Environment

Free Range Chickens and Ducks Dangerous to Humanity
By Dennis T. Avery and Alex A. Avery, Hudson Institute
Monday, April 10, 2006
The evidence is now clear: Free-range chickens and ducks are a major, direct threat to humans worldwide.

UK Says Animal Rights Activists Misrepresented Claims
By Dennis Avery
Wednesday, April 5, 2006

In a stunning defeat for the animal rights movement, Britains Advertising Standards Authority ruled in March that People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) misrepresented both animal test and the science behind animal experiments.

Full-page Advertisement Reveals Scientific Weakness Of Anxiety Over Mercury In Fish

Washington, DC -- Today the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom is using a full-page ad in U.S. News & World Report to tell Americans that concerns over trace amounts of mercury in fish are based on a scientific study whose participants ate lots of whale meat -- but comparatively little fish.

Time devotes its latest cover to the "near-certainty" that humans are causing dangerous global warming. However, Time offers evidence only of a warming, which could be either man-made or natural.

Activist shareholder resolutions are now common at annual corporate meetings. When Goldman Sachs gathers in New York City on March 31, however, the fireworks will come from an atypical source: the National Legal and Policy Center (a free market public interest group) and Free Enterprise Action Fund (the first free market shareholder activist mutual fund).

Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island -- The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has published a list of restaurants and seafood companies supposedly boycotting Canadian seafood. But 78 percent of the listed companies contacted by the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom indicated that they are not actively participating in the boycott. HSUS launched its campaign against Canadian seafood in 2005 in an attempt to intimidate Canada's government into discontinuing its unrelated annual seal hunt. Hot air for sale
Henry Lamb
Monday, March 27, 2006

New Mexico Senators Domenici and Bingaman are launching an initiative to create a Kyoto-style emissions trading scheme in the United States. This idea, conceived in the bowels of the United Nations, is designed to reduce the use of fossil fuel by limiting the emissions of carbon dioxide that can be released into the atmosphere. Proponents of the scheme claim that reduction of carbon dioxide emissions will reduce global warming.

Humans now control Earth's climate, James Hansen of NASA told CBS' “60 Minutes” last week. His evidence: the edges of the Greenland ice sheet are melting rapidly. Hansen says the speed of this melting proves that man-made greenhouse gases are responsible.

This week a Virginia jury tossed a lawsuit brought by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) against the owner of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus. The animal rights group claimed (and ultimately failed to prove) that he engaged in a "massive conspiracy" to harm PETA -- including infiltrating the group, monitoring its activities, and acquiring secret documents from inside PETA. In other words, PETA accused the circus of playing by PETA's rules. Endless Environmental Lies
By Alan Caruba
Monday, March 13, 2006

In the interest of full disclosure, I need to tell you that, years ago in the 1980s, I worked for a producer of a particularly effective pesticide that was applied with nothing more toxic than water. It is now, like so many other pesticides, not available to pest control professionals because it was literally forced off the market by the Environmental Protection Agency that insisted millions of dollars of testing be repeated for its continued registration. The company decided it just wasnt worth it.

A recent commercial for British Petroleum (BP) posed the question: what is your carbon footprint? With the camera panning across green fields, clear skies and smug looking people, the point of the commercial was to urge people to become aware of the worlds "greenhouse" gasses and how they adversely affect our climate. Similar commercials ran last year with perennial Canadian gagman Rick Mercer posing the one-ton challenge to urge people to reduce greenhouse gasses.

By Dennis Avery
Thursday, March 9, 2006

In Ireland where the 1840’s potato famine killed a million people and made millions more homeless why are hundreds of Irish men and women protesting against the new genetically engineered blight-proof potato?

Every year, 250 million women and 125 million little girls are stricken by acute malaria. At least 750,000 of them die. That's more victims than there are people in the United States and Canada combined.

Yesterday in a New Jersey courtroom, six leaders of a radical animal rights group known as SHAC (and the organization itself) were convicted of a variety of domestic-terrorism charges. Their prosecution followed a multi-year campaign of violence and intimidation, directed against a medical research firm whose lifesaving work requires the use of animal test subjects. When they are sentenced on June 7, The New York Times reports this morning, a few of the "SHAC 6" (formerly the "SHAC 7," but charges against one were dropped) may be jailed for as long as 23 years.

