Animal Person

Help Out Umbra and Thank (?) Ellen

Grist's Umbra answered this question yesterday:

I recently became a vegetarian for environmental reasons. Everyone says I should start eating soy products and tofu. But doesn't soy come from evil industrial farms in Iowa? I thought the idea was to increase biodiversity, not just eat the same thing 20 different ways. Also, can I keep eating eggs and milk?

She doesn't at all get into dairy and eggs except from the factory-farming point of view, she suggests a couple of cookbooks (from vegetarian Madison and omni Bittman), then she writes:

Other readers certainly will have suggestions (bring 'em on!).

There are oodles of holes in her response, so have at it and recommend your favorite cookbooks.

As for Ellen, she didn't ever say the word "vegan," but she did say she stopped eating meat and dairy and "all that stuff" (she also didn't say "animals" or "animal products") and her lunches have changed and no longer include animals (as of May). This was all about health, as expected, and when Neal Barnard mentioned foods Americans are addicted to he started with sugar and chocolate, and then later mentioned cheese. You could hear a pin drop during the entire interview, which is rare for an Ellen interview. She clearly wanted everyone to get the message--which I'm sure was so foreign to them that they were stunned into silence.

It's always interesting to me to see how uber-mainstream people who have gone vegan present their message. This was about health, and Ellen looks better than ever and certainly has a ton of energy. Perhaps some audience members will read the free book they received (which I have read and if you haven't gotten into the biochemistry behind that pizza addiction you used to have--oh wait . . . that was me--it's a useful read. And of course it's helpful to know about food addiction for your advocacy efforts.).

There was no talk of happy meat, although Elaine alerted us yesterday that she does indeed endorse it, which makes sense considering she's for Proposition 2 and had Wayne Pacelle on her show last week.

Does anyone have any thoughts? I found the segment innocuous at worst, and informative and urgent at best. I wonder what the audience thought? You can e-mail Ellen here or write a comment about the show in the discussion here.

Neal Barnard on Ellen Today

I know that Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi had a vegan wedding and I think that's great. They're clearly on their way and sending well-calculated messages to the world. I've been watching as Ellen's talk about animals and their suffering has taken up more time on her show and that's fantastic.

She had Wayne Pacelle on the other day. Nobody's perfect.

She's on the welfare train, I assume, at least from what she chooses to say (she loves animals and doesn't want them to suffer and Californians should vote yes on Proposition 2), but at least she hasn't started hawking happy meat. And maybe I'm reading into this, but there's a look on her face when it seems she's intentionally holding back because she doesn't want to say what she's really thinking. She settles for a very palatable, non-offensive, not in-your-face message about animals, which I'm sure is a conscious decision.

(Bill Maher, on the other hand, on Friday evening, at one point said something like "I can't believe people still haven't caught on to the fact that milk is poison." He joked about milk causing digestive and other problems that few people laughed at because they didn't get it.)

Dr. Neal Barnard of Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine will be on Ellen's show today, and I've got the television set to record. He tends to not talk about the animals and instead focus on health, and it's about time that mainstream America heard his message.

Here's the PCRM promo page for today's show. I hope Dr. Neal gives dairy what it deserves. I'll be back later to comment on his segment, which will probably be shorter than this post, but it's better than nothing.

On REAL Animal Rights Campaigns in NYC

REAL probably isn't a good word. But "abolitionist" these days is so loaded that I'm happy to sound a little Valley Girlish (or would that be if I used "Totally"?).

Regardless (or, irregardless, which oddly means the same thing), two items: one past, one future.

Santos alerted me that the New York City Animal Rights Meetup Group met up on Thursday to leaflet at the milk mustache mobile which was in front of a grocery store. They held posters that said things like: "When you drink cow milk, you tear mother from child and sentence them both to death." Nothing like getting right to the point that hasn't crossed the minds of most people.

On the meetup page Santos says:

How do you define a successful protest? When the target packs and leaves. That's right, the "Milk Mustache Campaign" couldn't handle the truth and left after only an hour and half after they set up their three tents. Not a single person posed for their ads, they never got to spin the prize wheel or make a single milk shake. Yes we were that good. They played loud music to drown out our words, but we called the police and they were forced to shut it down. We gave out way more literature than they did free cow milk. They were totally not prepared for our type of protest.

On Human Breast Milk Ice Cream

Human breast milk ice cream. That's got to need some hyphens. All those nouns in a row can't be correct.

Yesterday morning, on The Today Show, Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford were talking about the PeTA request that Ben & Jerry's ice cream use human breast milk.

