I cant speak for secondary teaching, but as a polytech teacher I can say that yes, intrinsically teaching is hard yet rewarding and I loved the job. But what makes it stressful is not the job itself but continuous micro-management, passive-aggressive supervision over every little thing, and other things that petty little management minds dream up to make our lives miserable.
Prof John Webster, Professor of Animal Welfare at Bristol University has pointed out in his books that milk production per cow is actually greater if milkers share the milk with the calf. It is also better for the cow Milk per person hour or per hectare may be lower, which is why farmers separate the calves from their mothers. It is all about profit, not the animals. Which is not surprising, it always has been. Thankfully, with the advent of so many plant based alternatives, and with increasing awareness of the environmental damage and the damage to animals caused by farming, animal agriculture is on the way out.
I agree with farmers that townies are ignorant about what goes on behind the farm gate. Do you know why? Its because farmer groups like the Feds want to keep them ignorant. When people start to learn the truth about meat and dairy then market share drops, and the market becomes flooded with alternative proteins, which is what is happening now. This article, which makes out that calves are separated for animal welfare reasons is an example of a propaganda piece designed to keep townies ignorant. Calves are separated from their mothers to make more money, no other reason. Animal welfare is not a concern at all. If farmers are really concerned about people being ignorant about where their food comes from, then why not come out and say that.BTW it is not just townies who are ignorant. When I submitted a piece to the editor of a farming magazine about sow stalls (this was some time ago, when they were still legal), she was totally horrified and unaware that this type of abusive practice still went on.
If land agents are charging $550 to the landlord, not just a weeks rent, then they really gouging. its an excuse to actually put the price up. Maybe it will encourage more landlords to manage their own property.
Totally disgraceful. Yes, not all farmers abuse their animals on the farm, and I dont even think they are lying when some of them say they genuinely care about their animals. They do - but only while they are on the farm. They have an emotional and rational disconnect that allows them to distance themselves and forget their animals once they are taken to the slaughterhouses. But deliberate cruelty to animals is also not as uncommon as the Feds want the public to believe. Farmwatch randomly placed cameras in facilities handling bobby calves, and found 23 out of 24 were abusing their animals. A bit of school level statistics will tell you thats a 95% chance of an abuse rate of between 80-100%. It is certainly more than a few bad apples.I would challenge those farmers who are not complete sadists, psychopaths or just plain lazy and bad tempered, to transition away from animal agriculture. Its on its way out anyway, you may as well be pioneers rather than followers. If you really care for animals, then that care would extend beyond their period at the farm. We dont need animals or animal products to live happy healthy lives. In fact as well as being cruel to animals it is ruining our environment, and in the amounts we eat meat, our health.
There was quite a lot of security present at the Auckland debate, and a few police. The police were relaxed, and I overheard one of them say he would not be removing anyone, even protesters. I think the Massey VC was over the top in cancelling Brash because of one threat that nobody took seriously. Whether it was a deliberate ploy or just misjudgement on her part, I cant say.
The water is not filtered. How is it filtered? Who filters it? Who pays for it. Thats the point; it isnt filtered. It finds its way into downstream waterways in a polluted state. And diverting water has a detrimental effect on the ecology. Water may be recycled, but all that means is that none of it is lost. It does not mean it is put back in the same place, and in the same state as it was found. Please, learn something about ecology and geography before you comment, and BTW sneering blah blah is not a coherent argument.
Free range chicken is a way for manufacturers to charge more by conning consumers into thinking they are buying something ethical. The issue with chickens raised for meat is the breed. The exact same genetic freak breeds (Cobb and Ross) are used for free range or organic. There have been university studies showing that there is little difference in the suffering of these top heavy breeds in organic or conventional barns.
