Pamela Anderson speaks for seals and the environment

The Canadian-born actress, a vegetarian spokesperson for the organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), recently organized a media event in Vancouver, Canada calling for the cancellation of the Canadian seal hunt this year.

Prior to the event, the actress had written a letter of appeal to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, asking him to spare the seal pups, whose survival is already threatened by habitat loss due to global warming.

Pamela Anderson - Vegetarian (F): This is another reason to stop the seal hunt - the environmental information that the Canadian government has now found is that the ice caps are the lowest in the last 30 years.

We are even asking this year to stop it, so we could actually have a bigger population, because their population is going to be nonexistent pretty soon.

VOICE: With petition signatures that have reached the prime minister numbering half a million thus far, members of the Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association also showed support, and had a chance to present Pamela Anderson with an SOS bag on the vegan solution to climate change.

Accepting the gift, Ms. Anderson shared her encouragement for the actions people can engage in to stop animal cruelty as well as protect the environment.

Pamela Anderson (F): I have loved animals since I was little, so I was an animal activist since I was little. There’s just so much difference we could make. I think it’s just really important to do whatever you can.

Supreme Master TV (M): Is our diet part of that solution?

Pamela Anderson (F): Yes! Being vegetarian is a great way to a healthy environment. It is better than driving a hybrid car. Factory farming is one of the leading causes of global warming as well.

So, there are lots of conscious things we can do. The more I find out, the more I change my life. I just think that’s what we all need to do.

VOICE: A grateful salute, Pamela Anderson for your valiant and compassionate shining star to protect the seals and the planet. Indeed, may all of humanity foster the conscientious and life-saving vegan lifestyle for the wholesome future of our fellow co-inhabitants and the Earth.

As often mentioned in her wish to safeguard all beings, Supreme Master Ching Hai highlighted the connection between our treatment of animals and the planet’s climate crisis during a November 2009 videoconference in Washington, DC, USA.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: The whales and the seals are some of the many animals who literally radiate love to balance our planet. They were born here to help us to fill in the void of love that we lost through our inconsiderate actions.

But sadly, we kill them. If we kill these beings, we’re really killing ourselves. We take out the balance that is greatly needed at this time, in our dire situation.

Please inform yourself of the unimaginable, utterly cruel and utmost inhumane treatment involved in the meat and dairy production, or fishing even, as well as lab experiments or the animal fur industry.

How can we degrade ourselves into such a heartless state of being, by supporting these cruel, heart-wrenching practices? I hope it is clear that the best, and really the only way, is to be vegan.

http://www.theprovince.com/news/Pamela+Anderson+calls+cancellation+seal+hunt... +Vancouver+media+event/2622875/story.html

Fish farming destroys marine wildlife

The Norwegian Food Safety Authority has reported a dramatic rise in sea louse, a parasite that infects salmon, is causing great concern in Norway as its populations triple in the crowded fish farms of the Norwegian fjords over the past year alone. Besides killing the farmed fish, environmentalists fear that this organism will further decimate already weakened wild salmon whose numbers have been reduced by half in the past decades.

Meanwhile, a 23-year Finnish study has concluded that lethal strains of the bacteria Columnaris have developed in the confined conditions of ocean fish farms. This infection destroys the skin, fins, and gills of fish and is currently the leading cause of their death. With infected farmed fish that sometimes escape or are let loose by fish farmers who wish to avoid fines and costly clean-up, wild fish are thus being subjected to an increasing number of virulent diseases that originate from factory farms.

Norwegian Food Safety Authority, we appreciate and share your concern for the well-being of wild fish and ocean life. May we all realize the damaging nature of meat and fish consumption and opt quickly for the life-enhancing vegan diet.

Supreme Master Ching Hai has often spoken of the tolls endured by the Earth’s animal inhabitants, addressing our need to halt the devastating practice of fishing as during a November 2008 interview with Ireland’s East Coast Radio FM.

Supreme Master Ching Hai: We have to stop it. Just stop the fishing. The government has to forbid fishing because it’s too important to our survival to delay any further. To stop this destructive practice of fishing, the solution is the vegan diet, no fishy stuff in our meals. The sea offers us plenty of better food choices; the wide varieties of super healthy and nutritious sea plants. We can even live on it forever. We must protect a living and healthy sea, as it relates to our living and healthy self.

http://www.naturalnews.com/027809_farmed_fish_disease.html
http://www.wildforsalmon.com/aboutscokeye.html
http://users.jyu.fi/~pukaan/
http://www.france24.com/en/node/4955477
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1803174/norwegian_salmon_affected_by_lice/

Swine flu update and factory farm connection.

About 90,000 cases of the swine flu have been confirmed across approximately 122 countries, with a first-ever case being diagnosed in Syria. More than 380 people have lost their lives to the virus, three of which were the first fatalities for New Zealand. With over 5,000 cases confirmed and sometimes hundreds of new afflictions that appear overnight, Australia has the highest number of people stricken in the Asia-Pacific region along with nine swine flu-related deaths.

Also of concern are countries in the southern hemisphere where the flu season has just set in, such as Argentina with at least 44 who have perished and Chile’s 19 fatalities with approximately 7,400 cases confirmed.

Meanwhile, two recent US-based Huffington Post articles by Deirdre Imus and Nicolette Hahn Niman highlighted the need for more government and media attention to swine flu’s suspected origin in industrial-scale animal farms.

In her June 15 story titled “Reaping What We Sow: How Industrial Animal Farming is Contributing to the Risk of a Swine Flu Pandemic,” Ms. Niman wrote “…this pandemic reminds us that the current method of raising farm animals is fraught with risks to human health… As part of its efforts to mitigate the risk of a catastrophic flu pandemic, Congress should adopt a national moratorium on industrial animal operations.” Ms. Imus also urged for investigations into what she called “these toxic disease breeding grounds.”

