April, 14 2010, 04:37pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Meredith Turner, Farm Sanctuary, 646-369-6212,
mturner@farmsanctuary.org
World's Leading Environmental Experts Agree: Best Way to Go Green Is to Eat Less Meat
Just in Time for Earth Day, Farm Sanctuary Launches Groundbreaking Campaign to Introduce Green Foods Resolutions in Cities and Towns Nationwide
WATKINS GLEN, N.Y.
It is one of the
most underreported stories of the decade, yet the science could not be
more
conclusive: if we really- really -
want to get serious about tackling global climate change, we need to
start
looking at what's on our plates. The United Nations and a host of
leading
environmental experts, including Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, 2008 Chair of
the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, have all cited animal
agriculture as
being among the leading causes of greenhouse gas emissions (ahead of the
entire
transportation sector), and now Farm Sanctuary,
the nation's leading farm animal protection organization, has launched a
groundbreaking campaign to address the problem head-on by campaigning to
get Green
Foods Resolutions passed in cities and towns all across America.
Think
Globally, Act Locally
Through Farm Sanctuary's
Green Foods Campaign, citizens
are
reaching out to their local city governments to introduce resolutions
that address
the impact food choices have on the numerous health and environmental
problems
plaguing the nation.A
Green Foods
Resolution is a city or town council resolution designed to counteract
the health
threats, animal cruelty and massive environmental damage caused by
animal
agriculture by calling on citizens to eat lower on the food chain. This
forward-thinking legislation enables cities to take responsibility for
their
carbon "foodprint" by
encouraging greater access to nutritious plant-based foods, supporting
local
farmers markets and community gardens, and educating citizens about the
health
and environmental benefits of consuming more plant-based foods.
"Switching to energy-efficient light bulbs,
carpooling,
recycling- these are all great ways we can lessen our carbon footprint,
but when compared with the difference you can make simply by eliminating
or reducing
meat and animal products from your diet, other aspects of green living
pale by
comparison," said Gene Baur,
president and co-founder of Farm Sanctuary.
"From natural resource depletion, to global climate change, to air and
water pollution, industrial animal agriculture-the source of 99% of all
meat and animal products consumed in this country- is among the worst
offenders we must face in saving our planet from peril. With the 40th
anniversary of Earth Day right around the corner, we are excited by the
growing
movement to address this ultimate 'inconvenient truth.'"
The
Greening of America
In October 2009, the small town of
Signal
Mountain, Tennessee,
became the first community in the country to pass a Green Foods
Resolution.
Activist David Cook, whose newspaper column inspired his town council to
consider
the resolution, sees its passage as the planting of a seed, not just for
Signal
Mountain but also for the rest of the country. "Something will really
grow out of this," said Cook. "I think it is part of many things
that are moving in the right direction, including community-supported
agriculture, organic farming, a greater commitment to vegetarianism,
more
car-pooling, more questioning. It's all tied together."
Alexandria, Virginia became the
second community to pass a Green Foods Resolution in March 2010.
Additional resolutions
are now pending in New York City,
where Farm Sanctuary is a key member of the Foodprint Alliance and in
several
other municipalities across the nation.
Signal Mountain and Alexandria
aren't the only cities rethinking their dietary choices. Just last week,
San Francisco's
Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to establish "Meat Free
Mondays" and encourage restaurants, grocery stores and schools to offer
more plant-based fare. In addition, Cincinnati
recognized the connection between plant-based eating and climate change
back in
2008, when they encouraged residents to reduce meat consumption with the
Green
Cincinnati Plan.
To learn
how to introduce a Green Foods
Resolution in your community, visit farmsanctuary.org/greenfoods/.
To speak
with Farm
Sanctuary President and Co-founder Gene Baur or receive sample
Green Food Resolution language, please contact Meredith
Turner at 646-369-6212 or mturner@farmsanctuary.org.
Farm Sanctuary fights the disastrous effects of animal agriculture on animals, the environment, social justice, and public health through rescue, education, and advocacy.
LATEST NEWS
Database Exposes 'Illicit Network Undermining Democracy Around the World'
Yanis Varoufakis hailed the effort as "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
Apr 17, 2024
"Coups. Assassinations. Riots. Detentions. Disinformation. We know the tactics that have been deployed to undermine our democracies. But who is behind them?"