Actually, the problem for the environment is both population and consumption. According to the UN a Bangladeshi has about a twentieth of the impact of a US American. Population is also predicted to increase to 10 billion and then stabilise, largely due to greenie policies like improving economic equality and empowering women. Scientific research in journals like Nature and Science (hardly sensationalist greenie publications) have shown that we can feed 10 billion people on a vegan diet without environmental destruction, but not if we want to eat animals. Please have a look at the UN and FAO sites if you are genuinely interested in demographics and food security, and not just in preserving your comfortable lifestyle at all costs.
Mr Brooks is an industry shill and doesnt know what shes talking about. A government report showed that up to 38% of New Zealand broilers were in constant pain from lameness. This was more than European researchers found. Dr John Webster,Professor of animal welfare at Bristol University, stated that chicken production was the worst example of mans inhumanity to another species, in terms of both number and severity. This information is not new in fact I wrote a peer-reviewed scientific reports on this in 2009. The problem is the fast breeds. Calling them free range when they can hardly move and going on about the lack of hormones when the real problem is the lameness and top-heavy nature of the chickens is disingenuous and unethical. There are so many alternatives now to chicken meat that theres no excuse for continuing to torture them in this way
The impossible burger is no more grown with chemicals than any other food. The haem protein is a biological product that comes from a plant. All the other ingredients are plants. Beef is far from natural. Pastures are sprayed with chemical pesticides, cows are drenched with nematocides and chemical fertiliser from across the world is applied to it. The only reason why meat is so cheap is because of externalities. Other businesses have to pay market price for their inputs and also have to pay to clean up their own mess. Farmers have been given a free ride. The taxpayer and rate payer pick up the tab for their pollution, and now for their Mycoplasma bovis outbreak.And thats before I even mention the animal cruelty. Another externality, this time paid for by the animals.
Not sure what your point is here. Are you saying that dairying doesnt cause pollution because Moruroa does? Or are you saying it is justified to stuff up the environment because Moruroa does so more.Ill try to remember that next time I get a speeding fine. Your Honour I know I was speeding, but why dont you do something about school shootings instead? School shootings are far more dangerous than speeding, so you have to let me off.
Everything that SAFE says can be substantiated in the scientific literature or in the governments own reports. The mantra that farmers have to look after their animals for economic self-interest has been shown to be complete nonsense. What is important economically (though not ethically) is profit per unit cost, not per animal. A few thousand deaths are not important provided the costs of feed, land, labour etc are kept down.And as every economist knows, there are externalities. The most insidious of these of course is the price the birds pay, in continuous suffering. But there is also the wider cost to society, in anti-biotic resistance, and the environmental costs.Putting something in ALL CAPS does not make it 1. It is not a small minority. It is a problem of genetics. Suffering is built into the breeds used. The Cobb and Ross are bred to grow quickly and be top heavy. Again this is substantiated in the scientific literature and government reports.
The supermarket shelves are sagging under the weight of cruelty free alternatives to tortured animals. Beans, nuts, grains, pulses, fruits, vegetables, tofu, falafel, herbs, spices, vegetables, plants, mushrooms. Most of these are cheaper than chicken and certainly better for you, better for the planet and better for the animals.
There are plenty of mortality figures available for broiler chickens. A figure of thousands out of 250,000 is less than 0.1%, which is certainly par for the course.
A recent paper in the journal science (a top peer reviewed journal read by real scientists) concluded, based on data from thousands of farms world wide, that meat is the most destructive use of farmland, by any environmental indicator you can think of. Global climate change, ozone depletion, acid rain, habitat destruction, water pollution, you name it. I And no, growing crops is NOT just as destructive. Ecology 101. Every trophic level (look up what trophic level means, it is a word real scientists use) reduces efficiency of resources by a factor of 10. Please read any text book on ecology. Passing all food through a cow before eating it is so wasteful and destructive, that if a team of expert engineers were asked to come up with a method that consumed the most resources, they would be hard put to come up with anything worse.
