Kindness Articles

The Global Campaign to Stop Animal Sacrifice

2011-11-07T17:21:00.000-08:00

2011-09-11T17:25:00.000-07:00

Where did your puppy come from?

Craig Scutt From: National Features - September 11, 2011

Debra Tranter and Oscar, who inspired her campaign to put an end to puppy farming. Picture: Supplied. Source: Supplied

IF youre not sure, theres a good chance it started life in a puppy factory where profit comes before welfare.

For six years, Oscar has lived as a stud dog. His entire universe has been a tiny, filthy cage. No walks in the park, no sunlight, he’s never even seen the sky. All he knows is being locked inside a giant shed with hundreds of other dogs on a remote property in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges. His life is an endless cycle of breeding and pain. Prized for his miniature size, Oscar’s pups, which he’s never seen, are marketed as ‘teacups’ and sold for a premium. Until one night a woman appears, opens his cage, gives him his first cuddle and takes him away.
Pet-shop puppies are the very definition of cute. But what if you knew the vast majority of them started life in a puppy factory, where conditions are so horrendous, it beggars belief?

Puppy factories and backyard breeders are commercial breeding facilities. They can house up to 1000 dogs, producing masses of puppies sold for around $1000 each over the internet, through classified ads and in pet shops.
For almost two decades, Debra Tranter has dedicated her life to exposing the mistreatment taking place in secluded sheds across the country. She sacrificed her $90K job, suffered burglaries and assaults, and even has an ‘If Mum gets arrested or goes to jail’ plan for her kids, now in their 20s. But early last year, Tranter and her campaign fell apart when Oscar, a dog she’d rescued, was returned to his puppy farmer.
“When we found Oscar, he was in a really bad way,” says Tranter. “His fur was so thick; it was like a concrete block attached to his body. His genitals were actually matted to his leg. He had an ear infection, which I could smell straightaway, and his ear canals were full of black sludge, fur and ear mites.”
Tranter rescued Oscar and took him directly to the vet. The vet said the dog’s teeth were so infected, he couldn’t eat, which explained his 2.2kg weight. Malnourished, Oscar’s skin was as delicate as tissue paper and the matted fur caused tearing when he moved. He had to be given a general anaesthetic so he could be shaved, which exposed a number of wounds and abscesses and left him a meagre 1.6kg. While under anaesthetic, Oscar was de-sexed in anticipation that he’d go on to a ‘forever home’ with a new owner.
That night, Tranter took Oscar to her home in Ferntree Gully, 40 minutes east of Melbourne, intending to find a foster carer for him the following day. Shortly after midnight, 10 police officers raided her house.
“The whole place lit up. They shone spotlights through the windows and officers banged on my door. When they said they had a search warrant, I knew they’d come for Oscar. I said, ‘Please don’t take him, he’s had surgery today.’ But they took him from my arms and put me in a divvy van. I was in
the lock-up for two hours and could hear Oscar crying somewhere in the station.”
Tranter was charged with theft and Oscar was returned to the puppy factory.
“After the raid, I was a mess,” she says. “It was probably the lowest point in my life. All these years, I’d been fighting for these dogs, and I felt I’d completely failed. I’d rescued Oscar from that shed and given him hope. Now he was back there. It was the worst thing that could have happened. I drove to the country, sat under a tree and cried.”
Oscar earned Tranter her first criminal conviction in 18 years spent rescuing dogs and documenting puppy factories, a journey that began with a phone call when she was volunteering at an animal welfare agency.
“A voice said, ‘There’s a puppy factory with 1000 dogs near Ballarat. Look for a clearing in a pine plantation.’ Then they hung up,” she recalls. “Everyone kept saying, ‘Only chickens and pigs are factory-farmed, we don’t do that to dogs. It’s a hoax, forget it.’” But the voice haunted Tranter.
Armed with old fire brigade maps, she and a friend began scouring the region. Unsure of what they’d uncover, after three months, deep in a remote forest, they found it.
Tranter describes it as a cross between a pig farm and a concentration camp. An “industrial landscape” with rows of wire pens and hundreds of dogs pacing incessantly in never-ending figure eights. There were triangular metal kennels across the length of the compound, surrounded by a low fence. Left speechless by the scale of it, they waited for nightfall before going in to document their discovery.
“As soon as we entered the property, there was an eruption of sound, the dogs went nuts. At first it was excited barking, but after a while they calmed down and started howling,” Tranter recalls. “The smell was terrible. It was full of parvovirus [a contagious disease that causes severe vomiting and diarrhoea].” On later visits, she found many dogs also suffered from “a kind of flesh eating disease.
“When you look in the cages, it’s as though they’re screaming at you, not just with their bark, but with their eyes,” she says. “But it’s the ones who don’t bark – they’re the ones you know have been there for years. They don’t even move. Their spirits are broken.”
Tranter says the worst thing she’s seen is maternal cannibalism. “It’s when a mother gives birth to puppies and, as soon as they’re born, she starts eating them. She’ll chew off their limbs. The first time I saw it, I didn’t understand what was happening and I stood there and filmed it. When I saw it at home,
I was so ashamed and disgusted with myself that I destroyed the tape. I said to my friend, ‘Don’t ever tell anyone we filmed that and did nothing.’ But now, I know it’s so common, the industry has a term for it. On the documents that are leaked to me, I always read, ‘Mother killed puppies.’”
Serious health issues related to prolific births is another problem arising out of puppy farming, says Tranter. “I’ve seen dogs dragging ulcerated and weeping mammary tumours on the ground. A prolapsed uterus is when the mother, nearing the end of her breeding life, has had so many litters, the uterus comes out of her body.
“Unspeakable cruelty goes on in these sheds, and once you’ve seen it, you can’t un-see it.”
Tranter has since investigated around 70 puppy factories and backyard breeders in Victoria and NSW.
While mandatory legislation requires all dogs to have shelter and regular access to food, water, exercise and veterinary care, the problem is enforcement, which rests with local councils and state governments.
“Many puppy factories are in rural areas. Often, the council ranger and the puppy farmer are mates; they drink at the same pub, their kids go to the same school. Not one puppy factory I’ve been to operate in accordance with the legislation, but there’s no one out there enforcing it,” Tranter says, also acknowledging that her own activities are illegal. “The illegality of what I do pales into insignificance compared to what these dogs are going through. I believe the public has a right to know and the dogs need people to know. If someone calls me a criminal for jumping a fence with a camera, so be it.”
But after Oscar was taken away, Tranter questioned her resolve. “Sitting under that tree, I believed I’d failed. Then I thought, I wish there was some law I could use to get him back. If only I had Oscar’s Law. And that’s how I had the idea for the campaign.”
Tranter had been running Prisoners for Profit, an anti-puppy factory campaign that “bombarded people with horrific images”, which she now believes were too confronting.
“With Oscar’s Law, I feel I need to reach ordinary people with dogs, not necessarily dog people. I want it to be positive and empowering,” she says.
“Oscar’s Law aims to abolish puppy factory-farming and the selling of dogs in pet shops, but it’s not about showing negative images all the time and making it seem hopeless,” she explains. Tranter believes success will come from enabling consumers to make informed choices, so people know that
if they buy from a pet shop, their money will keep dogs in those sheds.
Oscar’s Law has received overwhelming support from the animal rescue community, as well as Kindness Trust (who fund its offices) and public figures including Derryn Hinch. The website has had half-a-million visits, but social media is where you see how the campaign is gaining traction, with endorsements from Sia, Jon Stevens, and The Scarlets.
A rally, held six weeks after the campaign launched, attracted 5000 protesters to the steps of Melbourne’s Parliament House. Tranter hoped for 50. “It was amazing. It made me realise people really care. It won’t be me that gets Oscar’s Law over the line, it will be everyone.”
And what of Oscar, the dog who inspired a movement? In July, Tranter visited the puppy factory again, this time in disguise.
“We responded to an ad in the Trading Post that said there were adult dogs for sale,” says Tranter. “I asked if we could look inside the sheds and the man said, ‘If you can stand the noise and smell, I’ll let you have a peek.’ I made a beeline for Oscar’s cage. He was at the very back, shaking and terrified.
“The man said, ‘That one was taken by some people and de-sexed; he’s no good. You can have him for $400.’ To think he sat in that rotten cage for 18 months and they thought he was no good.
“Now we have him back, it’s unbelievable,” Tranter says. “It’s a sign that you can never give up. This little dog doesn’t just belong to me, he belongs to everyone. He’s already inspired so many people. It’s wonderful that we have Oscar. Now we need Oscar’s Law.”

Join the rally for Oscar’s Law next Sunday, September 18, at Sydney’s Belmore Park, from midday. Visit www.oscarslaw.org.

Puppy Farming VS. Responsible Breeding
There’s a difference between responsible breeders and puppy factories
Legislation such as the Domestic Animals Act 1994 (Vic) rules that any person who runs a dog breeding business for profit must register with the local council. Enterprises must operate in accord with the state government’s Code of Practice, which outlines minimum standards of care.
The RSPCA considers puppy farming to be a significant national welfare issue. In its view, a ‘puppy factory’ is defined as an intensive breeding facility operated under inadequate conditions that fail to meet the dogs’ behavioural, social and/or physiological needs. The organisation advocates regulation of the breeding, supply and sale of dogs to help set minimum standards and stamp out the mass-production of puppies for profit.
WANT TO BUY A PUPPY?
Choose one from a shelter or an adoption agency, or visit the breeder’s premises before you commit. For more information, see the Smart Puppy Buyer’s Guide on the RSPCA website (www.rspca.org.au).

Hatchling Turtles released in Visakhapatnam

2011-04-19T14:12:00.000-07:00

CATTLE RESCUE PROJECT INDIA

2011-02-06T22:47:00.001-08:00

“Cow slaughter is repugnant to the culture of this country. The provision of drinking warer to the people and putting an end to the killing of animals for food are two prime needs for the country to regain its pristine glory, VIOLENCE IN ANY FORM IS EVIL AND TO KILL INNOCENT ANIMALS IS NOTHING OTHER THAN BLATANT SAVAGERY. “

►Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba

India’s “HOLY COW”

Originally, in India, milk was not the most important product from the cattle. Cows and bulls were used in fields and their dung and urine were used to make compost, medicine and other health products. Only the little extra milk left from the cow after feeding her calf was used by the family who owned the cow.

At present the cows/cattle are reduced to production units for milk and meat. Cow slaughter is more and more accepted and practiced in spite of it being illegal in India.

According to the Animal Laws in India, cows cannot be slaughtered. The practice of slaughter is extremely cruel and a disaster for the community and its agriculture-based economy.

Our aim is to restore the partnership between humans and cows

Our long-term objective is to put an end to all slaughter of cattle and to improve the conditions of local farmers through sustainable agriculture/organic farming and the use of all cow by- products.(not milk)

The Andhra Pradesh prohibition of cow slaughter and Animal Preservation Act 1977

(11 of1977) An act to provide for the prohibition of slaughter of cows,, calves of cows and calves of she buffaloes and for preservation .........

....no person shall slaughter or cause to be slaughtered, or offer or cause to be offered for slaughter, or otherwise intentionally kill, or offer, or cause to be offered for killing any cow or calf, whether male or female, or a she-buffalo.

Our history in cattle rescue:

Since 2002, Karuna Society has rescued over 500 cattle from illegal transport to slaughterhouses.

Since 2003, more than 200 rescued working bulls have been given for adoption to the local farmers under strict legal conditions.

We stopped the illegal cattle market at Gorantla, where there was no responsible authority. The market had turned into a centre for all illegal cattle trade and cruelty. We had to pay for these actions by an attack on our lives.

The High Court has given permanent custody of 305 cattle rescued by Karuna Society. The remaining cases are under trial.

Cattle Markets

In our rural area there are three cattle markets where all laws regarding loading and treatment are flouted/neglected. Overloading of trucks with cattle for slaughter happens within the premises of cattle markets. The loading is extremely cruel. No action is taken by the police.

Action taken by our organization at the cattle markets is answered by threats to our lives.

There is a vicious circle of reproduction/breeding and slaughter in which the farmers and the animals are losers; the slaughterhouses and the “powers that be” are the winners.

The consequences of the above are the loss of indigenous cattle wealth, which are drought and disease resistant, very useful for agricultural work and the production of valuable uncontaminated manure for compost and many byproducts. Slaughter can be completely avoided.

It is our experience that the rescue of cattle from the markets does nothing to change the system. It is only struggling uphill with heavy setbacks as there is no political will to change the cruel practice. The following week the same market continues, and although individual animal lives are saved by the rescue, we have no funds to maintain these animals. Their upkeep is difficult in our area with annual drought. In summer we have to keep our cattle inside and feed them grass and feed mix till the rains

Adoption of Indian working bulls to Local Farmers:

We are concentrating on the Indian Zebu cattle under our care and we are planning to give young healthy bulls, castrated, to the local farmer for adoption under legal conditions and payment of a refundable security.

When the animal being returned after hopefully many years of service, the farmer will receive back his initial amount. The cows will stay at Karuna as we do not want to give cows with offspring for milking to the local people as they will resort to old malpractices.

In the course of time, there will be more and more Karuna bulls in the villages, less and less bulls can be sent to slaughter as they have to be returned to Karuna.

We will starve the local cattle market of animals instead of fighting the butchers. At the same time we will have influence on the local farmers and we can get them more involved in organic farming, proper composting, biogas production etc. and hopefully waste management. (see Kindness farm)

For all our animals we will provide medical care.

2011-02-06T15:52:00.000-08:00

To initiate the change!

“KARUNA‘S KINDNESS FARM”

Patron; Philip Wollen

“TO GROW KINDNESS”

The “HOLY COW” and “HOLY SHIT”

India is famous for the concept of the “Holy Cow”, “Karuna’s Holy Cow” is not a religious concept. For us the holy cow is that local, original animal, working alongside the farmer, producing food for people; rice, peanuts, pulses, and much more. This cow will not be milked, she feeds her calves. She will not go for slaughter. The bulls are working in the field and pull the bullock cart. All will live out their life with respect.

This picture is more and more disrupted by demand for more milk, animal husbandry programs, buffalo production for milk, meat and leather, under influence from abroad. Slaughter brings in money. Old farm practices are forgotten, Composting turns into garbage heaps. Original seeds are not anymore available. Pig genes are used for vegetable hybrid seeds. The destruction is endless.

This composting system will not provide any bacterial activity in the soil to free all the necessary nutrition for the crops. It will only cause chemical pollution

At present the dairy farms sell their waste to big agricultural lands and vermi compost producers. The same happens with the chicken waste. It is ploughed in the soil and that is the soil on which our vegan/vegetarian food is grown. The subtle energy of suffering, abuse and neglect will be absorbed by the plants in your food.

Hormones, antibiotics and chemicals will do the rest to destroy your health and without knowing we are part of a system we want to change.

Normally, certified organic produce is not necessarily cruelty/slaughter free, because nobody thinks about the source of the compost and urine used for natural fertilizer and pesticide. Manure and urine taken from local farmers or dairy farms is certainly not cruelty free nor slaughter free and most probably contaminated with hormones, antibiotics and adulterated feed residue.

Our organic produce is not just organic but it has the additional value of animal welfare and slaughter free products.

The importance of the Indian “Holy Cow” becomes crystal clear in this context and also shows the meaning of ‘sathwic’ food, which provides physical, mental and spiritual welbeing.

“HOLY SHIT”

To produce healthy food, good for people, animals and earth alike we need not only the existence of the holy cow but we also need their “Holy Shit!!” unpolluted by stress, cruelty and fear of death.

We ask for special attention, protection, support and appreciation of these animals, their owners and the byproducts from the dung and urine for Ayurvedic medicine.

Our lives, mentally, physically and even morally, depend on the quality of the food which is produced with their support.

We would like to know if there are still farmers (not NGO's) who produce food with the holy animal and the holy shit. If they exist, we need to support them and value them separate from bio-industry.

Organic faming with compost and other byproducts from animals whose integrity is not destroyed; that is the need of the hour for our survival.

Organic farming and the love for Indian cattle

Thanks to a generous donation of Phillip Wollen we have been able to buy agricultural land next to the existing Cattle Rescue Project.

At present there is no electricity but we have fenced the area. We have harvested our first peanuts and dahl.

We hope to find the finances to have a solar and/or biogas electric connection for the first bore well and fencing, a platform and shed for harvesting. Then we will start irrigating 3 to 5 acres for growing green fodder for animal feed. The rest of the land will be used for dry crops along with plantation of fruit trees.

In the near future, the new Kindness Wildlife Sanctuary will also find its place here on app. 10 acres.

Rescued Cattle at Karuna’s Kindness farm

As we have become more aware of animal rights we need to specify the rights of our rescue cattle. We feel that from the time of domestication there has been an equally beneficial bond of generosity and friendship between humans and cows for the sake of survival, food production, medicine and mutual well being. This relationship has slowly deteriorated to misuse of power and their abuse/exploitation for profit.

The rights of cattle at Karuna’s “Kindness Farm”

Protection
Sufficient food
Free movement
Grazing
Sunlight
The cow will feed her own calf sufficiently
Extra feed in case of milking
Medical care
Natural death.

Buffaloes at Karuna:

At Karuna, beside the local cattle, we have also rescued buffaloes. Buffaloes are not used in this area for agriculture but only for milk and meat. At present we have more than 50 young male buffaloes, born here. The males are not used for work so they have to stay with us for life. Local farmers use their male buffaloes for animal sacrifice or simply slaughter them in the field or send them to the market.

