"I Can't Have Sex"

I had previously heard that turkeys used in today’s industrial production are artificially inseminated, but I was not aware of the scale of this operation or the fact that man’s use of turkey artificial insemination is due to selective breeding. As it turns out, the turkeys used in industrial production today are significantly different from wild turkeys.
Selective breeding has a long history within food producing industries, however it wasn’t until the 1960’s that the Large Breasted White Turkey came to dominate the turkey industry. According to the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, “By 1965, the new Large Breasted White had nearly taken over the turkey market”. This is due to the fact that the Large Breasted White Turkeys could produce more meat (especially white meat), and could be slaughtered at a younger age than other breeds. Unfortunately, developing such a meaty bird has created its own set of problems. Specifically the fact that the, “low fertility of heavy, broad-breasted turkey lines, has prompted almost complete integration of artificial insemination into commercial production". Agriculture Research Service poultry physiologist Ann M. Donoghue said that, “essentially 100 percent of the nearly 300 million turkeys produced annually in the United States for consumption are the result of artificial insemination”. The male turkey's breasts are so developed that they cannot have sex themselves. We have created an animal that cannot reproduce on its own. THIS IS NOT NATURAL and how can it be healthy? It's just weird. It is interesting to note that consumer demand has driven us into a situation where we are raising essentially man-made animals that are unable to reproduce naturally. As a consumer I feel that it is now very important to pay attention to breed selection, and it seems that there are other groups such as Slow Food USA who are helping the public pay attention to it as well. One way they are doing this is through their “Ark Of Taste” initiative. This program promotes the consumption of foods in danger of extinction (Slow Food USA). We, the consumer, created the demand for an unnatural turkey. Surely we can turn the demand back towards more environmentally sound practices.
Visit:

-www.slowfoodusa.org

-"Turkey's Ghrelin Gene Sequenced" by Sharon Durham. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, April 2004:
www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2004/040430.htm

-"Revolutionizing Turkey Production: Functional Genomics is the Driving Force" by Rosalie Marion Bliss. From Agricultural Research, September 2004:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/sep04/turkey0904.htm

-"Turkeys: Beltsville Small White." The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy:
www.albc-usa.org/cpl/belt.html

-I also HIGHLY recommend looking into a local free range organic turkey farm near you. Visit it and look not only at the living conditions and type of feed being used but think about the breed of turkey being raised.

"I'm Salty"

Thailand is world’s largest producer of farmed black tiger shrimp which earned approximately 2 billion U.S. dollars in export revenues in 1999. Shrimp farming or aquaculture has become a very profitable business and it is more profitable than growing rice. Shrimp cultivation has typically been limited to a relatively narrow band of coastal land, however Thai farmers discovered that it is possible to grow tiger shrimp in inland areas by trucking in salt water and mixing it with freshwater that is easily obtained from these inland areas. This creates the brackish water that shrimp thrive in. This means that shrimp aquaculture is taking over land that was once used for rice cultivation, while bringing saltwater inland. There is now concern that shrimp aquaculture has the potential to seriously impact soil salinization and water quality. Much of the land converted to shrimp ponds were highly productive rice paddies, and the cost of returning this land to agricultural production if shrimp farming fails could be substantial. If not dealt with properly shrimp aquaculture may not be a properly functioning sustainable system that leaves areas with unusable land that is too salty for agriculture (thus my shirt's slogan "I'm Salty").
This issue is not only a big deal in Thailand. Shrimp farming has really taken off globally since the 1970’s and pond raised shrimp now account for 25 to 30% of world shrimp production. China, Chile, the U.S. and Belize are also very involved in shrimp farming. Other issues with shrimp farming include fertilizers used in the ponds, which when combined with the shrimp poop in the ponds makes a sludge which is a hard waste to get rid of. There is also serious concern that the development of shrimp farms have encroached heavily on areas of mangrove swamp. Mangrove swamp is a good environment in which to grow shrimp, but mangroves are also great breeding grounds for other species and are the basis of a whole ecosystem. Today the main cause of mangrove destruction is the expansion of the shrimp industry.
To learn more read:

-Inland Low-Salinity Shrimp Farming In The Central Plains Region of Thailand by Brian W. Szuster and Mark Flaherty:
http://std.cpc.ku.ac.th/delta/conf/Acrobat/Papers_Eng/Volume%201/szuster.pdf