According to the ministry for the environment report, animal agriculture produces more greenhouse gases than any other sector. This is because nitrous oxide is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide is produced when there is an excess of nitrate as there is with animal agriculture. Greenhouse gas emissions are also not the only environmental issue to be concerned about. The most common cause of extinction is habitat destruction. In New Zealand this has largely come about through animal agriculture. Water pollution from excess nutrients is also an issue. Read the 2004 Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment report, for a more comprehensive report on this.
What we need to look is the costs of cleaning up from an industry and who pays them. City councils are aware of the problem of waste. The people who cause the pollution pay for the sewage systems and storm water systems through their rates. It is a polluter pays principal. Animal farmers on the other hand, in their arrogance, think the tax payer and rate payer should pay to clean up their industrial waste. A free ride that no other industry gets.
Actually some of us have a great deal of understanding of animal welfare. The problem with the Cobb and Ross breeds is intrinsic to the breed. It has nothing to do with the way they are raised. They are genetically programmed to become so top heavy their hearts and legs collapse under their weight. This is why when these birds are rescued from their Hell, they often dont survive, no matter how well they are nurtured. Rescue layer hens on the other hand, which are sturdier breeds, soon overcome their agraphobia and thrive when rescued.
Several ways. 1. Leave it empty, and let the native flora regenerate naturally.2. Plant native trees in it. This will speed up the regeneration process and provide us with valuable tradeable carbon credits.3. Grow plant based products on it for export.4. Build houses. That would help with our housing crisis.5. A mixture of 1-4 above, depending on location.More to the point, how will we use our thousands of kilometers of clean rivers?
...those people that have no concern for anyone in the community other than themselves and who cause so much physical and mental damage,.. That describes abusive factory farmers to a T!
Chickens used for meat are genetic freaks. They are bred to be so top heavy that their legs collapse under their weight, and their hearts cant cope with the strain. A report by MPI found that up to 38% of chickens were in constant pain from lameness for the last year of their life. Its no wonder that Professor John Webster, professor of animal welfare at Bristol University, described chicken production as the worst example of mans [sic] inhumanity to another creature.This barbaric treatment is quite legal under the codes of welfare. Chickens are slaughtered after just 7 weeks. They are still babies; sick, obese babies.
Dismissing 112,000 people as ill-informed, is pretty ill informed. There is scientific evidence to support the fact that there is no difference in piglet mortality between farrowing crates and other forms of housing.
She reversed Labours fortunes almost overnight. She ran a successful campaign against Nationals smear tactics. She negotiated a tricky 3-way agreement and kept a coalition of disparate parties together. She has introduced legislation that reverse some of the worst excesses of the previous government, she has reformed transport policy, sent a strong signal to the world that NZ is serious about the Paris accord, and has gained the respect of world leaders. Hows that for a start?
Excellent news. The continuous churning out of plastic waste could be a worse problem than climate change, since it is not possible to offset it. There will be some logistics problems over what should be included, but over all a good start.
I was at the debate. Both sides spoke well, and there was actually a lot of common ground. Neither side accepted that Brash should have been banned from speaking at Massey, and nobody on either side (except, presumably, Brash himself) agreed with his views. The protestors did disrupt Brash for a short time, but they then left, and allowed him to speak. So they were exercising their own right to speak, and not disrupting his. A few hecklers remained, but heckling is an accepted part of political debate.
Teaching is a 'sweet gig' - there's no reason to strike, says deputy principal
I cant speak for secondary teaching, but as a polytech teacher I can say that yes, intrinsically teaching is hard yet rewarding and I loved the job. But what makes it stressful is not the job itself but continuous micro-management, passive-aggressive supervision over every little thing, and other things that petty little management minds dream up to make our lives miserable.
Milking it: Taking calves from their mothers keeps the dairy industry going
Prof John Webster, Professor of Animal Welfare at Bristol University has pointed out in his books that milk production per cow is actually greater if milkers share the milk with the calf. It is also better for the cow Milk per person hour or per hectare may be lower, which is why farmers separate the calves from their mothers. It is all about profit, not the animals. Which is not surprising, it always has been. Thankfully, with the advent of so many plant based alternatives, and with increasing awareness of the environmental damage and the damage to animals caused by farming, animal agriculture is on the way out.
