'If People Knew How Animals Are Treated, They Wouldn't Eat Them' Says Chris Packham

Wildlife expert Chris Packham believes people wouldn't eat meat if they knew how animals were treated, Plant Based News can reveal. He made the comments while talking with Veganuary - a charity that supports people as they try and vegan diet throughout January. A staggering 300,000 people are expected to sign up for the initiative this year. Packham will also be doing Veganuary this year and has joined the organization as an ambassador, joining actors Evanna Lynch and Peter Egan, TV presenters Sarah-Jane Crawford and Jasmine Harman, comedians Sara Pascoe and Carl Donnelly and chef Derek Sarno.

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The cow that escaped the slaughterhouse gave birth, and her new baby is utterly adorable

Just a few short days after her daring run down Route 80, recently rescued Brianna the cow gave birth to a female calf Saturday afternoon. Brianna fell 8 feet out of the second level of a truck headed to a Paterson slaughterhouse around 2:45 a.m. on Thursday night. She wandered around the highway until Skylands Animal Sanctuary and Rescue came to corral her.

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California's Pet Stores To Only Sell Rescue Cats, Dogs And Rabbits

California is ringing in the new year as the first state in the country to ban stores from selling dogs, cats and rabbits that aren’t rescues. The Pet Rescue and Adoption Act, which was signed into law by California Gov. Jerry Brown in 2017, will go into effect on Tuesday, Jan. 1. The law requires all pet shops to identify the public animal control agency, shelter or rescue group that the animal came from. Such information must be on display on its cage or in its enclosure.

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Eau de Nil, the Light-Green Color of Egypt-Obsessed Europe

Katy Kelleher presages a boom in eau de Nil, the slippery color that snakes through Egypt.

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Galapagos fireworks ban to save wildlife

Authorities in Ecuador say animals suffered elevated heart rates and anxiety after pyrotechnic shows.

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States make climate policies a 2019 priority

Despite federal climate policy rollbacks, governors and cities have decided to take up the mantel on climate leadership. Nine Northeast and Mid-Atlantic governors and the mayor of Washington, D.C. announced that they will move forward with a plan that prioritizes clean transportation and ambitious climate goals.

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Beastly tales from the medieval bestiary

In Disney’s The Lion King, little Simba grows up to become the ‘King of Beasts’, but did you ever wonder where the whole idea of the lion as king of beasts comes from? The answer lies in the medieval bestiary, along with a host of other wondrous and exciting discoveries.

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What made solar panels so cheap? Thank government policy.

From an economic perspective, the core challenge of climate change is that the standard way of doing things — the dirty, carbon-intensive way — is typically cheaper than newer, lower-carbon alternatives. Solving the problem means driving down the cost of those alternatives. Simple, right? But in practice, it’s not so simple. In fact, we still don’t have a very good grasp on exactly what drives technological innovation and improvement. Is it basic scientific research? Early-stage R&D? Learning by doing? Economies of scale?

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Bees can count with just four nerve cells in their brains

Bees can solve seemingly clever counting tasks with very small numbers of nerve cells in their brains, according to researchers at Queen Mary University of London.

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Why my family lives in a house full of puppies

Guide dogs are like politicians or Santa Claus: it's a bit hard to imagine them as babies. But while I've never had a playpen of MPs crawling around my living room (promise…), I can't say the same about guide dog puppies. This is the story of where guide dogs for blind and partially-sighted people really come from. It includes: why they wear nail-varnish as soon as they're born, why they're never scared of fireworks, and why you really must play them Guns N' Roses. Settle in, team. The pups and I have a tail we'd like to tell you…

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The case for "conditional optimism" on climate change

Is there any hope on climate change, or are we just screwed? I hear this question all the time. When people find out what I do for a living, it is generally the first thing they ask. I never have a straightforward or satisfying answer, so I usually dodge it, but in recent years it has come up more and more often. So let’s tackle it head on. In this post, I will lay out the case for pessimism and the case for (cautious) optimism, pivoting off a new series of papers from leading climate economists.

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The Katskhi Pillar

A natural limestone monolith located at the village of Katskhi in the western Georgian region of Imereti.