Progressive International (PI) asks and answers this and other questions with an extensive new database published Wednesday that connects the dots in what the leftist group calls the "Reactionary International"—a loose global network of right-wing leaders and organizations working to subvert democratic institutions.
PI calls it an "illicit network undermining democracy around the world."
"Today is a mask-off moment for the Reactionary International and the parties, politicians, judges, journalists, foundations, think tanks, tech platforms, NGOs, activists, financiers, and entrepreneurs that comprise it," PI said.
"After a year of preparation, we finally open the doors to our new research consortium, exposing the global network of reactionary forces that corrode our democracies, destroy our planet, and drive us closer to world war," the group added.
"The twin insurrections at the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and Brasília's Three Powers Plaza in 2023 left no doubt about the international coordination of reactionary forces," PI argued. "Yet far too little is known about the entities of this network, their sources of financing, and their institutional allies operating inside our political systems."
Ultimately, PI aims to "support democratic systems to become more resilient to their insidious tactics."
From leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and former U.S. President Donald Trump—the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee—to evangelical Christian groups influencing laws in African countries criminalizing LGBTQ+ people and tech companies empowering ubiquitous state surveillance, Reactionary International is a who's-who of the world's right-wing forces.
A cursory search of the database's contents shows users can:
- Learn about Israel's NSO, Rayzone, and Team Jorge, and how a team of Tel Aviv tech entrepreneurs fuel unrest in Latin America;
- Meet the Grey Wolves, Turkey's roving death squad with links to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the ethno-nationalists in his governing coalition; and
- Explore the global network of the Falun Gong, its Trump-connected media outlet The Epoch Times, and its traveling dance troupe known as Shen Yun.
Yanis Varoufakis, a PI member and secretary-general of the left-wing Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, called the database "a treasure chest of well-researched reports on how the reactionaries of the world unite."
PI invites the public to contribute to the database.
"Together, we will not only name, shame, and expose the forces of the far right—but also dismantle their network of complicity," the group said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
GOP State AGs Ask EPA to 'Eviscerate' Crucial Environmental Justice Tool
"Many of the states that have signed the petition have historically allowed these harmful facilities to be placed in predominantly Black and brown communities," said one advocate.
Apr 17, 2024
Led by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, Republican leaders in 23 states on Tuesday filed a petition making clear their aim to allow petrochemical companies and other corporations to continue operating pollution-causing facilities without regard for the "disparate impact" they can have on low-income communities of color.
The attorneys general of states including Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas wrote to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan, asking him to amend Title VI under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The law prohibits recipients of federal funds from discriminating against residents based on race and national origin and allows residents to petition the EPA arguing that state agencies have intentionally discriminated or disparately impacted a particular community.
Title VI has underpinned hundreds of legal cases, including recent EPA investigations into the 85-mile stretch of land in Louisiana known as Cancer Alley, where dozens of petrochemical plants have been built and health experts have observed a disproportionate number of cancer cases and other medical problems among the predominantly Black population.
The attorneys general said they object to the Biden administration's use of Title VI to "advance what it calls 'environmental justice,'" and complained that the EPA aims to create "a condition in which no racially or economically defined group experiences adverse environmental impacts."
Andre Segura, vice president of litigation at the environmental legal group Earthjustice, said Wednesday that the Republican attorneys general aim to "eviscerate civil rights protections just to make it easier for industrial polluters to continue with business as usual."
"Everyone should be alarmed by these outrageous efforts," said Segura. "The fact is, many of the states that have signed the petition have historically allowed these harmful facilities to be placed in predominantly Black and brown communities, without regard for the health and safety of residents."
Manuel Fernandez, president of Miami-Dade County Democrats in Florida, said the effort was "embarrassing" and called on Moody to resign.
The petition was filed three months after U.S. District Court Judge James Cain Jr., an appointee of former President Donald Trump in Louisiana, ruled that Title VI requirements amount to "government overreach."
The EPA halted its Title VI investigation into the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) last year a month after Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican, sued the agency over its Title VI regulations. The EPA had been probing whether the LDEQ placed the historically Black town of St. John the Baptist Parish at risk by allowing companies to build petrochemical plants nearby.
There are more than 50 pending cases regarding Title VI violations, Earthjustice said.
"These decades-old Title VI regulations are critical tools for the federal government to use to ensure that funding is not used to perpetuate this toxic legacy," said Segura, "and the EPA should swiftly reject this petition."