I thought that was fantastic! As expected, though, humans were all "grossed out" by the notion of consuming the breast milk of their own species and would rather consume that of cows. It would be high comedy if it weren't so pathetic.

The Ben & Jerry's folks responded oddly with: "we believe a mother's milk is best used for her child."

Hello . . . Hello . . . .

Is there anybody in there?

Just nod if you can here me . . .

Isn't cow's milk meant for somebody? And isn't that somebody a calf and not a human?

Gifford and Kotb were visibly disconcerted with the ice cream idea. Gifford asked what's wrong with cow's milk and don't they just take it from the cow, who's producing it anyway. Kotb said she thought PeTA has some kind of video that shows there's some suffering going on there and Gifford said they'd look into it and then they moved on.

I'm sure The Today Show's producers have been deluged with videos and e-mails about all of the suffering necessary to "produce" cow's milk. Or at least I hope so (Today@NBCUNI.com, if you're so inclined). But what struck me was the conditioning. What struck me was the knee-jerk response that human breast milk is for some reason yucky and inappropriate, yet cow's milk is fine.

I think I've been vegan too long; this looks bizarre to me.

What do you all think? Did you like PeTA's way of bringing attention to this topic? And what do you think of Ben & Jerry's embarrassing response? I actually like the idea of this campaign because it's about the idiocy of a use of an animal, and in my mind the conclusion is inescapable: drinking the milk of another species--meant for the baby of that species--is, as Paul Reiser once said in Mad About You, "wrong all over the place."

What kind, if any, effects the campaign will have I suppose is the big question. But the notion of waking Americans from the trance of their conditioning is a worthy goal.

From Eating No Meat to Advocating FOR Slaughter

Jenny was kind enough to inform me that the day I posted my review of Catherine Friend's ode to betrayal and slaughter, The Compassionate Carnivore, Jenna Woginrich posted "Is Eating Local Meat Kinder Than Vegetarianism?" Woginrich, a vegetarian, actually bought the reasoning in Friend's book.

This isn't all that surprising because we all know that vegetarians are (unintentionally, I hope) failing to see the entire picture and aren't making some very important connections. When I connected veal to cheese, or realized all baby boy chicks are macerated on day one or two, or that cows are raped, or that they scream bloody murder when their kids are yanked away from them, I felt mighty stupid for my prior belief that vegetarianism was a far more ethical choice than omnivorism.

It also isn't surprising because, after all, as a vegan even, I would drown in my own hypocrisy by telling people that shopping at Whole Foods is the way to go if you insist on eating animals (don't berate me, I do it enough for the both of us).

But let's get to Woginrich, whom I'm sure means well (unlike Friend, who appears to simply refuse to stop eating animals and is dedicated to making that sound acceptable).

Let's deconstruct:

On the Krabloonik Dogs

I was supposed to be in Aspen for nine days, starting today. I'd be staying at the St. Regis and spending lots of money there and in town. The petsitter situation became unworkable, however, and alas, I'm sitting at my dining room table rather than on a plane. Now, I could easily have rescheduled my trip, but when I found out about the Krabloonik Sled dogs I was so disgusted that I didn't want to give Aspen/Snowmass a penny.

There was a meeting of the Krabloonik Advisory Board on Tuesday to discuss what can be done for the dogs and here's the odd thing: outsiders, who specifically state that they're not animal rights activists or interested in closing down the Krabloonik operation, are working with the people who own the operation to improve the treatment of the dogs. Krabloonik has been noncompliant with state regulations for years and when you see the shocking way they dogs are kept, you might just wonder why the people who are interested in "giving these dogs a voice" have as their goal the better treatment of the dogs rather than the shutting down of the operation. It's one of the most horrific scenes I've witnessed.

And what's more, the public is being asked to donate for things like: water cans for the dogs or veterinary care, and of course to improve the conditions of the Krabloonik dogs.

I don't get it.

The point is to treat the dogs better between other abusive situations during their chained lives of slavery?

Why not work to shut down such an egregious torture camp? Why continue to support an industry that will use and treat dogs the way Dan MacEachen (Krabloonik's owner) does? From what I can see, Dan MacEachen shouldn't be allowed to be within a mile of a dog and he should never be permitted to own one. Period.

It's insulting to the dogs to say that a new can or some time off of their six-foot chain that they're stuck with six months out of the year is enough. The dogs should be treated, rehabilitated, and adopted to good homes. Krabloonik should be shut down. I don't see much of a difference between Dan MacEachen and Michael Vick, and I'm frankly shocked that there isn't demand for far more for these poor dogs. 

On THE COMPASSIONATE CARNIVORE

I read The Compassionate Carnivore, by Catherine Friend, thanks to my local public library.