We have decided not to continue with the milk from buffaloes as we have to look after the male calves for life and the animals are not useful for this area. We have castrated all male buffaloes in the herd.

Nevertheless, we will still accept rescued buffaloes in our project. At least we can save their lives.

In our organic garden

Leafy Vegetables:

Lettuce
Indian Palak
Andyvie
Chicory
Spinach
Rukula
Basil
Spinach

Roots:

Onion
Beetroot
Garlic
Peanut
Carrots

Pumpkin family:

Squash
Indian pumpkin
Indian zukini
Bottle gourd
Cucumber
Zukini

Herbs:

Basil
Dill
Parsley
Chicory
Coriander leaves

Other family:

Tomatoes
Mangoes
Moong

Tea leaves:

Tulsi
Mint
Lemon grass etc.

The Indus Entrepreneur Summit - Delhi

2011-01-03T04:42:00.000-08:00

Philip Wollen’s influential speech spell-binds

Posted on December 23, 2010 by Onkar Sharma

Philip Wollen

The TiE Summit was different on 22 December 2010, not in terms of the entrepreneurial success stories, but in terms of a speech from a philanthropist that pierced our conscience to the core. Hardly do I remember a speech of this kind in my entire lifetime. For me, it was an eye-opener at the Shri Fort Auditorium in New Delhi. The speech did not eulogize any business idea, nor any money making trick. Instead, it was on environment, peace and vegetarianism. Maneka Gandhi introduced Philip Wollen to the hordes of entrepreneurs who had rejoined the hall after lunch. Initially everyone thought if it was Maneka Gandhi, it would be something impractical argument in favour of animals. But she began her address benignly showering ceaseless accolades on Wollen. Still everyone felt that she was doing a marcom job for someone who is less popular in India.
Philip Wollen, an Indian-origin Australian philanthropist and environment activist, climbed the stage and cast his spell on the business fraternity in minutes. The way he spoke on the atrocities being committed on the animals around the world for food was mind-blowing! There are millions of animals butchered mercilessly in horrendous ways, he said. Through his presentation, he flipped the audience through the slides manifesting merciless ways which people in different countries have adopted to make animals breathless for food.
He emphasized that “there might be different languages around the world to communicate, but the communication of pain is identical in every language. The painful screams do not need translation but a magnanimous heart.” What threw the audience into a spin was his prediction about the end of the world. He expressed his vehemence against the meat industry which is consuming nature with tonnes of toxic wastage released every year into the ocean. According to him, the meat industry is the biggest threat to the global ecosystem and is set to eat the future of posterity.
Wollen urged the men in power—entrepreneurs—to resort to vegetarian practices and at least make a policy not to serve meat in their organisations. He hailed India as the only country where number of vegetarians are far higher than in the world. But he sees the tradition diminishing and thus warns.
Everyone in the auditorium gave Philip a standing ovation, which was the testimony that his words didn’t bang against the walls but had gone to the hearts also.
I can only conclude the blog post in the words of Maneka Gandhi who once wrote of Philip “Philip Wollen is not a human being. He is from another planet. They simply do not make humans like him any more.”

Winsome Constance Kindness Medal for 2011

2010-12-12T21:15:00.000-08:00

We have again selected an outstanding recipient of the Winsome Constance Kindness Medal for 2011 and we are delighted to advise that the recipient is Dr T. Colin Campbell from New York.

The 2011 Winsome Constance Kindness recipient: Professor T.Collin Campbell

Dr. Ian Gawler, last years recipient of the medal, kindly accept the award on Colin’s behalf.

Colin’s CV

T. Colin Campbell, PhD

Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus

of Nutritional Biochemistry (Cornell)

Author of. "The China Study. Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long Term Health" (Campbell TC and Campbell, TM II, 2005)

T. Colin Campbell, who was trained at Cornell (M.S., Ph.D.) and MIT (Research Associate) in nutrition, biochemistry and toxicology, spent 10 years on the faculty of Virginia Tech's Department of Biochemistry and Nutrition before returning to the Division of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell in 1975 where he presently holds his Endowed Chair (now Emeritus).

His principal scientific interests, which began with his graduate training in the late 1950's, has been on the effects of nutritional status on long term health, particularly on the causation of cancer. He has conducted original research both in laboratory experiments and in large-scale human studies; has received over 70 grant-years of peer-reviewed research funding (mostly NIH), has served on several grant review panels of multiple funding agencies, has lectured extensively, and has authored over 300 research papers. Also, he a) coordinated a USAID-supported technical assistance program for a nationwide nutrition program for malnourished pre-school age children in the Philippines (1966-74), b) organized and directed a multi-national project responsible for nationwide surveys of diet, lifestyle and mortality in the People's Republic of China (1983-present), c) was a co-author and member of National Academy of Science's expert panels on saccharin carcinogenicity (1978); food safety policy (1978-79); diet, nutrition and cancer (1981-82); research recommendations on diet, nutrition and cancer (1982-83); and food labeling policy (1989-1990), d) was the organizer and Co-Chair (but listed as Senior Science Advisor) of the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research report on international diet and cancer recommendations (1993-1997), e) was the principal witness for the National Academy of Sciences in two Federal Trade Commission hearings on issues concerning product-specific health claims (1984-1986), f) was Visiting Scholar at the Radcliffe Infirmary, University of Oxford/England (1985-1986), g) was the Senior Science Advisor for the American Institute for Cancer Research/World Cancer Research Fund (1983-1987, 1992-1997), h) presently holds an Honorary Professorships at the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine and i) is on the Research Advisory Board of the Chinese Institute of Nutritional Sciences in the Chinese Academy of Science, the government’s leading institution responsible for nutrition research and policy in China and is an Advisory Professor of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He is the recipient of several awards, both in research and citizenship. In summary, he has conducted original research investigation both in experimental animal and human studies, and has actively participated in the development of national and international nutrition policy.

Since he accepted his Emeritus position in 2001, he initially devoted his time to co-authoring "The China Study", a anthology-like story of his experimental findings, along with the work of others, His co-author was Thomas M. Campbell II, MD, who switched his career from theater to medicine while writing the book. Following the publication of the book in early 2005, he (Colin Campbell) has lectured extensively, both in the U.S. and abroad, giving more than 300 lectures, most of which are now provided to medical professional communities. The book has become a national best seller at least 6 times over.

In recent years, he has overseen the development of a highly successful on-line course on 'plant-based nutrition' that drew from his lectures that he taught at Cornell for 7 years. This is a unique program that was developed and is now directed by a former student (Meghan Murphy) and others in collaboration with a Cornell University owned company responsible for the development of on-line courses for Cornell faculty. It is hosted by the Campbell Foundation at www.tcolincampbell.org.

A MOST Inconvenient Truth

2010-12-02T00:50:00.000-08:00

Meat The Truth

Meat The Truth is an engaging, thought provoking film produced by the Party for the Animals from the Netherlands. The film picks up where An Inconvenient Truth conveniently left off, and is a must-see for anyone who cares about the future of life on this planet.

A MOST Inconvenient Truth | What Al Gore forgot to mention...
By now you've probably seen 'An Inconvenient Truth', and if you haven't, you are no doubt aware that the Earth is in crisis due to ever increasing greenhouse gases. But do you know the whole story?
While Al Gore focused on carbon emissions, which without question are harmful, he failed to mention that there is a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide that is polluting our environment everyday — methane. The largest producers of methane gas? Livestock.

Did you know that transport systems around the world make up 13% of global greenhouse gases? That may sound like a lot, but livestock farming and production systems make up a whopping 18%. That's right — livestock production is responsible for more greenhouse gases than every single car, bus, train, plane, tractor and scooter put together.
'Meat The Truth' shows us the startling environmental costs of raising animals for food, including how a single dairy cow produces 500-700 litres of methane a day. In one year that cow has created the same amount of greenhouse gas as a medium sized car travelling 70,000 kilometres.
Factory farming of animals also contributes to high levels of carbon dioxide in the air. Carbon sinks such as the Amazon and the Cerrado in Brazil are continuously being cleared for soya bean crops, 75% of which are exported to feed sheep, cattle, pigs and chickens in the Western world. It takes 7Kg of these crops to produce just 1Kg of meat — the livestock industry literally gobbles up this precious food.
To produce animal products, approximately ten times the amount of land is needed than to produce the same amount of vegetable product. It's not hard to see that this is an incredibly inefficient and unsustainable way to produce protein.
Whilst the Australian meat industry attempts to convince the public of its environmental credentials, the reality is that, with the Earth's population predicted to hit 9 billion by 2050, there is just no way for the unsustainable consumption of meat to continue. The answer is simple. Less meat means less animal production, which means less greenhouse gases, less water consumption, less deforestation and finally, less global warming.

Quotes from the Film

“A vegetarian in a Hummer produces fewer greenhouse emissions than a meat eater in a Toyota Prius.”

“People don't realise that it's actually the meat on their plate that's causing global warming rather than the car that they're driving.”
“Everybody needs to know that food and agriculture contributes to climate change and has environmental impact.”

“Half of the total global wheat harvest is used as livestock feed to support out meat and dairy consumption. At the same time, people in poor countries are starving.”

US, the meat industry uses about one third of all the fossil fuels that we generate.”

“I do not believe that we can have a good situation for animals or the environment if we continue to eat as much meat as we're eating.” — Wayne Pacelle, HSUS President

“If you reduce your total [meat] consumption by half ... you cut in half the greenhouse gas emissions ... Our fork is a powerful tool.”

“I knew that what we were doing was wrong, was absolutely, totally non-sustainable.” — Howard Lyman, ex cattle rancher

“If we don't change our eating habits, we will be consuming 450 billion kilos of meat by 2050.”

“The production of 1kg of beef is just as bad for the environment as driving around in the car for three hours while you left all your lights on at home.”

“If all people in the world started eating as much meat as we do, then we'd need three planets to feed them al

The Truth About Tigers

2010-12-01T14:08:00.000-08:00

A 40 minute film on India's wild tigers and their conservation

The Truth About Tigers - Part 1 - a film by Shekar Dattatri

The Truth about Tigers - Part 2 - a film by Shekar Dattatri

The Truth about Tigers - Part 3 - a film by Shekar Dattatri

Clinton's weight loss secret:

2010-10-27T01:33:00.000-07:00

2010 Young Environmentalist of the Year

2010-10-17T01:50:00.000-07:00

2010 Environment Minister's Young Environmentalist of the Year
Matthew Wright
Founder and Executive Director Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE)

Matthew Wright epitomises personal sacrifice, determination, commitment and passion. In 2006, he set up Beyond Zero Emission in response to the inaction of leaders and decision makers in addressing issues related to climate change.

His vision behind Beyond Zero Emission is to help bring about the changes needed to reach a safe climate for current and future generations.
This vision complemented by his inexhaustible passion has generating high level support from a diverse range of sectors.

"Most Australians are aware of current environmental issues and motivated to conserve our environment but there are only a few who go beyond the call of duty and who make an extraordinary effort to protect and repair our environment. The Young Environmentalist of the Year Award allows me to give due credit to those who excel in leadership, dedication and achievement.
Through the 2010 Environment Minister’s Young Environmentalist of the Year Award, I am proud to publicly recognise our nation’s best young achiever and their contribution to the environment and a sustainable future.With this award, I applaud the recipient’s success, I encourage their continued work and I hope other young Australians are inspired. Every single action, no matter how little, counts. The media is filled with stories of what needs to be done, young Australians like these show what can be done."
The Hon Tony Burke, MP
Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities

This Award is presented to an outstanding environmental achievement at a national or international level by an Australian individual between 18 and 30 years of age.

Congratulations To Matthew and the BZE Team
You find the BZE Team in Kindness House, Suite 10 - 288 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy

Oscar's Law - Encourage people to adopt animals from shelters, pounds and rescue organisations Abolish the mass production of dogs - Make factory farming of dogs illegal

2010-09-19T23:52:00.000-07:00

Oscar was rescued from appalling conditions at a puppy farm in Central Victoria, Australia.

Oscar suffered terribly and had infected ears, dental disease and inflamed infected gums, his fur was so matted it felt like concrete and his skin was barely visible. Once his matted fur was shaved under general anesthetic due to the pain he was in, his skin was covered in abscesses caused by grass seeds.

Oscars freedom was short lived. Days after his rescue police raided an animal activist's home and seized Oscar and returned him to the puppy farm.

We need your help to get justice for Oscar and other dogs like him who are factory farmed in Australia.

We need all of you to SPEND 5 MINUTES A DAY to lobby both the Liberal and Labour parties and call for an inquiry into the factory farming of dogs. We want Oscar’s Law. The current legislation is not working, it has never worked since it was introduced in 1994.

OSCAR'S LAW:

Abolish the mass production of dogs. Make factory farming of dogs illegal

Ban the sale of animals from pet shops, online and in print media

Encourage people to adopt animals from shelters, pounds and rescue organisations

Work on increasing the re-homing rate in pounds and shelters and introduce the no-kill philosophy

Please Act

Beyond Zero Emissions won Award

2010-09-08T23:13:00.000-07:00

Last night in Sydney, Mathew Wright won the Young Industrial Achievers Award for Australia.
Beyond Zero Emissions is shortlisted for the Banksia Award too.

The launch of their book " Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan" at Melbourne University was awesome - 900 people showed up - most of them engineers, scientists etc. The University is now partnering Matt and his team.

See below Mathew's Beyond Zero Emissions office in Kindness House - tiny and cramped - where they do so much good work!

Congratulations BZE Team

Matthew Wright and his BZE Team wins EcoGen Clean Energy Young Industry Leader Award 2010

2010-09-08T02:33:00.000-07:00

EcoGen Clean Energy - Young Industry Leader Award 2010

Matthew Wright Executive Director of Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) receives his award presented by Aaron Wood (right).
The Young Industry Leader award recognises an individual who has made major and sustained contributions to the clean energy industry in any area of activity within the industry. The award recognises a contribution over and above the call of duty.
Nominees were judged on their overall contribution, including through their actions, initiative, leadership in the industry and the broader Australasian community, any specific achievements and recognition through other awards or outside the industry.
This is an award not only for Matthew, but for the whole BZE team, whose work has been recognised by EcoGen - well done!

Around The World 25000 People Die of Hunger - A True Story

2010-08-18T01:43:00.000-07:00

Chicken-a-la-Carte

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

24/07/2010 Kartick, Tandrali and Geeta from Friendicoes and Wildlife SOS India , visiting Kindness House in Melbourne

2010-07-23T23:31:00.000-07:00

Click on the image to see all photographs of their visit

Whale Wars 2010 video - What Happend to the Adi Gil

2010-07-20T02:52:00.001-07:00

zSHARE video - whale.wars.s03e06.sliced.in.two.hdtv.xvid-momentum.flv

Background Information

The Confrontation
During Sea Shepherd’s 2009-2010 Antarctic Whale Defense Campaign: Operation Waltzing Matilda, Captain Pete Bethune was volunteering his services as skipper of the Ady Gil. On January 6, 2010, the much larger and more maneuverable Japanese whaling vessel Shonan Maru No. 2 deliberately rammed and split the Ady Gil in two, then hosed its crew members down with water cannons as they scrambled for safety amongst the wreckage.
The Rescue
As the Ady Gil began to take on water, the Shonan Maru No. 2 ignored Sea Shepherd’s multiple requests for assistance. Fortunately, another Sea Shepherd vessel, the Bob Barker, was nearby and was able to rescue the Ady Gil crew members. After repeated attempts by the Bob Barker to salvage and tow the remains of the Ady Gil to a nearby French base, and after removal of all remaining fuel and pollutants on board, the Ady Gil was ultimately deemed unsalvageable and sunk to a watery grave.

Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan Launched

2010-07-15T14:47:00.001-07:00

Press Release:

For immediate release, July 2010

Download the report from here (8.4MB). Purchase a hard copy here.

As our state and federal governments announce climate policies that will result in little effect to Australia’s rising greenhouse gas emissions, a cutting-edge new report released on Wednesday July 14 shows that a 100 per cent renewable electricity supply system implemented in Australia in 10 years is technically feasible and affordable.

A huge crowd filling the seats and the aisles was shown the details of this plan, put together by researchers from Beyond Zero Emissions and the University of Melbourne Energy Institute.

Beyond Zero Emissions Executive Director and lead author Matthew Wright says the new PM must consider the Zero Carbon Australia report’s findings when developing government climate policy.

“All parties must incorporate findings from the Zero Carbon Australia plan into its climate policy. Our research shows that baseload renewable energy is now available and that

Australia

can get started building a renewable energy system, right now, today,” says Matthew Wright.

“

Australia

needs a nation-building climate change project with the scale and vision of a Snowy Mountains Scheme for the 21st Century. We can repower our economy with 100 per cent renewable energy, and set ourselves up for energy security and prosperity” says Wright.

Download the report from here (8.4MB). Purchase a hard copy here.

For further information and comment: Matthew Wright, 0421 616 733
Alternative contact: Pablo Brait, 0421 011 182

Beyond Zero Emissions report - Zero Carbon Australia 2020

2010-07-15T01:37:00.000-07:00

The public launch of the Beyond Zero Emissions report - Zero Carbon Australia 2020 - was delivered by Mathew Wright, Executive Director BZE, to an overflowing audience at Melbourne University last night. The report is one possible blueprint for acting on the challenge of climate change by converting the existing coal and gas fired carbon pollution dependent electricity generation to 100% renewables using only current technologies in ten years.
Related: Renewable energy target: 20 by 2020 or zero emissions by 2020? | Northcote Independent (blog) - Zero emissions challenge to Australia's coal minister
Beyond Zero Emissions has utilised pro-bono research by academic specialists in solar technology, mechanical and electrical engineering and economics, over the last two years to produce this report. It shows how Australia could move from being one of the highest carbon emitters per capita to one of the lowest.

