Welcome!

If you're a first time visitor (or just generally confused), here's an explanation: Originally this blog was titled "The Tree of Knowledge" and was full of my exhortations and explanations about various social issues. Now they aren't so much explanations as Tourette's like interjections, because I started to find the research exhausting.

Amazon Earth Day

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Vegetarianism, Part III: Inhumanity to Man

So, the end of my last Vegetarianism post I indicated that I would be talking about the effects of the meat industry on people. This post is not about the implications a meat-based diet has for your health. This is about how industrial farming affects people, notably, though not exclusively, industry employees and local communities.

What is the experience of a worker in a factory farm or slaughter house? Well, it's not dissimilar from the experience of animals in factory farms, as workers' needs go unmet in areas of sanitation, health care, safety, and comfort. The fatality rate for farm workers is five times higher than the all-industry rate (factoryfarming.com). OSHA rates meat-processing as one of the most hazardous jobs in America. Assuming full-time employment, most workers fall on or below the poverty line, and many employees do not get work or wages during seasonal slow-downs. Many employees are illegal immigrants who feel they have no recourse to help; they cannot complain to their bosses, lest they get fired, nor to the government lest they get deported.

It is intuitive that the nature of the work is dangerous: live, usually terrified animals and tools such as large blades and air-powered knocking guns aren't exactly baby-proofed. Many workers get kicked by cows and pigs. However, the working conditions in factory farms involve many more dangers than the nature of the work makes inevitable. Rampant bacteria and toxic gasses lead to some unpleasant diseases. For example, Johns Hopkins Bloomburg School of Public Health found that in a sample of chicken catchers, more than 40% tested for campylobacter bacteria, which can cause diarrhea, stomach cramps, and fever (goveg.com). Factory Farm laborers also spend all day inhaling dust from confined animals, which causes respiratory problems. And then there's the ammonia from all the excrement that doesn't get cleaned up, which also gets inhaled. Plus, Factory Farms use large-scale industrial chemicals, like pesticides.

Then of course there are the local communities who are affected by these plants: "Factory farms have been linked to health problems for farm workers and neighbors, and contaminated water and air in surrounding communities. The stench alone can ruin rural communities, as residents rush to shut their windows and bring their children indoors when the wind shifts. These communities have been fighting lonely, uphill battles against operators that take advantage of lax enforcement of zoning and environmental laws.

'In a 16 mile corridor we have dairy operations dumping five times the amount of raw sewage as that produced by the entire population of Seattle onto our fields,” said Helen Reddout, president of Community Association for Restoration of the Environment in Yakima County, Washington. “Contaminated waste on our fields is dangerous as we can see in the California spinach case.'" (foodandwaterwatch.org) Factory Farming in America has actually put over three million family farms out of business, according to David Grazia's A Very Short Introduction to Animal Rights (which I mentioned earlier) This happened in part because agribusinesses receives huge government subsidies (so, your meat isn't as cheap as you think it is).

In fact, the repercussions of the meat industry can be far-reaching, more so than any of us might think. According to A Very Short Introduction to Animal Rights, the misuse of resources involved in the meat industry can affect people on a global scale. It takes 8 pounds of hog feed to produce a pound of pork, 21 pounds of calf feed to produce a pound of beef. America, that's where your grain is going. The demand for meat in wealthy countries makes plant proteins unaffordable in poorer countries, since it's better business (meaning higher profits) to feed to the animals that get fed to the rich than to feed the poor. Poor communities than abandon sustainable farming practices to produce cash crops and meat. Non-sustainable farming means short-term business, short-term profits. Which means poor communities stay poor. If we didn't channel most grain protein into huge herds of livestock, we could easily feed all the people on earth. So why should we eat hamburgers and spare ribs when there are children in third-world nations are starving?

Here is another web page I found on the subject:
http://www.mercyforanimals.org/behind-closed-doors.asp (which for some reason features an image of a highland cow)

You can also check out http//:www.hfa.org or just google "factory farm workers."

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

AIDS: Helping the Gap Sell

I've got a beef. The Gap is featuring a new line of (Red) products to go to AIDS programs. Forget that the Gap is still being monitored by various environmental, sweatshop, and human rights groups. Let's just focus on the fact that certain companies, including The Gap, MAC cosmetics, and others, do these promotions where they create certain product lines with the inducement that part of their profits go to AIDS and breast cancer programs (for example). So now the burden is on me to buy the products that will donate to charities regardless of whether they are the products that I actually want. Meanwhile, The GAP looks like a good corporate citizen (which they aren't, though admittedly they seem to be working on cleaning up their act) and take a tax break on the donations. Why doesn't The GAP just donate a portion of ALL their profits to charity? Or better yet, a percentage of all their profits with a minimum guaranteed donation, so that it doesn't matter if people run to buy their products. Because, that's what genuinely good people do. And, if you really want to give, then skip the GAP shirt and just cut a check to your favorite organization devoted to AIDS relief (or the environment, or animal rights, or women's rights, or whatever). At least then you get the credit, instead of a big corporation who has shown more care for their bottom line than social responsibility.

By all means, shop with corporations you think have good corporate policy. But don't get sucked in by slick campaigns.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Poll

Here's a poll:

After reading my entries on animal rights and/or environmentalism, have you made any relevant changes to your lifestyle?
No, your arguments aren't convincing.
No, I don't care as long as these issues don't negatively affect me in any direct way.
No, I was already devoted to animal rights/environmentalism before I visited your blog.
No, but I wanted to. I just haven't figured out how to do it yet.
Yes, I have.
  
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Please feel free (or even compelled) to leave a note explaining your answer.

Also find the poll here: Take my poll!