Today, I stumbled on NASA’s climate change website. Overall, it looks like an excellent overview of the subject. While reading through it, I once again wondered how some people can dismiss the idea so summarily. CO2 emissions, global temperatues, and sea levels are up, while the amounts of sea ice are down. First people refused to admit that any climate change was taking place. Now that only the most out-of-touch could make such a claim, the same people claim humans had nothing to do with it.
The chart above, courtesy of NOAA, is fairly self-explanatory. As CO2 levels rise, global temperatures rise. Industry creates a lot of CO2. No reasonable people deny that climate change occurs naturally. Still, the link between the Industrial Revolution, the rapid rise in CO2 levels, and global warming are often too easily dismissed. Too many times, we’ve seen how easily humans can destroy ecological balance through deforestation, chemical spills, land development, strip mining, etc. It’s very similar to the extinction of plants and animals. Yes, extinction occurs naturally. That fact doesn’t make hunting species to the brink of extinction any less shitty. Why do we think we can build factories all over the globe that regularly pump out toxic substances without consequence? Damage is being done every second of every day, and it won’t stop just because we want to argue over how much of it is man-made and how much is natural.
Not long ago, the use of tools was thought be exclusive to human beings; however, that notion has been handily disproved by a wide variety of animals. Likely the most obvious of these, chimpanzees, seem to have been using tools for a very long time. Scientists have discovered chimpanzee hammers made of stone that date back 4,300 years. You can read more about that here. Also, it has long been known that chimpanzees hunt with spears. The video below elaborates:
Chimps are far from the only animal that uses tools. Crows have been observed dropping stones into a water pitcher to raise the water level to a height at which they can drink. Gorillas use walking sticks to test water depth. Elephants plug water holes with balls of chewed bark to prevent other animals from drinking all the water. One of the most recent and interesting examples of animal tool usage is performed by the octopus. Recently, researchers observed octopi engaging in a behavior called “stilt walking.” When an octopus engages in stilt walking, it stacks one or more coconut shells underneath its body, then scoots across the ocean floor. You can see this behavior in the video below. Later, the octopus can use the coconut shells as shelter. At first glance, this may not seem like much. However, as Mark Norman of the Museum Victoria in Australia said:
“There is a fundamental difference between picking up a nearby object and putting it over your head as protection versus collecting, arranging, transporting (awkwardly), and assembling portable armor as required.”
There are many other examples of animals using tools of varying complexity. Do you feel these behaviors are indicative of a higher level of intelligence than we usually give animals credit for? Which animal behaviors do you find the most interesting? Let us know in the comment section below.
Now that everyone is in a bad mood from the title, let’s get started. I wanted to like Avatar, I really did. After all, it’s not often we have a shot at a blockbuster movie with an overtly environmental message. Sadly, Avatar misses the mark, and it misses it badly.
First, the positive. Avatar is quite the piece of entertainment, particularly on an IMAX screen. The visual and sound effects are incredible. Sigourney Weaver has a prominent role, and Sigourney Weaver always has and ever shall be completely awesome. Also, there are some very interesting concepts concerning the connection between all living things on Pandora, the planet on which the movie takes place. Sadly, this brings us to the end of the positive paragraph.
As for its shortcomings as a film, let’s start with the characters. You have: dumb grunt with a heart, evil military officer, military woman who hasn’t lost sight of what’s right, weaselly corporate guy, smartass scientist lady, and beautiful native woman. I’m pretty sure the movie gave them all names at some point, but it doesn’t matter. All of these parts are completely lacking in imagination, and the only stab at character development is with the main character. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, go ahead and guess how his character develops. Congratulations, you’re almost certainly correct. While the humans are painted in the broadest strokes imaginable as greedy, materialistic, and soulless, the Na’vi rest comfortably under the “noble native” umbrella. That being said, at least one of the Na’vi does prove the age-old rule that there are assholes in any species, real or imagined. The script ambles along pleasantly enough for awhile, until the length of the movie begins to sink in. And therein lies one of the truly major faults of the movie. I love plenty of movies with no character development and over-the-top special effects. The difference is, these movies aren’t over two-and-a-half hours long. They also don’t pretend to be things they aren’t.