Why is this necessary?

Scientists have been saying Australia needs to reduce carbon emissions by 40 per cent by 2020: "the last Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report (2007) recommended that developed countries should reduce emissions by 25-40% on 1990 levels by 2020. Yet more recent evidence shows that only reductions at the top end of this range will be sufficient to avoid the worst impacts of climate change." said forty of the world’s leading climate scientists in a statement initiated by WWF and released prior to the Copenhagen Climate summit in December 2009.
"The premise of a 10 year transition is based on ‘The Budget Approach’ from the German Advisory Council on Global Change. In order to have a 67% chance of keeping global warming below 2oC above pre-industrial temperatures, on a basis of equal allocation of emissions on a per-capita basis, it would be necessary for the USA to reduce emissions to zero in 10 years. Australia has the same per-capita emissions as the USA, and would need to pursue the same goal," the plan says.
Both the Labor and Opposition parties are aiming at only a 5 per cent emissions reduction by 2020. This falls far short than what the scientists say is required.
Without any action to set a carbon price electricity prices are set to surge due to the business uncertainty around setting a price for carbon. The audience was told that with business as usual it is estimated $100 billion will be invested in electricity sector in Australia over the next decade. New coal fired power plants may find problems being financed due to the uncertainty. Energy producers are more likely to add gas turbine peaking plants which are cheap to build but expensive to run.
A Climate Institute report produced by researchers and business partners recently estimated that uncertainty around whether government will place a price tag on pollution that will cost the economy and consumers $2 billion a year in higher electricity prices. (ABC interview with John Connor from Climate Institute: No ETS means higher electricity prices: study)

Transitioning to Renewable Energy is realistic and achievable at moderate cost

By comparison, economic modelling shows the Zero Carbon Australia 2020 could be implemented for a total cost of about $370 billion, or $37 billion per year - about 3 per cent of GDP per year for 10 years. Included in this cost is a major extension and upgrade to the electricity transmission grid to make it more efficient. Upgrading the existing transmission infrastructure may also help avoid future bush fires caused by poor maintenaince reminiscent of the Black Saturday bushfire in Victoria.
With the exception of the Bass strait link there was been little work upgrading the electricity transmission grid since the 1970s. The cost of building the transmission grid is estimated at 25 per cent of the total project costs.
It could become a 21st century equivalent of the Snowy Mountains Scheme creating up to 80,000 jobs from installation of renewable energy generation at the peak of construction, and over 45,000 jobs in operations and maintenance that will continue for the life of the plant. Such a scheme would also generate up to 30,000 jobs in manufacturing wind turbines and heliostats.
Many of these jobs could be created close to existing coal fired power stations to provide an opportunity to transition the existing workforce. Such a project would also provide Australia with a manufacturing capacity to export renewable technologies to the region and the world.
The Zero Carbon Australia 2020 report shows us one possible mix of current commercial technologies to realise the goal of zero carbon emissions by 2020. Other plans may choose a different mix using slightly different technology. Solar photovoltaic and emerging renewable technologies such as wave, tidal and geothermal have been explicitly excluded from this plan but may well play an active role as these technologies are developed, commercialised, and rolled out.
The plan calls for 40% renewable energy from wind generation, 60% from large scale concentrating solar thermal power with molten salt storage for 24/7 baseload operation, and backup from Hydro-electric and biomass power generation. The plan specifies sites around Australia that are selected for their wind availability, solar incidence, economy of scale, transmission costs, technical efficency, and geographical diversity: 23 sites for wind, and 12 sites for Concentrating Solar Thermal (CST). The plan is based only on existing commercial technology.
Transferring from coal fired electricity generation will require large public and private investments. To assist this a carbon price needs to be set. An emissions trading scheme - Cap and Trade - is open to volatility which produces market uncertainty for business investment decisions as shown by the European Emissions Trading Scheme.
In a question from the floor about setting a carbon price, one of the speakers said what was needed was a combined system where a carbon tax sets a floor price for carbon pollution, with an emissions trading scheme setting a cap on pollution and issuing permits which can be bought and sold. This would provide a stable floor price to base long term business decisions on, while also setting an upper level on total carbon pollution allowed and letting the market determine the price for pollution permits.
So Australia transitioning to an electricity sector based on renewables with zero carbon emissions by 2020 is possible and achievable for a realistic cost.
Impediments to implementing such a nation building scheme includes the lack of political leadership and will from both sides of politics. Our politicians are also being influenced by lobbyists from the very powerful existing coal and electricity industries. These companies have enormous clout and influence on both State and Federal politicians. The relatively small solar and enewable sector just cannot match the funding and power of the fossil fuel industries. To a question from the floor about how we can bring about this change, one of the speakers said we need people power - the electorate needs to tell our politicians in an unambiguous way of its support for action on climate change and transitioning to renewable energy such as this plan.
There was question from the floor about the funding of Carbon capture and storage (CCS). The speaker from the Melbourne Energy Institute said that the research and development of CCS was also required for countries that will continue to rely on coal fired power generation, and as a process to eventually reduce carbon in the atmosphere by sequestration.
I came away from this launch heartened. Thirty five years ago I helped set up a demonstration solar hot water system on the lawns of parliament house in Canberra. Alternative and renewable technology was dismissed as the margin, especially by politicians then. Will our political leaders listen now? I hope so, especially if you support Beyond Zero Emissions ongoing work and tell your Federal and State politicians that we need to transition to a zero carbon pollution economy and society.
You can download the full report as a PDF (8.5MB) or download or purchase a glossy printed copy from The Melbourne Energy Institute, Melbourne University for $30

If you would like to get BZE to your city or town, please contact Pablo@beyondzeroemissions.org.

The BZE team.

http://beyondzeroemissions.org/

Endorsements of the Zero Carbon Australia 2020 plan below:

"With our natural advantage Australia can and should be positioning itself as a global renewable super power for future prosperity. This report will help shift the climate debate to focus on energy; security; affordability; export and of course opportunity. Beyond Zero Emissions offers a new and invigorating message that is much needed”
Professor Robin Batterham,
President, Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering,
formerly Chief Scientist of Australia

“This is an ambitious, technically feasible plan that should be looked at seriously”
Tim Flannery
Professor Faculty of Science
Macquarie University
Australian of the Year 2007

"No doubt improved technologies for tapping usable energy from the sun, the winds, the tides, and the hot core of our planet will emerge as time goes by. But this report shows clearly that the solutions available now are, with our small population and enormous landmass, sufficient for Australia to move forward very quickly to tap renewable energy sources and minimize greenhouse gas emissions. We have the resources. We need the will.
Dr. Peter Doherty, Nobel Laureate, School of Medicine, University of Melbourne

"100 % renewable energy with zero emissions is achievable in Australia in about a decade if politics takes concerted actions…Moreover, Australia can become the initiator for a serious attempt to shift the world to a solar economy. This is the only promising strategy for climate protection and would provide societies around the world with solutions for climate protection, economic development, poverty reduction and conflict resolution. We need action now!"
Hans-Josef Fell, Member of the German Parliament
Alliance 90/The Greens Spokesman for Energy

"To achieve a safe climate future we need an urgent, large-scale transition. The work of Beyond Zero Emissions shows that the technical transition is affordable and achievable. Now we need a social and political transition to get behind it."
Professor Carmen Lawrence,
School of Psychology,
University of Western Australia
Former Premier of Western Australia.

“Renewable energy is the only way to go in the future. Enercon wind energy converters are designed to the newest standards to integrate with the modern high flexibility demands of electricity grids, providing sustainable reliable power to keep the wheels of daily life, household and industry turning. The Zero Carbon Plan outlines a technically achievable plan for generating all of Australias energy from the wind and the sun. It can be a realistic goal if Australia gets immediately seriously committed with decision making from industry and government. We hope that its recommendations are taken up so that Australia can also be a player in the renewable energy economy that is already booming around the world.”
ENERCON GmbH

"As the IEA has shown in its research, solar energy is now a serious global player for providing the world's energy. Australia has one of the world's best solar energy resource, especially suited for concentrating solar thermal power plants, which can dispatch electricity when it is needed. The Zero Carbon Australia Plan is based on up-to-date and sound information and provides quality insights on how a country well-endowed in renewable resources can transition to a solar and wind economy.
Cédric Philibert
Renewable Energy Division
International Energy Agency

"The Zero Carbon Australia 2020 plan shows that it is technically feasible and affordable to replace all fossil fuel electricity with 100% renewable energy given the willpower and commitment to do so. This is a cutting-edge science-based plan that should be read by every energy decision maker and politician in Australia."
Mark Z. Jacobson
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Professor by Courtesy of Energy Resources Engineering
Director, Atmosphere/Energy Program
Stanford University, USA

“It's not the five per cent cut project or the 20 per cent cut project with a bunch of unachievable caveats. It's a zero carbon project and I think people actually want to be told a narrative, a story which is ambitious, which is aspirational, but also practical and I think that is what this project is about.”
Federal Independent Senator Nick Xenophon

"This is a bold and ground-breaking piece of work which should be a wake-up call to all those in government and industry who refuse to see beyond coal”
“This is a very exciting report. It has academic rigour, it has also the hope of a generation and it has thousands of jobs waiting to happen.”
"We can and must aim to power Australia with 100% renewable energy as soon as possible if we are to truly tackle the climate crisis - and the great news is, that will bring huge benefits to us all, cleaning the air and creating jobs and investment from the suburbs to the farmlands.”

"This Zero Carbon Australia plan is an extremely valuable contribution which all in the parliament should be looking at very seriously”
Federal Greens Senator Christine Milne

"Every nation in the world should make a plan like this. If one can get a 100% renewable, zero carbon electricity system by investing 3% of GDP (and 10% of gross investment) for ten years, there is no good reason not to do it. Except, maybe, the straitjacket of old ways of thinking and doing.

This plan lays out a high solar-wind renewable future and then does more. It looks carefully at the materials requirements of such a future, an aspect of the matter too often left unaddressed.

Australia could be the first large economy to show the way."
John O. Blackburn
Professor Emeritus of Economics
Duke University, USA

"Australians are capable of rapid change when the historical circumstances call for it. Indeed, we pride ourselves on being a resourceful people. TheBeyond Zero Emissions team show how inventive and resourceful we can be. Their plan for a transition to 100% renewables is a powerful and cogent response to those who claim it can't be done. The reception this report receives will be a sign of how much Australians believe in their future and how much they take refuge in the thinking of the past."
Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics and author of Requiem for a Species

“For decades, those opposing the transition to clean energy have claimed that it is not technically feasible. This report puts that argument convincingly to bed. There is no longer an excuse for inaction. Starting the transition now is our responsibility to future generations.”
Professor Ian Lowe
President of the Australian Conservation Foundation
Emeritus Professor Griffith University

"The Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan is a provocative and timely contribution to the climate change debate, and it deserves attention both here and abroad. The Plan demolishes a pile of conventional wisdom that Australian policymakers still seem unable to get past. The sorry history of Australian climate policy procrastination is littered with polluter-friendly analyses conducted by economic hired guns. Their work has been used to argue against action, or for illusory schemes that price carbon without reducing the greenhouse pollution billowing from Australian smokestacks and tailpipes. The effect has been to constrain debate and obscure from our view a very different vision—a rapid switch from fossil to renewable energy that makes economic and environmental sense. By highlighting one of many pathways to achieving that vision, the ZCA report sheds light where it is desperately needed."
Dr Guy Pearse
Research Fellow, Global Change Institute
University of Queensland
Author of High & Dry and Quarry Vision

"It is difficult to imagine the Zero Carbon Australia plan being adopted in the context of Australia's current political and commercial culture and power cost structure. However, as an examination of the technical feasibility of achieving its goals as it seeks to shift this culture, it offers an interesting challenge for the imagination of policymakers and power suppliers feeling their way in to an uncertain future."
Keith Orchison
Coolibah Pty Ltd
Former Managing Director
Electricity Supply Association of Australia

”The ZCA report analyses one particular scenario of renewable energy technology choice based on available solutions, in considerable depth. It successfully shows in detail that 100% renewable energy is both technically possible and economically affordable. Clearly other renewable energy technology scenarios are also possible, that only serves to strengthen the overall conclusion about viability. The group is to be congratulated for their efforts."
Associate Professor Keith Lovegrove
Leader High Temperature Solar Thermal Group
Australian National University

“The chips are down - there is no longer any doubt about our need to rapidly transition to a zero emission economy. The fate of Australia and the world depend on it. The Zero Carbon Australia strategy being launched by Beyond Zero Emissions provides the roadmap to the solutions. Let's hope it is adopted by responsible governments everywhere.”
Professor Ove Hoegh-Goldberg, Director, Global Change Institute, The University of Queensland

"Wind Power is now a serious player in international energy. Installing 8000 megawatt-class turbines along with smaller wind turbines and other renewables where appropriate is achievable at a price the community can afford. Direct drive turbines such as the Enercon turbines are very suitable for a modern electricity grid where wind will be relied upon for a large proportion of overall electricity demand."
David Wood
Enmax/Schulich Professor of Renewable Energy
Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
University of Calgary, Canada

“Climate change is a huge threat facing Australia and the world today. We need action now if we are to secure a future for generations to come. The Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan demonstrates that Australia can eliminate greenhouse emissions from the stationary energy sector within a decade – using technology that is commercially available today, and at an acceptable cost. We can’t afford to ignore it.”
Dr David Skellern
CEO NICTA (National ICT Australia)

"The release of Zero Carbon Australia could not be more timely. It will force reconsideration of government policy that, following the change in leadership, appears to be retreating still further from any meaningful commitment to a low-carbon economy. The report is unambiguous in demonstrating that a low-carbon economy is within our technical capacity and that this it is more than economically feasible. The challenge is now that of engaging the political will and bringing this sustainable future to fruition."
Dr Stuart Rosewarne
Chair of the Department of Political Economy
University of Sydney

"I get to work with people all over the world in the fight against global warming, a fight growing increasingly desperate as temperatures climb and rainfall patterns shift. Since Australia leads the world in per capita emissions, it makes sense that its transition planners would be thinking big. This transition obviously won't be easy or simple or cost-free, but given the alternatives it's very nice to know it's technically feasible!"
Bill McKibben
Scholar in residence at Middlebury College, Author and Founder 350.org

“I strongly endorse the broad concept of such a solar and wind plan and applaud the work of the University of Melbourne and Beyond Zero Emissions. Our own work underway to calculate the feasibility of a 100% solar - wind plan for the United States has so far had the aim of testing technical feasibility, and the match seems to be 99-100%. We have considered the biomass backup options as well for CST plants but increased thermal storage also seems to work for a 100% solar - wind system for the USA. I have some differences in the discussion of CST technology used as an example, but the study is at an initial stage. The advent of such a comprehensive study in Australia will assist recognition of our own work directed to the USA case, and speed the market development of the CST and wind technologies to supply economical solar energy both day and night."
Dr David Mills
Founder and past CEO of Solar Thermal power company Ausra

“From the other side of the globe Protermosolar fully shares the vision of the realistic and feasible Zero Carbon Australian Plan. Spain is currently the country with the most intensive deployment of CST (concentrating solar thermal) plants and their contribution to the grid stability and to the dispatchability of power supply has been fully demonstrated. Molten salt storage systems have been implemented in many Spanish plants providing predictable and reliable operation after sunset. Thus CST technologies could be considered as a real alternative to cover even the base load requirements of the electricity system.

“Australia must profit from its high solar resource, the sooner the better. An effective boost to CST and to the other renewable technologies - as presented in this plan – will not only go in the right direction in terms of the transition to a new energy mix but it will also result an excellent business for the Australian economy.”
Dr. Luis Crespo
General-Secretary
Protermosolar
Spanish Association of CST Industries

"This is exactly the type of initiative that we, the solar power industry, needs to propel our technology into the energy markets of Australia. SolarReserve's concentrated solar power towers with molten salt storage are the most reliable, stable form of clean, renewable energy, which is exactly what's needed to achieve the safe climate future proposed in BZE's Zero Carbon Australia roadmap.

"SolarReserve's solar thermal technology with molten salt storage; proven at Solar Two, the US Department of Energy's 10 MW pilot plant that operated for over 3 years in the 1990's, will not only aid in meeting Australia's renewable energy and carbon reduction objectives, but also have significant economic benefits, bringing green jobs and cutting edge technology.

Solar Reserve is willing, ready and able to deploy our molten salt power towers and fully supports the Zero Carbon Australia project."
Tom Georgis
Vice President
SOLARRESERVE

“Beyond Zero Emissions have been in my building, Kindness House, for five years. The dedication of this remarkable team of individuals is astonishing. Most of all, I am impressed by their relentless pursuit of the truth, wherever it may lead. They have built their strategies cautiously, never letting the enthusiasm distract them from the goal of getting the right answers by asking the right questions.

”They are a welcoming organization, drawing experts from a variety of disciplines, methodically searching for practical solutions to the challenges of reducing our massive carbon footprint. I am personally delighted to see the tens of thousands of hours they have invested in this important project, never once complaining about the lack of financial resources at their disposal. They have focussed their attention heavily on the carbon costs of stationary power, transport and building. I look forward to the time when they devote their formidable intellect and energy to the Livestock industry, where so much of our carbon share is squandered and emissions ignored.