CHICAGO - In an effort to force passage of a city-wide ordinance that would effectively ban elephants from zoos and circuses, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is parading a steady stream of elephant "experts" in front of Chicago reporters. What the media won't hear, however, is PETA's own dismal record regarding the welfare of elephants and other animals.

No nation anywhere has more childhood deaths than the Democratic Republic of Congo, notes a World Bank news release. The toll stands at an incredible 565,000 children per year. "At least one in five DRC children dies before age five, and one in ten infants dies before their first birthday."

I dont know how many years I have been hearing how great ethanol is as a gasoline additive. I mostly thought of it as a boon to farmers who raise corn and other crops that are converted into this form of alcohol. The energy bill, a mishmash of giveaways to all kinds of energy interests, mandated more use of ethanol and biodiesel. Then the President gave his State of the Union speech and talked about using woodchips and who knows what else to make it.

I love the Beatles' music. My respect for individual members of the legendary band end there. Paul McCartney has spent a lifetime making incredible music while uttering pure gibberish on issues that matter. It seems that if he can’t put a rhyme and a tune to it, his brain turns to mush.

Theres a new book, "A Thousand Barrels A Second" by Peter Tertazkian, that paints a very scary scenario about the oil industry and energy options in the future. When I read such books or the daily headlines in newspapers or in news magazines, I keep reminding myself that bad news sells.

A report released recently, which Greenpeace claims documents "dangerous" levels of mercury in "one in five" American women, shows the exact opposite, the nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom said today. And the Center revealed this morning that Greenpeace and the Sierra Club have irresponsibly released only about half of the report (just seven pages out of 12) to the public on their websites, omitting crucial pages which raise questions about the report's value. The Sierra Club refers to the shortened seven-page version as "the entire report" on its website, and Greenpeace's website calls it "the full report."

What could possibly be more arrogant than to think that humans should determine which specie continues and which goes extinct? Or that humans can, in fact, keep a specie from going extinct?

Addicted to Nonsense
By Alan Caruba
Monday, February 13, 2006
On February 7, I received an email from the office of the House Minority Leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, with a headline that read as follows: Pelosi: "It is Long Past Time to Take Action to Prevent Climate Change."

Religion, science and blarney
By Paul Driessen
Thursday, February 9, 2006

Activists recently had breakfast in hoary Senate chambers and a briefing at the National Press Club, in an attempt to convince America and the world that the evangelical Christian community is united in concern about global warming and the need for immediate federal action. Dont be deceived.

Time was when the mention of Louisianas culinary delights brought to mind such fare as the "jambalaya, a-crawfish pie and-a fillet [a] gumbo" that Hank Williams sang of. But if you believe the media and environmentalists, after Hurricane Katrina hit in August it seemed the only item on the menu was "toxic soup."

Thousands of new faces came to check out PETAKillsAnimals.com last night after seeing our new commercial slamming People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) for killing over 12,000 cats and dogs since 1998. We ran the ad just before President Bush's State of the Union address last night, and we'd like to share with you what one new reader told us after coming to our site:

Congress is going through the process of trying to fix the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Why do they think it needs fixing? Because, quite simply, the ESA is the worst law ever to be enacted by Congress.

It's hard not to be a bit confused by the most recent animal-rights rhetoric from former Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine spokesman Dr. Jerry Vlasak. Shortly after Friday's announcement of eleven landmark federal indictments against suspected Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and Animal Liberation Front (ALF) arsonists, Vlasak told The New York Times that none of the defendants had anything to do with burning buildings down, adding that "they will be exonerated." Just hours later, he assured the Associated Press that the defendants "are people who've decided to risk their freedom and even their lives, in some cases," to bring public attention to their extreme ideologies.

Since May 2003, the United States, joined by Canada and Argentina, has pursued a World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement process against the European Union (EU) regarding its de facto moratorium banning biogenetically altered food crops.

