Food shortages are causing sporadic riots in poor countries throughout the world, while Americans are wasting "an astounding amount of food -- an estimated 27 percent of the food available for consumption." It works out to about a pound of food wasted every day for every American. It doesn't have to be this way. [...more]
Given the chance, cows nurture their young and form lifelong friendships with one another. They play games, have a wide range of emotions, and demonstrate personality traits, such as vanity. But most cows raised for the dairy-products industry are intensively confined, leaving them unable to fulfill their most basic desires, such as nursing their calves, even for a single day. They are treated like milk-producing machines and are genetically manipulated and pumped full of antibiotics and hormones that cause them to produce more milk. While cows suffer in animal factories, humans who drink their milk increase their chances of developing heart disease, diabetes, several types of cancer, and many other ailments. [...more]
A swirling, floating garbage dump in the North Pacific Ocean twice the size of the United States has been noticed in recent years and is growing at a swift pace. It is called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The number of plastic pieces in the Pacific Ocean has tripled in the last ten years and the size of the accumulation is set to double in the next ten unless the use of disposable plastics is reduced. [...more]
Free markets are often presented as the sole solution to poverty and human development. But the global market is inefficient and life-destructive, writes John McMurtry. [...more]
