Gaia is

Gaia is

calm

patient

timeless

forever at home

super comfortable

never leaving her place

always giving

loving, living

forgiving

da Queen

don't do drama -

deal with it

get it over completely

keep on going

without baggage

from the past

persevere at all cost

Earth shows the way

moving constantly

in all directions

fearless

pride-less

a Deity that needs no pity

from narcissists

who suffers no guilt

from the shameless

our Mother is

ever so watchful

humble, honest

noble, dignified

open, supportive

ever willing, ready

to receive, cuddle

Her off springs

da Goddess

of all life

is incorruptible

Her intentions are naked

obvious - preserve life

with matchless integrity

She cannot be fooled

by maya's thoughts, illusions

via self

She easily sees thru

ego's holy show

indestructible Gaia

is impervious to man

to all of masculinity

standing tall

witnessing it all

She abhors the male horror show

but does nothing

to stop men's march

to extinction

its never too late

to re-connect

become grounded

honor Her Highness

respect all Earthlings

live in joy and beauty

as She does

Gaia is

when maya is not

Pandemics Ahead

Pandemics Ahead is a series of articles looking at the link between animal protein and global health disasters. The articles are excerpts from Meat Climate Change: The 2nd Leading Cause of Global Warming by Moses Seenarine, (2016). Xpyr Press, 348 pages. ISBN: 0692641157. http://amzn.to/2yn7XrC

See also Meat Society, a series exploring issues related to curbing demand for animal products, an important climate change solution for individuals and nations alike, especially in Western states where meat and diary consumption dwarfs other regions. See also our COVID-19 Meat Pandemic Bibliography with a categorized listing of Online News and Reports (March to June, 2020).

1 Regs to Nowhere

2 Industrial Chicken

3 Avian Flu

4 Panzootic

5 Chicken Diseases 

6 Biodiversity and Livestock

7 Mass Extinction

8 Wildlife Diseases

9 Rivers of Waste

10 Manure and Disease

11 Dead Zones

12 Fish-kills in One-Month

13 Food-borne Illnesses 

14 Altering Gut Bacteria & Meat Parasites

15 Milk Allergy & Meat Allergy

16 Air Pollution

17 Antibiotics and Superbugs

18 Mercury Poisoning

19 Commercial Fishing

20 Waste and ByCatch

21 Farmed Fish

For more information, see MeatClimateChange.org

Fish-kills in One Month

Pandemics Ahead: Number 12 in a series looking at the link between animal protein and global health disasters.

Excerpt from Meat Climate Change: The 2nd Leading Cause of Global Warming by Moses Seenarine, (2016). Xpyr Press, 348 pages. ISBN: 0692641157. http://amzn.to/2yn7XrC

Looking at records for the month of September 2014 alone, there were tens of thousands of dead fish in rivers, ponds, lakes and streams. Around the world, on almost every day of the month, fish kills were reported. On many days, multiple fish kills were recorded.(933)

On the 1st of September, 2014, there were two fish kills reported: thousands of dead fish washed ashore on a beach in Mohammedia, Morocco; and a large mass of fish floated in a river in China. On the 6th, there were three fish kills reported: a mass die off of fish in a river in China; hundreds of dead fish on a beach in Alicante, Spain; and 7 tons of fish dead in a lake in Sabaudia, Italy.

On September 12, 2014, there were three fish kills: large amounts of dead and 'sick' fish in the Baltic sea off coast of Sweden, Finland and Germany; thousands of dead fish washed up, 'the first of it's kind' along the coast of Qatif, Saudi Arabia; and thousands of fish died 'due to chemical pollution' in a lake in South Carolina, America.

On the 22nd of September, 2014, there were five fish kills: (i) a large fish kill in Valenzuela City, Philippines; (ii) a mass fish kill in Kuwait Bay, Kuwait; (iii) hundreds of dead fish floating in a river in Bejaia, Algeria; (iv) hundreds of dead fish in a canal in Pontedera, Italy; and (v) thousands of fish washed up dead in Central Java, Indonesia.