As you probably have guessed, the book is an advertisement for small farms. It vilifies factory farming, and oddly fetishizes smaller farmers and their practices. The author is strangely proud of what she does, and she believes that if you really care about animals you'll continue to have them slaughtered for you. And she uses Gandhi to back her up on that, which I'll get to in a moment. (And also quotes Nina Planck, whose endorsement is on the book's back cover, which is just about all you need to know.)

Because I read a copy from the library, I couldn't mark the book up. Plus, I read it over time in random places where I didn't have a notepad. I did go searching for a couple of quotes so as not to entirely speak for the author. Most disturbingly, I am not misrepresenting her.

The way Friend and her partner, Melissa, create and raise animals for slaughter (which they don't do themselves and Friend admits to never having witnessed) probably involves less suffering of certain kinds than the animals would experience in a factory farm. But none of what she does is necessary, as she doesn't need to produce or kill animals. She does it because she wants to eat the animals, and she says that plainly throughout the book.

Here's the problem for me: I don't buy her abbreviated, incomplete version of "compassion." She thinks her definition is merely different from, say, mine, and that I'm "absolutist" about compassion, insisting that captivity, betrayal and slaughter--all for the taste of the flesh of another--can indeed be called compassion. And I think that's ridiculous.

Friend's obsession with the flesh of sentient nonhumans largely drives the book. which includes a chapter on how certain practices--or even how extreme stress--affects the taste of the flesh.

On Eggs and Polar Bears

Did you see that Catherine Price of The New York Times "Sort[ed] Through the Claims of the Boastful Egg" for us last week, then Tara Parker-Hope "Unscrambl[ed] the Egg" a couple of days later? Parker-Hope writes:

And what about “cage free” — that sounds like a pretty happy bird to me. As it turns out, a cage-free chicken is kept out of the cage, but it doesn’t necessarily go outside. And a “free range” egg-layer isn’t necessarily roaming the range either. So what’s the term to look for if you want eggs from a happy, free-living bird? ” Look for “animal welfare approved,” a new label by the Animal Welfare Institute that is given only to independent family farmers.

Glad that's all cleared up.

Did you see Polar Bears Against Palin? Check out the Point/Counterpoint that uses an op-ed Palin wrote in January for The New York Times. Very Daily Show-ish. Funny.

Not so funny was a Today Show segment yesterday that included women who were undecided and (because they?) liked the idea of Sarah Palin. I have just one question: If you like the idea of Sarah Palin, why are you undecided? She's not undecided at all about what she wants for this country. Either you want what she wants or you don't, no?

I don't get it.

On Border Walls and Sentient Nonhumans

I'm filing this under Gray Matters (among other things) because, embarrassingly, I don't think I know enough to say I know exactly what I believe.

Immigration.

Lou Dobbs is really angry about it--that much I do know.

There are 50-something and 60-something white people picketing about a mile away from here at a El Sol, where you can safely, legally find day laborers (read: immigrants) to take to your house to do odd jobs. The white people want you to honk if you don't want the evil nonwhite people to take their jobs.

None of those white people would toil in my yard, resod my lawn, mow my lawn, or trim my now 9-feet tall hedges, though. That much I also know (and please note I do those things myself). The people sitting on their folding chairs, who drove to El Sol in their SUVs and are screaming hatefully, don't want the jobs the men and women who rode there on old bicycles are willing to do. I could be wrong, but I don't see any of them on their knees cleaning the grout on my kitchen floor. Again, I'm not as educated as I should be on this.

On Psychological Incongruence

I don't like the term "moral schizophrenia" and I don't use it. Maybe because I was raised by a therapist who specialized in treating people with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), which used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD), and is often erroneously called schizophrenia. She was a stickler for language, not at all impressed by the bastardization caused by common usage, and she was very clear that it was unacceptable to mock people who have any kind of disability or other affliction or challenge. And if you ever want to insult someone, may the word "retard" never cross your lips.

Various people--even right here on Animal Person--have defended the term "moral schizophrenia," but for me it not only doesn't work, but it has the added bonus of being tres impolite to the wrong party (i.e., those who really do suffer from schizophrenia).

Dr. Belisa Vranich to the rescue with "Psychologically Incongruent: The Compassionate Abuser."

Whether you consider yourself an "animal person" or not, the real story behind former Mets minor leaguer Joseph Petchka's killing of his girlfriend's tabby is that you can't profess to be a compassionate boyfriend (or father) and slaughter domestic animals.

I was the newly, self-anointed president of the Dr. Belisa Vranich fan club until I hit the word "domestic." So close, yet so far . . . .