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If You Care About the Plastics Crisis, Stop Eating Seafood

Plastic Planet is a series on the global plastics crisis that evaluates the environmental and human costs and considers possible solutions to this devastating man-made problem. In this op-ed, Kenny Torrella of Mercy for Animals explains how the seafood industry is harming the environment.

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We need to rethink our moral obligations to create a better world

Our collective overuse and misuse of antibiotics is accelerating resistance to these universal drugs, leaving people increasingly vulnerable to infections that can no longer be treated. This applies not only to the use of antibiotics in human medicine, but also in animal industries. Antibiotic resistance is an example of a collective action problem. These are problems where what is individually rational leads to a collectively undesirable outcome.

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TSA to deploy more floppy-ear dogs because they're less scary than pointy-ear dogs

In its effort to make the airport security screening process faster, the Transportation Security Administration is employing new high-tech baggage scanners, facial-recognition cameras and “automated lanes” to eliminate passenger gridlock. But TSA Administrator David Pekoske said the agency is also making at least one new change to reduce traveler stress: deploying more floppy-ear dogs, rather than pointy-ear dogs, to sniff out explosives in public areas.

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President Trump’s Retreat on the Environment Is Affecting Communities Across America

In just two years, Trump has unleashed a regulatory rollback with little parallel in the past half-century.

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Earth Has a Hidden Plastic Problem—Scientists Are Hunting It Down

During a research cruise to the Sargasso Sea in fall 1971 marine biologist Ed Carpenter first noticed peculiar, white specks floating amidst the mats of brown sargassum seaweed. After some investigating he discovered they were tiny bits of plastic. He was stunned. If thousands of the broken down particles were showing up in in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, 550 miles from any mainland, he says, “I figured it’s all over the place.”

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Hard Day for Lion...

...until his buddy shows up and boy is he relieved!

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Japan to restart commercial whale hunts

One conservation group warns that the move shows "a troubling disregard for international rule".

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The cost of natural disasters this year: $155 billion

Natural disasters cost $155 billion this year, and several of them struck the United States particularly hard. Hurricanes Michael and Florence, the California wildfires and Hawaii’s volcano eruption are all on the list of the most expensive global disasters of 2018, according to the Zurich-based reinsurance company Swiss Re. “Like last year, the losses from the 2018 series of events highlight the increasing vulnerability of the ever-growing concentration of humans and property values on coastlines and in the urban-wildlife interface...

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UK bans pet shops from selling puppies and kittens

Britain has banned third-party sales of puppies and kittens to protect the animals from exploitation. The government says the new law will help crack down on “puppy farms” and make it harder for unscrupulous dealers who have little regard for animal welfare. Animal Welfare Minister David Rutley said the ban “is part of our commitment to make sure the nation’s much-loved pets get the right start in life.”

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Horses Found in Pompeii May Have Been Harnessed to Flee Eruption

Several horses recently discovered in a 2,000-year-old stable appear frozen in a failed flight to safety from the eruption of Vesuvius.

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If we want to solve the world's problems, we first need to abolish all borders

“Nations will revert to their natural tendency of hiding behind their borders, of moving towards protectionism, of listening to vested interests, and they’ll forget about transcending those national priorities,” said Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund back in 2013.

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Earthrise, a photo that changed the world

Fifty years ago people saw our planet from the outside for the first time.

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'Climate grief': The growing emotional toll of climate change

When the U.N. released its latest climate report in October, it warned that without “unprecedented” action, catastrophic conditions could arrive by 2040. For Amy Jordan, 40, of Salt Lake City, a mother of three teenage children, the report caused a “crisis.” “The emotional reaction of my kids was severe,” she told NBC News. “There was a lot of crying. They told me, 'We know what’s coming, and it’s going to be really rough.’ “

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Dinosaurs' noses may have air-conditioned their brains

The earth was a much hotter place in prehistoric times, so it follows that large heavily-armored dinosaurs likely retained a lot of heat in their bodies. A new study suggests that their brains were protected from overheating, however, thanks to a heat exchanging system in their noses.

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Why is Pollution from U.S. Manufacturing Declining?