”Beyond Zero Emissions is one organization I am proud to say I helped to incubate.

”I urge every serious institution to listen to them attentively. These are serious people for serious times.”
Philip Wollen OAM
Australian of the Year Victoria 2007

“As a company involved in the development of solar plants all over the world, at Torresol Energy we encourage the Zero Carbon Australian Plan that sets the action lines for a future with clean, renewable energy.
“Australia is one of the areas with better solar radiation and forms part of the international ‘sun belt’. Besides, the country has excellent conditions for profiting from that solar radiation: large low-populated areas to build the plants and an industry that can support the technological development in the solar generation sector. In that sense, each of Torresol Energy’s new projects introduces technologically advanced improvements to make Concentrated Solar Energy a manageable, economically competitive option and a real, viable, ecological and
sustainable alternative to traditional energy sources.

“Torresol Energy has three plants currently under construction. Among them, Gemasolar, with an innovative technology of central tower with molten salt receiver and thermal storage system, is the first commercial plant in the world of its kind. Due to this, the project has achieved considerable importance in the field of renewable energies as it opens the path to a new solar thermal power generation. Today, all of the analyses that have been carried out either by ourselves or by major international institutions show that tower plants with thermal storage is the type of technology that will be capable of generating reliable, manageable and renewable energy at the lowest costs. Therefore Australia could adapt this kind of technology in its renewable energy development plan that will allow the country to conserve the environment for future generations with a reliable energy source through utility scale baseload CSP plants."
Santiago Arias
Chief Infrastructure Officer.
Torresol Energy

“That Australia enjoys an abundance of renewable energy resources is beyond question. The Zero Carbon Australia 2020 plan demonstrates that it is both technically feasible and economically affordable for Australia to realise the benefit of these resources and transition to a 100% renewable energy future. Australian politicians and decision makers with the vision and commitment to embrace this new path have the opportunity to play an important role in leading Australia to a sustainable low carbon future.”
Sharon Mascher
Associate Professor
Centre for Mining, Energy and Resources Law
University of Western Australia

How Very True!

2010-07-05T18:06:00.000-07:00

: Today's "Eve of Destruction" by Barry McGuire

Buddhist Prayer

2010-06-21T00:13:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1FFVSN2NIc&feature=related

Prayer for Liberation of Brother and Sister Animals.

May all sentient beings in the animal realm
subject to unbearable pain in labs throughout the world
be free from suffering.
May alternatives to animal experimentation and testing
be used immediately.
May Bodhicitta fill the hearts of those who imprison them.

May all sentient beings from the animal realm
who suffer endless days, months, years
locked in tiny cages unable to move, be
filled with peace and calm.
May the many billions waiting in slaughterhouse
lines be free of fear.
May the hearts of those who work in abattoirs
be filled with Bodhicitta so the very thought of harm is purified.
May they never kill again and may the slaughterhouse lines become immediately empty.

May no animal be afraid or depressed.
May their bodies be free of injuries, disease and illness.
May those who need homes, or who have been driven from them
find shelter, plentiful food & water.
May there be liberation for those
tortured for fur, entertainment or who are hunted.

May those who believe they are superior
to our brother & sister animals
develop perfect equanimity.
And may they realise in their hearts
that all sentient beings possess Buddha nature
And they are not ours to kill or exploit.

May the many billions of land and sea dwelling sentient beings
who are abused, exploited and killed due to greed, hatred and ignorance
be free of suffering
May they experience complete and perfect enlightenment,
through the virtue of my efforts and prayers.
May I be a voice for the voiceless.
In short, may all human and non-human sentient beings
live together in harmony, peace and equanimity
and achieve perfect Enlightenment quickly.

The Animal-Cruelty Syndrome

2010-06-14T23:51:00.000-07:00

Charlotte Dumas/Julie Saul Gallery
By CHARLES SIEBERT
Published: June 7, 2010

• On a late May afternoon last year in southwest Baltimore, a 2-year-old female pit bull terrier was doused in gasoline and set alight. A young city policewoman on her regular patrol of the neighborhood of boarded-up row houses and redbrick housing developments turned her squad car onto the 1600 block of Presbury Street and saw a cloud of black smoke rising from the burning dog. She hopped out, ran past idle onlookers and managed to put out the flames with her sweater. The dog, subsequently named Phoenix, survived for four days with burns over 95 percent of her body, but soon began to succumb to kidney failure and had to be euthanized.
It was only a matter of hours before the story, made vivid by harrowing video footage of the wounded dog, was disseminated nationwide in newspapers, TV and radio newscasts and countless Web sites. An initial $1,000 reward for the capture of the culprits would soon climb to $26,000 as people around the country followed Phoenix’s struggle for life. A gathering of people in Venice Beach, Calif., held a candlelight vigil for her. A month later, the mayor of Baltimore, Sheila Dixon, announced the creation of the Anti-Animal-Abuse Task Force to work in concert with city officials, local law enforcement and animal rights and animal-control groups to find ways to better prevent, investigate and prosecute such crimes.
The scale, speed and intensity of the response were striking. The subject of animal abuse, especially the abuse of pit bulls in dog-fighting activities, has achieved a higher profile after the 2007 arrest of the N.F.L. star Michael Vick for operating an illegal interstate dog-fighting operation in Surry County, Va. But the beleaguered pit bull is merely the most publicized victim of a phenomenon that a growing number of professionals — including police officers, prosecutors, psychologists, social workers, animal-control officers, veterinarians and dogcatchers — are now addressing with a newfound vigor: wanton cruelty toward animals. Before 1990, only six states had felony provisions in their animal-¬cruelty laws; now 46 do. Two years ago, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals formed the nation’s first Mobile Animal Crime Scene Investigation Unit, a rolling veterinary hospital and forensic lab that travels around the country helping traditional law-enforcement agencies follow the evidentiary trails of wounded or dead animals back to their abusers.
In addition to a growing sensitivity to the rights of animals, another significant reason for the increased attention to animal cruelty is a mounting body of evidence about the link between such acts and serious crimes of more narrowly human concern, including illegal firearms possession, drug trafficking, gambling, spousal and child abuse, rape and homicide. In the world of law enforcement — and in the larger world that our laws were designed to shape — animal-cruelty issues were long considered a peripheral concern and the province of local A.S.P.C.A. and Humane Society organizations; offenses as removed and distinct from the work of enforcing the human penal code as we humans have deemed ourselves to be from animals. But that illusory distinction is rapidly fading.
“With traditional law enforcement,” Sgt. David Hunt, a dog-fighting expert with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office in Columbus, Ohio, told me, “the attitude has been that we have enough stuff on our plate, let the others worry about Fluffy and Muffy. But I’m starting to see a shift in that mentality now.” Hunt has traveled to 24 states around the country in order to teach law-enforcement personnel about the dog-fighting underworld, often stressing the link between activities like dog fighting and domestic violence. “You have to sell it to them in such a way that it’s not a Fluffy-Muffy issue,” he said of teaching police officers about animal-abuse issues. “It’s part of a larger nexus of crimes and the psyche behind them.”
The connection between animal abuse and other criminal behaviors was recognized, of course, long before the evolution of the social sciences and institutions with which we now address such behaviors. In his famous series of 1751 engravings, “The Four Stages of Cruelty,” William Hogarth traced the life path of the fictional Tom Nero: Stage 1 depicts Tom as a boy, torturing a dog; Stage 4 shows Tom’s body, fresh from the gallows where he was hanged for murder, being dissected in an anatomical theater. And animal cruelty has long been recognized as a signature pathology of the most serious violent offenders. As a boy, Jeffrey Dahmer impaled the heads of cats and dogs on sticks; Theodore Bundy, implicated in the murders of some three dozen people, told of watching his grandfather torture animals; David Berkowitz, the “Son of Sam,” poisoned his mother’s parakeet.
But the intuitions that informed the narrative arc of Tom Nero are now being borne out by empirical research. A paper published in a psychiatry journal in 2004, “A Study of Firesetting and Animal Cruelty in Children: Family Influences and Adolescent Outcomes,” found that over a 10-year period, 6-to-12-year-old children who were described as being cruel to animals were more than twice as likely as other children in the study to be reported to juvenile authorities for a violent offense. In an October 2005 paper published in Journal of Community Health, a team of researchers conducting a study over seven years in 11 metropolitan areas determined that pet abuse was one of five factors that predicted who would begin other abusive behaviors. In a 1995 study, nearly a third of pet-owning victims of domestic abuse, meanwhile, reported that one or more of their children had killed or harmed a pet.
The link between animal abuse and interpersonal violence is becoming so well established that many U.S. communities now cross-train social-service and animal-control agencies in how to recognize signs of animal abuse as possible indicators of other abusive behaviors. In Illinois and several other states, new laws mandate that veterinarians notify the police if their suspicions are aroused by the condition of the animals they treat. The state of California recently added Humane Society and animal-control officers to the list of professionals bound by law to report suspected child abuse and is now considering a bill in the State Legislature that would list animal abusers on the same type of online registry as sex offenders and arsonists.
When I spoke recently with Stacy Wolf, vice president and chief legal counsel of the A.S.P.C.A.’s Humane Law Enforcement department, which focuses on the criminal investigation of animal-cruelty cases in New York City, she drew a comparison between the emerging mindfulness about animal cruelty and the changing attitudes toward domestic abuse in the 1980s. “It really has only been in recent years that there’s been more free and accurate reporting with respect to animal cruelty, just like 30 years ago domestic violence was not something that was commonly reported,” she said. “Clearly every act of violence committed against an animal is not a sign that somebody is going to hurt a person. But when there’s a pattern of abusive behavior in a family scenario, then everyone from animal-control to family advocates to the court system needs to consider all vulnerable victims, including animals, and understand that violence is violence.”
It isn’t clear whether Phoenix was used for dog fighting. Subsequent examinations of her body did find — along with evidence that gasoline had been poured down her throat — a number of bite wounds. Veterinarians, however, said that those could have been self-inflicted in the course of Phoenix’s frenzied attempts to fight off the flames. But prosecutors also later claimed that Phoenix’s accused assailants, 17-year-old twin brothers named Tremayne and Travers Johnson, of a nearby block of Pulaski Street, were using a vacant neighborhood home for the keeping of pit bulls and other ganglike activities.
The Johnson twins have pleaded not guilty. According to court documents, both suspects, said to be members of the 1600 Boys gang, were identified by a witness as running out of the alley where the dog was set alight. “There was some gang-style graffiti found in that abandoned building,” Randall Lockwood, the A.S.P.C.A.’s senior vice president for forensic sciences and anticruelty projects, and a member of the new Anti-Animal-Abuse Task Force in Baltimore, told me at the A.S.P.C.A.’s Midtown Manhattan offices in December. “There was also dog feces on the premises. Unfortunately, nobody bothered collecting the feces to see if it was from Phoenix.”
Along with the need to track the physical evidence of animal cruelty there is the deeper and more complex challenge of trying to parse its underlying causes and ultimate ramifications. As a graduate student in psychology, Lockwood had an interest in human-animal interactions and the role of animals and education in the development of empathy in children. This inevitably led him to consider the flip side of the equation: the origins of cruelty to animals and what such behavior might indicate about an individual’s capacity for empathy and his or her possible future behavior.
Back in the early 1980s, Lockwood was asked to work on behalf of New Jersey’s Division of Youth and Family Services with a team of investigators looking into the treatment of animals in middle-class American households that had been identified as having issues of child abuse. They interviewed all the members of each family as well as the social workers who were assigned to them. The researchers’ expectation going in was that such families would have relatively few pets given their unstable and volatile environments. They found, however, not only that these families owned far more pets than other households in the same community but also that few of the animals were older than 2.
“There was a very high turnover of pets in these families,” Lockwood told me. “Pets dying or being discarded or running away. We discovered that in homes where there was domestic violence or physical abuse of children, the incidence of animal cruelty was close to 90 percent. The most common pattern was that the abusive parent had used animal cruelty as a way of controlling the behaviors of others in the home. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at what links things like animal cruelty and child abuse and domestic violence. And one of the things is the need for power and control. Animal abuse is basically a power-and-control crime.”
The dynamic of animal abuse in the context of domestic violence is a particularly insidious one. As a pet becomes an increasingly vital member of the family, the threat of violence to that pet becomes a strikingly powerful intimidating force for the abuser: an effective way for a petty potentate to keep the subjects of his perceived realm in his thrall. In 2005, Lockwood wrote a paper, “Cruelty Toward Cats: Changing Perspectives,” which underscores this dynamic of animal cruelty as a means to overcome powerlessness and gain control over others. Cats, Lockwood found, are more commonly victims of abuse than dogs because dogs are, by their very nature, more obedient and eager to please, whereas cats are nearly impossible to control. “You can get a dog to obey you even if you’re not particularly nice to it,” Lockwood told me. “With a cat you can be very nice, and it’s probably going to ignore you, and if you’re mean to it, it may retaliate.”
Whatever the particular intimidation tactics used, their effectiveness is indisputable. In an often-cited 1997 survey of 48 of the largest shelters in the United States for victims of domestic violence and child abuse, more than 85 percent of the shelters said that women who came in reported incidents of animal abuse; 63 percent of the shelters said that children who came in reported the same. In a separate study, a quarter of battered women reported that they had delayed leaving abusive relationships for the shelter out of fear for the well-being of the family pet. In response, a number of shelters across the country have developed “safe haven” programs that offer refuges for abused pets as well as people, in order that both can be freed from the cycle of intimidation and violence.
What cannot be so easily monitored or ameliorated, however, is the corrosive effect that witnessing such acts has on children and their development. More than 70 percent of U.S. households with young children have pets. In a study from the 1980s, 7-to-10-year-old children named on average two pets when listing the 10 most important individuals in their lives. When asked to “whom do you turn to when you are feeling sad, angry, happy or wanting to share a secret,” nearly half of 5-year-old children in another study mentioned their pets. One way to think of what animal abuse does to a child might simply be to consider all the positive associations and life lessons that come from a child’s closeness to a pet — right down to eventually receiving their first and perhaps most gentle experiences of death as a natural part of life — and then flipping them so that all those lessons and associations turn negative.
In a 2000 article for AV Magazine, a publication of the American Anti-Vivisection Society, titled, “Wounded Hearts: Animal Abuse and Child Abuse,” Lockwood recounts an interview he conducted for the New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services in the early 1980s. He describes showing to “a perky 7-year-old boy” a simple drawing of a boy and a dog, playing ball inside a house and a broken lamp on the floor beside them. Lockwood asked the 7-year-old — a child who had witnessed his brother being beaten by their father, who was “reportedly responsible for the ‘disappearance’ of several family pets” — to describe what would happen next in the story of the boy in the picture. “He grew still and sullen,” Lockwood writes, “and shook his head slowly. ‘That’s it,’ he said in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘They’re all going to die.’ ”
Children who have witnessed such abuse or been victimized themselves frequently engage in what are known as “abuse reactive” behaviors, Lockwood said, re-enacting what has been done to them either with younger siblings or with pets. Such children are also often driven to suppress their own feelings of kindness and tenderness toward a pet because they can’t bear the pain caused by their own empathy for the abused animal. In an even further perversion of an individual’s healthy empathic development, children who witness the family pet being abused have been known to kill the pet themselves in order to at least have some control over what they see as the animal’s inevitable fate. Those caught in such a vicious abuse-reactive cycle will not only continue to expose the animals they love to suffering merely to prove that they themselves can no longer be hurt, but they are also given to testing the boundaries of their own desensitization through various acts of self-mutilation. In short, such children can only achieve a sense of safety and empowerment by inflicting pain and suffering on themselves and others.
In March I paid a visit to the newly established Veterinary Forensics Medicine Sciences program at the University of Florida, Gainesville. Directed by Melinda Merck, a veterinarian who serves as the A.S.P.C.A.’s senior director of veterinary forensics and as the “captain” of its new mobile C.S.I. unit, the program is the first of its kind at a major U.S. university. As animal abuse has become an increasingly recognized fixture in the context of other crimes and their prosecution, it is also starting to require the same kinds of sophisticated investigative techniques brought to bear on those other crimes.
Veterinary forensic students at the University of Florida are being trained in the same way that traditional crime-scene investigators are, taking courses in a wide range of topics: crime-scene processing; forensic entomology (determining the time of an animal’s injury or death by the types of insects around them); bloodstain-pattern and bite-mark analysis; buried-remains excavation; and forensic osteology (the study of bones and bone fragments).
“I love being around bones,” Merck proclaimed as she led me into the university’s C. A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory, a sprawling, brashly lighted array of human skeletal remains arranged in meticulous piecemeal patterns on rows of shiny metal tables. “I find bones fascinating. There is a lot of information in them.” Merck, who testifies at animal-cruelty trials across the country, conducted the forensic osteology on the dog remains recovered from the mass graves on Michael Vick’s Virginia property in 2007.
The lab is one of the busiest of its kind in the world, enlisted for countless crime-scene investigations and archaeological digs and to help identify the victims of disasters, including those of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Hurricane Katrina. The fact that one of the examining tables and adjacent bone-boiling and cleansing units have now been assigned to Merck for her own animal-forensic work and course instruction speaks volumes about the shifting perspective toward animal-cruelty crimes. “We have a really cool thing going on here,” Merck told me. “We have the collaborative effort of a lot of big-wig forensic specialists down here with years of experience.”
She led me over to her examining table. Set at one end was what she called “my box of evidence,” a picnic-cooler-size plastic container that held the excavated remains from a mass grave, part of an investigation she is conducting into a suspected dog-fighting operation in Georgia. “In most of our cases of animal cruelty, the bodies are not fresh,” she said. “They’re decomposed. They’re discarded. They’re hidden. And so the advanced post-mortem stage is where we really need to be experts.”
Merck’s 2006 book, “Forensic Investigation of Animal Cruelty: A Guide for Veterinary and Law Enforcement Professionals,” which she wrote with Randall Lockwood and Leslie Sinclair of Shelter Veterinary Services in Columbia, Md., contains a daunting list of the grisly things human beings do to animals: thermal injuries (immolation, baking, microwaving); blunt-force trauma; sharp-force and projectile injuries; asphyxiation; drowning; poisoning; ritual murders; and sexual assault. Merck spared no details in discussing such horrors over the course of a veterinary-forensics lecture I attended earlier that day, held in a conference room at a hotel near the university as part of a four-day seminar. Even Merck’s seasoned audience of out-of-town vets, A.S.P.C.A. disaster-response and investigative-team workers, community-outreach personnel and the chief legal counsel for New York City’s Humane Law Enforcement department could be heard gasping into their coffee mugs as Merck annotated, one after the next, screen-projected slides of stark brutality: blood-drenched dog-fighting pits; bludgeoned, internally hemorrhaging pets; bruised and mutilated canine sexual organs; a heavily duct-taped, paint-coated puppy and the fur-lined, nail-scraped oven walls from which the puppy struggled vainly to escape.
Those whose compassion compels them to confront and combat daily its utter absence are, of necessity, often forced to affect a passionless pose. Merck proceeded through her seminar with clinical speed and precision through a series of signature forensic cases. One of the first pivoted around the mystery of a missing Pomeranian whose owners were convinced had been stolen from their backyard. Merck called up the slide of a tiny skeleton she had rendered in her corner of the lab from remains found in a vacant lot not far from the Pomeranian owners’ home. It looked like a wingless bat, the delicate brace of ribs bearing tiny symmetrical snaps on each side.
“What could have caused these,” Merck asked, pointing her red laser at the breaks. “What could make a dog disappear so fast?”
“Man!” someone called out to bursts of laughter.
“What else,” Merck said, smiling.
“A bird of prey!”
“Yep,” Merck nodded. “Most likely a hawk. These two breaks are where the bird’s talons grabbed hold of the dog. This is why forensic osteology is so important, and yet there’s nothing in our standard veterinary training that teaches us how to look at bones properly.”
Merck soon proceeded to the case of the puppy found four years ago in the oven of a ransacked community center in Atlanta. An outraged local prosecutor called Merck about the case and then showed up at her vet clinic one day with the dog’s remains. “She brings me the puppy, and this . . . ,” Merck said, the slide behind her now sapping the room’s air, “is what she brings me.”
Step by step, from the outer paint to the unraveled layers of duct tape to the dog’s abraded nails and paws to the hem of an old T-shirt that was used as a leash, Merck’s detailed forensic analysis of the victim and of the crime scene would be used to assemble a timeline of events. Ultimately, her analysis would help seal the conviction of two teenage brothers on multiple charges, including burglary, animal cruelty and — because the brothers had shown a number of children at the community center what they had done and then threatened them with their lives if they told anyone — additional charges of child abuse and terroristic threats.
The most common dynamic behind the cases cited that morning was that of a man abusing a family pet to gain control over, or exact revenge against, other family members. Merck told of one puppy found buried in the backyard of a house. As Merck tells it, the dog belonged to the female friend of a woman who had recently left the man with whom she and her two children from a previous marriage were living. She and her children had moved in with the friend, someone who the man decided was keeping him and his estranged partner from reuniting. The girlfriend’s pet, therefore, became for him the optimum vehicle for expressing his rage against both women.
“He tortured the puppy when the two women weren’t home,” Merck told me after her lecture that day. “He also tried to make two of the kids participate just to make it more heinous. So along with the animal cruelty, of course, we had child abuse.”
Merck has made it her mission to urge other vets to report and investigate suspected cases of animal abuse, incorporating a few cautionary tales of her own into her lectures to point up the often dire consequences of failing to do so. One involved a man from Hillsborough County in Florida who was arrested for murdering his girlfriend, her daughter and son and their German shepherd. He had previously been arrested (but not convicted) for killing cats. In another story Merck tells, one related to her by a New York City prosecutor, a woman reported coming home to find her boyfriend sexually molesting her Labrador retriever, but the case never went to trial.
“My point on that one,” Merck told me, “is that no one took precautions to preserve the evidence on the dog. And once it comes down to a he-said-she-said type of situation, you’re lost. These types of cases are difficult enough even when we have all the evidence, in part because it’s very hard for investigators and prosecutors to even consider that someone would do things like this. It’s so disturbing and offensive, they don’t know what to do about it. A lot of the work I do involves not just talking to vets but reaching out to law enforcement to make them more knowledgeable on these matters, to make them understand, for example, that things like sexual assault of children and animals are linked. They are similar victims.”
On our way back to the hotel for an afternoon lecture on forensic entomology, Merck made a little detour to show me the A.S.P.C.A.’s new mobile C.S.I. unit, parked in a side lot of the vet school’s farm-animal compound. Twenty-six-feet long, with its own climate-control, generator, examination room and surgical suite, digital microscope, X-ray machine, sexual-assault kit and anesthesia-oxygen machine, it is essentially a giant emergency room on wheels, allowing Merck and her crew to examine and care for animals at suspected crime scenes and to efficiently analyze and process evidence to ensure its integrity.
The van was an important part of the largest dog-fighting raid in American history last year, in which more than 400 dogs were rescued and 26 people from six states arrested. “We had two forensic teams on board for that,” Merck said. “We had to hit 25 different crime scenes in one day. We hit the first one at 7 a.m., and we finished up at around 6 a.m. the following morning.”
When I asked Merck if she thought incidents of animal cruelty were on the rise or if it was that we are now being more vigilant about them, she said that it is probably more the latter. “We’re more aware now,” she said, “but there is also more of a support system for responding to these incidents. When I started out as a vet 20 years ago, I was one of the few who would call if I got a suspicious case, and that was when such things were still a misdemeanor and it wasn’t law enforcement involved. It was animal control taking care of nuisance animals. Now with veterinarians I tell them you cannot not report, because you don’t know if what you’re seeing on the animal isn’t the proverbial tip of the iceberg.”
Merck then recalled for me a personal experience she most likes to relate in classes and seminars, what she’s dubbed “the tale of the good Samaritan and the savvy vet.” An Atlanta contractor pulled up to a house one morning where he was to perform some work. As he got out of his truck, he heard a dog screaming from the house next door, went over to investigate and saw through an open garage door a dog dragging its back legs and a woman standing beside it. The woman instantly began pleading to the contractor that the dog needed to be euthanized, but she said she couldn’t afford the vet bills. The contractor offered to take the dog to his vet, who, upon examining the dog, agreed that it was too debilitated to be saved. He then told the contractor that there was something suspicious about the case and that he was going to report it to animal services for whom Merck worked at the time as a consultant outside of her daily vet practice.
“They asked me to perform a necropsy,” Merck told me. “It turns out the dog was paralyzed from having been beaten so often. I reported what I found. Police went to the woman’s house to make an arrest. They found a badly bruised boy. And just like that both parents are being hauled off for child abuse. So there was a classic case of the system working like it should.”
Last November, Lockwoodwas asked to testify at the pretrial hearing in which a judge ruled that Tremayne and Travers Johnson would be tried as adults for the burning of Phoenix in Baltimore last year. Lockwood looked at dozens of pictures of Phoenix in order to select which images to present to A.S.P.C.A. staff members. “I could only find one that wasn’t overwhelmingly disturbing,” he told me. “It’s where she’s so bundled up in gauze and bandages you can’t really see anything. It’s easy to empathize with burns because we’ve all been burned, and even if it’s only minor, you realize how painful that is.”
The matter of empathy, of course, goes to the heart of most of our inquiries into the nature of cruel acts and their possible causes. There seems to be little doubt anymore about the notion that a person’s capacity for empathy can be eroded; that someone can have, as Lockwood put it to me, “their empathy beaten or starved out of them.” To date, little is known about the Johnson twins’ background beyond the fact that they both reportedly have chronic truancy issues and previous probation violations and were recently involved with a gang. Along with possible early abuse or genetic and biological components, Lockwood also spoke of the frequent association between environment and acts of violence, how poverty often creates the sense of persecution and injustice that makes some people feel justified in striking back in order to gain the sense of power and control they otherwise lack.
“What I have the most trouble relating to,” Lockwood told me, “and the Phoenix kids might be indicative of this sort of thing, is the kind of cruelty that happens just out of boredom. I’ve had quite a few cases where I ask a kid, Why did you blow up that frog or set fire to that cat? and they don’t respond with answers like ‘I hate cats’ or ‘I didn’t see that as a living thing.’ Their answer is ‘We were bored.’ And then you have to ask yourself, Well, what about alternative pathways to alleviating this boredom? I have difficulty grasping what would be the payoff for setting fire to a dog.”
Neuroscientists are now beginning to get a fix on the physical underpinnings of empathy. A research team at the University of Chicago headed by Jean Decety, a neuroscientist who specializes in the mechanisms behind empathy and emotional self-regulation, has performed fMRI scans on 16-to-18-year-old boys with aggressive-conduct disorder and on another group of similarly aged boys who exhibited no unusual signs of aggression.
Each group was shown videos of people enduring both accidental pain, like stubbing a toe, and intentionally inflicted pain, like being punched in the arm. In the scans, both groups displayed a similar activation of their empathic neural circuitry, and in some cases, the boys with conduct disorder exhibited considerably more activity than those in the control group. But what really caught the attention of the researchers was the fact that when viewing the videos of intentionally inflicted pain, the aggressive-disorder teenagers displayed extremely heightened activity in the part of our brain known as the reward center, which is activated when we feel sensations of pleasure. They also displayed, unlike the control group, no activity at all in those neuronal regions involved in moral reasoning and self-regulation.
“We’re really just beginning to have an inkling of the neurophysiology of empathy,” Lockwood told me. “I think empathy is essentially innate, but I also think empathy can be learned, and I know it can be destroyed. That’s why having a better understanding of the neurophysiology will really help us. Just doing a social intervention on a person doesn’t do any good if you’re not aware of certain physiological deficits. As I heard someone put it at a recent lecture I attended, that would be like an orthopedist telling someone with a broken arm to lift weights. It won’t do anything until the arm is set, and it actually might make things worse. I try to understand who the kids are who seem beyond reach, who seem to have truly impaired systems of empathy. And then I ask, Can that be restored?”
It turns out that just as recent brain-imaging studies have begun to reveal the physical evidence of empathy’s erosion, they are now also beginning to show definitive signs of its cultivation as well. A group of researchers led by Richard Davidson, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, published a study in a March 2008 edition of the Public Library of Science One, showing that the mere act of thinking compassionate thoughts caused significant activity and physical changes in the brain’s empathic pathways. “People are not just stuck at their respective set points,” Davidson has said of the study’s results. “We can take advantage of our brain’s plasticity and train it to enhance these qualities. . . . I think this can be one of the tools we use to teach emotional regulation to kids who are at an age where they’re vulnerable to going seriously off track.”
To date, one of the most promising methods for healing those whose empathic pathways have been stunted by things like repeated exposure to animal cruelty is, poetically enough, having such victims work with animals. Kids who tend to be completely unresponsive to human counselors and who generally shun physical and emotional closeness with people often find themselves talking openly to, often crying in front of, a horse — a creature that can often be just as strong-willed and unpredictable as they are and yet in no way judgmental, except, of course, for a natural aversion to loud, aggressive human behaviors.
Equine-therapy programs, for example, are now helping an increasing number of teenagers who have severe emotional and behavioral issues, as well as children with autism and Asperger’s syndrome. At Aspen Ranch in Loa, Utah, troubled teenagers are being paired off with wild mustangs that have been adopted from the Bureau of Land Management, each species ultimately managing to temper the other, a dynamic that has also proved very effective in teaching patience and empathy to prisoners in correctional facilities. In the Los Angeles suburb of Compton, there is a youth equestrian program called the Compton Junior Posse. Teenagers clean stables, groom horses and then ride them in amateur equestrian events across Southern California. There are now bovine- and elephant-assisted therapy programs as well.
For Lockwood, animal-therapy programs draw on the same issues of power and control that can give rise to animal cruelty, but elegantly reverse them to more enlightened ends. “When you get an 80-pound kid controlling a 1,000-pound horse,” he said, “or a kid teaching a dog to obey you and to do tricks, that’s getting a sense of power and control in a positive way. We all have within us the agents of entropy, especially as kids. It’s easier to delight in knocking things down and blowing stuff up. Watch kids in a park and you see them throw rocks at birds to get a whole cloud of them to scatter. But to lure animals in and teach them to take food from your hand or to obey commands, that’s a slower process. Part of the whole enculturation and socialization process is learning that it’s also cool and empowering to build something. To do something constructive.”
Charles Siebert, a contributing writer, is the author, most recently, of “The Wauchula Woods Accord: Toward a New Understanding of Animals.”

Deep Water Horizon sea massacre

2010-06-08T16:14:00.001-07:00

Philip WollenDear friends,

You simply must look at these photographs. This is important.

Deep Water Horizon Sea Massacre

I also have photographs of oil soaked sea birds and animals enduring horrifying deaths.

It is time to get fossil fuels off the agenda. It is not beyond our collective will or wit.

Phil

Hear Me Roar by Moira Rayners

2010-05-20T23:36:00.000-07:00

A Presentation in Law Week hosted by Lawyers for Animals and Victorian Women Lawyers at Victoria University 20th May 2010

Moira Rayner: a freelance writer, lawyer, and academic talks about the parallels and intersections between equal rights and animal rights in society and law.

Going five animals more

2010-05-20T20:14:00.000-07:00

Philip Wollen

A few years ago I prepared a list.

And it dawned on me that here were literally thousands of animals I didn't eat. . . . . . dogs or cats, bears or bats, tigers or turtles, horses or hamsters, rosellas or rats.

Nor did I drink the milk of dogs, donkeys, giraffes, or cats.

I decided to go only five animals more. . . . I simply added cows, sheep, pigs, chickens and fish to the list.

It was a breeze.

I didn't crave lamb any more than I craved lion; I didn't miss beef any more than I missed bandicoots. I didn't miss chicken any more than I missed cheetah. I didn't miss pork any more than I missed porcupine.

I replaced dead animals with an astounding variety of colorful, delicious and healthy plant foods.

And I feel better for it.

I sleep peacefully and deeply. I now have boundless energy, more than people half my age.

My memory has improved rapidly. I remember what an unexamined life I had lived.

And I care more deeply. For my family, my friends, my colleagues and associates. For strangers I have never met. For causes I have only heard about. For ideas. For the arts – music, poetry, theatre, literature, painting, the ballet.

Everything of beauty seems to come alive. More vividly. More subtly. More completely.

I didn't know what I had been missing.

My greatest regret in life was that I did not do this earlier. What madness could infect us so profoundly that we justify the murder of weaker innocent living beings?

When I die I would like the chapel to be filled with people I have loved. Not the tortured souls of animals I have killed.

Adding only five animals to an already huge list was the easiest (and wisest) thing I ever did.

Try it. You won't regret it. Not for a second.

The animals will thank you for it.

The planet will thank you for it.

And the farmers, the taxpayers and your family will thank you too.

Good things will come to you. It is inevitable.

Stop Animal Sacrifice Nepal

2010-04-30T14:32:00.000-07:00

The Winsome Constance Kindness Trust Supports The

Stop Animal Sacrifice Nepal Campaign

Animal Sacrifices and cruel sports in Nepal

In Nepal animal sacrifice is widely practiced. Goddess temples awash with blood on days deemed auspicious for sacrifice. During festivals even more animals are being sacrificed, at times hundreds of thousands in the span of 24 hours. Nepal’s government subsidizes certain animal sacrifice rituals such as Dasain sacrifice (shown live on national TV) and Gadhimai festival. The Nepal army and police regularly conduct sacrifices.

Website

www.stopanimalsacrifice.org

Facts and Figures

ü Animal sacrifice is conducted in most goddess temples

ü The total number of animals sacrifices annually is estimated to be a few hundred thousand; most villages offer 250-1000 animals during Dasain festival

ü Sacrifices are generally conducted in the presence of children and shown live on TV

ü There is no law to regulate animal sacrifice and sports involving animals

ü The government supports sacrifices with subsidies

ü Apart from known sacrifice through throat slitting and beheading other extreme forms of blood sacrifices include the tearing apart of a live goat by young men, burning of live snakes, live skinning of pigs and buffaloes, removal of hearts of live animals, etc

ü There is very little awareness about the welfare aspect of blood sacrifices

ü Cruel sports and animal cruelty for entertainment include bear dancing, elephant polo, bull fights, yak blood drinking, and the tearing apart of live goats

ü Grave abuse takes place in the transport and killing of the animals

ü Gadhimai festival takes place once every 5 years and ranks among the world’s worst forms of animal cruelty

ü Over half of animals sacrificed at Gadhimai are illegally brought in from India

5 year campaign

The Animal Welfare Network Nepal together with local and international partners has launched a 5-year campaign aimed at phasing out animal sacrifices and cruel sports within Nepal.

Specific Objectives:

1. To pressurize authorities and civil society to end animal sacrifice and cruel sports

2. To conduct a grassroots education campaign

3. To conduct a national awareness-raising campaign

4. To collect and publicize data on animal sacrifices and cruel sports within Nepal

5. To sensitize media representatives and conduct media outreach activities

6. To form a coalition of international organizations and individuals across the world

What can you do?

Visit the campaign website www.stopanimalsacrifice.org, sign the petition and write letters to Nepalese authorities to express your concerns.

;

Favorite Poetry

2010-04-27T01:50:00.000-07:00

Snake

D.H Lawrence

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him?

Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him?

Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

Taormina, 1923

Interrogate the factory gate

Philip Wollen

"I remember when

I was a battery hen”

I remember when

I was a battery hen

I saw my burned off beak

Terrify

My burning eyes

I’ll try not to struggle

I promise.

Steel cage bars

Are harder than feathers

I know.

Where is Prufrock?

Was Dante a chicken too?

Did his legs ache

And was Vergil his friend?

Was he nice?

Am I unique

One in a million

Or one of a billion

In prison

Who was Kafka?

Do you hate me.

I’m sorry.

I’ll be good

Please set me free

In the afternoon.

May I have a sand bath?

Just this once

No, I don’t know what it is.

But I think it’s nice.

No, nobody told me.

I like to come out

But I think I’ve gone

Insane

Have all the others

Done the same?

What’s my name

Are my eggs up to scratch

Are you still there

And how did I break my wing

I don’t know how to cry.

Why do I remember things

I’ve never seen.

My mother said my imagination

Would be the end of me.

Who was she?

When you leave at night

Please turn out the light

And put the pain out

With the factory cat.

I may not be here in the morning.

Can you tell me

Anything?

While we have this time

Together?

Like why?

Interrogate

The factory gate

He saw

Everything

Will he remember

Me.

When I have gone.

-------

John Donne: Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions

MEDITATION XVII.

NUNC LENTO SONITU DICUNT, MORIERIS.

No man is an island. entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

------------------------

La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad

By John Keats

O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,

So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel’s granary is full,

And the harvest’s done.

I see a lily on thy brow,

With anguish moist and fever-dew,

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads

Full beautiful—a faery’s child,

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She looked at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

A faery’s song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna-dew,

And sure in language strange she said—

‘I love thee true’.

She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she wept and sighed full sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes

With kisses four.

And there she lullèd me asleep,

And there I dreamed—Ah! woe betide!—

The latest dream I ever dreamt

On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried—‘La Belle Dame sans Merci

Thee hath in thrall!’

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,

With horrid warning gapèd wide,

And I awoke and found me here,

On the cold hill’s side.

And this is why I sojourn here,

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is withered from the lake,

And no birds sing.

--------------------------

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

------------------------------

Desiderata

Max Ehrmann

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

------------------------------

The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner

Samuel Coleridge

Part I

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

The bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
Mayst hear the merry din.'

He holds him with his skinny hand,
"There was a ship," quoth he.
'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!'
Eftsoons his hand dropped he.

He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The Mariner hath his will.

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

"The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the lighthouse top.

The sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he!
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.

Higher and higher every day,
Till over the mast at noon—"
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

"And now the storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And foward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!

And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white moonshine."

'God save thee, ancient Mariner,
From the fiends that plague thee thus!—
Why look'st thou so?'—"With my crossbow
I shot the Albatross."

Part II

"The sun now rose upon the right:
Out of the sea came he,
Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.

And the good south wind still blew behind,
But no sweet bird did follow,
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariners' hollo!

And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work 'em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!

Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,
The glorious sun uprist:
Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.
'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

Down dropped the breeze, the sails dropped down,
'Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the moon.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue, and white.

And some in dreams assured were
Of the Spirit that plagued us so;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.

And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was withered at the root;
We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.

Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung."

Part III

"There passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye.
A weary time! a weary time!
How glazed each weary eye—
When looking westward, I beheld
A something in the sky.

At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist;
It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it neared and neared:
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged and tacked and veered.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could nor laugh nor wail;
Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail! a sail!

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
Agape they heard me call:
Gramercy! they for joy did grin,
And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.

See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
Hither to work us weal;
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel!

The western wave was all a-flame,
The day was well nigh done!
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright sun;
When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the sun.

And straight the sun was flecked with bars,
(Heaven's Mother send us grace!)
As if through a dungeon-grate he peered
With broad and burning face.

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!
Are those her sails that glance in the sun,
Like restless gossameres?

Are those her ribs through which the sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a Death? and are there two?
Is Death that Woman's mate?

Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice;
'The game is done! I've won! I've won!'
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

The sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:
At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper o'er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.

We listened and looked sideways up!
Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
My life-blood seemed to sip!
The stars were dim, and thick the night,
The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;
From the sails the dew did drip—
Till clomb above the eastern bar
The horned moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.

One after one, by the star-dogged moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.

Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

The souls did from their bodies fly,—
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my crossbow!"

Part IV

'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!
I fear thy skinny hand!
And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.

I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand, so brown.'—
"Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!
This body dropped not down.

Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.

The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie;
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.

I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came and made
My heart as dry as dust.

I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat;
Forthe sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky,
Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.

The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they:
The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away.

An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man's eye!
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.

The moving moon went up the sky,
And no where did abide:
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside—

Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread;
But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
The charmed water burnt alway
A still and awful red.

Beyond the shadow of the ship
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

The selfsame moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea."

Part V

"Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from heaven,
That slid into my soul.

The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,
I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank;
Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.

I moved, and could not feel my limbs:
I was so light—almost
I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed ghost.

And soon I heard a roaring wind:
It did not come anear;
But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.

The upper air burst into life!
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,
To and fro they were hurried about!
And to and fro, and in and out,
The wan stars danced between.

And the coming wind did roar more loud,
And the sails did sigh like sedge;
And the rain poured down from one black cloud;
The moon was at its edge.

The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
The moon was at its side:
Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning fell with never a jag,
A river steep and wide.

The loud wind never reached the ship,
Yet now the ship moved on!
Beneath the lightning and the moon
The dead men gave a groan.

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never a breeze up blew;
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do;
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools—
We were a ghastly crew.

The body of my brother's son
Stood by me, knee to knee:
The body and I pulled at one rope,
But he said nought to me."

'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!'
"Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!
'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
Which to their corses came again,
But a troop of spirits blest:

For when it dawned—they dropped their arms,
And clustered round the mast;
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
And from their bodies passed.

Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
Then darted to the sun;
Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mixed, now one by one.

Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the skylark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning!

And now 'twas like all instruments,
Now like a lonely flute;
And now it is an angel's song,
That makes the heavens be mute.

It ceased; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.

Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe;
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath.

Under the keel nine fathom deep,
From the land of mist and snow,
The spirit slid: and it was he
That made the ship to go.
The sails at noon left off their tune,
And the ship stood still also.

The sun, right up above the mast,
Had fixed her to the ocean:
But in a minute she 'gan stir,
With a short uneasy motion—
Backwards and forwards half her length
With a short uneasy motion.

Then like a pawing horse let go,
She made a sudden bound:
It flung the blood into my head,
And I fell down in a swound.

How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare;
But ere my living life returned,
I heard and in my soul discerned
Two voices in the air.

'Is it he?' quoth one, 'Is this the man?
By him who died on cross,
With his cruel bow he laid full low
The harmless Albatross.

The spirit who bideth by himself
In the land of mist and snow,
He loved the bird that loved the man
Who shot him with his bow.'

The other was a softer voice,
As soft as honey-dew:
Quoth he, 'The man hath penance done,
And penance more will do.'

Part VI

First Voice

But tell me, tell me! speak again,
Thy soft response renewing—
What makes that ship drive on so fast?
What is the ocean doing?

Second Voice

Still as a slave before his lord,
The ocean hath no blast;
His great bright eye most silently
Up to the moon is cast—

If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see! how graciously
She looketh down on him.

First Voice

But why drives on that ship so fast,
Without or wave or wind?

Second Voice

The air is cut away before,
And closes from behind.

Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!
Or we shall be belated:
For slow and slow that ship will go,
When the Mariner's trance is abated.

"I woke, and we were sailing on
As in a gentle weather:
'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high;
The dead men stood together.

All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
All fixed on me their stony eyes,
That in the moon did glitter.

The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never passed away:
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor turn them up to pray.

And now this spell was snapped: once more
I viewed the ocean green,
And looked far forth, yet little saw
Of what had else been seen—

Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.

But soon there breathed a wind on me,
Nor sound nor motion made:
Its path was not upon the sea,
In ripple or in shade.

It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek
Like a meadow-gale of spring—
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sailed softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze—
On me alone it blew.

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
The lighthouse top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own country?

We drifted o'er the harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray—
O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.

The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn!
And on the bay the moonlight lay,
And the shadow of the moon.

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,
That stands above the rock:
The moonlight steeped in silentness
The steady weathercock.

And the bay was white with silent light,
Till rising from the same,
Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colours came.

A little distance from the prow
Those crimson shadows were:
I turned my eyes upon the deck—
Oh, Christ! what saw I there!

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
And, by the holy rood!
A man all light, a seraph-man,
On every corse there stood.

This seraph-band, each waved his hand:
It was a heavenly sight!
They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light;

This seraph-band, each waved his hand,
No voice did they impart—
No voice; but oh! the silence sank
Like music on my heart.

But soon I heard the dash of oars,
I heard the Pilot's cheer;
My head was turned perforce away,
And I saw a boat appear.

The Pilot and the Pilot's boy,
I heard them coming fast:
Dear Lord in heaven! it was a joy
The dead men could not blast.

I saw a third—I heard his voice:
It is the Hermit good!
He singeth loud his godly hymns
That he makes in the wood.
He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away
The Albatross's blood."

Part VII

"This Hermit good lives in that wood
Which slopes down to the sea.
How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
He loves to talk with marineers
That come from a far country.

He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve—
He hath a cushion plump:
It is the moss that wholly hides
The rotted old oak-stump.

The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk,
'Why, this is strange, I trow!
Where are those lights so many and fair,
That signal made but now?'

'Strange, by my faith!' the Hermit said—
'And they answered not our cheer!
The planks looked warped! and see those sails,
How thin they are and sere!
I never saw aught like to them,
Unless perchance it were

Brown skeletons of leaves that lag
My forest-brook along;
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,
That eats the she-wolf's young.'

'Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look—
(The Pilot made reply)
I am afeared'—'Push on, push on!'
Said the Hermit cheerily.

The boat came closer to the ship,
But I nor spake nor stirred;
The boat came close beneath the ship,
And straight a sound was heard.

Under the water it rumbled on,
Still louder and more dread:
It reached the ship, it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.

Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote,
Like one that hath been seven days drowned
My body lay afloat;
But swift as dreams, myself I found
Within the Pilot's boat.

Upon the whirl where sank the ship
The boat spun round and round;
And all was still, save that the hill
Was telling of the sound.

I moved my lips—the Pilot shrieked
And fell down in a fit;
The holy Hermit raised his eyes,
And prayed where he did sit.

I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,
Who now doth crazy go,
Laughed loud and long, and all the while
His eyes went to and fro.
'Ha! ha!' quoth he, 'full plain I see,
The Devil knows how to row.'

And now, all in my own country,
I stood on the firm land!
The Hermit stepped forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.

O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!
The Hermit crossed his brow.
'Say quick,' quoth he 'I bid thee say—
What manner of man art thou?'

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
With a woeful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns;
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.

I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.

What loud uproar bursts from that door!
The wedding-guests are there:
But in the garden-bower the bride
And bride-maids singing are;
And hark the little vesper bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer!

O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea:
So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.

O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
'Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!—

To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay!

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone; and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man
He rose the morrow morn.

------------------------------------------------------

The Raven

Edgar Allan Poe

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door -
Only this, and nothing more."

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore -
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,
"'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -
This it is, and nothing more."

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you"- here I opened wide the door; -
Darkness there, and nothing more.

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore?"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" -
Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice:
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -
'Tis the wind and nothing more."

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore -
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning- little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door -
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing further then he uttered- not a feather then he fluttered -
Till I scarcely more than muttered, "other friends have flown before -
On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said, "Nevermore."

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore -
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never - nevermore'."

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er,
She shall press, ah, nevermore!

Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite - respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore:
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -
On this home by horror haunted- tell me truly, I implore -
Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil - prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore -
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

"Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend," I shrieked, upstarting -
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!

Karakul Lambs

2010-04-26T18:40:00.001-07:00

Watch the 3 minute video. Any wonder why decent people get outraged?

www.all-creatures.org/aip/nl-20100405-11.html

Earthlings

2010-04-25T01:40:00.000-07:00

One of the most important films ever made. Every human being on this planet should see this movie. Please share.

Narrated by Academy Award Nominee Joaquin Phoenix and featuring music by the critically acclaimed platinum artist Moby, EARTHLINGS is a documentary film about humankind's exploitation of animals raised for pets, food, clothing, entertainment and scientific research.

Using hidden cameras and never-before-seen footage, EARTHLINGS chronicles the day-to-day practices of the largest industries in the world, all of which rely entirely on animals for profit. Powerful, informative, controversial and thought-provoking, EARTHLINGS is by far the most comprehensive documentary ever produced on the correlation between nature, animals and human economic interests.

This movie should be part of the school curriculum. It will describe the values of our society to future generations better than any book.

Earthlings

Narrated by Academy Award Nominee Joaquin Phoenix

2010-04-24T01:20:00.000-07:00

140 Billion Animals Slaughtered Every Year

These are the numbers of animals killed worldwide by the meat, egg, and dairy industries every year. These numbers do NOT include the many millions of animals killed each year in vivisection laboratories. They do NOT include the millions of dogs and cats killed in animal shelters every year. They do NOT include the animals who died while held captive in the animal-slavery enterprises of circuses, rodeos, zoos, and marine parks. They do NOT include the animals killed while pressed into such blood sports as bullfighting, cockfighting, dogfighting, and bear-baiting, nor do they include horses and greyhounds who were exterminated after they were no longer deemed suitable for racing.

Estimating Slaughter of Marine Animals

Most animal-rights organizations will shun entirely the matter of quantifying marine-animal slaughter. That's because, in truth, it's impossible to predict with much precision how many marine animals are killed annually for food. The world's fisheries record their catches in terms of metric tons, not the numbers of individuals that animal-rights groups are concerned about.

Killing Clock: Animals Slaughtered during the time you are reading this

2010-04-23T23:18:00.000-07:00

ADAPTT :: Animals Deserve Absolute Protection Today and Tomorrow >> The Animal Kill Counter: Basic Version

Animals Slaughtered:

0 marine animals
0 chickens
0 ducks
0 pigs
0 rabbits
0 turkeys
0 geese
0 sheep
0 goats
0 cows and calves
0 rodents (excluding rabbits)
0 pigeons and other birds
0 buffaloes
0 horses, donkeys, mules, camelids

Credit to ADAPTT for this source code, Thanks.

2010-04-07T16:08:00.000-07:00

Best Friends

Animal Society News

Blue Cross of India: Mrs. Usha Sundaram will be greatly missed

The co-Founder of Blue Cross of India, Mrs. Usha Sundaram, passed away this past Sunday, April 4,

April 06, 2010, 1:1AM MT

The co-Founder of Blue Cross of India, Mrs. Usha Sundaram, passed away this past Sunday, April 4, after a brief illness, with her family by her side.

Mrs. Sundaram spent her entire lifetime helping animals. In 1959, she, along with her husband, Captain Sundaram, and their children, started Blue Cross of India by rescuing animals in need and caring for them at their home. Soon their home was filled with all sorts of animals: cats, dogs, goats, and occasionally mongooses.

In the years prior to starting Blue Cross, they had both been pilots (in the days when women did not become pilots, especially not in India). From 1945 to 1951, they flew together piloting the plane of the Prime Minister, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

Blue Cross moved out of their home and became the first of the modern-style animal shelters in India. The kindness and compassion of Mrs. Sundaram spread very far afield, as the work that she and her husband (who passed away in May, 1997) began, has been carried on by their son, Dr. S. Chinny Krishna, the Chairman of Blue Cross.

Long before any other similar program in the world, forty-five years ago, Blue Cross began, and continues today, their ABC (Animal Birth Control – TNR) program for community animals. It is a successful, model, no-kill program that has resulted in the elimination of cases of rabies in the city of Chennai, as well as saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of dogs and cats.

It would be difficult to overstate the impact that Blue cross has had on the global no-kill movement. The ABC program has been formally adopted into the national law of India and has been taken up by animal welfare groups in many countries.

Blue Cross is one of the largest animal sanctuaries in the world with five separate shelters—caring for dogs, cats, cows, pigs, monkeys who were lab animals, and other animals.

Mrs. Sundaram was especially fond of cats, and in 1999, she and other family members donated a 600 foot cattery, a beautiful area with trees and a covered shelter, to the Blue Cross center at Guindy, in Chennai.

She and her family were instrumental also in the passing of many ground-breaking laws to safeguard animals in India—and in working with others to establish one of the most enlightened legal animal protection frameworks in the world. These measures built on the protection given to animals by the Constitution of India, as well as the tradition of reverence for animals that has been in existence in India for thousands of years.

During her lifetime, she made substantial donations to the Blue Cross centers at Adyar and Guindy for the cat and dog shelters. After she passed away, her eyes were donated, following her wishes, to the Shankar Netrayala eye bank, and two persons will be able to see again thanks to this gift.

