Following a wave of peace rallies held across the globe this weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has agreed to diplomatic talks with Russia. This comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin placed Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert on Sunday, citing increasingly tightened international…
Fiona HarveyEnvironment correspondentMon 28 Feb 2022 06.00 EST
Climate breakdown is accelerating rapidly, many of the impacts will be more severe than predicted and there is only a narrow chance left of avoiding its worst ravages, theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(IPCC) has said.
Even at current levels, human actions in heating the climate are causing dangerous and widespread disruption, threatening devastation to swathes of the natural world and rendering many areas unliveable, according to the landmark report published on Monday.
“The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet,” said Hans-Otto Pörtner, a co-chair…
By YURAS KARMANAU, JIM HEINTZ, VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV and DASHA LITVINOVA5 minutes ago
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People struggle on stairways after a last minute change of the departure platform for a Lviv bound train in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, Feb. 28, 2022. Explosions and gunfire that have disrupted life since the invasion began last week appeared to subside around Kyiv overnight, as Ukrainian and Russian delegations met Monday on Ukraine’s border with Belarus. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces shelled Ukraine’s second-largest city on Monday, rocking a residential neighborhood, and closed in on the capital, Kyiv, in a 17-mile convoy of hundreds of tanks and other vehicles, as talks aimed at stopping the fighting yielded only an agreement to keep talking.
Amid ever-growing international condemnation, Russia found itself increasingly isolated five days into its invasion, while also facing unexpectedly fierce resistance on the ground in Ukraine and economic havoc…
Since banning fur farming in 2001, the U.K. has imported more than $1 billion worth of fur from countries in which foxes, mink, raccoon dogs and other fur-bearing species are trapped for their entire lives in the most barren and restrictive of cages before being gassed or electrocuted. Kristo Muurimaa/Oikeutta Elaimille
Disturbing as it was to learn last week that the British government is wavering on proposed bans on imports of fur and foie gras, it was heartening to see the reaction of a caring public outraged by this news and the firm resistance of politicians determined to see these animal protection laws advance.
Such response is warranted because these two products represent animal cruelty at its absolute worst—unprincipled, unrestrained and indifferent to the misery and suffering. In such moments, public outcry and political resistance are not just measures of the progress we are making in our work. They are also very good measures of human decency.
According to reports, it was one of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Cabinet ministers, Jacob Rees-Mogg, who raised the flag of personal choice in defense of the two cruelties, suggesting that it is wrong for government to infringe on consumer freedom. At least two other ministers raised concerns about the bans, as well.
The proposed bans were intended to be part of the upcoming Animals Abroad Bill, framed to address the part the United Kingdom plays in the plight of animals suffering in other countries.
It is disheartening to see any officials at the highest levels of government settle on the argument that we should embrace consumer freedom as a blank check for some of the worst cruelties we could imagine, and some of the most avoidable. We’re talking, after all, about two products that represent the most unnecessary and extravagant consumerism: an ingredient that requires the pitiless force-feeding of ducks to swell their livers grossly, and a non-essential fashion material torn from the backs of wild animals.
We’re also talking, in both instances, about items that are illegal to produce in the U.K. precisely because of their cruelty. On top of that, polling suggests that 79% of the British public supports the foie gras sales ban and some 72% the fur sales ban. In a nation that has already made a clear moral judgment about these products, the consumer freedom argument seems especially feeble and out of touch.
Humane Society International/UK is working with Conservative and other members of Parliament to hold the government accountable to these commitments. HSI/UK launched the #FurFreeBritain campaign in 2017 and, as part of a coalition of likeminded organizations, is leading the campaign to secure a fur sales ban. In September, coalition partners delivered over 1 million petition signatures to the prime minister supporting a fur sales ban, and a host of compassionate celebrities have backed the effort. HSI/UK has also secured written support for a ban from 150 members of Parliament and peers of all political persuasions.
