Our relationship with zoos

Aug1

I’ve just read the Huffington Post’s article about zoos which reminded me of writer Derrick Jensen and photographer Karen Tweedy-Holmes’s book called Thought to exist in the wild: awakening from the nightmare of zoos.

thought to exist in the wild

In this book, Derrick Jensen compares porn with animals in cages. ‘All the animals in the zoo are eagerly awaiting you.’ He goes to a porn website and reads “All my ladies love to undress in front of the camera and have a great time doing all the photo sessions that you get to view totally uncensored.” He says, ‘It’s not enough to put these others on display. We must convince ourselves that they are desperately willing participants in their own degradation, that we are not exploiting them but doing them a favour. We are rescuing bears from the wild, saving orphans from sentences of death. The animals in the zoo are so happy that we need cages to keep the others out. The animals are rich estate owners leading lives of idle luxury.’ ‘All the animals in the zoo are eagerly awaiting you.’

 

 

Is cruelty part of our relationship with animals? Any animals?

May22

I’m a big fan of Tim Flannery.

Tim Flannery wearing a hat

image from Guardian

 

He’s incredibly clever, learned and wise. He speaks, and writes, a lot of sense.

BUT

not this:

‘The fact is that animal rights issues, such as opposition to the culling of feral species, can sometimes get in the way of environmental stewardship, and concerns about animal suffering need to be treated separately.’ page 48 Tim Flannery, After the future: Australia’s new extinction crisis, Quarterly Essay Issue 48 2012

Suffering by any species of animal is part of the equation. If human attitudes towards nature allows any part of nature to suffer, then that attitude is questionable. Until we fix human attitudes to each individual creature, then, I got to tell you, Tim, environmental stewardship will go hang.

http://youtu.be/IFtJeKojFfI

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report – It’s happening

Apr7

I’m sorry but isn’t the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

which begins by saying

“Human interference with the climate system is occurring, and climate change poses risks for human and natural systems”

important? Urgent? Shouldn’t Australia do something about it now?

Prime Minister Tony Abbott quotes from My Country:

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.

Dorothea Mackellar started writing My Country in 1904. Climate change not an issue then, Prime Minister.

Now?

What’s the worst that could happen? Remember that physics teacher? The Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See? He’s still going strong.

Lord Deben is the chairman of the UK Committee on Climate Change, the government’s statutory adviser. He is a former environment secretary and Conservative MP for Suffolk Coastal. He writes in the The Guardian reports that the government should committ to halving its emmissions at 1990 levels before 2027.

Australia is aiming for between 5 and 20 percent.

The US Secretary of State John Kerry says costs of inaction on climate change will be “catastrophic”.

George Monbiot finds an allegory in Ibsen’s play An Enemy of the People where Dr Stockman must lash out angrily at those who do not believe him, like Cassandra.

And in Australia there’s a gentle, chatty piece in The Age, enquiring about the level of risk we’re happy to live with.

I wish I could roar like a lion.

When does Australia stop digging up coal and start building a new, clean renewable energy industry? Beyond Zero Emissions has a plan ready to go right now. What are we waiting for?

You’ve been wondering what the Blue Man Group think of Global Warming, haven’t you?

I’m roaring like a lady. As much as I can.

Children are like animals

Mar28

Cover for Anne Manne's book, Motherhood

 

Anne Manne, in Motherhood, How should we care for our children? points out that children are small, weak and powerless. Just like animals. What is justice as it applies to any living thing that is smaller and weaker than ourselves?

…it is worth reflecting on [the Victorian] era’s pervasive attitudes to life. Children were thought of as resilient, shallow creatures only a little above animals in the great chain of being, incapable of deep feeling, which meant they could settle happily with anyone as long as they were kind. Such myths served the interests of an adult centred world.  (Pg 132 Motherhood)

She describes the ‘good old days’ when kids were farmed out to wet nurses, raised by nannies and sent off to boarding school. She reminds us that authors like Roald Dahl, or Charles Dickens or George Orwell have no trouble slipping inside the skin of a child because their own childhood experiences were so horrific.

Society’s attitude to children has changed.

I felt this echo today as I watched Edgar’s Mission‘s latest video requesting help as they move premises. How can our attitude to animals change?

Edgar's mission's pig

There’s exciting news that the ACT will ban factory farming: battery hens, debeaking and sow stalls. Woolworths will phase out eggs from battery hens.  Animals Australia helped rescue 150 dogs from a puppy factory.

Perhaps we don’t just see animals as products any more?