Keep ReadingShow Less
GOP Governors Show 'How Scared They Are' of Workers Organizing With UAW
Congressman Greg Casar said the Republicans behind a new joint statement "sound more like corporate lobbyists than governors."
Apr 17, 2024
As Volkswagen workers in Tennessee began voting on whether to join the United Auto Workers, progressive critics on Wednesday continued to call out six Southern GOP governors for jointly saying they "are highly concerned about the unionization campaign driven by misinformation and scare tactics that the UAW has brought into our states."
Govs. Kay Ivey of Alabama, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Tate Reeves of Mississippi, Henry McMaster of South Carolina, Bill Lee of Tennessee, and Greg Abbott of Texas issued their statement in response to "the largest organizing drive in modern American history," which the UAW launched after major contract wins following a strike targeting the Big Three automakers—General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis—last year.
"As governors, we have a responsibility to our constituents to speak up when we see special interests looking to come into our state and threaten our jobs and the values we live by," the Republican leaders said, claiming that "unionization would certainly put our states' jobs in jeopardy" and the UAW is "making big promises to our constituents that they can't deliver on."
"We have serious reservations that the UAW leadership can represent our values. They proudly call themselves democratic socialists and seem more focused on helping President [Joe] Biden get reelected than on the autoworker jobs being cut at plants they already represent," the governors added, nodding to the union's January endorsement of the Democrat—UAW president Shawn Fain also called the presumptive Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, a "scab."
What actually threatens American workers?\n\u274c Anti-union, anti-worker propaganda like this\n\ud83d\udcb0 Corps that put profits over people\n\u26d1\ufe0f Safety standards not being met\n\n@GovAbbott & @GovernorKayIvey sound more like corporate lobbyists than governors here. @UAW backs American workers!— (@)
The Economic Policy Institutesaid Wednesday that the governors' anti-union statement "clearly shows how scared they are that workers organizing with UAW to improve jobs and wages will upend the highly unequal, failed anti-worker economic development model of Southern states."
Responding to the statement on social media, the Congressional Labor Caucus declared that "we speak up when we see threats to workers' rights. Workers must be allowed to choose whether to form a union on their own—free from influence from their employers or politicians. Shame on these governors for putting out this anti-union propaganda."
After Ivey shared the statement on social media, Nina Turner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy, asked, "Better wages and working conditions are against the values of your state?"
MSNBC's Chris Hayes was even snarkier, jokingly calling the statement "yet more evidence of the populist, pro-worker turn of the Trump-era GOP."
The UAW vote in Chattanooga, Tennessee is set to wrap up on Friday. Then, attention is expected to shift to Vance, Alabama. Workers at a nonunion Mercedes-Benz plant there submitted a petition to the National Labor Relations Board earlier this month requesting an election to join the union.
Noting Ivey's social media post about the statement, Diana Hussein, who does communications work for the UAW, said: "She's mad cuz she wants to keep the Alabama discount that leaves workers behind. No more! #StandUpUAW."
Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, also took aim at Ivey, saying, "You used Alabama taxpayers' money to have state troopers escort out-of-state scabs to break the strike of YOUR constituents."
Nelson explained that she was referring to the "hardworking" United Mine Workers of America members employed by Warrior Met, "who were fighting for the right to see their families more than a few days a year."
More Perfect Union told Ivey that "unions only threaten your values if you value denying workers a living wage and good benefits."
In contrast with the Republican governors, around two-thirds of the Senate Democratic Caucus in January wrote to 13 nonunion automakers—including Mercedes and Volkswagen—urging them not to illegally block UAW organizing at their plants.
"We are concerned by reporting at numerous automakers that management has acted illegally to block unionization efforts," the senators stressed, citing multiple examples. "These retaliatory actions are hostile to workers' rights and must not be repeated if further organizing efforts are made by these companies' workers. We therefore urge you all to commit to implementation of a neutrality agreement at your manufacturing plants."
Welcoming their letter, Fain said that "every autoworker in this country deserves their fair share of the auto industry's record profits, whether at the Big Three or the Nonunion 13. We applaud these U.S. senators for standing with workers who are standing up for economic justice on the job."
"It's time for the auto companies to stop breaking the law and take their boot off the neck of the American autoworker," the union leader added, "whether they're at Volkswagen, Toyota, Tesla, or any other corporation doing business in this country."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular