Sahar

vegansaurus:

Lena

Lewis

How cute are these babies? Pro tip: SO CUTE! They are at the Harvest Home Animal Sanctuary in Stockton, CA and they need homes! Lena and Lewis both have petfinder pages. The brother and sister were found sad and dirty on a country road in Stockton in October….

A popular website for medical headlines, medicalnewstoday.com,
recently posted an interesting story titled “Potential New Drugs From
A Cup Of Tea – The Witch Doctors’ Gift.” The article is
describing a video series produced by the American Chemical Society,
and it leads off with a compelling scenario that I will quote at
length, because it is quite interesting:

“A physician on a medical relief mission to Africa sees pregnant women
sip a medicinal tea prepared by local witch doctors when the time for
birth arrives. Made from the leaves of a plant called “kalata-kalata,”
the tea speeds labor and delivery. Scientists analyze the plant and
discover a remarkable new substance. The research puts them on course
for discovery of potential new drugs for diseases that affect millions
of people worldwide.”

What is interesting here is not the “remarkable new substance” that
the Western physician discovered in the African plant. What is
interesting is how utterly oblivious our Western medical culture is to
the fact that medicine can be and is practiced in very legitimate ways
outside of Western medicine.

Notice that the tea was prepared by “local witch doctors.” A witch
doctor is a cliche phrase used to describe anyone practicing tribal,
occult, “ineffective” medicine. The medicine of witch doctors is the
stuff of ridicule: evil eyes, spells, mysterious brews and talismans.
And yet, here is a “witch doctor” giving a tea that works very well as
a medicine to speed labor and delivery. While the writers of the
article would have us believe that it *becomes* medicine once the
Western scientists analyze the plant to find a “remarkable new
substance, that isn’t true at all.

First, the substance isn’t new. It is only new to the Western
scientists. That substance has been used as a medicine (in the form of
a tea containing the substance) for probably hundreds of years.
Second, African tribal healers do not need Western scientists to
legitimize their medicine. The “witch doctor” has been practicing
legitimate medicine all along, it’s just that Western ignorance of
that system of medicine (and every other system of medicine, actually)
didn’t know it until they actually observed it working.

This brings up the third and most important point. The Western
physician in attendance realized that this tea was powerful medicine
because he *observed it work* to speed labor and delivery. If a
Western tribal healer simply *told* a Western physician that the tea
works to speed labor and delivery it would quickly be discounted as
“witch doctor” medicine, only here say. But when a Western doctor
*sees* it work, that makes it worthy of scientific recognition.

Observation is a powerful way to conduct scientific inquiry: apply a
therapy, and see if it work. If it does, try it again in a similar
circumstance and see if it works again. Once enough observations have
been made of a therapy working, then simply recognize the obvious: the
therapy is medicinal.

Conventional Western medicine can take a tragically condescending and
patronizing attitude toward medicinal practices of other cultures. The
article above shows that when African cultural medicines is observed
to actually work, it is co-opted and brought into the Western sphere.
A nice pat on the back is given to the “witch doctors” for having
accidentally found a real medicine, and Western scientists get busy
extracting an active ingredient in the plant so that patents can be
awarded and profits generated. None of those profits, of course, will
likely ever make their way back to those witch doctors.

-Dr. Greg Nigh, ND

via naturecuresclinic:

A study in Nature this week gives you a new round of paintballs to shoot at the non-vegan world in your mission to convince people that flesh-licking is for zombies. Basically, the researchers asked, “How the hell can we possibly feed the 9 billion people we’ll have on this planet by 2050?!?! FUCK!!!”

In a tiny little nugget of optimism, they found that it actually might be possible to do such a thing, IF we change a lot about how we deal with agriculture on this planet. That’s a huge if.

The team, from four different countries, looked at farm data and satellite images and probably went cross-eyed and bonkers and needed glasses from all the number-crunching.

They found that we could double food production AND reduce environmental impact, for only three easy payments, act now because this offer won’t last, if we:

1. Stop clearing land for agriculture: We have enough land, we need to use it better.
2. Catch the rest of the world up to the “developed” world in terms of crop yields (god help us, is that really a good idea?).
3. Use fertilizer and other chemicals in a smart and frugal way.
4. Stop throwing so much food out (a third of all food right now!).
5. EAT LESS MEAT.

YES! The scientists actually say that moving toward plant-based diets will help end world hunger. According to one of the study’s authors, three-quarters of the world’s agricultural land is devoted to raising livestock, either for grazing or for growing feed. 

So put that in your quiver. It’s not like scientific conclusions sway many minds (see: climate change), but it’s nice to know we’re right, you know?

vegansaurus:

Britain just found out that many knockoff Ugg boots are made with poor, tortured raccoon dogs’ skin (exceptionally disturbing video, it’s not new though so I’m not posting it). I’m not sure why this footage is circulating now but it made its way to Time.

I’m always glad when the…

Remember how the ocean’s fucked? It’s still fucked, especially in France, where the beaches are unfit for human presence because of “Up-stream releases of manure from intensive farming that overload the near-shore waters with nitrates.” It causes growth of a seaweed that releases a toxic gas!

Farm effluent is so amazing. It creates dead zones in places like the Gulf of Mexico and the Chesapeake Bay, which now covers 83 miles of that body of water. Back in December of 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a plan “to dramatically reduce the levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment that states can allow in the bay from municipalities and farms,” but guess whose opposition is blocking the EPA from implementing it: the American Farm Bureau Federation’s! Of course! Because dead zones are caused by runoff from those giant places food comes from, farms and feedlots.

In Brittany, 31 wild boars were found dead last week; the animals “‘were not [otherwise] sick and they did not drown.’” People can’t visit the beaches there because they could release pockets of the toxic gas the algae produces and die. How would this happen? By, you know, slipping and falling in the algae, or running, or walking. Not that anyone wants to play on a beach covered in horrible slime.

Industrial farming! It feeds most of the world while it kills the oceans! The best part of history is always when you realize no one’s planned more than like 10 minutes into the future.

via vegansaurus.com

Ask yourself the following 13 questions before you continue through that check-out line.

1. Is this purchase something I need?
2. Do I already own something that will serve the same purpose?
3. Can I borrow one instead of buying new?
4. Can I make something that will serve the same purpose?
5. Can I buy a used one?
6. Would someone be willing to split the cost and share this with me?
7. Can I buy or commission one made locally?
8. Can I buy one that was made with environmentally responsible materials?
9. Can I buy one that serves more than one purpose
10. Can I get something human powered instead of gas or electric?
11. Can I compost or recycle it when I’m done with it?
12. What is the impact on the environment of the full life cycle of it?
13. Does the manufacture or disposal of it damage the environment?

…every time we buy, we create demand, create waste, consume energy, and invariably, in the long run make ourselves less happy. Sure that iPhone rocks, but only until the new one comes out, and then you’ve got to jump on the train and consume again right?

So do I think that carrying around a little piece of paper is really going to change the world? Of course not. But I do believe that in order to start making things better, to clean up this whole waste/consumption mess, we all need to start thinking a little different. And in order to do that, we need to start asking ourselves some hard questions. Why do we feel that buying things will make us happy? What is fundamentally missing that we are trying to fill with mass produced product? Perhaps a little reminder like this will help us start that process and put us on the path to commercial freedom