Milking it: Taking calves from their mothers keeps the dairy industry going
I agree with farmers that townies are ignorant about what goes on behind the farm gate. Do you know why? Its because farmer groups like the Feds want to keep them ignorant. When people start to learn the truth about meat and dairy then market share drops, and the market becomes flooded with alternative proteins, which is what is happening now. This article, which makes out that calves are separated for animal welfare reasons is an example of a propaganda piece designed to keep townies ignorant. Calves are separated from their mothers to make more money, no other reason. Animal welfare is not a concern at all. If farmers are really concerned about people being ignorant about where their food comes from, then why not come out and say that.BTW it is not just townies who are ignorant. When I submitted a piece to the editor of a farming magazine about sow stalls (this was some time ago, when they were still legal), she was totally horrified and unaware that this type of abusive practice still went on.
Tenancy fees for landlords replace banned letting fees
If land agents are charging $550 to the landlord, not just a weeks rent, then they really gouging. its an excuse to actually put the price up. Maybe it will encourage more landlords to manage their own property.
NZ's animal welfare is a disgrace
Totally disgraceful. Yes, not all farmers abuse their animals on the farm, and I dont even think they are lying when some of them say they genuinely care about their animals. They do - but only while they are on the farm. They have an emotional and rational disconnect that allows them to distance themselves and forget their animals once they are taken to the slaughterhouses. But deliberate cruelty to animals is also not as uncommon as the Feds want the public to believe. Farmwatch randomly placed cameras in facilities handling bobby calves, and found 23 out of 24 were abusing their animals. A bit of school level statistics will tell you thats a 95% chance of an abuse rate of between 80-100%. It is certainly more than a few bad apples.I would challenge those farmers who are not complete sadists, psychopaths or just plain lazy and bad tempered, to transition away from animal agriculture. Its on its way out anyway, you may as well be pioneers rather than followers. If you really care for animals, then that care would extend beyond their period at the farm. We dont need animals or animal products to live happy healthy lives. In fact as well as being cruel to animals it is ruining our environment, and in the amounts we eat meat, our health.
Don Brash slams protesters exercising free speech at Auckland University debate
There was quite a lot of security present at the Auckland debate, and a few police. The police were relaxed, and I overheard one of them say he would not be removing anyone, even protesters. I think the Massey VC was over the top in cancelling Brash because of one threat that nobody took seriously. Whether it was a deliberate ploy or just misjudgement on her part, I cant say.
Milking it: The true cost of dairy on the environment
The water is not filtered. How is it filtered? Who filters it? Who pays for it. Thats the point; it isnt filtered. It finds its way into downstream waterways in a polluted state. And diverting water has a detrimental effect on the ecology. Water may be recycled, but all that means is that none of it is lost. It does not mean it is put back in the same place, and in the same state as it was found. Please, learn something about ecology and geography before you comment, and BTW sneering blah blah is not a coherent argument.
"Behind New Zealand's most popular meat",
Free range chicken is a way for manufacturers to charge more by conning consumers into thinking they are buying something ethical. The issue with chickens raised for meat is the breed. The exact same genetic freak breeds (Cobb and Ross) are used for free range or organic. There have been university studies showing that there is little difference in the suffering of these top heavy breeds in organic or conventional barns.
Milking it: The true cost of dairy on the environment
Actually, the problem for the environment is both population and consumption. According to the UN a Bangladeshi has about a twentieth of the impact of a US American. Population is also predicted to increase to 10 billion and then stabilise, largely due to greenie policies like improving economic equality and empowering women. Scientific research in journals like Nature and Science (hardly sensationalist greenie publications) have shown that we can feed 10 billion people on a vegan diet without environmental destruction, but not if we want to eat animals. Please have a look at the UN and FAO sites if you are genuinely interested in demographics and food security, and not just in preserving your comfortable lifestyle at all costs.