Still, I can salvage the term because it's accurate and won't cause large groups of people to mount protests (as happened with "retard").

Vranich continues:

Can you be a good citizen and neighbor, teach compassion to your child and enjoy watching two animals fight to the death? Can you love your girlfriend -- and her idiosyncrasies, friends and family -- but hate her cat, to the point that you strangle it?

Let me guess: you're focusing on the word "it." I did too.

Keynote and Panel from One Struggle (Animal Rights Africa)

Footage from Steve Best's keynote as well as the panel discussion from One Struggle (Animal Rights Africa) is available here. Though they live a world away from me, the activists' issues weren't a world away at all. From struggling to get other movements to recognize animals (not to mention other causes) as connected to theirs, to how we go about achieving animal liberation ("You can't just tell everyone to go vegan," said one), to of course getting people to rethink the idea that we should take care of people first and deal with animals and the environment later, One Struggle launched a discussion that I'd like to see a lot more of here.

On Two Recent Direct Actions

Two things happened last week that made me think about how effective direct action can be. They both involved phone calls, e-mails and other forms of pressure to not hold an event.

1.          The Cole Bros. Circus, which is not known for its humane treatment of animals (here's a factsheet of their many instances of failure to meet even minimal federal standards for the care of animals), was going to visit the town I live in, and set up shop at the baseball stadium that's within 1.5 miles from my house. The Animal Rights Foundation of Florida sent out an alert with the contact information for the mayor, the town council, and the owner of the stadium.

I sent a note to everyone listed, of course mentioning that at least five elephants in the "care" of Cole Bros. have died in the past 10 years and that Cole Bros. uses bullhooks to control the elephants (there was hideous undercover footage of the abuse of the animals made to perform in the Cole Bros. Circus). I mentioned that the arrival of the circus would be "an enormous embarrassment and public relations nightmare, as most people who care about animals have heard about how abysmal Cole Bros. is when it comes to the treatment of animals." I ended my letter with "Please don't allow Cole Bros. to come to our town and pollute our atmosphere with its brutality. It's bad enough they exist. I don't want them in my backyard."

I worded my letters that way because, as much as the animals have done nothing to warrant their abuse and we have no right to hold them captive, what's equally true, and perhaps more important for the stadium owner and the local politicians, is that some the people they serve would be angry enough to make things difficult or inconvenient for them. They'd lose business. They'd lose popularity.

They wrote back within 48 hours to say Cole Bros. wouldn't be coming to our town and they're aware that such a visit would be "problematic."

Educate the Girls, Lower the Population

Today's question is: Are there too many people on the planet, or are some of them/us using far too many resources, and we would do just fine with 6.7 billion people if our (as in, most Americans') consumption was decreased (more drastically in some cases, less in others)? Maybe the answer is both.

"Do We Need Population Control?" by Katharine Mieszkowski over at Salon.com tackles the population question, including whether or not we should have population control policies (and how well the ones that exist are working, and you might be surprised by what a group of highly-educated women in China, speaking anonymously, had to say about China's one-child policy).

As I'm sure you know, overpopulation isn't just a matter of, well, the number of people. Professor of History at Columbia University and author of "Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population" (get it? mis-conception?) Matthew Connelly says:

Reducing the size of a population can mean that you increase the number of households because people are living by ones and twos and threes. When people live in smaller households they tend to consume more of everything. That's why it's terribly deceptive to think that we can address the environmental problems of overconsumption just by getting people to have fewer kids. It's more complicated than that.

He later says:

Far from calling for larger populations, what I am calling for is that we trust parents to make sensible choices. We have to trust that women, when they're given the means to control their own fertility, are going to make smart choices for themselves, and for their children. The idea of population control is a dangerous illusion.

Do You Like People?

Eleni Vlachos of Porch Life Productions (and "Seeing Through the Fence") is also a musician (she's a singer, drummer and strummer in Beloved Binge). Check out Beloved Binge's MySpace page, and particularly the song "I Don't Like People."

I don't like people.
I don't like people.
Still . . . I'm tryin'.

Today's questions: Do you like people? Do you struggle with misanthropy? Do you generally like nonhuman animals better than animals? Do you find yourself saying you don't like people? (I'm reminded of the people who say "I hate kids," but they really don't. Some really do.) Do you have to try to like people?

On THE PORTABLE ATHEIST

I've mentioned Christopher Hitchens' The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever, but never did it justice. And I won't now. But what I will do is say that the combination of essays (most were previously published, but the material by Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan and Ayaan Hirsi Ali were not) and Hitchens' Introduction and commentary makes for a fun and challenging read. And because of the format, you can read it over six months, in between the novels and other nonfiction you're reading that require a different kind of attention.

