From 2019, the keeping of animals on fur farms will be banned in the Czech Republic. Thus, the Czech Senate confirmed a law passed in June 2017. In countries such as Austria, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Slovenia, Croatia, Japan and Macedonia there is already a fur ban.
“More and more governments are realizing that fur farming is morally unjustifiable,” commented Frank Schmidt, specialist for animals in the garment industry at PETA Germany. “The fur industry is on the decline in much of Europe.”
In the Czech Republic, this should save around 20,000 animals – mainly mink and foxes – per year, which are currently kept in nine fur farms. These could receive compensation for this from the Ministry of Agriculture. An opinion poll published in April 2017 found that 83 percent of Czechs supported the ban.
We at WAV / SAV have worked hard over the last year with ‘Respect for Animals’ and the ‘Fur Free Alliance’; as well as Serbian activists; to provide them with lots of information relating to fur farming in Serbia. Finally, today; 1/1/2019, we can say that all the effort has been worth it; and that as of today, 1/1/2019:
SERBIA, 1 JANUARY 2019 – Animal advocates around the globe rejoice as Serbia starts off the new year by effectively banning fur farms after a 10-year phase-out. The enforcement of the ban is the successful result of a…
Herb had too much to drink at the office New Year’s party, and when he woke up the next morning his head felt ready to explode. He could recall almost nothing of the previous night, and he dreaded the thought of facing his wife, who he suspected would have a few choice words for him.
But when he opened his eyes, he saw that there were two extra-strength aspirin and a glass of water on the bedside table, along with a note in his wife’s handwriting. It read:
Dearest Herb,
Your breakfast is on the stove. Brooke said she would do the dishes and clean up the kitchen, so you can just relax and take it easy. I’ve gone out to buy groceries so I can make your favorite supper tonight.
Your loving wife,
Alice
p.s. I’m going to stop at the smoke shop on the way home and pick up a box of your favorite cigars. I love you, darling!
seavoicenews.com
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Our actions today will impact those lives of lives of tomorrow. That phrase has never rang so true as new research has just revealed that half of the world’s orca populations will die to toxic and persistent pollution of the oceans.
The chemical that will cause the death of the killer whales are PCBs which have been banned for decades. Although the ban has been in place, PCBs are still heavily leaking into the ocean. Because PCBs become more concentrated higher upon the food chain, the killer whale, which is the top predators, are the most contaminated animals on the planet. Making it worse, their fat-rich milk passes on very high doses to their newborn calves.
The new research, published in the journal Science, examined PCB contamination in 351 killer whales, the largest analysis yet. The scientists then took existing data on how PCBs affect calf survival and immune systems in whales and used this to model how populations will fare in the future. “Populations of Japan, Brazil, Northeast Pacific, Strait of Gibraltar, and the United Kingdom are all tending toward complete collapse,” they concluded.
PCB concentrations found in killer whales can be 100 times safe levels and severely damage reproductive organs, cause cancer and damage the immune system. The new research analysed the prospects for killer whale populations over the next century and found those offshore from industrialised nations could vanish as soon as 30-50 years.
“It is like a killer whale apocalypse,” said Paul Jepson at the Zoological Society of London, part of the international research team behind the new study. “Even in a pristine condition they are very slow to reproduce.” Healthy killer whales take 20 years to reach peak sexual maturity and 18 months to gestate a calf.
PCBs were used around the world since the 1930s in electrical components, plastics and paints but their toxicity has been known for 50 years. They were banned by nations in the 1970s and 1980s but 80% of the 1m tons produced have yet to be destroyed and are still leaking into the seas from landfills and other sources.
The researchers said PCBs are just one pollutant found in killer whales, with “a long list of additional known and as yet unmeasured contaminants present”. Further problems for killer whales include the loss of key prey species such as tuna and sharks to overfishing and also growing underwater noise pollution.
“This new study is a global red alert on the state of our oceans,” said Jennifer Lonsdale, chair of the Wildlife and Countryside Link’s whales group. “If the UK government wants its [proposed] Environment Act to be world-leading, it must set ambitious targets on PCB disposal and protect against further chemical pollution of our waters.”
Large recycled plastic fish sculpture in Helsingor situated infront of the Kronborg Castle in Helsingor in Denmark in July 28th 2017. James D. Morgan / Getty Images
The plastic pollution crisis has been building for some time now, to the point where around eight million tons of plastic enter the world’s oceans each year.
In response, a movement to cut down on plastic waste has also been gaining momentum, but 2018 was the year it really picked up speed, with everyone from ordinary tourists to major companies to the Queen of England lending their hands to push it along.
Part of the movement’s success in 2018 was because of something that happened at the end of last year. Famed British naturalist David Attenborough aired his new BBC series Blue Planet II, which featured a heartbreaking image of an albatross feeding a plastic toothpick to its young.
Albatrosses are ingesting plastic – Blue Planet II: Episode 7 Preview – BBC One http://www.youtube.com
“Never before have we been so aware of what we are doing to our planet—and never before have we had such power to do something about it,” he wrote at the close of 2017. “Surely we have a responsibility to care for the planet on which we live?”
Here is a brief timeline of how we answered his question in 2018.
January: The year began auspiciously when, early in January, a ban on microbeads entered into force in the UK. Microbeads were common in personal care products, but they washed down drains into every body of water in the world, where marine life ate them by mistake, moving them up the ocean food web to larger marine mammals and, eventually, to us. In the U.S., former President Barack Obama had already signed legislation phasing out the manufacturing of products containing microbeads by July 2017 and the sale of these products by July 2018.
February: The fight against plastic gained a very distinguished ally early in the year when Queen Elizabeth II banned plastic straws and bottles on all royal properties, including visitor cafes. The Queen was reportedly inspired by working with Attenborough on Blue Planet II.