On September 30th, 2014, there were four fish kills reported: (a) hundreds of fish dead in Yosemite Lake 'due to rain' in California; (b) hundreds of fish floating in a canal in Hermosillo, Mexico; (c) a mass die off of fish in a channel in Sakarya, Turkey; and (d) hundreds of dead fish floating on a lake in Tours, France.

In the US, there were numerous fish kills during the month of September 2014 as well. For instance, (i) on the 2nd, hundreds of dead fish washed ashore in Pinellas County, Florida; (ii) on the 3rd, tens of thousands of dead fish washed up along the Neuse River in North Carolina; and (iii) on the 11th, hundreds of thousands of fish died in a creek in Iowa. 

On 12th September, (iv) thousands of fish died 'due to chemical pollution' in a lake in South Carolina; (v) on the 17th, hundreds of pounds of fish died in a lake 'due to herbicides' in Illinois; (vii) on the 29th, hundreds of fish were killed in a lake in Texas; and (viii) on the 30th, hundreds of fish died in Yosemite Lake 'due to rain' in California. 

The repercussion of fish kills include biodiversity loss, extra greenhouse (GHG) pollution, and negative effects on human health. But the climate-altering gases related to the livestock waste, eutrophication, disposal of fish-kills, and effects on human health, are either ignored and uncounted.

Chapter 25: WASTE POLLUTION, page 242 

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For more information, see MeatClimateChange.org

Dead Zones

Pandemics Ahead: Number 11 in a series looking at the link between animal protein and global health disasters.

Excerpt from Meat Climate Change: The 2nd Leading Cause of Global Warming by Moses Seenarine, (2016). Xpyr Press, 348 pages. ISBN: 0692641157. http://amzn.to/2yn7XrC

The manure from factory farms contains ammonia which is highly toxic to fish at low levels. Escalating the amounts of manure and nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus from livestock production, can cause algal blooms which block waterways and deplete oxygen as they decompose. This often kills fish and other aquatic organisms, devastating the entire aquatic food chain.(929)

The concentration of nitrate in the ground water supply can reach unhealthy levels. Infants up to three months of age are especially susceptible to high nitrate levels and may develop Blue Baby Syndrome (methemoglobinemia), an often fatal blood disorder.(930) In 1996, the CDC established a link between spontaneous abortions and high nitrate levels in Indiana drinking water wells located close to feedlots.

Almost all the US feed production and industrial farms are concentrated along the Mississippi River basin. A liter of seawater commonly holds around 7 milligrams of dissolved oxygen, but around the mouths of the Mississippi, it holds less than 2 milligrams. The only organisms active here are those that do not depend on oxygen to live. Most summers, between 13,000 to 20,000 sq km (5,000-7,700 sq mi) of sea at the mouth of the Mississippi becomes a "dead zone."(931) 

Nearly 400 dead zones ranging in size from one to over 70,000 sq km (27,000 sq mi) have been identified, from the Scandinavian fjords to the South China Sea. Animal farming is not the only cause, but it is one of the worst. In Asia, pig and chicken feed farms in coastal China, Vietnam, and Thailand regularly pollute the South China Sea. The northern part of the Caspian Sea is loaded with nitrogen that comes down the Volga. Many of the seas surrounding Europe are affected - the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, the Irish Sea, the Spanish coast, and the Adriatic, all have dead zones.

Not all algal blooms are toxic, but some kinds of algae do produce toxins, such as domoic acid, which is a powerful and fatal neurotoxin. Toxic algal blooms impact the lowest levels of the food chain first, in shellfish and feeder fish that larger marine animals feed on. Even if the toxins do not kill the larger marine animals, toxic algal blooms can wipe out lower levels of the marine food chain and decimate supplies of food that larger marine animals rely on.

Climate change may encourage longer and more frequent blooms of toxic algae along Canada's Pacific coast, impacting marine communities as far north as Alaska with much more consistency than in the past. This is because algae thrive in warmer waters, which both encourage growth in certain kinds of algae and discourage a mixing of ocean waters. And Alaskan waters are some of the most rapidly warming waters in the world, having risen by 3 degrees C in the past decade.(932)

Chapter 25: WASTE POLLUTION, page 241

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For more information, see MeatClimateChange.org

Manure and Disease

Pandemics Ahead: Number 10 in a series looking at the link between animal protein and global health disasters.