In every healthy society there are limits to personal choice, especially where such choice leads to the unconscionable suffering of others, something that people of all ideological persuasions understand and appreciate. In that regard, the fight over fur and foie gras in the U.K. has a universal relevance. And it certainly doesn’t make sense to accept imports of products that undermine or conflict with domestic animal protection standards. That’s why, in the United States, for example, we don’t allow the import of articles made from dog and cat fur, just as we don’t allow the sale of whale meat.
The argument in Britain is not an academic one. The lives of millions of animals are at stake. Since banning fur farming in 2000, the U.K. has imported over £800 million (more than $1 billion) worth of fur from countries in which foxes, mink, raccoon dogs and other fur-bearing species are trapped for their entire lives in the most barren and restrictive of cages before being gassed or electrocuted. As to foie gras, there may be as much as 200 tons of it imported from continental Europe every year.
We all value freedom of choice, but most of us comprehend that as a right that exists within a balanced framework of social good and common decency, and we understand that there is a limit to what can be justified in its name. When it comes to the practices at issue here—practices that involve the indisputable torment of animals—it’s pretty hard to see Rees-Mogg’s point. Fur and foie gras involve extreme forms of animal cruelty, shunned and stigmatized worldwide, and if the weakness of the arguments marshaled against the proposed bans demonstrate anything, it is that fur and foie gras are, in the end, indefensible.
If you are a U.K. citizen, you can support the HSI campaign right now.
Much like their human counterparts, newborn calves suckle milk from their mothers during the early stages of their lives. But the commercial dairy industry often prevents calves from engaging in this natural behavior, illustrating just one of many reasons why the words ‘natural’ and ‘dairy’ do not go together.
The European Dairy Association (EDA), however, promotes dairy as exactly that: natural. In November 2021, the group shared a factsheet comparing cow milk and plant-based milks. One of the EDA’s major takeaways is that, according to the association, plant milk is less natural than cow’s milk.
The EDA’s portrayal of cow’s milk as natural partly rests on the amount of “processing” that happens during the production process. The group claims that plant milks are more heavily processed than dairy, insinuating that they’re less natural as a result.
But there’s a glaring issue with the factsheet. The EDA leaves out the lifelong processing that cows endure in the dairy industry. In fact, it largely avoids mentioning cows at all.
Natural or not
Self-promotion by the dairy industry isn’t new. The EDA’s comments aren’t surprising either. The plant-based milk market is the dairy industry’s top competitor. and in recent years, it has seen a meteoric rise.
Many people are opting to ditch dairy over ethical concerns, as well as environmental ones. And while it’s doubtful that the EDA’s factsheet will convince them that cow’s milk is more natural than plant milk, they may not be the association’s intended audience.
According to the UK’s Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), cow’s milk remains a “staple product” of 98 percent of British households. The chart, shared by the EDA’s Twitter account earlier this year, was meant in large part for consumers like them.
But the chart promotes a skewed understanding of the dairy production process. For example, in the chart, EDA cites a step called “pre-treatment.” That phrase is meant to encompass everything cows experience up to the point of lactation. But the multiple ‘steps’ that they go through warrant some attention.
The industry breeds dairy cows and has done so for decades to produce an unnaturally high quantity of milk. They’re often conceived using sexed semen, reproductive technology that gives farmers control over the sex of calves. The industry uses this technology because it relies on female calves, known as heifers, to replenish their dairy herds. Most male calves are sold onwards, into the meat or leather industry.
An artificial existence
When first born, calves need colostrum, antibody-filled milk that mothers produce directly after birth to bolster their calf’s immune system. But in commercial dairies, farmers regularly milk the mothers themselves and then feed this colostrum to calves using a bottle or a stomach tube. As Farmers Weeklyhighlights, farmers see stomach tubing calves as “quick and efficient,” but they are far from natural.
Almost all calves in commercial dairies get a matter of hours with their mothers before separation, according to Compassion in World Farming (CIWF). Separating cows from their calves allows farmers to sell the mother’s milk for human consumption.