Mrs. Sundaram was a pioneer in the field of animal welfare, and the love, kindness and compassion that she extended so selflessly to animals is carried on today by Blue Cross of India and by countless other organizations in India and far beyond who’ve been inspired by the work that she and Captain Sundaram began so many years ago.

To visit the website of Blue Cross of India, please click here.

Photo: Trix Wollen / Mrs. Usha Sundaram, with her son, Dr. S. Chinny Krishna (left) and Phil Wollen of Winsome Constance Kindness Trust (right)

Thanks to Animal People Newspaper for sharing the photo.

Vegan lifestyle holds key to a spiritually-evolved society

2010-02-10T19:00:00.000-08:00

Philip Wollen OAM: Vegan lifestyle holds key to a spiritually-evolved society

Philip Wollen OAM's Notes

Vegan lifestyle holds key to a spiritually-evolved society-Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 11:29pm

The most beautiful word ever written in any country, in any language, at any time in human history came from India. From the Upanishads 5,000 years ago. That word is Ahimsa, meaning non-violence towards any living being.

Why does this Sanskrit word dominate my every breath?
I heard the screams of my dying father as his body was ravaged by the cancer that killed him. And I realise I have heard these screams before in the slaughterhouses, on the cattle ships to the Middle East and the dying mother whale as a harpoon explodes in her brain as she calls out to her calf. Their cries are the cries of my father. I discovered that screams are identical in any species. When we suffer, we suffer as equals.

And in their capacity to suffer, a dog is a pig is a bear is a boy.

Henceforth, I am no longer just an Australian, male, vegan. I am an Ahimsan. We may be Indian, Australian, American, English, or Palestinian. We may be Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh or Jain (or no religion at all). But if we are to live an authentic life we must share common ground without sacrificing our other beliefs. That meeting place is Ahimsa.

My goal is to make Ahimsa a truly global phenomenon, because it describes our character enlightened, elegant and educated. Socrates was right an unexamined life is not worth living. We do not find our character on Wall Street it lives on the Road to Damascus.
Imagine the day when we can say in the UN: India is the Ahimsan country where bloodshed is banned. India is the only country in the world where animal rights are enshrined in the Constitution? Animal Rights are now the greatest social issue since the abolition of slavery. India is the canary in the mineshaft. If Ahimsa dies in India, its birthplace, the world is profoundly lost. The game is over. Sadly, India has blindly followed the West in her hideous tastes for the flesh of murdered animals. Isnt it ironic - it was Gandhi who said, "A nation is judged by the way she treats her animals."

So I plead with you. India must not become a photocopied clone of the West. She must protect her civilised values. The moral high ground is vacant. India can change the world. But she must speak out and act courageously.

There are only 13 million Jews in the world. But they play a vibrant role in world affairs. Tibets population is only three million. But who hasnt heard of the plight of the Tibetans under the boot of Beijing?
But there are over 600 million vegetarians in the world, most of them Indian. That is bigger than the US, England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Canada, Australia combined! If we were one nation we would be bigger than the 27 countries in the European Union!

Despite this massive footprint, we are still drowned out by the raucous huntin, shootin, killin bombin cretins who believe that violence is the answer when it shouldnt even be a question. Anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, "Never doubt that a few committed people can change the world. It is the only thing that ever has."

The writer is an Australian
philanthropist, vegan and the founder of the Winsome Constance Kindness Trust

Dr. Ian Gawler receives the Kindness Medal

2010-01-01T02:10:00.000-08:00

Click on link for more photographs

2010 Kindness Trust Medal recipient: Dr Ian Gawler

Founder of The Gawler Foundation - Australia

Radical kindness: the banker who gave it all away

2009-12-15T01:16:00.000-08:00

Kindness House

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article in the Melbourne Age

Radical kindness: the banker who gave it all away

Katherine Kizilos
The Age April 10, 2009

Philip and Trix Wollen own Kindness House in Fitzroy, where two thirds of the tenants don't pay rent.

ON THE face of it, kindness doesn't sound like a radical idea, just as Philip Wollen, at first glance, does not look like a radical. Wollen is a former merchant banker. He was a vice-president of Citibank when he was 34, and a general manager at Citicorp. Australian Business Magazine named him one of the top 40 headhunted executives in Australia. But about 1990 — he is not exactly sure of the year — Wollen decided to give away 90 per cent of his capital, a process he describes as "reverse tithing".
Since then Wollen has donated millions to improving the environment and helping the powerless — children, animals and the terminally ill — around the world. He sponsors the anti-whaling vessel the Sea Shepherd and the South Australian Children's Ballet Company, and has built schools, orphanages, lion parks and sanctuaries. His Winsome Constance Kindness Trust supports more than 400 projects in 40 countries. Wollen says his aim is to die broke, to give away all he owns with "warm hands", and that he is on track to do so.
In recent years, he has occasionally appeared in the local press, writing a letter in support of animal rights, for instance, or responding to a humanitarian crisis. In 2005, when 104-year-old Chinese woman Cui Yu Hu, a resident of Melbourne, was struggling to receive an aged person's visa that would give her the right to medical benefits, Wollen offered to pay all her bills himself. In 2007, he was named Victorian of the Year.
But mostly he does his work away from the public gaze. The trust's website says "we don't want your money", and its mission statement is ambitious: "to promote kindness towards all other living beings and enshrine it as a recognisable trait in the Australian character and consciousness."
When Wollen decided to give away his millions, he was single. Now he is married to Trix and says he cannot imagine how he would get along without her. "I help with the practical aspects," she says quietly.
Our interview takes place at Kindness House, the trust's most visible presence in Melbourne. The building on the corner of Brunswick and Johnston streets in Fitzroy provides office space to 29 non-government organisations including the Wilderness Society, Greenpeace, the Australian West Papua Association, Social Firms Australia and Rescued with Love, an adoption program for small dogs.
On one side of the building, posters promoting local live acts are plastered on a "what's on wall". Local street artists were paid to paint the murals in the lane at the back. The young artists named the alley "Kindness Lane".
Two-thirds of the Kindness House tenants only pay for their phone bills: rent and internet is free. The office space includes a large communal area on the top floor where workshops can be held or films shown. Wollen had plans for the roof of the building that were abandoned after the Indian Ocean tsunami: the money was spent helping the tsunami victims instead.
Outside the Brunswick Street entrance is an open bird cage with a two-sided sign. One side bears William Blake's lines: "A robin red breast in a cage/ puts all of heaven in a rage". On the other is Wollen's own philosophy: "In their capacity to suffer, a dog is a pig is a bear … is a boy."
The sign expresses the other strand of Wollen's radicalism: his commitment to animal rights. (Wollen does not believe his position is radical at all, arguing his background is "decidedly conservative": "What could be more radical than killing?")
He agrees with philosopher Peter Singer that animal rights pose "the greatest moral issue facing humanity since the abolition of slavery". As part of this philosophy, Wollen also opposes dairying, believing it to be cruel to animals and citing health and environmental concerns.
"To produce one litre of milk takes 1000 litres of water when we will soon be drinking recycled sewage," he says. Yet he also says he does not want those engaged in the industry to suffer, arguing they could be redeployed elsewhere. In India he funds "retirement homes" for abused cows. Their dung is fed through biogas plants to produce methane, which is then used as cooking gas. The plants also generate electricity, the cow urine is turned into medicine and farmers use the waste slurry as fertiliser.
Wollen describes himself as an "ahimsan", a term he has adopted from the Sanskrit word ahimsa, which means "non-violence to any living being". Ahimsa, he says, is "the most beautiful word ever written at any time, in any country, in human history".
Asked to explain the origins of his commitment to animal causes, he quotes King Lear, who asked the blind Earl of Gloucester: "How do you see the world?" Gloucester replied: "I see it feelingly."
Says Wollen in a measured way: "I heard the screams of my father as cancer ravaged his body, and then I realised I had heard those screams before — in slaughterhouses, in the dog meat markets, in cattle ships, and the dying mother whale as a harpoon explodes in her brain as she calls out to her calf. Their cries are the cries of my father. And I realised that when we suffer, we suffer as equals. Screams are identical from any species and in any language."
To believe that the suffering of an animal is morally equivalent to the suffering of a human is to inhabit a world in which cruelty is practised every day, everywhere. Wollen does not resile from the implications of this perspective. "I have seen horror inflicted on the powerless that terrified me and I still wake up in the middle of the night screaming with nightmares."
Yet asked if he is happier than he used to be before he decided to give his money away, he says: "Yes. 'Happy' is an odd word. I feel a sense of joy in every second of every day, because I know how precious and fleeting every second of life is. We deprive others of their lives at our own moral peril."
Wollen was educated in rural South Australia and was raised as an Anglican, but says he is comfortable with most religious traditions. He says he grew up with Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews and Jains but felt a particular affinity for the Jains with their philosophy of causing no harm to living beings. He acknowledges that this is not possible, but says it is his aim.
Humane slaughter, in Wollen's view, is an impossible idea that he likens to saying "rape is much better than it used to be". But he did once try to improve the practices at Cairo's Basateen slaughterhouse, where Australian livestock are killed according to halal guidelines; a decision he now regrets. "Our own animals had their eyes stabbed out and their tendons were slashed. I put money in, my own personal money to try and train the halal butchers and it has been an abject failure. They don't care."
Wollen then reflects that working in an abattoir takes a heavy toll on its labourers: "The most stressful job in the world — more than soldiers, brain surgeons and air traffic controllers is a slaughterhouse worker."
Some of Wollen's projects help animals and humans at the same time. In

India

, for example, he is helping reduce the incidence of rabies, which kills 50,000 people a year, by investing in an Indian program that captures, neuters and vaccinates street dogs (he prefers to call them community dogs, because neighbourhoods care for them). The dogs are then returned to the street corner where they were found. "If you release them back into the area, they will protect their territory," he says, arguing this helps keep the dog population lower — and is also kinder — than a simple extermination program. The initiative is being introduced in Middle Eastern countries where rabies continues to linger.
Wollen says that in choosing his projects, he is assisted by an international network of people whom he does not pay but relies on to tell him what is happening at the grassroots. His preference is for small programs that "punch above their weight".
In Korea he funds a group attempting to stop the practice of beating dogs to death in the market place "because Koreans believe that the more fear and suffering these animals experience, the tastier the meat".
In China he is trying to save the moon bears, which are kept in steel cages where catheters are attached to them; their bile is used in medicine. "They can't move, they can't scratch themselves and they try to kill themselves, and the Chinese smash out their teeth and chop off their fingers."
ASKED to name a project that has particular meaning for him, Wollen describes the Morning Star orphanage in Bangalore, a home to more than 60 children. It was started 20 years ago by John Samson who found "a starving two-year-old child thrown in a filthy rubbish bin". Samson found other abandoned children in quarries, beside railway tracks and on the street. Many have physical and mental disabilities; one was so malnourished he had chewed his own arm.
The disabled children receive 24-hour care in the home, and the more capable attend school. One has been accepted into a prestigious women's college, another is a gifted chess player. The first child found by Samson in the rubbish bin is a qualified pharmacist — he spent many years helping to care for his fellow orphans.
Trix's favourite scheme involves acquiring sloth bears from

India

's Kalander people, who have traditionally made a living by making the animals "dance" . Wollen explains: "They kill the mother and they drive a hot poker through the nose of the cub and they put a piece of glass in there." The bears are always in pain and "dance" when a cord is pulled. In exchange for their bears, the Kalanders are offered a small-business opportunity — a rickshaw, say, or a fruit and vegetable shop. With a business, the Kalanders are able to settle and their children can go to school (the Wollens hope to fund a program that promises to pay dowries for the daughters if they stay at school until they are 18, as a way of delaying early teenage marriages among them).
Through the scheme, 500 bears have been given their freedom in a sanctuary. On a recent visit, the Wollens were amazed when two rescued bears that had received medical treatment clambered onto the back of a truck to join them.
"They hugged us, and they licked our face," recalls Wollen. "And they were huge. These were animals who had been tortured, tortured for years and they had forgiven us. Forgiven us. I could never forgive someone who had done that to my wife, or my mum or my sister or my daughter. "
"It was so beautiful," recalls Trix, "they were eating honey out of our hands". Then she remembered that one of the bears stood on Wollen's foot, which was bruised "for weeks and weeks".
"I think he broke my toe," says Wollen, adding later: "He was a lovely guy".
PHILIP WOLLEN CV
BORN 1950
MARRIED Trix
CAREER Former vice-president of Citibank and general manager of Citicorp. Also set up own advisory company.
OCCUPATION Founder of the Winsome Constance Kindness Trust, named after his mother and grandmother.
AWARDS Medal of the Order of

Australia

, 2005; Australian Humanitarian Award, 2006; Victorian of the Year, 2007.
Katherine Kizilos is an Age senior writer.

Philip Wollen's list of Do's and Don'ts by Maneka Gandhi - India

2009-12-14T23:31:00.000-08:00

Posted on: 14 Dec 2009

Philip Wollen's list of Do's and Don'ts

Maneka Gandhi

Everyone in the animal welfare movement knows that the Australian ,Philip Wollen, is not a human being. He is from another planet. They simply do not make humans like him any more. He went from Bangalore to Australia when he was young, taught himself , got a job in a bank, rose to the top, left it, became rich and now donates all his money to animals and orphans and people who need it. He does so on a moment's notice. He doesn't want paperwork , he just needs to trust you and he does that easily. He picks up fights with aggressively anti animal governments and media , he pays for lectures , he supports Greenpeace and goes out on the ships himself to chase off Japanese whalers, he builds sanctuaries in Asia for bears. On top of that , he is tall, handsome, well read, a vegan, speaks his mind, jokes a lot and writes deliciously. He lives in Melbourne with a beautiful wife called Trix and they work to make their money save the world. The name of their trust is Constance Kindness Trust. Obviously he has landed here on a UFO and the technical word for his species is 'angel '.

He wrote to me recently:

' I received a letter from a French woman whom I knew 25 years ago. She now lives in Puttaparthi in India.
Dear Phil,

When the word ahimsa comes up so does your name. I thought that you might like to have Sathya Sai Baba's definition of Ahimsa. - very close to yours in fact.

With Love and Light

Marie-Paule

What does Ahimsa (non-violence) signify? It is not merely refraining from causing harm to others. It also implies refraining from causing harm to oneself. In the matter of speech, one must examine whether one's words cause pain to others. One must see that one's vision is not tainted with evil intentions or thoughts. Nor should one listen to evil talk either. All these things cause harm to a person. Hence one should see to it that one gives no room for bad vision, bad hearing, bad speech, bad thoughts or bad actions. And how do you determine what is bad? By consulting your conscience. Whenever you act against the dictates of your conscience, bad results will follow.

It got me thinking on a different subject. The following is my garbled list of how we should live (I am including only the very easy ones!)'

Philip's list of Daily Dos and Don'ts.

* Don't eat meat ,eggs or drink milk.
* Eat as much raw food as possible.
* Don't wear clothes made of animals - not even shoes, belts or watchbands.
* Don't consume any product that is made by exploited labour.
* Everything in your wardrobe of clothes that haven't been used in the previous year, give it away (but only if it is in good condition)
* Eliminate plastic from your life as far as possible... . bags, boxes and credit cards - and some people.
* Avoid negative people like the plague. Anyone who is not adding quality is subtracting quality.
* Turn off every unused electrical appliance at the source.
* Shorten your showers and washing loads.
* Walk, or ride a bike, or use public transport - drive only if absolutely necessary.
* Cut down on the amount of rubbish you send to landfill each week. I have cut down from 150 pounds a week to only 4 pounds - that is one briefcase of rubbish a week.
* Drink water at room temperature - 2 litres a day - in sips.
* Meditate at least one hour a day or at least read for two hours a day
* Walk briskly at least one hour a day. .
* Take your pets for a long walk every day - and talk to them while you do it. And let them stop and sniff as often as they like. A walk is not a race.
* Write at least one letter to the media or a politician every week. It doesn't have to be brickbat - a bouquet is fine too.
* Grow your own vegetable garden or buy organic vegetables.
* Pick up any rubbish you see in the park. It is the right thing to do - and do it in a visible way. It embarrasses the hell of everyone else who soon stop littering.
* Buy a few flat bottom clay trays and leave them under the bushes and trees in the park. Each evening (or morning) when you take your dogs to the park, also take 2 X 2 litre bottles of water and fill up the trays. During the drought ten years ago my local park was baked dry and almost dead. Within 3 months of watering the little trays, the whole place became an ecosystem. Today the park resonates with birdsong, and is full of little animals and insects. It is full of parrots, honey-eaters and even possums.
* Dig in your garden – even if it's a balcony pot garden . Get your hands in the soil. Compost the beds. Plant native flowering shrubs. Buy a bird bath, a bird book and binoculars. Go top your local park or a public place and plant a tree. Plant at least 4 fruit trees for the fruit bats, monkeys and birds.
* Keep the seed of the fruit you eat and put them in pots
* Volunteer your services at any struggling NGO of your choice.
* Play with a dog/cat etc at least once a day. And if possible let them occasionally eat from your hand. Ideal for rewards when they are being good.
* Listen to music.
* Give away money every week - regardless of the amount or the recipient. Try to calculate how much of your income you can give away without drastically affecting your health or happiness. (Not 'lifestyle' - because this means different things to different people - and is mostly rubbish)
* Ask at least one shop-keeper, flight attendant, or restaurant manager/waiter if they stock vegan products (particularly if you know they don't).
* Wear a badge, cap, shirt, or pin which says 'Proud to be Vegetarian' or ' I don't eat dead bodies' or similar.
* De-clutter your house every month. Give away everything you don't need.
* To increase your happiness, do not aim to increase your possessions. Simply decrease your desires. It works - every time. Trust me.