"Behind New Zealand's most popular meat",
Mr Brooks is an industry shill and doesnt know what shes talking about. A government report showed that up to 38% of New Zealand broilers were in constant pain from lameness. This was more than European researchers found. Dr John Webster,Professor of animal welfare at Bristol University, stated that chicken production was the worst example of mans inhumanity to another species, in terms of both number and severity. This information is not new in fact I wrote a peer-reviewed scientific reports on this in 2009. The problem is the fast breeds. Calling them free range when they can hardly move and going on about the lack of hormones when the real problem is the lameness and top-heavy nature of the chickens is disingenuous and unethical. There are so many alternatives now to chicken meat that theres no excuse for continuing to torture them in this way
Air NZ's burgergate shows change is coming
The impossible burger is no more grown with chemicals than any other food. The haem protein is a biological product that comes from a plant. All the other ingredients are plants. Beef is far from natural. Pastures are sprayed with chemical pesticides, cows are drenched with nematocides and chemical fertiliser from across the world is applied to it. The only reason why meat is so cheap is because of externalities. Other businesses have to pay market price for their inputs and also have to pay to clean up their own mess. Farmers have been given a free ride. The taxpayer and rate payer pick up the tab for their pollution, and now for their Mycoplasma bovis outbreak.And thats before I even mention the animal cruelty. Another externality, this time paid for by the animals.
Milking it: The true cost of dairy on the environment
Not sure what your point is here. Are you saying that dairying doesnt cause pollution because Moruroa does? Or are you saying it is justified to stuff up the environment because Moruroa does so more.Ill try to remember that next time I get a speeding fine. Your Honour I know I was speeding, but why dont you do something about school shootings instead? School shootings are far more dangerous than speeding, so you have to let me off.
"Behind New Zealand's most popular meat",
Everything that SAFE says can be substantiated in the scientific literature or in the governments own reports. The mantra that farmers have to look after their animals for economic self-interest has been shown to be complete nonsense. What is important economically (though not ethically) is profit per unit cost, not per animal. A few thousand deaths are not important provided the costs of feed, land, labour etc are kept down.And as every economist knows, there are externalities. The most insidious of these of course is the price the birds pay, in continuous suffering. But there is also the wider cost to society, in anti-biotic resistance, and the environmental costs.Putting something in ALL CAPS does not make it 1. It is not a small minority. It is a problem of genetics. Suffering is built into the breeds used. The Cobb and Ross are bred to grow quickly and be top heavy. Again this is substantiated in the scientific literature and government reports.
"Behind New Zealand's most popular meat",
The supermarket shelves are sagging under the weight of cruelty free alternatives to tortured animals. Beans, nuts, grains, pulses, fruits, vegetables, tofu, falafel, herbs, spices, vegetables, plants, mushrooms. Most of these are cheaper than chicken and certainly better for you, better for the planet and better for the animals.
"Behind New Zealand's most popular meat",
There are plenty of mortality figures available for broiler chickens. A figure of thousands out of 250,000 is less than 0.1%, which is certainly par for the course.
Air NZ's burgergate shows change is coming
A recent paper in the journal science (a top peer reviewed journal read by real scientists) concluded, based on data from thousands of farms world wide, that meat is the most destructive use of farmland, by any environmental indicator you can think of. Global climate change, ozone depletion, acid rain, habitat destruction, water pollution, you name it. I And no, growing crops is NOT just as destructive. Ecology 101. Every trophic level (look up what trophic level means, it is a word real scientists use) reduces efficiency of resources by a factor of 10. Please read any text book on ecology. Passing all food through a cow before eating it is so wasteful and destructive, that if a team of expert engineers were asked to come up with a method that consumed the most resources, they would be hard put to come up with anything worse.