In the 1960s, there were worries that U.S. economic growth would lead to increasingly dangerous levels of pollution, and that by the year 2000, air pollution would make cities like Los Angeles and New York uninhabitable. Instead, U.S. air quality has improved dramatically since then. Between 1990 and 2008, emissions of the most common air pollutants from U.S. manufacturing fell by about two-thirds, even as real output from U.S. manufacturing grew substantially (see Figure 1).

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Photos: Carnivorous Dinosaur Discovered in Italian Alps

This meat-eating dinosaur was the first of its kind to be huge.

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2018 Wasn’t a Completely Horrible Year for the Environment

Was 2018 a tough year for the environment? Absolutely. But were there bright spots and victories among the attacks on biodiversity, climate, and public health? Of course there were. Here are just a few, in case you’re feeling blue about the state of our only planet. The first few weeks of 2018 saw Scott Pruitt, then administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, trying to deflect attention from several corruption scandals by publicly declaring his intention to halve the agency’s workforce and slash its operating budget by 30 percent...

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Scientists Find Red Wolf DNA in a Unique Group of Wild Dogs in Texas

One of America’s native wild canines, the red wolf, has teetered on the brink of extinction for decades. And despite the efforts of a captive breeding program started in the 1970s, only about 40 such wolves are known to be still living in the wild today, all in North Carolina. But researchers at Princeton University have made a strange discovery that might spell good news for the future of the species: A population of wild dogs, isolated off the coast of Texas, that seem to carry red wolf genes, including remnants of DNA thought to be lost forever.

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Offshore wind – bigger is better

A world-leader in offshore wind. Cutting carbon while cutting bills. Blowing the winds of change through our energy sector. Ministers are never short of praise for offshore wind power. Now the only substantive recipient of new support for renewable energy, Britain’s offshore wind fleet is the largest in the world.

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Guy who says God sends natural disasters to punish gays has his home destroyed in a natural disaster

Tony Perkins, president of the anti-gay religious lobbying group the Family Research Council, had his home destroyed by the massive flooding ravaging Southern Louisiana this week. Although no one wants to celebrate a person losing their home, the destruction of Perkins’ house isn’t without irony, considering that he’s claimed in the past that natural disasters are God’s way of punishing an increasingly gay-friendly world.

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Leonardo DiCaprio raises a whopping $100 million to fight climate change

Is there anything he can't do? Leonardo DiCaprio has proved there’s nothing he can’t do by raising a whopping $100 million (£79 million) to fight climate change. He’s a good egg all round. The Titanic actor, who founded the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation to increase awareness about climate change, wrote in a statement: ‘When I founded LDF 20 years ago, I did so based on the simple idea that we could make a real difference by directly funding some of the most effective environmental projects.

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This undersea robot just delivered 100,000 baby corals to the Great Barrier Reef

With oceans growing warmer and more acidic as a result of climate change, the world’s coral reefs are under siege. Recent research shows that the number of coral bleaching events has risen drastically in recent years, and in 2016 and 2017 about half of the coral making up Australia’s Great Barrier Reef died off. But researchers at two Australian universities have developed an underwater robot that could help turn the tide in the ongoing struggle to save at-risk reefs.

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After the Blaze, A Trail’s New Beginnings

In the aftermath of California’s wildfires, rebuilding trails becomes a community effort and for some, a chance to heal and to help.

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Fish Parasites Are on the Rise

Some fish parasites are on the rise, bringing with them risks to human health and fisheries-based economies. Now researchers have a new way to track their numbers—by digging into old records and museum samples. Recent years have seen alarming outbreaks of disease in fish and other marine species, including one that caused a massive die-off of sea stars in the northeast Pacific starting in 2013. But it has not been clear whether this uptick in illnesses was due to an actual increase in the number of pathogens...

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Climate Activist, 15, Tells Leaders They're Too Immature to Act

At 15, Greta Thunberg has many decades of living with the effects of climate change ahead of her—and she doesn't want to tell her grandchildren she didn't try to stop it. At an address to the United Nations COP24 conference in Poland last week, the Swedish activist accused world leaders of stealing the future of her generation and said they weren't mature enough to act, CNN reports. "You say you love your children above all else and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes," she told the conference, which was attended by delegates from 190 countries.