To join the anmal welfare movement contact gandhim@nic.in

Only KINDNESS MATTERS - The Man Who Gave It All Away.

2009-11-21T01:37:00.000-08:00

He was the self-made man who made it to the top of the corporate tree. It is his work as a philanthropist, however, that has won him respect and an Australian of the Year award.
KAREN HARDING speaks to The Man Who Gave It All Away.

Above: Former US Vice President
and environmental campaigner
Al Gore met with Philip and Trix
Wollen during his Australian
visit.

By the time he was 40, Philip Wollen had the corporate world at his feet.

A merchant banker, he was Vice-President of Citibank at

34 and a general manager at Citicorp. He was named one

of the top 40 headhunted executives in Australia by

Australian Business Magazine. He had the material

trappings of a successful executive and his favourite meal

was filet mignon and lobster.

It seemed his story was complete. From a youngster in

Bangalore, to the diligent student who travelled to

Australia alone and naive at age 18 to further his

education, to the top of the heap. He had worked hard to

make something of himself, and he had succeeded.

But deep within him, something was stirring.

“I think I discovered early on that a man doesn’t find his

character on Wall Street. It lives on the road to

Damascus.”

One day a client took him to one of his businesses, an

abattoir. What he witnessed that day shocked him to the

core and changed his path forever.

The man he had striven so hard to be had come face to

face with the man he would become. The story was not

concluded at all. A new chapter was beginning.

Fast forward some years and Wollen stands astride the

world again. But this time it is through the footprints of

the Winsome Constance Kindness Trust.

The trust, named after his mother and grandmother, is

dedicated to supporting groups that actively work in

areas that are in alignment with the Trust’s Five Fingers –

Children, Animals, The Ill, The Environment and

Aspiring Youth.

The breadth, scale and diversity of the Trust are

impressive. It currently supports 400 projects in 40

different countries, with its goal 100 countries by 2020.

Unlike other philanthropic organisations, it supports both

human and non-human causes. For Wollen,

anthropocentrism - the idea that man is of central

importance in his own universe - is abhorrent.

“I honestly believe it is the ultimate sin. If Moses could

have spelled it, he would have put it in the top ten. He just

couldn’t spell it.”

What is central in Wollen’s world is the concept of

“ahimsa”, an ancient Sanskrit term meaning ‘non-violence

to any living being’. Adhering to this means accepting

that man is at one with those living beings with which

he shares the planet, and shouldering responsibility for

their welfare.

One of the core beliefs of the trust is that

“in their capacity to feel pain and fear,

a pig is a dog is a bear is a boy.”

Accordingly, Wollen’s Trust divides its benevolence

between programs designed to aid humans, animals and

those that recognise their mutual relationship.

Amongst its many projects throughout the world, it has

constructed schools and orphanages, rescued bears, dogs

and gibbons, built lion parks and a sanctuary for

unwanted farm animals, instituted vaccination programs

and supported programs in the arts, science and sporting

areas. And in doing so it has endeavoured not just to fix

things for now but to educate for the future.

A major innovation of the Trust is Kindness House, a

multi-million dollar project in inner city Fitzroy in

Melbourne. Home to 21 groups at any one time, and with

a current waiting list of 16, the massive building offers upto-

the minute technology and office facilities to its tenants

at a highly subsidised rent.

“We basically take small non-Government organisations

(NGOs) and turn them into big ones. That’s our plan. We

tell everyone who comes in, we want you to grow and

become big and successful and do good things.”

Residents past and present of the Kindness campus

include Wildlife Victoria, The Brotherhood of St Laurence

STEP program, Greenpeace, The Torch Program

(outreach to the aboriginal community through theatre),

Triathlon Victoria, Rescued With Love (adoption program

for small dogs), Artists for Kids Culture, Social Firms

Australia (creating employment options for those with

psychiatric disability), Edgar’s Mission and Environment

East Gippsland.

Only kindness MATTERS

When Wollen first founded the Trust, he was able to

perform his philanthropic giving behind its name, without

accolade or public scrutiny.

“We were seeking nothing for ourselves. All we wanted

was anonymity.”

This he had - until his work started getting attention.

In 2005 he received the Medal of the Order of Australia

(OAM). The following year Altruism Australia bestowed

upon him their Australian Humanitarian Award (Charity

Category). And in 2007 he was awarded Australian of the

Year Victoria by the National Australia Day Council.

Essentially a private man, Wollen had to think long and

hard before accepting. Being thrust into the limelight

was a two-edged sword. On one side it directed attention

to the many worthy causes he supported and to his ideals;

on the other, it brought him up against some powerful

enemies.

He sought counsel in the way he always does.

“Whenever I face a moral dilemma, I close my eyes and

look into the cage where there is a tortured bear and I can

see the tragedy and the sadness in those eyes and I ask

them...what would you have me do? And the answer is

always the same. Whatever it takes, just get me out of

here, get them to stop.

“If it means making myself a bigger target for these cruel,

boorish people who say it’s only an animal, then so be it.”

Wollen’s strong and outspoken stance against

livestock–for-food industries, both for their cruelty to

animals and their impact on the environment and climate

change, has brought him everything from contempt to

death threats. But he is unmoved. He sees them as the

greatest foe to the sustainability of the planet and its

inhabitants.

The second greatest is time.

He believes Governments and corporations can work

together to effect necessary change but that the main

thrust will come from the man and woman in the street.

“The day we say we want it, it’ll happen....I believe that

day will come but I don’t know whether it will come in

time. If we had an infinite amount of time ahead of us as a

species, I would say yes, it will have to. But we don’t have

that length of time.

The oceans are dying in our time. In 20, 40 years time all

our fisheries will be dead and they are lungs and arteries

of the planet. The livestock industry grows food for

animals, the most inefficient energy transfer system you

could possibly imagine. It takes up to 50,000 litres of

water to produce 1 kilogram of beef compared to only

2500 litres of water to produce 1 kg of white rice, and

even less for most fruit and vegetables.”

Much in demand for speaking engagements, Wollen

continually hammers the point home that saving the

planet is in the hands of those who live on it, as well as

those who govern it.

“In all my speeches I have a standard line. Everyone in

this audience wants to change the world as long as they

don’t have to change themselves, and life doesn’t work

that way. First we change, and the world follows.”

For all his apparent strength, there are times when Wollen

himself needs support. Days when he says he has to, in

the words of Shakespeare, “stiffen up the sinews and

summon up the blood” just to get through. Nights when

he wakes screaming, haunted by the terrible images he

has seen.

He copes, he thinks, because of his wife Trix. “I don’t

think I would have done what I did (without her). I’ve

always been comforted knowing that I have a very soft

place to fall, and I fall a lot.”

Trix Wollen, for her part, acknowledges that she is strong

when her husband has his bad days, says she falls in a

heap when he’s good, but loves what they do, despite its

challenges. Team Wollen is both formidable and

compassionate, and an inspiration to many.

Asked who inspires him, he initially says he doesn’t

believe in heroes, just ordinary people who do

extraordinary things, such as the man who went to rescue

a cow being brutally attacked in Zimbabwe and was also

killed by the mob. Or the man who went into a Muslim

slaughterhouse to rail against the brutality and was

stabbed for his trouble. The Wollens paid for his

hospitalisation.

He then nominates Paul Watson from Sea Shepherd

before adding that “at the risk of sounding corny, the

people I’ve most found inspiring are always low-key and

in my experience have been women. I think my mother,

my grandmother, Trix, Maneka (Gandhi), Jill (Robinson,

of Animals Asia).....”

Wollen’s personal transformation since those terrible

moments in the abattoir has undergone many phases,

each connected to or an extension of each other. He began

by immediately giving up eating meat then extended that

to becoming vegan (and has never felt better.) He started

‘tithing’ – giving away 10% of his income. Then one year

he decided to give away 90% and see if he could survive.

And indeed he could. From there it seemed but a short

step to larger scale philanthropy.

“I decided to give away everything I had with warm hands

and die broke, and so far I’m right on budget.”

The businessman in him has not disappeared, however,

far from it. He lends his skills, experience and acumen to

the organisations and groups he fosters and takes

pleasure in their growth.

“I am still fairly ambitious; it’s just that the goal posts

have changed.”

He prefers not to see himself as giving his money away

but, rather, as re-investing it. One of his favourite quotes

is that of Gertrude Stein: “The money stays the same; it’s

only the pockets that change.”

Wollen is a mix of apparent contrasts. He is a private man

with a public profile. He lives a simple life yet tackles

complex issues. He sees the small details but focuses on

the big picture.

To the captains and kings of society he gives speeches

which champion the disadvantaged, the marginalised and

the mistreated. He is strong when he has to be and soft

when he can be. He has worked with some of the biggest

companies in the world yet now seeks to nurture grass

roots organisations.

He draws on some of the great thinkers of human history

yet is modern and strategic in his own thoughts. He has

been called radical but considers himself conservative.

“What is more radical than killing?”

He says he has an apocalyptic view of the future yet his

actions radiate hope.

In a world where strength is measured by brutality, debate

is centred on the winner of the latest reality TV show and

role models are determined by celebrity, Philip Wollen is a

revelation.

He may not believe in heroes but to every child, adult or

animal that has felt his ministering hand, he is indeed theirs.

He intends to leave nothing behind but he will. His example.

The Winsome Constance Kindness Trust is a

philanthropic organisation and as such does not accept

donations. For causes fully recommended by the Wollens or

for more information on their projects and Kindness House

go to www.kindnesstrust.com

********

Phil is not just a person who puts his money where

his mouth is; he puts his energy and his very life force,

where his heart is, and he does it so strategically....I

suspect his particular breed of Phil-anthropy is

unrivalled in its long term effect.”

Nichola Donovan, Lawyers For Animals

Philip Wollen not only saves lives, he changes them.

I know. I am one he changed. He truly does as Gandhi

said, “Be the change you want to see”.

Kae Norman, Rescued With Love

He makes us believe that one person can change the

world if he has the goodness and courage to do it.

Thousands owe their lives and well being to him.

Maneka Gandhi, MP, New Delhi

I am honoured, inspired and proud to call him friend.

Pam Ahern, Edgar’s Mission Farm Sanctuary

Phil is a guiding light; he illuminates the darkness to

remind us all of the better side of human nature.

Phil is the Gandhi of Fitzroy!

Alex Marr, The Wilderness Society

Probably the most remarkable individual I have had the

pleasure to know, judging by the change he has made

in so many lives.

S. Chinny Krishna, Blue Cross of India

There’s something that just emanates with love, this

generosity. He’s just amazing, a beautiful man.

Beverley Waters, South Australian Children’s Ballet

His work ethic, his dedication and his vision certainly

do rub off on everyone with whom he comes in

contact. Phil has been amazing for us.

Mark Doneddu, Vegetarian Network

He could have made heaps and heaps by pursuing a

business career but instead he chose to put all his time

into bringing about peace between the kingdoms of

nature, and opted for continuous use of an old and

well-worn coat.

Christine Townend, Help in Suffering, Jaipur India

Animal Liberation Victoria - Interview with Philip Wollen

2009-11-11T23:56:00.000-08:00

Phillip Wollen is someone very special. He is a big man with a big heart and most importantly he’s BIG on vision. Phil is a 59 year old Merchant Banker, OAM, Queens Birthday Honors 2005, Australian of the Year Victoria 2007 and Founder of The Winsome Constance Kindness Trust (WCKT) www.kindnesstrust.com . Phil and his partner Trix work tirelessly to help those in need and sponsor over 200 non profit organizations around the world. When Phil founded the WCKT he stated it had five fingers, namely, “Children, Animals, the Ill, the Environment and Aspiring Youth”.
This passion, alongside WCKT’s first core belief: “Act. Don’t react. See a need, fix it first. Worry about the details later. If you wait until you are asked you have just missed a golden opportunity. They are fleeting and rare.” sums up Phil as a man of action who has all bases covered!

Q What made you become vegan and when?
Phil:   I was the merchant banker whose favourite meal was filet mignon and lobster. Around twelve years ago I was mandated to act for a large corporate client and visited one of their main subsidiaries. It turned out to be a slaughterhouse. And I had never seen a slaughterhouse before. My blood ran cold. This didn’t just turn me into a vegetarian. It turned me into a genuinely compassionate human being. Anybody who eats the murdered carcass of an innocent animal cannot claim to be compassionate - not with a straight face anyway.

The slaughterhouse turned my life around. I ultimately became vegan eight years ago when I saw what happens to millions of chickens - their beaks burned off, millions of tiny male chicks being hurled to their death into grinders, premature calves being deliberately induced and being killed by crushing to death. It is a crime of unimaginable proportions. It is so tiresome to still hear the hideous lies and self delusion from those who profit from this ghastly trade.
I am a vegan because I love life in all its forms. The life of a human necrovore is not a life. It is a life sentence. Short, nasty, and brutish.

Q What’s your favourite meal?
Phil: Trix is the best vegan cook in Australia - so anything she cooks is a banquet!

Q What do you cook the best, do you have a favourite recipe you’d like to share?
Phil: Mexican Beans I do quite well, here is the recipe
Ingredients:
1 can 4 Bean Mix (rinse well)
1 stick of celery
½ yellow capsicum
½ red capsicum
1 onion roughly cut
1 tbsp of good quality mild curry powder
1 dessert spoon soynaise (vegan mayonnaise)
cooked rice for two people
Put a dash of oil in the pan, add onion celery and capsicum
stir fry a few minutes (don’t let the veggies get too soft or soggy)
Slide vegies to the side of the pan and add curry powder
fry the curry powder for 30 seconds
add the beans and cooked rice – continue to stir fry
add Soynaise and stir fry some more until all ingredients are well mixed
This is delicious hot or cold or as a side salad or in a wrap. It lasts about 3-4 days in the fridge

Q Are many of your family and friends vegans?
Phil: Yes my closest family are all vegan and 90% of my friends are vegan or vegetarian

Q What makes you happy?
Phil: Using the word ahimsa in a speech or saying the ‘V’ word without getting a blank stare. When someone actually “gets it” is a great feeling. And best of all is unexpectedly finding time to spend with Trix and not having the phone or email to interrupt.

Q What do you do to relax and unwind?
Phil: Meditation, music, and reading.

Q How do you keep fit?
Phil: Golf; long walks with our four rescued dogs; Pilates, and the physical work of running Kindness House www.kindnesstrust.com/KindnessHouse.html

Q Do you have a favourite movie/book/blog that inspired you that you’d like to share
Phil: The simplest book of all - by John Waddell But You Kill Ants; Gary Francione’s Rain Without Thunder; The Abolitionist website www.abolitionistapproach.com] ; Singer’s A Companion of Ethics and I recommend the films: Earthlings, Peaceable Kingdom and A Delicate Balance.
Q Do you have a favourite restaurant?
Phil: yes right down the street from Kindness House - The Vegie Bar www.vegiebar.com.au located at 380 Brunswick St Fitzroy VIC 3065.
Q What’s been the best part of being a vegan?
Phil: Being able to look in the mirror without feeling profoundly ashamed.
Q   Have you found any difficulties being vegan?
Phil: Being vegan is the easiest thing in the world! I think you asked precisely the wrong question. You should have asked “have you found any difficulties being a necrovore?”. And then I could have written several books on this particular subject without pausing for breath. I would find being a necrovore utterly impossible!!
Q Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Phil: We now know beyond any shadow of doubt that the livestock industry releases more greenhouse gases than cars, trains, buses, ships, planes all put together - by a country mile.
We now know that meat and milk are four letter words for good reason. They kill. These noxious products are grossly inefficient sources of food for a hungry planet. They are profligate wasters of precious drinking water. They are indescribably cruel. And they are horrendous polluters of our rivers and oceans.
Clearly, it is no longer (just) an animal rights issue. It is a social justice issue. Make no mistake about it. Every morsel of meat we eat is slapping the tear stained face of a hungry child.
Unfortunately, flaccid governments are influenced by lobbyists who don’t care if our planet ends up in a ditch, as long as they get to drive. So we continue this ludicrous charade of governments pretending to be concerned about jobs - and caving in to the industry with subsidies for low paid jobs for unskilled work. So much for being the clever country.
But the writing is on the wall. Intelligent people are fast learning that this planet is being trashed by an industry that is well past its use by date. The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of stones. The meat industry will end because we run out of excuses.

meet more vegans

2009-11-08T17:34:00.000-08:00

Philip and Trix at Karuna Kindness Farm - Puttaparti

To see more pictures click on the link or go to Photo Album

Pain knows no barriers -Times of India, Chennai - by Priya Menon

2009-10-28T00:08:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Safran Foer Interview

2009-04-11T00:30:00.000-07:00

Jonathan Safran Foer Interview On Ellen Show.

This is very easy to watch. It is suitable for intelligent people who want to change - but who don't want to be ashamed while they are being educated.

http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=YYZ7IlWo3BM

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-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article in the Melbourne Age

Radical kindness: the banker who gave it all away

Philip Wollen's list of Do's and Don'ts by Maneka Gandhi - India

Only KINDNESS MATTERS - The Man Who Gave It All Away.

Animal Liberation Victoria - Interview with Philip Wollen

Pain knows no barriers -Times of India, Chennai - by Priya Menon

Jonathan Safran Foer Interview