Excerpt from Meat Climate Change: The 2nd Leading Cause of Global Warming by Moses Seenarine, (2016). Xpyr Press, 348 pages. ISBN: 0692641157. http://amzn.to/2yn7XrC

According to the US EPA, food animal waste has polluted in excess of 27,000 miles of rivers and contaminated groundwater in dozens of states. In addition, the EPA determined that nitrate is the most widespread agricultural contaminant in drinking water wells, and estimates that 4.5 million people are exposed to elevated nitrate levels from wells.(923)

Tens of thousands of miles of rivers in the US, Europe, and Asia are polluted each year. In the US, approximately 40% of fresh water is deemed unfit for drinking or recreational use because of contamination by dangerous microorganisms, pesticides, and fertilizers. Upwards of 40 diseases can be transferred to humans through manure. Each year, waterborne diseases cause 940,000 infections and 900 deaths. And, pathogenic Escherichia coli and related food-borne pathogens account for 76 million infections and 5,000 deaths.(924)

Also, using human waste as fertilizer might be making humans infertile. Eating flesh from animals grazed on land treated with commonly-used “human sewage sludge-derived fertilizer” might have serious implications for pregnant women and the future reproductive health of their unborn children. Chemical contaminants in human-based manure can mimic sex hormones and disrupt ovary development, with the potential for long-term damage to adult female fertility.(925)

After a severe rainstorm in 1993, an outbreak of cryptosporidium in Milwaukee's drinking water supply caused 100 deaths, sickened 430,000 people, and produced $37 million in lost wages and productivity. Runoff of chicken and hog waste from factory farms in Maryland and North Carolina may have spawned outbreaks of Pfiesteria piscicida, killing millions of fish and causing skin irritation, short-term memory loss, and other cognitive problems in local people.(926)

In 1995 an eight-acre pig-waste lagoon in North Carolina burst, spilling 25 million gallons (9.4m liters) of manure into the New River. The spill killed about 10 million fish and closed 364,000 acres (570 sq mi) of coastal wetlands. In 2011, an Illinois pig farm spilled 200,000 gallons (757,000 liters) of manure into a creek, killing over 110,000 fish.(927)

In February 2014, in Michigan’s Allegan County, a storm-water system failure at a cow milk farm with a 1-million-gallon (3.8m liters) manure lagoon spilled manure into nearby waterways, creating a visible plume five miles (8 km) long. In Canton, Minnesota, a wall on an above-ground manure storage tank broke in April 2013, spilling roughly 1 million gallons of manure.

In one of the largest cases of manure pollution, an estimated 15 million gallons (57m liters) of manure, water, and other matter spilled in 2010 into a slough that drains into the Snohomish River in Washington state, when a berm on a cow's milk farm’s manure lagoon failed. In 2005, 3 million gallons (11m liters) of manure spilled from a New York cow milk farm into a river, killing thousands of fish.

Chapter 25: WASTE POLLUTION, page 240 

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For more information, see MeatClimateChange.org

Rivers of Waste

Pandemics Ahead: Number 9 in a series looking at the link between animal protein and global health disasters.

Excerpt from Meat Climate Change: The 2nd Leading Cause of Global Warming by Moses Seenarine, (2016). Xpyr Press, 348 pages. ISBN: 0692641157. http://amzn.to/2yn7XrC

Animal-based agribusiness generates a lot of manure and excretions that decompose and turns into greenhouse gasses (GHGs) and cause disease. Lagoons and spray-fields are the most common methods that concentrated animal feed operations (CAFOs) use for dealing with animal waste, or sludge. Farms generally collect waste from the area containing a concentrated number of animals and store it, untreated, in huge open-air waste lagoons, often as big as several football fields, and holding as many as 40 million gallons.