This weekend National Public Radio listeners heard a Living on Earth story, prompted by the Center for Consumer Freedom's FishScam.com website, about the growing debate over trace amounts of mercury in fish. (To listen to the broadcast, click here.) "You shouldn't be bamboozled into thinking that you're putting your health at risk by eating six ounces of tuna a week," our research director told listeners. "It simply isn't true." Tarnished Halo Awards:
PETA, California Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "Among Best Of The Worst"
ConsumerFreedom.com
Monday, January 16, 2006

If the Golden Globes don't quite satisfy your award-show cravings, then the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) is here to help. Today CCF announced the winners of its 2005 "Tarnished Halo" awards. These prizes are given annually to America's most notorious animal-rights zealots, celebrity busybodies, environmental scaremongers, self-appointed "public interest" advocates, trial lawyers, and other food activists who claim to know "what's best for you."

The Dose Makes The Poison
ConsumerFreedom.com
Sunday, January 8, 2006

A sixteenth-century Swiss chemist named Paracelsus gave us the most basic rule of toxicology: "The dose makes the poison." Practically every substance on earth (including water and Vitamin C) can kill you if it's concentrated enough in your stomach or your bloodstream. It's such a simple idea. Unless you're California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, in which case five centuries of common sense goes out the window.

If you listened only to the news media and environmentalists, youd think the debate over oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was about caribou and ecology. Its not.

As the debate over whether to drill for oil in a tiny, desolate portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) grows--however improbably-- even more contentious, it is important to remember that honest debate must be properly framed.

Good news from Africa: The government of Zambia, in the midst of a food crisis, has altered its anti-GM (genetically modified) food policy, allowing millions of starving Zambians access to food aid. Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa has finally ordered agricultural officials to allow GM corn into the country, greatly expanding the amount of food that will reach his country's under-nourished population.

Washington, D.C. - Yesterday Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) introduced an Endangered Species Act (ESA) reform bill that he claims will offer "incentives" to property owners to help recover endangered species.  However, according to The National Center for Public Policy Research, the "Collaboration and Recovery of Endangered Species Act" (CRESA) offers perks to large landowners and developers at the expense of small property owners and rare species.

Its always hard to determine exactly when a very huge, very bad, and very wrong idea dies in the wake of evidence that requires even the most reasonable person to conclude that it is, by and large, idiotic.

Once again, the global warming industry is holding its annual party, this time, in Montreal. Nearly 10,000 celebrants have gathered to eat, drink, and be merry - and to bash the U.S. for withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol. Less than half the crowd are official delegates from 180 nations; the rest are advocates representing hundreds of non-government organizations.

For the past several days, even as winter has arrived and temperatures have dropped pretty much all over North America, there have been a flurry of stories in the press regarding global warming.

"Everything we do is based at adults." So said People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) president Ingrid Newkirk on CNN in 2002. If that's the case, we're left asking: How does Newkirk explain "Freda Fish's" recent trip to a Montgomery, Alabama school? Animal-Rights Wagon Train Crosses The Grand Canyon
ConsumerFreedom.com
Sunday, November 13, 2005

Memo to bacon and veal-chop lovers: Here we go again. Farm Sanctuary and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the same animal-rights duo whose 2002 propaganda machine bamboozled Floridians into extending constitutional protection to pigs, are funneling big bucks into a similar effort in Arizona. With the next statewide election more than a year away, the two groups have already poured $155,000 into "Arizonans for Humane Farms," a political committee formed this year to outlaw common agricultural practices of pork and veal farmers. Observers are drawing parallels with Farm Sanctuary's $465,000 investment in the 2002 Florida campaign, after which the group admitted to 210 instances of campaign-finance fraud and paid a $50,000 fine.

It's Getting Colder, Not Warmer
By Alan Caruba
Thursday, November 10, 2005

In 1922, the poet Robert Frost wrote, "Some say the world will end in fire,
some say in ice .
From what Ive tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire,
but if it had to perish twice ,
I think that for destruction ice
is also great
and would suffice ."

