Humane Education Issues in the News...

Each week we post links to news about relevant humane issues, ways that people all over the world are manifesting humane education & humane living, and items that provide excellent material for discussing humane issues, from human rights to environmental preservation, to animal protection, to media and culture.


Travelers loving nature to death - Plenty (7/08)
“In some notable places, the onslaught of nature-loving visitors is steadily eroding the very ecosystems ecotourism intends to protect. Tourists are trampling, polluting, and gobbling up scarce resources in fragile habitats.”

Wetlands destruction could set off “carbon bomb” - Common Dreams (7/21/08)
”Wetlands contain 771 billion tons of greenhouse gases, one-fifth of all the carbon on Earth and about the same amount of carbon as is now in the atmosphere….If all the wetlands on the planet released the carbon they hold, it would contribute powerfully to the climate-warming greenhouse effect.”

Wayne Pacelle, superhero for animals - Los Angeles Times (7/19/08)
”In the four years since the 42-year-old vegan -- he neither eats nor wears animal products -- ascended to the top spot at the Humane Society, Pacelle has retooled a venerable organization seen as a mild-mannered protector of dogs and cats into an aggressive interest group flexing muscle in state legislatures and courtrooms.”

Wolves delisting reversed - Los Angeles Times (7/19/08)
”’They've been killing wolves at the rate of about one a day,’ said Doug Honnold, an attorney with the environmental legal group Earthjustice who argued the case on behalf of 12 environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. ‘That's carnage any way you look at it, and this is going to at least temporarily put a stop to the killing of wolves.’"


Controversy stirs over “pesticide” card in Seattle - Common Dreams (7/19/08)
”At the insistence of agricultural industry-sponsored groups, a wallet-sized consumer guide to which fruits and vegetables contain the most and least pesticides has been pulled from a King County Web site, where it had been a popular draw.”

Pope speaks on consumerism, environmental destruction - Independent.ie (7/18/08)
"Perhaps reluctantly, we come to acknowledge there are scars which mark the surface of our earth -- erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world's mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption.''

Minnesota teens take on slavery - The Daily Planet (7/17/08)
”[The End Slavery Now conference] will include awareness games, discussions, and speakers who work in different areas of human trafficking, including victim advocacy, law enforcement, education, and research and policy matters. The group will also make hygiene kits….The kits will contain donated soaps, shampoos, and cosmetic items, and can be handed out by the organizations working with the victims.”

Dearth of tourists in Kenya means increase in poaching - CNN.com (7/17/08)
”The conservation NGO depends on tourists to finance their anti-poaching operations. A portion of each tourist's entrance fee goes to their operations. They have had plenty of funding in normal years, but this is not a normal year in Kenya.”

Robert Redford brings together poetry and environmental protection - NPR (7/16/08)
“Sponsored by Redford's Sundance Preserve, in collaboration with Youth Speaks, a nonprofit that presents spoken-word performances, the Academy Award-winning actor is getting his message out in rhyme.”

Neighborhood denied water for decades because of race - AlterNet (7/14/08)
”A federal jury awarded residents of a mostly black neighborhood in rural Ohio nearly $11 million Thursday, finding that local authorities denied them public water service for half a century because of their race.”

Some NGOs turning to corporate marketing to help change public habits - New York Times (7/13/08)
“’There are fundamental public health problems, like hand washing with soap, that remain killers only because we can’t figure out how to change people’s habits,’ Dr. Curtis said. ‘We wanted to learn from private industry how to create new behaviors that happen automatically.’”