I realize that isn’t a very in-depth review, but I want to get to what really bugs me about this movie. In truth, it’s not really the movie’s fault. This movie is one huge equation, one designed to maximize profits. And hey, what’s wrong with that? Movies are a business. James Cameron may make Michael Bay look shy, but the dude makes a whole mess of cash. That makes him a success. No, the worst thing about this movie is what some people are attributing to it. This movie does not have an environmental message. Zero. It has a tremendous backdrop for the special effects, and as I mentioned earlier, some nifty ideas about the connections between living things on the planet. Other than that, what is there? The presence of a beautiful environment does not automatically confer an environmental message. It’s entirely possible I’m missing something. However, if you did take a message away from this movie, what is it? Bulldozing trees is bad? Killing people to take what you want is bad? Help me out here. I want to see something.
For the worst of it, click right here. In case you don’t like clicking links, here’s a quote from the article:
“But I can understand why it made people depressed. The movie was so beautiful and it showed something we don’t have here on Earth. I think people saw we could be living in a completely different world and that caused them to be depressed.”
No doubt, people suffering actual depression from seeing the movie make up a very small minority. There’s a point to be made here, though. Despite our best efforts, we still have places on Earth every bit as beautiful as anything in Avatar. They exist outside of a movie screen. We do have a connection between all living things. Unfortunately, we all spend most of our time ignoring it. Sorry though, no giant blue cat people or giant flying mounts. Rather than lament made-up shit, we should be protecting and nuturing all the great things we do have.
Book of Eli was awesome though, go see that instead. And please, take a sec and let me know below if you liked Avatar.
Alex and I really enjoyed our tour at the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary, so I’d like to give them a quick plug. As I mentioned before, this trip was the catalyst for our long-overdue conversion to veganism. Frankly, I was dreading the trip. I had envisioned shock tactics, judgmental proclamations….basically, PETA at their worst. And believe me, I will be airing my grievances with PETA on here pretty soon. Anyway, the tour was nothing like I had feared. Of course, our guide exhibited an impressive knowledge of all the animals at the farm and displayed genuine concern for the well-being of the animals. However, I did not expect the criticisms of the animal product industry to be so logical and level-headed. He made many excellent points, one of which in particular is important to keep in mind. People that run dairy farms, slaughterhouses, and other similar businesses don’t engage in animal cruelty because they enjoy it. It isn’t because they’re sadists. It’s all about the bottom line: what practices encourage the largest profits?
On the surface, that probably doesn’t seem any better. However, it does offer a sliver of hope. If we can educate people about the animals they eat and how they are so much more than a meal, demand for meat will plummet and farm owners will be forced to re-evaluate their practices. We live in a cynical world, but not everyone will do anything for money. But back to the sanctuary. If you live anywhere near Woodstock (and I know some of you do), consider taking the trip. It’s not far, and the tour doesn’t take much time. There were also quite a few kids that seemed to be having a good time. And with that, I will leave you with a picture of me with my favorite goat. You should all be ashamed of yourselves, I know what you were just thinking.
The uncomfortable answer to that question: these animals are a hell of a lot smarter than most people think. As much as some people want to believe, animals are not mindless automatons biding their time until the slaughter. Let’s take a look at some of the attributes and behaviors exhibited by common farm animals.
Chickens
Some birds, like parrots (particularly African Greys) and ravens, exhibit well-documented intelligent behavior. What about chickens? As it turns out, chickens have a surprisingly complex communication system, are capable of anticipating reward, and experience a wide range of emotions. The clip below is from the documentary “Fowl Play,” which chronicles the intelligence of chickens and the cruelty visited on them by farms.
Cows Cows, despite their stoic appearances, are very emotional creatures. They are especially attached to their young. If the mother and calf are separated for even a short time, it causes a great deal of stress. Mothers whose calves have been taken will bellow for days, hoping that they’ll return. easyvegan.info has a great many personal accounts of just how cruel separating the mother and calf is. You can read about it here. I would like to share the final lines from that entry:
We live in Missouri, now, and a cattle farmer rents the pasture on one side of our house. I don’t have the pleasure of watching the mothers with their children anymore; this herd is more wary of humans, and rightfully so. But I can tell when he’s separated the mothers from their children – during these days and weeks, the long, low, mournful, melancholy bellows echo up the valley and through the treeline.
If I weren’t already a vegan, these cries of despair surely would persuade me.