The likelihood, the science, points to ice.

The weather has been on everyones mind of late. First it was Katrina, followed by Rita, and then Wilma wondering about in a fashion that defied the ability of the most sophisticated computers of the US Weather Service to predict. Typically, the perpetrators of scare campaigns were quick to announce that the number and ferocity of these and other hurricanes this passed season was due to "global warming."

When a Chicago chef begged the city to keep its laws off his menus, animal-rights radicals retaliated by vandalizing his restaurant, smashing his window and destroying flower boxes. So opens another chapter in the now highly politicized history of the delicacy foie gras. Get ready for the global warming fatwa
By Gary Reid
Friday, October 28, 2005

I hate people preaching. I particularly hate it when they act all holy and righteous.

A preachy column in the Toronto Star led me to discover a little-known organization. The article, written by Glen Murray, the former mayor of Winnipeg, was entitled, "A terrible legacy to leave our children."

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has been widely criticized for its campaign comparing Nazi Holocaust victims to farm animals, its blind insistence that Jesus was a vegetarian, and it callous attempts to cheapen the symbols and rituals of Roman Catholicism. But a new report from the Center for Consumer Freedom indicates that these offensive gestures are just the tip of a larger iceberg. SUVs on Mars?
by Klaus Rohrich
Friday, September 23, 2005

An interesting tidbit of information emerged from NASAs Jet Propulsion Labs some four years ago that United Nations climatologists and the "sky-is-falling" climate change crowd has failed to acknowledge. Simply put, earth isnt the only place in the solar system that is currently undergoing significant climate change. NASAs Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Extended Mission has documented significant shrinking in the Martian ice caps at a rate of approximately 10 feet per year.

When science is used as a political mallet, the truth is discarded, and only information that perpetuates the cause of the day is presented. Such is the case with the flawed theory of global warming. Before you dismiss this article as just another rant against environmentalism, consider the sources of the information in the following piece with an open mind.

Gulf Coast residents are slowly recovering from Katrina’s winds, floods, anarchy, and tardy local, state and federal disaster responses. Now they face yet another peril.

If ever there was a time for Americans to repudiate the endless claims of environmentalists, it is now.

Hurricane Katrina is an object lesson in the power of Nature to lay waste to everything in its path. Just as surely as the rising of the sun, it will be mere hours before some environmental group announces that this hurricane resulted from "global warming." Let me assure you that this hurricane and all others are part of a natural climatic cycle that begins off the west coast of Africa and makes its way across the Atlantic. Always has and always will.

In the weeks leading up to the July G-8 meeting in Scotland, environmental activists and analysts predicted the heat would be turned up on President George Bush to sign the UN Kyoto Protocol on climate change.

It didnt turn out that way. The G-8 meeting and new initiatives such as the Methane to Markets (M2M) and the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, strongly suggest world leaders appear to be moving away from Kyoto and towards Bushs climate change position.

"What would life be without pies, frosting, french fries, chips, cupcakes, doughnuts, muffins, popcorn, cookies, crackers, and all manner of processed and packaged foods?" If your answer is, "a lot worse," you're in good company. But an editorial in today's Washington Post has a different answer: "A lot healthier."

We have long known that the lunatic fringe of the animal rights movement will stop at nothing -- including the law -- to achieve their goal of "total animal liberation." Trying to prevent Americans from ever enjoying a hamburger again, groups like the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) happily attack restaurants, research labs, and even farms.

If anyone can attest to the despicable actions of the ALF, it's Dr. Mark Blumberg, a researcher from the University of Iowa, whose lab was destroyed by the ALF in November 2004. Writing an article in The Washington Post, Blumberg describes the "human cost" of the ALF attack:

Hail To The Overweight Chief?
ConsumerFreedom.com
Thursday, August 4, 2005

Is this the face of the nation's obesity "epidemic"? Fat chance. But if you believe the federal government's official guidelines, President Bush -- at 5'11" and 191 pounds -- is "overweight." This comes despite the weekend's news that Bush is probably the fittest president in U.S. history.