The quantity of livestock manure and other wastes produced each year in the US is vast, estimated to be 1.5 bTons. A single cow raised for milk excretes around 88 lbs (40 kg) of manure for every kilogram of edible cow flesh it puts on. Each cow produces approximately 120 lbs (54 kg) of wet manure per day, equal to that of 20 - 40 people. Disposing of billions of gallons of sludge is a serious environmental issue.(918)

A farm with 2,500 cows raised for milk produces the same volume of waste as a city of 411,000 people. The massive waste lagoons often break, leak or overflow, polluting underground water supplies and rivers with nitrogen, phosphorus, and nitrates. In recent decades, livestock production systems have moved closer to urban areas, causing water and food to be frequently contaminated with manure.(919)

Some of the sludge are applied at agronomic rates as fertilizer onto land called spray-fields. Agronomic rates provide nitrogen for vegetation growth while minimizing the quantity that passes below the root zone. However, factory farms have superfluous quantities of sludge and routinely spray excess amounts on fields which leeches out and damages the environment. Industrial animal agriculture is the largest sectoral source of water pollutants which includes fertilizers, pesticides, animal wastes, antibiotics, and hormones. To boot, the sector is responsible for water pollution from chemicals in tanneries and sediments from eroded pastures.

Animal waste can contain pathogens like Giardia and Cryptosporidium, as well as heavy metals. Excess sludge sprayed on fields can contaminate food crops meant for humans and lead to disease outbreaks. Manure contamination often result in Listeria outbreaks on fruits and vegetables. Medical treatment generates further CO2 pollution and other problems. For example, the cost of cleaning up the soil under US hog and dairy CAFOs could approach US$4.1 billion.(920) 

The manure problem from factory farms will only worsen with intensification and expansion. And, wastage of food represents another huge loss to the environment, and to the animals themselves. Waste chemicals often seep from lagoons and spray-fields into groundwater, streams, and wetlands, and contaminate drinking water. In addition to numerous adverse effects on human health, contaminated runoff and spills are causing dead zones and fish kills.(921) 

The volume of antibiotics being used on factory farms pose serious hazards to public and environmental health as well. Antibiotic residue is conducive to antibiotic resistance in pathogens that cause illness in people.(922) In the US alone, animal agriculture consumes 29 million pounds of antibiotics, about 80% of the nation's antibiotics use in total. The effects of pollution on biodiversity from antibiotics are largely unknown. One concern is that some wells and waterways have tested positively for estrogenic and endocrine-disrupting compounds.

One pending lawsuit alleges that manure spreading by five large dairies has caused nitrate and other contamination of groundwater, and violates the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). The plaintiffs contend that the way the manure is being applied is the equivalent of dumping solid waste. This activity is covered by RCRA but it has not been applied to manure spreading.

Chapter 25: WASTE POLLUTION, page 239. 

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For more information, see MeatClimateChange.org

Five Sisters

Gaia is blessed tonight

her five sisters visiting

on a beautiful cloudless sky

Jupiter leads the Goddess procession 

big sister, oh so bright 

approaching the sky's center

as Saturn trails behind

still far in front of  Mars

part of the inner circle,

and Venus, returning in 2020

Our closest sibling

tagging along the crescent Moon

with Mercury in the rear

an incredible parade of Goddesses

goes entirely unnoticed 

by humans, young and old, below

too drunk in ego

consumed by desire for fun

to care about our solar family

people in long beach city

live in an alternate universe

a nihilist world 

engrossed in machismo

a magical place in which

corona virus does not exist

friends and strangers alike

mix and mingle, merrily

as if the pandemic is gone

also likely, it never happened

groups and gatherings galore

block after block

strangely, uncomfortably

we are the only one 

social distancing

sirens blaring...

in one month 

mid-june to mid-july

california went from having 

2,000 corona virus cases daily

to 10,000 new cases every day

every day 

even with inadequate testing

newsome, our 'liberal' governor 

re-opened too soon

beaches, bars, restaurants, theaters 

now desperately trying 

to close it all back down again

but it is too little, too late, gov

the golden state has left the barn

we will soon pass

new york's 406,000 cases 

to lead the US in infections

what a difference a month makes

then, 'rona was spreading slowly

now, she is widely out of control

Venus knew this would happen

the Goddesses all knew

we are the only ones in the dark