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Why eating less meat is the best thing you can do for the planet in 2019

Recycling or taking the bus rather than driving to work has its place, but scientists are increasingly pointing to a deeper lifestyle change that would be the single biggest way to help the planet: eating far less meat. A swathe of research released over the past year has laid bare the hefty impact that eating meat, especially beef and pork, has upon the environment by fueling climate change and polluting landscapes and waterways.

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Silent 55 yacht promises up to 100 miles of solar-powered cruising per day

It seems we jumped the gun when we called the SolarImpact the world's first ocean-going solar yacht based just off its CAD renders. There's another company out there with boats in the water, and the Silent 55 can cruise for up to 100 miles (160 km) per day for weeks at a time on solar power alone.

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Why We Love Dinosaurs

People have always known of dinosaurs, though they have called them by many names. Old legends that place Western dragons in caves…

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Neural Network Knows When Cat Wants To Go Outside

Neural networks are computer systems that are vaguely inspired by the construction of animal brains, and much like human brains, can be trained to obey the whims of the almighty domestic cat. [Edje…

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Flake to co-introduce bipartisan climate bill

Outgoing GOP Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) introduced a carbon pricing bill Wednesday that aims to help cut climate change causing emissions. The landmark bill would charge fossil fuel companies a tax for their carbon dioxide emissions. The bill is a companion to legislation introduced by a bipartisan group in the House in November.

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Rising Waters Are Drowning Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor

By the middle of this century, climate change may punch a hole through the bottom half of the Northeast Corridor.

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Essential oils making pets ill

Essential oils could be the canary in the coal mine and not be as innocent as everyone thinks. A vet said she has treated recent cases of pet poisoning that could have long-term effects.

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Scientists: World's Oldest Large-Predator Dinosaur Was Italian

Saltriovenator is the first Italian dinosaur of the Jurassic age and the only dinosaur found in the Lombardy region. Wednesday Italian paleontologists presented evidence that the world’s oldest large-predator dinosaur inhabited the European country some 200 million years ago. "Saltriovenator predates the massive meat-eating dinosaurs by over 25 million years and sheds light on the evolution of the three-fingered hand of birds," Dal Sasso of Milan's Natural History Museum said in a statement.

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Researchers discovered a way to generate electricity from plants to power LED light bulbs

In this research, the group of scholars examined plants and showed that leaves can produce electricity when they get involved or touched by a distinct material or by the breeze. Sustainable sources of energy, which are pollution free and eco-friendly, are one of the significant challenges for the forthcoming generation of the world. A research group of scholars(biologists & robotics) which is based at Center for Micro-Bio Robotics (CMBR) of IIT in Pontedera (Pisa, Italy).

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An intelligent parrot used Alexa to play music and order food from Amazon

An African grey parrot has made headlines recently for inadvertently making orders via his owner’s Amazon Echo. Originally reported via The Times of London, the parrot — whose name is Rocco — would mindlessly activate Alexa and have the virtual assistant tell jokes and play music. Rocco even tried to order a few items from Amazon, but the owner wisely had set up controls to prevent unauthorized purchases.

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Scientists Are Excited Over These 'Weird' Feathers Preserved in 100-Million-Year-Old Amber

Feathers found in Burmese amber dating back 100 million years are so exquisitely preserved that palaeontologists have been able to make a detailed study of their structure - and they're like nothing seen in living birds today.

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Carbon labeling can reduce greenhouse gases even if it doesn’t change consumer behavior

In a new commentary piece published Dec. 18 in Nature Climate Change, Michael Vandenbergh, David Daniels Allen Distinguished Professor of Law and director of the Climate Change Research Network, examines how carbon labeling can help reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in a variety of ways. The article, “From Myths to Action,” is coauthored by Kristian Steensen Nielsen of the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark and comments on recent research by Adrian R. Camilleri and colleagues.

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Arctic reindeer numbers crash by half

The population of wild reindeer, or caribou, in the Arctic has crashed by more than half in the last two decades. A new report on the impact of climate change in the Arctic revealed that numbers fell from almost 5 million to around 2.1 million animals. The report was released at the American Geophysical Research Union meeting.

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