Thank you, caring journalists Ms. Imus and Ms. Niman for helping bring a greater awareness of the real pandemic risks we face today. We also pray for the swine flu patients and loved ones, and send our sympathies for those who have been lost, as victims of today’s animal raising system. May we hasten to prevent a worse situation by ending all livestock raising practices and choosing health and happiness through the organic vegan diet.

Source:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=aaNctHUHaVL0
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hVoGSwV_jPgg6J6Aoz8wSQiGyosg
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/world/americas/04argentina.html?ref=world
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/deirdre-imus/beyond-swine-flu---could_b_219887.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nicolette-hahn-niman/reaping-what-we-sow-how-i_b_215730.html

[CAFO INVESTIGATION] Firsthand experience of factory farms turns farmer vegetarian

Although she was raised in a meat-eating environment, Ms. Helen Reddout, cherry farmer and president of the Community Association for Restoration of the Environment (CARE) of Yakima Valley in Washington, USA explains that seeing the damage and abuse on industrial farms made her decide she could no longer support them, even in her daily life.

Helen Reddout – President of the Community Association for Restoration of the Environment (CARE) (F): I was definitely a “meat and potatoes” person, until on my trip to the market in Sunny Side, I had to pass by a dairy lot and a beef feedlot. By the time you drove the two miles down there, looking at how the animals were treated, and smelling the smells, and seeing the dust…sometimes so bad, coming off of those yards, that you had to actually turn your lights on in the middle of the day, it was that heavy. After a year or so of that, I began to think, being a part of buying these commodities is encouraging their operation.

VOICE: Ms. Reddout has not eaten any meat nor dairy for 20 years, and is still glad of her choice.

Helen Reddout (F): And to my surprise, it wasn’t very difficult at all. In fact my body kind of responded positively to it.

VOICE: Helen Reddout is part of a growing trend of people who, once confronted with the disturbing reality of raising animals, have decided that the best approach is a humane, more eco-friendly plant-based diet. Meanwhile, the swine flu, another byproduct of animal agriculture, has spread to such an extent that the World Health Organization (WHO) is expected to declare a pandemic within days.

With cases approaching 20,000 worldwide in 67 countries, some 120 people have lost their lives, with the more than 870 who have fallen ill fallen ill in Australia being the highest number outside of North America.

We thank you, Ms. Reddout and the Community Association for Restoration of the Environment, for your compassionate and intelligent choice of a meat-free existence. Our sorrow for those who have suffered loss through the swine flu and the devastating effects of animal farming operations as we also pray that people everywhere realize the health and mental security that comes from consuming a plant-based diet.

Reference:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1524225764500964289
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/06/03/Woman-may-be-Vas-first-swine-flu-death/UPI-17451244070506/

Animal agriculture ruins dreams for indigenous Americans

The Yakama reservation in Washington, USA has been the ancestral home of the Native American Yakama tribe for hundreds of years. However, the recent nearby construction of a factory farm complex has turned their homeland and homes into prisons.

To understand the more widespread effects of animal farming operations on the people living nearby, Supreme Master Television recently met some of the residents who are forced to live with the reality of a factory farm environment.

(Interview in English)
Resident living near dairy factory farm (F): I live a fourth of a mile from a confined animal feeding operation (CAFO) and it’s really affected my family. I’ve been there a little over 20 years. It’s the flies, the smell, the dust, everything. We’re just trapped inside of our house. In days it stinks, we don’t turn the air conditioner on because the air comes in, we can’t open the windows.

VOICE: As is common for many people living near concentrated farming operations, when measurements were taken over the course of a week for the presence of ammonia from waste and other air pollutants at this resident’s home, the particle levels were so high that the measurements were off the scale.

Interviewee (F): Then the trucks, pulling that manure out, and then when they drive by they don’t cover it. So it’s on our road and when the cars drive by, it picks it up, and it is in the air. My kids only go outside once in a while when it’s nice. I always wanted to have a nice yard and have my kids outside, playing. But it’s not like that.

VOICE: As the animal farming operations take away the happiness from their neighbors, the most recent virus to have passed from farmed animals to humans continues to gain a foothold across the globe. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), confirmed cases of swine flu have risen close to 20,000 people who are now afflicted, including a first-ever case in Saudi Arabia, with 117 who have lost their lives, most recently in the countries of Mexico, US, Canada, and Chile. WHO interim assistant director-general for health security and environment, Keiji Fukuda, stated that if cases continue to spread, the agency may declare a pandemic, the highest alert level.

We thank the World Health Organization and all other organizations working to alleviate the swine flu as we pray for the victims of this worrying trend, especially loved ones in mourning.

Our sorrow too for the unwilling neighbors of factory farms as well, and pray that the practice of animal farming will soon cease altogether, so that all may enjoy health and life to the fullest.

One factory farm creates more pollution than the city of Houston, Texas.

A US General Accounting Office report found that a single factory farm produces 1.6 million tons of manure each year, which in turn contaminates local water resources through runoff into streams, rivers and lakes. Often these water bodies are no longer safe for swimming, drinking or as wildlife habitat due to bacteria and excessive chemicals. A recent report by the Pew Commission concluded that measures to curtail factory farming are necessary to prevent further damage to water supplies and the environment, along with accelerated global warming.
US General Accounting Office and Pew Commission, we are grateful for these informative studies that help us understand the urgency of our situation. May we all join together to revive our beautiful Earth’s sustainability through such quickly effective practices as the ecologically sound plant-based diet. 
http://www.thedailygreen.com/healthy-eating/eat-safe/factory-farms-47092401?src=syn&dom=yah_buzz&mag=tdg&ha=1&kw=ist