“A Drone Flew Over a Pig Farm,” from Upworthy. http://www.upworthy.com/a-drone-flew-over-a-pig-farm-to-discover-its-not-really-a-farm-its-something-much-more-disturbing?g=3&c=huf1.
“Whole Food’s Free Range Chickens Have Come Home to Roost,” American Council of Science and Health. Please don’t skip over the comments on this one! And just in case you haven’t heard, Amazon bought Whole Food’s and declared that there was no reason why the national organic food chain’s groceries should have required your whole check. https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/05/10/whole-foods-free-range-chickens-have-come-home-roost-11261.
“Eating Animals: Compassion, Health and the Planet,” HuffPost. This is a fairly dated article, but the topic is hotter than ever. Since when did compassion become intertwined with compassion? I have some resistance accepting on face value that vegans and vegetarians are more compassionate than carnivores. I’m not certain that compassion means you don’t eat animals as much as it does that you don’t abuse or torture them. Indigenous groups like the Inuit, Lakota, and Blackfoot still hunt wild game; their creation stories are replete with the intimate relationship they have with the “four legged. Is a vegetarian who conducts experiments on animals for the pharmaceutical industrial complex more compassionate than the Sioux who still buffalo? There is an interesting discussion of this topic in radical environmentalist, Derrick Jensen’s book, The Myth of Human Supremacy. Jensen eats meat. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-sosa/animal-activism-_b_3758898.html.
“World’s Largest Beach Clean-Up: Trash-Ridden to Pristine in 2 Years,” Eco Watch. https://www.ecowatch.com/beach-clean-up-mumbai-2421608193.html.
“Marine Animal Exhibits: Chlorinated Prisons,” PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). https://www.peta.org/issues/animals-in-entertainment/animals-used-entertainment-factsheets/marine-animal-exhibits-chlorinated-prisons/. For the last 3 years I have been going to the Camden Aquarium in New Jersey. A friend of mine commented, sea life in an aquarium is bad enough, but dear God, to be in an aquarium in Jersey is a double whammy! I am beginning to see that it goes way beyond zoos and aquariums. Conservatories with exotic plants from all over the world, placed in environments that attempt to mimic their “origin” home is just as perverse.
“The Dakota pipeline is already leaking. Why wait for a big spill to act?” Julian Brave NoiseCat, The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/12/dakota-access-pipeline-leaking-big-spill. I doubt if this headline comes as a surprise to anyone. And if it does, you probably missed the news about the last leak. See the next link.
“Tioga oil pipeline spill cleanup nearing milestone after 4 years, but work continues,” The Bismark Tribune. http://bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/tioga-oil-pipeline-spill-cleanup-nearing-milestone-after-years-but/article_8e224ae9-a060-5d46-ba5d-45144b217f78.html.
The state of Montana witnessed a summer of fires that burned over 1M acres. While fires are not new to Montana, the impact of the drought made this the worse fire season that firefighters have witnessed. The only saving grace was that winter comes early to Montana, so the snow and rain helped to impede the fires’ reach. “Montana’s 2017 fire season tops 1 million acres burned.” KRTV.com. http://www.krtv.com/story/36306110/montanas-2017-fire-season-tops-1-million-acres-burned.
For the Winter edition, 2017 of the blog’s Return to Divine Stewardship, I would like to introduce you to John Francis, Ph.D., author of Planet Walker, 12 years of silence. 22 years of walking. I am still contemplating a change from the Return to Divine Stewardship, but so far nothing has surfaced.