Social responsibility doubletalk
Paul Driessen,
Tuesday, August 2, 2005

Activists attack ExxonMobil but have abominable ethical standards for themselves

All companies should be honest, ethical and devoted to the well-being of the publics they serve: employees, investors, customers and communities. Its good business, common sense and whats simply expected of corporations today.

The U.S. Constitution prohibits the federal government from forcing a citizen to "quarter" a soldier in time of peace. The Endangered Species Act, however, forces any citizen to "quarter" wolves, panthers, bears, or any of more than 1200 other species the government declares to be "endangered."

USAIDs anti-pesticide policies must change, or millions will continue to die

Would you take medications that could cause anemia, nausea, diarrhea, hair loss even increased risk of infection and fetal defects?

Most people with terminal cancer would jump at the chance to take such risks. And if an activist "stakeholder" tried to prevent them from undergoing chemotherapy because of "ethical" concerns about its "dangers" or a preference for "more appropriate" alternatives like surgery, broccoli or hospice care their response would be fast and furious.

A Hampton Roads, Virginia television station is reporting that "North Carolina officials may consider more charges" against two People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) employees who currently face 31 counts each of felony animal cruelty. Animal Rights and Animal Nuts
Alan Caruba
Thursday, July 7, 2005

Other than the biblical injunction against inflicting unnecessary pain on animals, the beginning of our modern concept of humane treatment, I do not believe animals have "rights." Humans do, but animals are, well, animals. We grow, slaughter, and eat a lot of them. Others become members of our family as pets and some serve mankind for the purpose of research to defeat the diseases that afflict us.

Washington, D.C.--Unfortunately, the dreadful Kelo v. City of New London ruling isnt the only nightmare facing property owners this summer, the American Policy Center (APC) reported today.  According to draft language obtained by the Center, the "Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act of 2005" (TESRA 2005) is a major sellout to property rights advocates nationwide.  Appropriately, the Center has dubbed the bill "Kelo II."

Locals protest for corporation and against activists

The day I visited the Peruvian mountain village of La Oroya, I watched Mayor Clemente Quincho lead a noisy demonstration involving thousands of marchers. Their loud slogans and emotional chants would remind anyone of the protests that have long characterized environmental and civil rights activism. In many ways, thats exactly what this was.

But this wasnt your ordinary demonstration. These vocal townsfolk were demonstrating in favor of the continued operation of an 80-year-old copper and lead smelter both because its the lifeblood of the town and because they support the company, Doe Run Peru, in its efforts to improve social and environmental conditions in the region.

What? Yes, you read the title right. PETA is the worst friend an animal could have these days. Normally an organization takes its mission statement and tries to fulfill it. Not PETA.

In their 25^th year fighting for the rights of all animals "PETA believes that animals have rights and deserve to have their best interests taken into consideration, regardless of whether they are useful to humans. Like you, they are capable of suffering and have an interest in leading their own lives; therefore, they are not ours to usefor food, clothing, entertainment, experimentation, or any other reason."

On June 13, USA Today declared that "The debates over: Globe is Warming." Thats another headline you can ignore. The world has been warming ever since the last Ice Age, but it is not rapidly warming in ways that threaten our existence, nor warming in a way that requires the industrialized nations to drastically cut back on their use of energy to avoid the many scenarios of catastrophe the Greens have been peddling since the 1980s.

PETA Kills Animals -- And It's A Felony
ConsumerFreedom.com
Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Authorities in Ahoskie, North Carolina dropped a disturbing bombshell yesterday with the news that they had charged two employees of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) with 31 felony counts of animal cruelty. PETA's Andrew Cook and Adria Hinkle were arrested late Wednesday night after police saw them dump bags containing seven dead puppies and 11 other dead animals in a grocery store's dumpster. Their PETA-owned van, seized by police, contained another 13 animal bodies. Ahoskie's police chief told reporters: "We've been investigating animal cruelty and illegal disposal of dead animals within our city for the last four weeks" -- roughly the same period of time in which our popular PetaKillsAnimals.com website and giant Times Square billboard have been making news.

ADV:

Place Your Ad Here!