-Another article on Shrimp Farming:
http://www.masgc.org/communications/pubs/masgp/96-004.pdf

-The World Rainforest Movement's website:
http://www.wrm.org.uy/deforestation/shrimp.html

"I'm On Drugs"

I have been really disturbed by reading about the way we, as the consumer, get most of our beef today. I will try and summarize a lot of the main issues, but I HIGHLY recommend reading Michael Pollan's article "A Steer's Life". Beef production in the U.S. today is really monopolized by the idea of the confined animal feeding operation or CAFO. The EPA defines a CAFO as an agricultural operation where animals are kept and raised in confined situations. CAFO's congregate animals, feed, manure and urine, dead animals and production operations on a small land area. Feed is brought to the animals rather than the animals grazing or otherwise seeking feed in pastures, fields, or on rangeland.
A steer that is born at around 80 pounds will find itself weighing up to 1,250 pounds within 14 months due to the way cattle are raised today. One of the main differences between how cows are raised today and how they were raised in the past is the type of feed they are given. Cows naturally digest grass because they belong to the class of animals called ruminants which can do this. However, today we don't feed cows grass, we feed them corn. Corn is a richer food and it is also highly subsidized by the government making it a cheap feed source. Due to the use of fertilizer, however, it takes 1.2 gallons of oil to produce a bushel of corn. What this means is that instead of using a solar driven system (cows eating grass) we are now using a fossil fuel driven system (cows eating corn). Even though the cows grow faster by being fed corn Michael Pollan states that, "the only way you can keep a cow alive getting this much corn would be with antibiotics". Thus, our cows are feed antibiotics because their natural digestive system was not meant to process the amount of corn we feed them. Over half of the antibiotics made in this country go to feed livestock. Despite the antibiotics feedlot cows still face feedlot polio, abscessed livers, and rumenitis, which are all things that cows in nature simply do not get. Feedlots also subject the cows to hormones.
I think one of the main things to keep in mind with all of this is that human health is affected by what we eat. By putting antibiotics into the environment like this we are creating resistant bacteria. Feeding cows corn also creates a more acidic digestive system. Humans have acidic digestive systems. This means that bacteria that used to pass from cows to humans in the past would not have been used to an acidic environment and they would die in our digestive tract. Now bacteria is used to an acidic environment so that bacteria can survive in us too. Traces of hormones have also shown up in the meat we eat, but this is still legal. In addition corn fed meat has more saturated fat than grass fed meat. This is not good for our health and must only be adding to the obesity problem the U.S. is currently facing.
These are serious issues that I find seriously disturbing and completely unnatural. PLEASE CHECK OUT THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION (I used it as source material for this entry and it also contains valuable additional info).

-The interview with Michael Pollan on NPR’s Fresh Air regarding his New York Times Magazine Article “This Steer’s Life”:
http://www.math.uic.edu/~takata/some_articles/FreshAir_Michael_Pollon_on_beef_industry,_hormones,_antibiotics.html:

-"This Steer's Life" and "The Omnivore's Dilema" by Michael Pollan

-The EPA website that defines a CAFO: http://www.epa.gov/Region7/water/cafo/index.htm

-Check out "The Meatrix", an animation created to show the problems with the way industrial farming occurs today:
www.themeatrix.com

"I'm Invasive"