March: You don’t need to be a world-famous naturalist to raise awareness about plastic pollution. British diver Rich Horner raised a lot when a video he had posted on Facebook went viral. The video showed Horner swimming in plastic-filled water off of Bali’s Manta Point. Horner used the opportunity to encourage people to cut down on single use plastics and to correctly recycle the plastic they do use.
April: On Sunday, April 22, the world celebrated Earth Day. This year’s focus? Ending plastic pollution by 2020. “An aroused public can overcome a powerful economic interest, but only when the issue is felt intensely. Until ending ‘one-way’ plastics becomes a political priority around the world, [their manufacture] will continue unabated. Meanwhile, we nevertheless each should ‘be the change we want to see,'” Earth Day founder Denis Hayes said in an interview.
May: Chile’s congress unanimously approved a nation-wide ban on plastic bags at the end of the month, making Chile the first country in the Americas to do so. The law gave major retailers one year and smaller businesses two years to phase out the bags. Around 95 percent of Chileans supported their government’s decision.
June: June was a big month for corporate action on single-use plastics as companies like SeaWorld parks, American Express, cruise company Royal Caribbean, IKEA, A&W Canada and Burger King UK all pledged to phase out items like straws, stirrers, lids and bags. World governments also joined in when Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the EU endorsed the G7 Ocean Plastics Charter. The charter set goals for reducing unnecessary plastics and encouraging recycling, but the U.S. and Japan refused to sign.
July: In July, bans on plastic straws specifically took off. A city-wide ban on plastic straws and utensils in Seattle went into effect July 1, About a week later, one of Seattle’s most famous companies followed suit when Starbucks became the largest food and beverage retailer to ban plastic straws, promising to remove them from all locations by 2020. However, the disability community raised important concerns about the straw bans. They pointed out that many people with disabilities rely on plastic straws’ mix of strength and flexibility to dine out independently and asked that the bans be flexible as well. “We don’t have to choose between making the world more sustainable or making it more accessible,” disability advocate Karin Hitselberger wrote.
August: France worked to up its commitment to fighting plastic pollution by announcing a series of policy changes this August. Next year, items without recyclable packaging could cost as much as 10 percent more, while items with recyclable packaging could cost 10 percent less. The measures also included upping taxes for landfills, reducing taxes for recycling and implementing a refund for turning in plastic bottles. All of this is to further the country’s goal of recycling 100 percent of plastic by 2025.
September: The Ocean Cleanup launched this month from San Francisco in an attempt to clean up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a mass of ocean trash twice the size of Texas. The plastic-removing method, developed by Boyan Slat of the Netherlands when he was still a teenager, hasn’t worked effectively yet, but Slat is not ready to give up and continues to troubleshoot.
October: This month some of the biggest plastic polluting companies in the world, such as Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Unilever and H&M, joined forces with more than 250 governments, businesses and organizations to sign the “New Plastics Economy Global Commitment” to make all plastic packaging reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.
November: In a testament to how successful the movement against plastic pollution was in 2018, Collins Dictionary named “single-use” their word of the year. The dictionary said use of the word had jumped four fold since 2013. “Single-use refers to products—often plastic—that are ‘made to be used once only’ before disposal. Images of plastic adrift in the most distant oceans, such as straws, bottles, and bags have led to a global campaign to reduce their use,” Collins wrote of its decision.
December: 2018 ended on a positive note for the fight against plastic waste when the EU got one step closer to an agreement to reduce or ban several single-use plastic items. The plan was first introduced by the European Commission in May and targets items like cigarette butts, straws, bottles, cutlery and cotton buds. EU’s parliament and council have reached a provisional agreement to move the plan forward.
by: Joe Sireno
recipient: Citizens of Vernon Township, NJ, Sussex, NJ
9 SUPPORTERS in Sussex
2,715 SUPPORTERS – 20,000 GOAL
STOP THE WASTE DUMP – SAVE VERNONS WATER SUPPLY!
For years a resident of our town has been profiting by turning his residentially zoned property into a construction waste dump. Every day dump trucks, some without license plates or surface graphics identifying their ownership, show up at 3 Silver Spruce Lane in Vernon, dumping loads of mixed construction waste of seriously questionable content. The only way to confirm if there is or is not a significant danger to the health of the citizens and especially the children of Vernon is to do independent water well, water run-off and deep core soil testing on a scheduled basis underneath the mountains of waste created by this practice.
What’s at stake: Nothing less than the safety of our water supply, the health of our children, the value of our homes and our community’s ability to grow and thrive. Numerous attempts have been made to seek proper redress by various good citizens of our town like Peg and Pat Destasi and many others. Mayor Harry J. Shortway and congressman Josh Gottheimer are fully aligned with our cause and have acted aggressively on our behalf to the extent possible so far. Now it’s time for all of us to stand up, be counted and to join this important effort.
We, the citizens of Vernon, NJ, therefore demand the NJDEP take immediate action to halt any further dumping on Mr. Joseph Wallace’s property or any other tract of land within the boundaries of Vernon, NJ until such time as a thorough and exhaustive testing is done to the earth and water beneath the sites used for the dumping of waste. If pollutants are found that compromise soil and or water, we further demand that the NJDEP permanently stop the dumping, enforce all appropriate laws and require the immediate remediation of the sites in question.
PLEASE SIGN OUR PETITION TODAY! Join us as we demand legal actions be taken by the NJDEP. Please “like” our Facebook Page for news, public meeting dates and updates on our progress.
There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "...truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity--it is simply true and that is the end of it" - Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” - Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
Following in the spirit of Britain's Queen Boudica, Queen of the Iceni. A boudica.us site. I am an opinionator, do your own research, verification. Reposts, reblogs do not neccessarily reflect our views.
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