(The piece posted here is the Introduction to Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy, and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment by David Kirby. The new book (March 2010)  examines the environmental contamination and heath impacts of industrial livestock production.)

David Kirby, author of Animal Factory

Many Americans have no idea where their food comes from, and many have no desire to find out.

That is unfortunate.

Every bite we take has had some impact on the natural environment, somewhere in the world. As the planet grows more crowded, and more farmers turn to industrialized methods to feed millions of new mouths, that impact will only worsen.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Every so often I pause and wonder about the Rocky Mountain wolves, which were de-listed from protections under the Endangered Species Act in 2009 and hunted for sport for the first time in decades.

I have thought about the wolves periodically all this winter, as they’ve been hunted in Idaho. As of today, 172 wolves have been killed there, just shy of the 220 kill limit set by the state, where the wolf season ends March 31. Last fall, in Montana, 72 wolves were killed, just short of the 75 wolf limit.

I’m not sure why their plight touched me so much. I think it’s their intelligence and curiosity that tugs at my emotions. Sensing humans nearby, they will peek out from their cover to see, only to get shot. And there’s the fact that they’re pack animals, dependent on an enduring family structure and very much like us in that regard.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

We are often hardest on those we like. It’s because our disappointment is somehow greater when we’ve been conditioned to expect better.

Like when your once cuddly child becomes a teenager. Or your beloved hairdresser turns your hair green. Cognitive dissonance sets in, followed by betrayal, followed by disappointment (and in the case of the green hair, mortification.)

And so it was last year when I went to Lowe’s for my usual spring garden supplies — a humble gallon of vinegar weed treatment, several bags of organic mulch, some greensand etc. I count on Lowe’s to have these things. This time, though, I also was looking for a second rain barrel.

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(This article, originally entitled U.S. Car Fleet Shrank by Four Million in 2009 – After a Century of Growth, U.S. Fleet Entering Era of Decline ran on the Earth Policy Institute website in January. Its author, Lester R. Brown is president of the EPI and author of Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.)

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

OK, I admit, I didn’t want to wade into this slush.

I was aware, as most of you no doubt are, that the IPCC (that’s the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has been caught in a few mistakes recently. And I was concerned, because we reporters rely on the IPCC’s reports — especially that last one from 2007. The one that many scientists believe underestimates what will happen with climate change. We rely on it because it’s based on the efforts of hundreds of peer-reviewed reports by scientists around the world and it’s widely considered to be the best forecast we have of what climate change might bring.

Of course, I had trouble hearing myself think in the din of cheers from climate skeptics, who were already reveling in record snows in the U.S. (The naysayers conveniently ignore that extreme weather patterns are predicted by global-warming models.) They shout from the stands, as though this were a junior high wrestling match instead of a serious discussion of what’s true or not, or reasonable to believe, about the future of the planet.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

When the Copenhagen Climate Conference ended in mid-December, it was widely decried by climate activists as embarrassingly inconclusive, at best, and a failure at worst (you can’t get much worse than that).

And yet, there were plenty of voices, including that of President Obama, urging everyone to hold tight and pointing out that alliances had been formed and the world’s major polluters had stepped up, however tentatively. They had issued hard numbers, a percentages by which they would try to rollback greenhouse gas emissions.

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By Jean M. Wallace, MAEd
CEO, Green Woods Charter School, Philadelphia

As a young girl, I spent every summer at the Jersey shore. I loved the beach! I’d stand by the water’s edge and simply marvel at the vastness of the ocean. With my red plastic bucket in hand, I would spend countless hours exploring the small tide pools and discovering the diversity of life that lived within the ocean current. It was fascinating to me and, looking out over the horizon I always imagined to myself, “What is out there?”

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

You’ve got to feel for the dirty fuel lobbyist, adrift in a world where suddenly oil and coal energy has competition, where emerging clean tech companies are peddling cheap energy solutions like wind and solar power (cheap because they’re renewable and non-polluting) and environmentalists keep jabbering about how carbon in the atmosphere is ruining the planet. Sheesh!

Such a lobbyist needs respite from the tilting political landscape, someone with whom to cuddle up, share their story, bestow with lots of money — like a U.S. Senator or Representative!

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(This article was first posted on Jan. 25, 2010, by the Natural Resources Defense Council on its Simple Steps website. It is a Q & A with NRDC Senior Attorney Daniel Rosenberg exploring why the Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families coalition, of which the NRDC is a member, wants tighter controls on toxic substances.)

By Paul McRandle

Q: Quickly, what is TSCA and why does it need to be reformed?

Daniel Rosenberg: TSCA is an environmental law first enacted in 1976 and never updated since, that was intended to regulate the safety of industrial chemicals—that is most chemicals that find their way into the stream of commerce. It is generally regarded to be the greatest failure of all the major environmental laws passed in the early 1970s. This is because there were 62,000 chemicals in use when it was enacted and all of those chemicals were grandfathered in, meaning they didn’t have to be tested or required to meet a safety standard. On top of that, the law makes it extremely difficult for EPA to take action even when they know a chemical is unsafe, like asbestos. The way the law is written, the burden is on the agency to prove a chemical is unsafe rather than the companies who make chemicals having to prove they are safe.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Recently I was hashing over with a family member about the reasons people are vegetarians, or vegans or mostly veggie. We both agreed that people get off the meat, for a variety of reasons, often complex and intertwined, regardless of whether they’re just cutting way back or drawing a hard line in vegan territory.

I suggested that health reasons were probably the paramount motivator, given the United States’ high rate of heart disease, still the number one killer here; not to mention our obesity issues. And I was about to further dominate the conversation when my companion blurted that he thought most people were more motivated by animal rights concerns, followed by their health reasons. Vegetarians think that way, he offered.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Green news is just streaming out these days, like a ticker tape parade, but without the paper waste.

Carleton College, in Northfield, Minn.

First on my notes, the College Sustainability Report Card people have issued their 2010 list of schools making As for green initiatives. Actually, no campus has earned an A yet, but 27 are getting A-’s for a range of innovative efforts. My native Minnesota has propelled Carleton College, Macalester College and the University of Minnesota into the top ranks. Uffda, that’s exciting.

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They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum. And they charged all the people a dollar and a half just to see ‘em.

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Joni Mitchell predicted it would come to this. But she had the admission price wrong. Instead of a dollar and a half to get into the tree museum, it will be $15 for adults to visit the tree exhibit opening today in Philadelphia. The interactive Exploring Trees Inside and Out exhibit will debut at Philly’s Please Touch Museum where kids and adults will be able to explore trees and how they help our environment.

The 2,500-foot exhibit, sponsored by Doubletree Hotels and the Arbor Day Foundation, has already been to six other museums and will travel to other locales in 2010 and 2011 (including Los Angeles and Chicago), spreading its message that trees are helpful and fun, and showing kids how they work. Children visiting the exhibit are able to crawl up through the middle of a manufactured tree trunk to see how the plant sustains itself. They can plant a “seed” and watch a simulation of a tree growing, and they can hear the sounds of the animals that live in the forest. Wee folk also can “become” a creature in the woods and “fly” over the tree tops, using the wonders of technology.

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