However, most people—over two-thirds of the global population—are lactose intolerant. Many struggle to make that connection, in large part because they are missing key information about where their milk comes from.
The high cost of dairy farming
According to Jimmy Goldie, chief technical officer for agricultural supplies firm Carrs Billington speaking at a recent dairy calf health and management event hosted by the AHDB, data shows that as much as 22 percent of heifer calves die after birth and another 11 percent do not complete their first lactation cycle. Death rates vary considerably from farm to farm, but artificial inputs like antibiotics are routinely used to combat health-related issues.
If cows make it to their first artificial insemination, which can happen from around fifteen months old onwards, and it’s successful, they will give birth nine months later. Cows who have had a calf previously—the industry expects three or four births before considering dairy cows ‘spent‘—face an additional step in their processing prior to birthing. Known as “drying off,” this process involves artificially ending their milk production by ceasing milking, changing their diets, and, in many cases, sealing their teats.
Antibiotics are oftenused in this step, too, to address the painful swelling of the udders, known as mastitis, that affects millions of dairy cows every year.
“Hardly natural”
CIWF’s Research and Education Manager Phil Brooke points to other systemic issues in intensive dairy farming, such as over 20 percent of British cows being “being kept indoors all year,” making them liable to lameness. He also told Sentient Mediathat breeding for high milk yields risks emaciation, along with mastitis and lameness, that can, in turn, lead to “infertility and shortened life-span.” This is “hardly natural,” he says.
The EDA didn’t respond to a request for comment about its factsheet. But Brooke characterized “the production process” as an “inconvenient truth” that the association chose “not to mention.”
The EDA further suggests that while plant-based milks may “look” better for the environment, dairy milk may actually “perform” better by comparison if measured by “nutritional value” and not “total mass-produced.” The European Plant-based Foods Association (ENSA) told Sentient Media that this claim “lacks scientific ground,” highlighting a shortage of evidence to substantiate it in the factsheet.
The EDA also argued that the environmental benefits of various plant-based milks aren’t well supported by scientific evidence. This is “clearly bunkum,” says Mark Driscoll, a sustainable food systems consultant and member of the ENSA’s scientific advisory committee. He says that “across all metrics,” cow’s milk has higher environmental impacts than plant-based alternatives. ENSA, meanwhile, states that plant-based foods are “highly valuable” in protecting biodiversity and helping to mitigate climate change.
Brooke was unconvinced by the EDA’s environmental arguments, too. On the contrary, he says that reduced consumption of animal products, including dairy, would be “good for people, animals, and the planet.”
Russia’s audaciousmilitary assault on Ukraineis the first major clash marking a new order in international politics, with three major powers jostling for position in ways that threaten America’s primacy.
The challenges are different than those the U.S. and its network of alliances faced in the Cold War. Russia and China have built a thriving partnership based in part on a shared interest in diminishing U.S. power. Unlike the Sino-Soviet bloc of the 1950s, Russia is a critical gas supplier to Europe, while China isn’t an impoverished, war-ravaged partner but the world’s manufacturing powerhouse with an expanding…
Joe Biden46th and current president of the United States
Vladimir PutinPresident of Russia
Volodymyr Zelenskyy
While defending his praise of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, former President Trump also lauded Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has drawn international praise for standing up to Russian aggression.(John Raoux / Associated Press)
Former President Trump bashed President Biden for the nation’s high inflation rates and gas prices and blamed him for Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, which he called “an outrage and an atrocity.”
Echoing much-criticized comments from earlier in the week when he praised Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intelligence, Trump reiterated that he thought the autocrat “smart.”
“The real problem is that our leaders are dumb,” Trump said, adding that the Russian leader “is playing Biden like a drum, and it’s…
By YURAS KARMANAU, JIM HEINTZ, VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV and DASHA LITVINOVA15 minutes ago
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A woman reacts as paramedics perform CPR on a girl who was injured during shelling, at city hospital of Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. The girl did not survive. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Vladimir Putin dramatically escalated East-West tensions by ordering Russian nuclear forces put on high alert Sunday, while Ukraine’s embattled leader agreed to talks with Moscow as Putin’s forces drove deeper into the country.