Air NZ's burgergate shows change is coming
According to the ministry for the environment report, animal agriculture produces more greenhouse gases than any other sector. This is because nitrous oxide is a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide is produced when there is an excess of nitrate as there is with animal agriculture. Greenhouse gas emissions are also not the only environmental issue to be concerned about. The most common cause of extinction is habitat destruction. In New Zealand this has largely come about through animal agriculture. Water pollution from excess nutrients is also an issue. Read the 2004 Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment report, for a more comprehensive report on this.
Milking it: The true cost of dairy on the environment
What we need to look is the costs of cleaning up from an industry and who pays them. City councils are aware of the problem of waste. The people who cause the pollution pay for the sewage systems and storm water systems through their rates. It is a polluter pays principal. Animal farmers on the other hand, in their arrogance, think the tax payer and rate payer should pay to clean up their industrial waste. A free ride that no other industry gets.
"Behind New Zealand's most popular meat",
Actually some of us have a great deal of understanding of animal welfare. The problem with the Cobb and Ross breeds is intrinsic to the breed. It has nothing to do with the way they are raised. They are genetically programmed to become so top heavy their hearts and legs collapse under their weight. This is why when these birds are rescued from their Hell, they often dont survive, no matter how well they are nurtured. Rescue layer hens on the other hand, which are sturdier breeds, soon overcome their agraphobia and thrive when rescued.
Air NZ's burgergate shows change is coming
Its not genetically modified. No DNA splicing is involved. What it is is PROCESSED. The same as a regular dead animal burger.
Air NZ's burgergate shows change is coming
Several ways. 1. Leave it empty, and let the native flora regenerate naturally.2. Plant native trees in it. This will speed up the regeneration process and provide us with valuable tradeable carbon credits.3. Grow plant based products on it for export.4. Build houses. That would help with our housing crisis.5. A mixture of 1-4 above, depending on location.More to the point, how will we use our thousands of kilometers of clean rivers?
Tail docking of cattle and dogs to be banned
...those people that have no concern for anyone in the community other than themselves and who cause so much physical and mental damage,.. That describes abusive factory farmers to a T!
Care of meat chickens must improve: SPCA
Chickens used for meat are genetic freaks. They are bred to be so top heavy that their legs collapse under their weight, and their hearts cant cope with the strain. A report by MPI found that up to 38% of chickens were in constant pain from lameness for the last year of their life. Its no wonder that Professor John Webster, professor of animal welfare at Bristol University, described chicken production as the worst example of mans [sic] inhumanity to another creature.This barbaric treatment is quite legal under the codes of welfare. Chickens are slaughtered after just 7 weeks. They are still babies; sick, obese babies.
Tail docking of cattle and dogs to be banned
Dismissing 112,000 people as ill-informed, is pretty ill informed. There is scientific evidence to support the fact that there is no difference in piglet mortality between farrowing crates and other forms of housing.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern named in Fortune's '40 under 40'
She reversed Labours fortunes almost overnight. She ran a successful campaign against Nationals smear tactics. She negotiated a tricky 3-way agreement and kept a coalition of disparate parties together. She has introduced legislation that reverse some of the worst excesses of the previous government, she has reformed transport policy, sent a strong signal to the world that NZ is serious about the Paris accord, and has gained the respect of world leaders. Hows that for a start?
Why the Government is planning to ban plastic bags
Excellent news. The continuous churning out of plastic waste could be a worse problem than climate change, since it is not possible to offset it. There will be some logistics problems over what should be included, but over all a good start.
Don Brash slams protesters exercising free speech at Auckland University debate
I was at the debate. Both sides spoke well, and there was actually a lot of common ground. Neither side accepted that Brash should have been banned from speaking at Massey, and nobody on either side (except, presumably, Brash himself) agreed with his views. The protestors did disrupt Brash for a short time, but they then left, and allowed him to speak. So they were exercising their own right to speak, and not disrupting his. A few hecklers remained, but heckling is an accepted part of political debate.
"Behind New Zealand's most popular meat",
That is a wealth polarisation issue, not an animal welfare one.