sign this. I cannot express how vital it is to the future of these sweet babies!

see.food.not.for.long

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water...

Rarely do I ever try and push my views on other people, but this is something that is so widely unknown and hardly ever taken into consideration when grocery shopping or ordering from a menu!

Most of you know that I am a bit crazy when it comes to animal issues.. I've since broadened my scopes to other areas, including environmental issues and conservation and preservation of everything on our planet. I am an active member in many groups and spend LOADS of my free time reading and researching these issues exhaustively! Wow, I'm a nerd.

Anyway, I would never tell people not to eat meat or seafood (as much as I would like to), but that would be oh-so hypocritical of me, since I do eat these things myself! In a way to probably get over my own hang-ups with this issue and ease my sense of guilt, I've begun to try and educate myself on meats that are "OK" to eat - meaning that the animals are killed in a humane way and that the meat itself is not totally jacked-up with steroids, growth hormones, etc..

This eventually led me to read up about seafood. I was never a big seafood eater, but have grown to like it quite a bit in recent days. I imagined that it would not be quite the crisis that the meat industry is with regard to the extreme levels of inhumane treatment that is involved. Well, I was half right. The fishing industry may not be teeming with inhumane treatment, but it is suffering great loss of sea-life, seabeds and endangering dozens of species of fish, along with a litany of other terrible issues.

Many of the fish we love to eat are vanishing because of the intense pressure we're putting on our ocean resources.

According to the NRDC, the main issues with MOST seafood today is:

1. Bottom-trawling boats are sailing farther and fishing deeper than ever before, hauling hordes of fish with heavy, weighted nets that tear up the ocean floor.
2. Fish are being caught too young - not giving them enough time to reproduce!
3. Tons of unwanted fish are scooped up and tossed out in the search for more desirable catch.
4. Pollution in coastal waters is DESTROYING important fish habitat and imperiling the health of our oceans.
5. Toxic mercury contamination!! It runs rampant in our fishies!! If you're eating fish with mercury, YOU'RE EATING MERCURY!! Oh no!!!!!


So where does that leave us?? No one has to give up seafood, but we CAN make smarter choices!! By choosing to buy fish that are in healthy supply, we can give dwindling fish populations a chance to recover!! By avoiding fish caught using destructive methods such as bottom trawling, we give an incentive to suppliers to switch to less harmful techniques that will cut down on waste and preserve the health of ocean ecosystems. BONUS!!

I'm attaching a super informative link that allows you to look up each of your favorite fishy treats and read about what METHOD of catching/farming they are under, and whether or not it is a SAFE fish to eat. Thanks to a friend, here is an awesome WALLET-SIZED guide!

Just remember, without our precious sea life, our oceans and natural water supplies will die out and we cannot afford to lose them!