Putin cited “aggressive statements” by NATO in issuing a directive to increase the readiness of his country’s nuclear weapons — a step that raised fears that the invasion of Ukraine could boil over into nuclear war, whether by design or mistake.
The Russian leader is “potentially putting in play forces that, if there’s a miscalculation, could make things much, much more dangerous,” said…
As a Miami high school student in 1987, she “grilled” then-Interior Secretary Donald Hodel about the risk posed by offshore oil drilling to Florida’s reefs, the Miami Herald reported at the time. “Oil and water don’t mix,” she said.
Thirty years later, however, as a judge in a D.C. court, Jackson threw out environmentalists’ lawsuit over the risks of offshore drilling.
Green groups had sought to force the Interior Department to finish a post-Deepwater Horizon review of its practice of issuing offshore oil and gas drilling permits without first carrying out a site-specific environmental review. In her 2017 ruling, Jackson agreed Interior had an “ongoing obligation” to review its procedures, but ruled that department policy “does not mandate that an agency complete its ongoing review… much less demand that an agency publicly announce its decision to decline to revise its existing rules.”
Jackson’s ruling illustrates that she “comes to cases with an open mind and will rule based on the record and the law,” said Kristen Monsell, the Center for Biological Diversity attorney who argued the case.
“I obviously did disagree with the analysis and conclusion, but she did give us a fair hearing,” Monsell added.
Environmentalists are expected to coalesce behind Jackson as a replacement for Justice Stephen Breyer, as protecting his seat on the Supreme Court has become critical for liberal activists across the board.
If confirmed, Jackson would join a court that tilts decidedly to the right. Absent the departure of a conservative member, that could mean Jackson should expect to spend much of her time penning dissents, including for environmental cases.
Jackson clerked for Breyer — who will retire at the end of the court’s current term this summer and was known for seeking compromise solutions that could win votes from the court’s conservative wing — in the 1999-2000 term.
“If someone were to fill in exactly where Breyer is, she would be right there,” said Steph Tai, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Jackson’s ruling against the environmentalists in the offshore drilling case “illustrated her ability to set aside her personal preferences to actually stick by the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act, which, honestly, allows a lot of deference to agencies,” Tai added.
Jackson, 51, is best known for her experience in criminal law. She worked as a federal public defender in Washington, D.C., from 2005 to 2007, and from 2010 through 2014 she served as vice chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, a judicial agency that creates sentencing policies.
Jackson was confirmed as a district judge in 2013 by a voice vote. But her 2021 confirmation to the D.C. Circuit — widely seen as positioning her for the Supreme Court — was far more contentious. She ultimately garnered support from just three Republicans: Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. (She also enjoyed public backing from former Speaker Paul Ryan, to whom she is related by marriage.)
Jackson likely will have at least one high-profile environmental case waiting to welcome her to the high court this fall, should she be confirmed.
The Supreme Court in January agreed to take up an appeal questioning whether lower courts have applied the proper test for determining which wetlands are federally protected waters. That case appears to be headed for argument near the beginning of the court’s term in October.
However, Jackson’s replacement of Breyer probably wouldn’t shift the dynamics of that case. The six conservative justices likely have enough votes to rule without needing the support of the court’s diminished liberal wing.
In many of her environmental rulings during her eight years in district court, Jackson relied on facts unique to the case or statutory limitations.
“She’s very fact-based, she’s very multiple-factor-based,” said Tai. “And to the extent that the multiple factors come out against the environmentalists, she’s fine with ruling that way.”
One of her highest profile rulings involved environmentalists’ challenge to the Trump administration’s waiver of key environmental laws in constructing the Mexican border wall. In 2019, Jackson ruled that a 1996 law blocked judicial review of the groups’ challenge, and thus prevented her from weighing in on their claims that the administration had overstepped its authority.