The invasion of zebra mussels into North America is an issue which I chose to discuss because it hits close to home. Literally. The Zebra Mussel was first discovered in North America in my home state of Michigan in the year I was born (1988). They were first discovered in Lake St. Clair and were most likely transported from the Caspian Sea region of Asia (where they are a native species) through the ballast water of a transoceanic ship. In less than 10 years since their introduction, zebra mussels have spread to all five Great Lakes and into the Mississippi, Tennessee, Hudson, and Ohio River basins. Inland lakes have also been affected. According to the Great Lakes Science Center each female zebra mussel produces one million eggs per year. The eggs, as well as the larvae are very small which also helps them spread more easily. Zebra mussels attach themselves to hard surfaces. Those hard surfaces can include man made structures such as water intake pipes, docks, buoys, piers, and breakwalls or other organisms such as native clams, crayfish and turtles. This can cause multiple problems. For humans a 50% decrease in efficiency was observed in water intake plants because they clog intake pipes (Zebra Mussels: Biology, Impacts, and Control) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that the potential economic impact to U.S. and Canadian Water Users in the Great Lakes region may reach into the billions of dollars over the next ten years.
Since zebra mussels are an invasive species they are bound to cause ecological damage, or at least ecological change. Some species, especially native clam species have been dying as zebra mussels attach themselves. In addition, zebra mussels are filter feeders and their feeding process actually cleans the water. However, by doing so they decrease microscopic algae populations that some native species depend on for food. Some animals such as lake sturgeon, perch, sunfish and catfish feed on zebra mussels, so they have actually become a steady food supply, however their presence has clearly caused a shift in the Great Lakes ecosystem.
In my opinion, one of the most important points to notice is that invasive species like the zebra mussel relate to the broader issue of global biodiversity loss. W. Wayt Gibbs, author of the article “On The Termination of Species” states that we may be loosing 27,000 species to extinction every year. I hope I’m not the only one who finds this alarming. Invasive species are one of the stated reasons for this loss in species diversity.
Think about your traveling activities and habits. Here are some sources of information that I used and other things for you to check out:

-Here is an interactive map that shows the movement of zebra mussels throughout North America: http://nationalatlas.gov/dynamic/dyn_zm.html#

-Great Lakes Science Center & U.S. Geological Survey (this can tell you preventative measures you can take to stop the spread): http://www.glsc.usgs.gov/

-Zebra Mussels: Biology, Impacts, and Control by Thomas F. Nalepa and Donald W. Schloesser

-“On The Termination of Species” by W. Wayt Gibbs, Scientific American, November 2001

-"The Current Biodiversity Extinction Event: Scenarios for Mitigation and Recovery" by Michael J. Novacek and Elsa E. Cleland:
www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.091093698

"I'm Getting Hot"

Climate change or global warming is the broadest issue that I have chosen to discuss. There has been a lot of debate about this issue in the media and I feel that it important to keep the discussion going. Based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report, the overall temperature of the earth is projected to rise between 2-11.5 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100. This temperature increase could have serious impacts on flood severity, droughts, erosion, water quality and availability, food production, human health, biodiversity, and global sea level. I think it is important to stress that this is a real issue. Over 29,000 data sets were examined by the IPCC before they came out with their 2007 conclusion that global warming is indeed occurring. I think there is now enough information that people need to stop pretending that climate change is a “shaky science”. Politically it has clearly been difficult to acknowledge global warming as a real issue, because acknowledgement would imply that action must be taken. This is a risky political move, however according to the Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change, failing to take action now may cost us much more later. The review estimates that if we do not act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more. In contrast, the costs of action (reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts of climate change) can be limited to around 1% of global GDP each year.
These GDP percentages make sense if you consider that an increase in sea level could cause serious issues with regard to the population displacement of millions of people. Spreading the word is important because the public can influence the importance placed on climate change as a political issue and priority. Think about this issue. Make it important to you and maybe it will become important to other people. Think about your role as a consumer. And learn more… Here are some other places to go/things to read:

-IPCC Website: www.ipcc.ch

-EPA Website: www.epa.gov/climatechange/

-Funny Comic: http://www.markstivers.com/cartoons/Stivers%206-10-02%20Bush%20and%20global%20warming.gif

-Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change

EnviroTees

Hi Everyone, My name is Courtney and this blog is based on a line of t-shirts that I have created. My t-shirts are EnviroTees. I purchased all of the shirts from the Salvation Army because second-hand shopping is awesome. It's a great way to save money and reuse goods. Each shirt is based on a different environmental subject and each image is hand painted by me. So far I have created "I'm Getting Hot" based on global warming, "I'm Invasive" based on zebra mussels, "I Can't Have Sex" based on the current turkey industry, "I'm On Drugs" based on the way most cattle are raised today, "I'm In Everything" based on corn (inspired by Nataliedee.com), and "I'm Salty" based on shrimp aquaculture. Some of the topics are broad and well known while others are not necessarily common knowledge. I am hoping that these t-shirts will make people think more deeply about pollution, deforestation, global warming, biodiversity loss, the way food is produced, and other environmental issues. Check them out!!!