Pigs
Alright, so I’m ending with an easy one. If people know one thing about a pig’s intelligence, it’s that they are smarter than dogs. Dogs are smarter than we give them credit for, too, but that’s another issue. Simply put, pigs are the most intelligent domesticated animals on the planet. Numerous studies have shown that pigs have complex social lives, an excellent sense of direction, they learn from watching each other, and they dream. And oh, they’re pretty good at video games, too (yes, really). Check out the video right here.
So, even in that incredibly brief overview of a small percentage of a few farm animals (translation: barely scratched the surface), we’ve covered a wide array of complex, intelligent behaviors exhibited by “stupid” animals we torture from birth to inhumane death. No, they can’t operate an iPod or check their e-mail. Then again, neither can a lot of old people and we aren’t sending them to the slaughterhouses. Education is the key to solving problems. The way we treat animals, farm animals in particular, is a problem. Eating animal products is a choice. Please don’t make that choice ignorant of what it really costs to put that meat and eggs on your plate or that milk in your glass.
Well, maybe being vegan did happen overnight for some of you. My journey was a bit more convoluted. Until I was 18, I had never given meat much thought. I had always had an affinity for animals, but I was raised believing that there was nothing wrong with eating meat. Then, I saw an HBO documentary late one night. A very graphic documentary. After 18 years of not giving meat any thought, I was confronted with scenes that take place in slaughterhouses every single day. The next day, I stopped eating meat. Sort of.
As many of you are likely aware, not everyone falls into the categories of omnivore, vegetarian, or vegan. For five years, I was a pescetarian. Pescetarians do not eat the vast majority of meat; however, they do eat fish and other seafood. My reasoning at the time was simple: I knew it was a scientific fact that mammals were capable of feeling pain and experiencing emotion. I did not know if that was the case with fish. As for dairy, I was just as ignorant. We’ll get to that later.
I would like to say that after five years of being a pescetarian, I gave up fish and dairy. Unfortunately, it was quite the opposite. I can’t remember exactly when or why, but I abandoned any attempt at cutting any animal products out of my diet. Honestly, I think I just fell out of it. There were no vegetarian or vegan people in my family, and I had no friends that followed either of those philosophies. That’s certainly no excuse, but it does help explain why falling out of the lifestyle was so easy. For 2 or 3 years, I ate without any regard for the consequences, moral and otherwise. Then, my wife asked if I knew anything about vegetarian. I did, and soon after we cut all meat except seafood out of our diets.
Not long after, I came across a recent study concerning whether or not fish and crustaceans feel pain (you can get the short version here). The study wasn’t conclusive, but that didn’t matter. If there were any chance that we were causing suffering by eating fish and crustaceans, it wasn’t worth the risk. For the first time, we were real vegetarians. But as we were soon to find out, that just wasn’t good enough.
As I said earlier, until I was 18 I had never given meat much thought. The same was true of dairy, eggs, and other animal products, until a visit to the Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary. My wife and I went on a tour there one weekend. I highly recommend it. I won’t spend too much time singing their praises when you can see for yourself on their website, but it was very educational. On the tour, we learned how cruelty to animals is every bit as prevalent in the production of milk and eggs as it is in actual meat. For example: cows, like any other mammal, must be pregnant to produce milk. If the offspring is female, the farm has a use for it. If the offspring is male….let’s just say they don’t have a giant pasture set aside for the male Holsteins to live out their lives in peace. Recently, the cruelty that takes place in the production of eggs has received some publicity, thanks to dedicated people with hidden cameras. Halfway into the tour, we knew we could never eat dairy or eggs again.
In any case, this is bordering on TLDR. There’s a great deal more to say on these subjects, of course. However, I feel like if my ideas are going to be worth sharing, people should have some idea where I’m coming from. It’s not clean-cut. Vegans are not inherently saintly anymore than meat-eaters are inherently evil. But, as I said, there will be time for all those discussions later. For now, good night.
Here’s the deal: whatever your personal opinions on the matter, only the most willfully oblivious of people believe that mankind and nature currently co-exist in harmony. The purpose of this blog is to approach the issue in a reasonable manner. Who decides what’s reasonable? Well, me. It’s my damned blog, after all. For the time being, I’d like to take a fairly broad approach to the subject. I suspect that over time, the focus will narrow. If nothing else, I want this blog to help people learn and make people think. In any case, enjoy.
Now that everyone is in a bad mood from the title, let’s get started. I wanted to like Avatar, I really did. After all, it’s not often we have a shot at a blockbuster movie with an overtly environmental message. Sadly, Avatar misses the mark, and it misses it badly.