Early in her time as a judge, Jackson ruled against environmentalists challenging the Enbridge-owned Flanagan South Pipeline, which carries oil sands crude oil from Illinois to Oklahoma mostly across privately-owned land. The green groups argued the federal government should have conducted an environmental review of the entire pipeline, but Jackson ruled they were wrong.
“The Federal Defendants have permitting authority over only small segments of this private pipeline project and none of the defendant agencies, alone or in combination, have authority to oversee or control the vast portions of the FS Pipeline that traverse private land,” she wrote in 2014. The D.C. Circuit later affirmed her ruling.
In 2018, Jackson tossed out an Obama-era designation that established critical habitat for the Riverside fairy shrimp, an endangered species found only in a small part of California’s San Diego County. The Fish and Wildlife Service had named 56 acres of a developer’s property as critical habitat because it was adjacent to the small pools the shrimp occupy. “There is nothing about the [Endangered Species Act’s] use of ‘occupied,’ or the plain meaning of that term, or, quite frankly, common sense, that permits this result,” Jackson ruled.
And in 2015, Jackson rejected a lawsuit over a planning rule that industry challengers argued placed environmental interests over competing logging and grazing interests, concluding they lacked standing.
Jackson has sometimes ruled in favor of environmental interests.
In 2018, after environmental groups sued EPA over long-overdue updates to nine air pollution standards, Jackson rejected the Trump administration’s request for seven years to finish the rulemakings. Environmentalists asked for a two-year deadline, but Jackson called that timeline “impossibly compressed” and instead imposed a three-and-a-half year deadline. (Several of those deadlines have since been pushed back into 2022.)
Also that year, Jackson green-lighted a $160 million lawsuit brought by Guam against the Navy over Superfund clean-up costs of an old dump. She was reversed by the D.C. Circuit — but the Supreme Court reversed again on appeal in 2021, allowing Guam’s lawsuit to proceed to trial, as Jackson had initially ruled.
Jackson also briefly oversaw challenges to the Trump Transportation Department’s rule that prohibited California and other states from setting more stringent greenhouse gas standards for vehicles. That case never advanced very far, and the Biden administration has since repealed that regulation.
Since joining the D.C. Circuit last year, Jackson’s participation in energy and environmental cases has skyrocketed — but her short time on the appellate bench means she’s signed her name to few rulings.
In January, Jackson heard environmentalists’ challenge to the Trump administration’s environmental review that underpinned two lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico in 2018. Jackson and Judge Robert Wilkins expressed concerns about the environmental impact statement. She specifically went after the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management for not addressing the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement’s planned changes to the well control rule, which tightened standards for the equipment used to drill and produce oil and gas from underwater wells.
“I’m concerned about the suggestion that the agency doesn’t have to take that into account, if it relies on those rules, when it’s putting together an EIS,” Jackson said during oral arguments. The court has not yet ruled in that case, but Wilkins indicated he was inclined to vacate the leases.
Also in January, Jackson joined a ruling that found the Trump administration had not provided “clear and convincing evidence” to justify the increased stringency of an energy efficiency rule for boilers used in commercial or multifamily buildings. DOE has until April to provide a fuller explanation for the standard; if it does not, the regulation will be vacated.
Jackson sat on a panel in November that heard a tribal challenge to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s licensing of a South Dakota uranium mine. That panel has not yet ruled, but during arguments, Jackson seemed disinclined to second guess the licensing board. “Ordinarily, we give deference to an agency in its determination of fact, particularly after a lengthy evidentiary hearing,” she said.
In her short time on the D.C. Circuit, Jackson has heard seven different FERC lawsuits. Only two have led to rulings so far — including one issued on Thursday, unusual timing for an opinion release that stirred speculation that Jackson was trying to clear her docket before a nomination announcement.
