Compassion needed for farm animals. (Letter)

The following letter appeared in the Saturday, Oct. 10th edition of the Winnipeg Free Press, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. (Photo added by PinP.)

Sows like this spend much of their lives in tiny steel cages.

Re: Changes needed to protect farms, animals (Opinion, Oct. 5) 

As a former executive director at the Winnipeg Humane Society, I feel compelled to respond to Bill Campbell’s op-ed on the need to protect farms and animals. After starting at the Humane Society in 1994, I quickly came to learn that some of the most egregious suffering imposed on animals by humans occurs in the industrial barns of today’s animal agriculture.

I am not speaking of the few remaining family farms, but rather the large industrial-style buildings that house thousands of animals in small confined spaces with no access to the outdoors. These operations treat the animals more like cars on an assembly line, as they do not allow the animals to fulfill natural instincts and limit their movement severely. In short, the millions of animals raised for food in Canada are enduring lives of chronic suffering due to the very conditions that are allowed under our laws.

Anyone can check the facts by looking at the Animal Care Act of Manitoba. At first glance, it’s reassuring to see that animals shall not be confined with inadequate space, unsanitary conditions, or without opportunity for exercise. But just move down to the next section and you will see the list of animals that are exempted from the above requirements, and agricultural uses of animals are at the top of the list.

So, recent moves to bring in “ag-gag” laws are by no means aimed at bringing further protection to animals, but rather to keep the barn doors tightly locked so the public will not be able to see how the pigs and chickens providing food for us are actually living. In my view, industrial animal agriculture is unethical and, as a society, we should be working to ensure that animals raised for food are treated humanely as living creatures, not assembly-line parts.

VICKI BURNS

Winnipeg

RELATED:

Action Alert! Tell the Manitoba Government That Exposing Animal Cruelty is Not A Crime | Winnipeg Humane Society. Ag-gag laws

Nitrous oxide emissions pose an increasing climate threat

The sprawling Koch fertilizer plant in Brandon, Manitoba, CA. Each month, hundreds of trucks and rail cars deliver both nitrogen and methane-based fertilizers made here, to farmers in western Canada & the US. Both nitrogen & methane are more potent as greenhouse gases than CO2, the commonest one. The plant has, for many years, been the single-biggest industrial source of GH gases in MB.
A PinP photo.

Rising nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions are jeopardizing the climate goals of the Paris Agreement, according to a major new study. The growing use of nitrogen fertilizers in farming worldwide is increasing atmospheric concentrations. N2O is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide and remains in the atmosphere for more than 100 years. Story here.

The Arctic is burning in a whole new way

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"Where There's Smoke There's Fire" by Western Arctic National Parklands

Widespread wildfires in the far north aren't just bigger; they're different. Details here.

Global heating. How will it impact the world’s nature reserves?

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The Athabasca glacier in Jasper National Park, Canada.
Already a shadow of its former self, many fear it will be gone altogether
within a generation. A 2020 photo by Ethan Sahagun.

Nature reserves will be affected by future climate change in very different ways - especially in the tropics. A new study drawing attention to this fact, raises even more fears for wildlife species. It's based on forecasts for more than 130,000 nature reserves worldwide. Story here.

The Bio of Larry Powell - publisher of this blog.

Larry Powell

Powell is a veteran, award-winning journalist based in Shoal Lake, Manitoba, Canada. He specialize in stories about agriculture and the environment. For decades, he worked for broadcast outlets in all four provinces in western Canada. This included a 5 years stint as Senior Editor for CBC Radio News in Saskatchewan.

He is authorized to receive embargoed news releases on important, global stories, through the Science Media Centre of Canada, the Royal Society, Nature Research and the World Weather Attribution Network. He's a member of the Science Writers and Communicators of Canada, the Canadian Association of  Journalists and a past member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

In 2020, Powell joined an international team of writers providing articles for the Swiss-based online journal, Focusing on Wildlife - celebrating  the biodiversity of Planet Earth.

In June, 2014, he was a panelist at a world conference in Winnipeg entitled Holding Power to Account. Investigative    Journalism, Democracy and Human Rights. A keynote speaker there was Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame.

In 1986, he received one of several awards, when the Centre for Investigative Journalism chose his radio documentary about high cancer rates among uranium miners in northern Saskatchewan as the best in the country that year. 

Since retiring as a full-time employee in the late 80s, Powell has been able to devote more time to deeply- researched articles about important issues of our time, such as climate change and industrial farming. 

In 2012, the Manitoba Community Newspapers Association awarded his story about vanishing pollinators, Plight of the Humble Bee second prize in its environmental category. 

He has reported in many media, online, print and broadcast. They include CBC Radio; CBC TV’s flagship newscast, “The National;” NACTV - Community TV, Neepawa, Manitoba; farm newspapers including The Manitoba Co-Operator and The Western Producer; the weekly newspaper, The Roblin Review in Roblin, MB; along with progressive media such as the journal Alternatives; Briarpatch; Sasquatch;  Canadian Dimension; The Dominion;  OnEarth; Planetsave; The Manitoba Eco-Journal; Earthkeeper and Outdoor Edge. 

WORK HISTORY:

• 1989-present: Freelance writer, broadcaster, photographer, and researcher – online, print and television. 

• 1979-’88: Employee of CBC Radio News in Regina, including five years as Senior Editor of CBC Radio News in Saskatchewan. 

• 1972-’78: CBC Radio/TV News, Calgary AB. 

• 1958-’71: News reporter/announcer/host at private radio stations at CFAR, Flin Flon, MB; CJGX, Yorkton, SK; CJVI, Victoria, BC; CHAB, Moose Jaw, SK and CFAC, Calgary, AB.

EDUCATION:

• High school diploma, Dauphin Collegiate Technical Institute, Dauphin, MB; typing and shorthand degree, Sprott-Shaw Business College, Victoria, BC along with various skills courses at CBC, including writing and interviewing. 

OTHER AWARDS:

• 1990: The B’Nai Brith award for human rights broadcasting as part of a team at CBC Radio, Saskatchewan. The series, "A People Apart," chronicled incidents of discrimination and abuse against indigenous people.

• 1984: Nomination for Peabody and winner of Saskatchewan Reporters’ Asn. Award for best radio documentary. 

REFERENCES & WRITING SAMPLES: On request.

INTERESTS: Blogging, reading, writing, organics, market gardening, eat-local movements, community activism, jamming with friends on my clarinet. 

PERSONAL INFORMATION:

Box 364 , Shoal Lake, Manitoba, Canada R0J1Z0

Cell: (204) 937-0205

He publishes the blog www.PlanetInPeril.ca (PinP) - "where science gets respect," and can be e-mailed at:

 PlanetWatch1@yahoo.ca

Facebook: larry.powell.9235 

BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/greensenior.bsky.social

X  LarryPo54406341 

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Plants at Risk of Extinction, New Report Finds

Common Dreams

One of several species at risk in Canada, the small white lady's slipper, (Cypripedium candidum). Photo by Mason Brock.

A grim new assessment of the world's flora and fungi has found that two-fifths of its species are at risk of extinction as humans encroach on the natural world. Details here.