An Emerging Consciousness
(This is one of a series of posts exploring how, as chaos grows around the world and a Sixth Extinction takes hold, a new kind of collective consciousness…
Authentic Spirituality in the Coming Storm
Once you’ve accepted that Planet Earth has entered a Sixth Great Extinction – one that’s irreversible and that will consume most, if not all, species, including…
Ask the Beasts
It’s hard to look at what’s happening to the Earth and all the animals as being part of a divine plan. As mass extinction wipes out…
Of Mice and Men – and Women
If you were a mouse in a laboratory, who would you rather have experimenting on you: a man or a woman? Turns out that if it’s…
New Zealand’s Easter Bunny from Hell
The company is called Hell Pizza. And the billboard for its latest advertising campaign is made of rabbit pelts – an idea that’s certainly straight from…
Are You an Extremist?
The nation’s largest coalition of vivisectionists has a new publication advising people who experiment on animals how best to combat the people it calls “animal rights…
The Swan and the Grail
In one of the legends of King Arthur and the Holy Grail, an orphan teenage boy, Percival, stumbles into the woods surrounding the castle at Camelot, sees a swan flying over the trees, and shoots her down with his bow and arrow.
Brought before the outraged knights, Percival is told that in this forest all life is sacred. Mortified, he breaks his bow, throws it away, and sets out on his famous quest for the Holy Grail, a mythic cup or stone that will bring renewal and hope to the dying king of Camelot, to a land that’s become ravaged by famine, and to a people who have lost their way.
What shall we say of the decision by New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, which is planning to license the killing, by shooting, gassing and beheading, of the state’s entire population of 2,200 mute swans?
Of Marius, Zoos and Prince William
Bengt Holst is bewildered. He can’t figure out why everyone is so upset about his zoo knocking off Marius the giraffe. Holst is the science director…
Beyond the Tipping Point
In a recent post, I talked with climate scientist Guy McPherson about Near-Term Extinction. He explained how, thanks to the ways we’re affecting the climate, we’re…
Is Veganism a Religion?
Three years ago, in December 2010, when Sakile Chenzira refused to get a flu shot, she was fired from her job at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital…
The Two Arguments of the Taiji Hunters
Where the dolphins are shipped after they’re captured at Taiji The latest dolphin drive hunt at Taiji is now “over”. Over, that is, for the dolphins…
Apologies to the Rhino Hunter
How could I not have realized that Corey Knowlton is risking life and limb to save the rhinos of southern Africa?
“I Am Not an Animal!” – the video
It’s surely the most important question in the world today: Why are we humans driving the Earth into a Sixth Great Extinction – an extinction event that will likely include our own species?
Why, despite the fact that there are more animal protection groups and more environmental organizations than ever before, is the situation for our fellow animals and the whole world of nature getting worse by the day?
And why do we humans, a supposedly highly intelligent species, continue hurtling down this catastrophic track?
The New Conversation about Persons
When the Nonhuman Rights Project filed its first three lawsuits earlier this month, inviting judges in New York State to recognize four captive chimpanzees as “legal…
Why the Animal Rights Movement Is Still a Contradiction in Terms
How’s the animal rights movement doing? If you rate it by the simple question “How many animals have rights?” you’d have to say that so far…
Comparisons with Concentration Camps
Last week, shocked by the latest disturbing video from Mercy for Animals about life and death for pigs at factory farms, Andrew Sullivan wrote a post…
The Next Few Weeks …
It’s just a few weeks now until the Nonhuman Rights Project files the first-ever lawsuit on behalf of a chimpanzee seeking the right to “bodily liberty”…
Shamu’s Exercise Machine
SeaWorld is planning to install exercise machines for the orcas it holds captive at its marine circuses.
Orcas like Tilikum, SeaWorld’s biggest killer whale, who has killed three people and now spends most of his time languishing motionless in a small tank, could get some longer-distance swimming time.
Should we give SeaWorld a thumbs-up for this?
Imagining the Final Generation
What would you do if you knew that humanity was soon going to cease to exist? Nevil Shute’s 1957 novel On the Beach, twice adapted into…
Miss PoPsicle and the War in Syria
Miss PoPsicle has been following the news from Syria. (Well, sort of.) She certainly knows what it’s like to be caught up as collateral damage in…