Animal welfare

The zoonotic transfer risk

Matt Sanderson’s article, “The risks from bird flu” ( Solidarity 675 ) is right to raise the alarm, and the limitations of current precautions. Since this highly pathogenic strain of the H5N1 subtype of bird flu emerged two years ago, it spread far and wide across bird populations. A particular concern the last half year, beyond the economic impact, and the very small number of humans knowingly infected, is the large number of mammals infected. Thousands or tens of thousands of sea lions seem to have been killed by bird flu in south America this year. Many mink were found infected prior to the...

The risks from bird flu

For the past two years a variant of H5N1 avian influenza (bird flu) has been circulating in wild and domestic bird populations. This strain, particularly transmissible and deadly to birds, started in unaffected geese and ducks (migratory birds). The flu variant has not yet spread in humans; measures to guard against that have included six months where farmed birds have been kept inside and a number of other measures affecting animal welfare. A select few strains of influenza (H1 and H3) can infect humans (and pigs), whilst birds are affected by H5 and H7 influenza. Humans can become ill with...

Pandemics, the environment, big agriculture, and capitalism — Readings

One epidemic after another, at increasing frequency, is not a purely "natural" phenomenon. Our age of pandemics is driven by widespread environmental destruction, big agriculture, and insatiable pursuit of profit. Our monthly socialist environmental reading group will be looking at the origins and driving forces behind pandemics. This page lists various readings, and will be updated as more are added. More info about the reading group session here . The main reading is Big Farms Make Big Flu: Dispatches on Influenza, Agribusiness, and the Nature of Science by Rob Wallace, an evolutionary...

More cows will mend soil, will mend climate? No!

David Walters ( Solidarity 586 ) highlights important environmental considerations concerning soil. The destruction, degradation, depletion of soil through intensive mono-cropping; the nitrogen run-off and energy use of artificial fertilisers; the numerous destructive impacts of chemical pesticides. Yet his key claim that “we need more ruminants (grass eaters) not less” does not follow and is untenable. In the first section I contend that Walters overstates the potential for soil to be used to offset historic industrial emissions, by implication underplaying their dangers, and by extension the...

Animal products and the environment — readings

Many on the green left advocate a huge reduction in animal product consumption, society- and world-wide. They point to the industry's environmentally destructive impacts, and call for land to be freed up for rewilding, afforestation, and other climate interventions. Others see it as a distraction from tackling fossil capital, an incorrect assessment of agriculture, a concession to lifestyle politics, moralism, or even authoritarian. What should socialist environmentalists say and do? Workers' Liberty's monthly socialist environmentalist reading group read the articles below, and discussed...

Health-anuary

For January 2019, 4.2 million people said they would join “Dry January”, a pledge to drop alcohol for the month. The Alcohol Change UK group, which organised “Dry January”, says that (even if some of those 4.2 million had lapses) this year’s response was the biggest ever, and hugely up on January 2013, when the project started with just 4,000 signing up. “Veganuary” had 250,000 people adopting a vegan diet for the month, more than its total for all its previous Januarys combined, 2014 to 2018. 84% of January-vegans and maybe 70% of all vegans are female (2018 stats), although vegetarians are...

Tough On Kids, Tough On the Causes of Kids! (1997)

Labour's Shadow Home Secretary, Jack Straw, recently proposed a curfew on children. He opened his heart and mind to Workers Liberty reporter Patrick Avakuum. --- AS Tony Blair's team waits impatiently to cross the floor of the House of Commons and show that they can outdo the Tories, Jack Straw, Labour's Shadow Home Secretary has emerged as an unexpected Front Bench star in this brilliant company. For a long time Straw — "straw in his name, straw in his mouth, straw between his ears" as someone once unkindly said —was regarded as the village idiot of the Front Bench. Not any more. Straw has...

Televote TV Goes Wild

Now this is getting ridiculous. Tomorrow night sees the start of a new TV show where celebrities hang out with endangered species. Then you the viewer get to vote for which animals should get help to survive.

Yes, really. Don't vote and the furry fellas die out. You choose. Will it be the Polar...

Rights for Great Apes?

I recommend this excellent, thought-provoking article by Princeton University bioethics professor Peter Singer in Saturday's Guardian. His argument is that great apes are so close to humans in evolution, and share so many of our traits - long-term relationships, self-awareness, bereavement...

Dehumanising?

In Solidarity 3/89 David Broder started a discussion on animal testing and the broader issue of “animal rights”. Here Clive Bradley and Janine Booth take issue with David. His reply and other debate can be found at: www.workersliberty.org/node/5802 I am not going to argue that medical testing on animals should be halted. I am an insulin-dependent diabetic, and — actually I’m hazy on the precise history of what's called “human insulin”, but it's likely it involved animal testing, without which I would be dead. But there are aspects to the argument David puts — which is pretty typical of a...

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