Here are just a few of my favorite quotes:

Carl Van Doren's "Why I Am an Unbeliever"

As to gods . . . . There does not seem to me to be good reason for holding that some of them are false and some of them, or one of them, true. Each was created by the imaginations and wishes of men who could not account for the behavior of the universe in any other satisfactory way (139).

Bertrand Russell's "An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish"

I am sometimes shocked by the blasphemies of those who think themselves pious--for instance, the nuns who never take a bath without wearing a bathrobe all the time. When asked why, since no man can see them, they reply: "Oh, but you forget about the good God." Apparently they conceive of the Deity as a Peeping Tom, whose omnipotence enables Him to see through bathroom walls, but who is foiled by bathrobes. This view strikes me as curious (184).

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones (199).

The Significance of the NAIS

The Liberty Ark Coalition has created an eight-minute slideshow that describes the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). From Liberty Ark's homepage:

"Industrial agriculture and technology companies are urging the government to adopt a program that will drive many small farms out of business, burden horse owners, invade our privacy, increase the cost of meat, and expand the government bureaucracy.

If the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) is made mandatory, anyone who owns even one horse, chicken, cow, pig, sheep, goat, or any other livestock or exotic, will have to:

• Register their property with the state and federal government;
• Identify each animal, in most cases with electronic identification;
• Report events to a government-accessible database within 24 hours, including every dead or missing animal, private sales, and regional shows"

It further entrenches property rights (which I didn't think was possible), doesn't make food safer (though that's one of its goals), it doesn't help animals and it takes government intrusion and control to new heights. Finally, it can easily be seen as a trial program that can be perfected for later use on humans.

At Liberty Ark's site, you can learn more about the history of the NAIS and see what's going on in your state and what you can do.

If you think this doesn't affect you and your beliefs with regard to animals, think about this: animals will be chipped and their locations accessible by GPS. When chickens or pigs fall off a truck on the way to slaughter, and some person finds them and takes them to a sanctuary, the owner can easily find out where they are and may or may not retrieve them, but they'll have the right to because the owner can identify the animals as their property.

Two New(ish) Films and a Video

Here's the schedule for screenings of Seeing Through the Fence (and thanks, Bea).

Next, there's Food, Inc., featuring Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan, "along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield Farms' Gary Hirschberg and Polyface Farms' Joe Salatin" (happy meat, anyone?). The Take Part page for the film gives you an idea of all of the topics, and no, there's no animal rights angle (there's an animal welfare one).

The reason I'm looking forward to the film is Schlosser's continuing investigation of the treatment of farm workers, which finally led him to the Sunshine State and he said "things were worse in Florida than the worst that I'd seen in California." Migrant farm workers are basically slaves here. Here's more of Schlosser on Florida farming.

Finally, you don't have to be a staunch Obama advocate to cackle at this Les Miserables takeoff (Les Misbarack). Thanks to Judy for the link. Enjoy!

Late to the Party: On Kids

I had some unscheduled time yesterday and used a portion of it to see what animal people are talking about and one thing stood out as surprisingly controversial: having kids and even hating kids. (I started with Ryan, who led me to Josh here and here).

I'm not sure about anyone's age, so this could be a generational thing. Or it could be a function of my upbringing. I was raised with the idea that kids would likely be in my future, but more important was the idea that I shouldn't be in a rush and I should follow my dreams and get educated and travel the world first. The message was: Once you have a child, your life as you know it is over, and you have to devote your energy to your child, so if there's anything really important to do, you'd best get it done before you have a child.

Next, I was a nanny in graduate school. I lived this fantasy life of having three kids (including a newborn) and driving a Volvo station wagon around the North Shore of Long Island. I was the kids' caregiver every day, all day, then went to school at night for my MA in English and American Literature. I loved the kids, but became acutely aware of what it takes to care for them and after two years I was completely exhausted.

I also had this judgmental feeling of: why have kids if you're not going to be their parent? Isn't that the idea?

I realized that for me it was important to be a parent, and to raise a child who would be compassionate, independent-minded, and make the world a better place.

Unfortunately, I was too busy getting educated, traveling, working and following various dreams that, as the cliche goes, I forgot to have kids. More accurately, kids simply weren't a priority for me. And once I married someone ambivalent about being a parent, the idea of kids left the table for a while. And when we both decided we'd like to be parents, the probability of having our own kids was minuscule due to my advanced maternal age. Of course there are hundreds of kids right here in Florida who need homes.

I never associated dislike of children with "the movement." What I have always seen is that vegans and activists of all sorts tend to think long and hard about having children, and when they do have them it's with intent regarding what they'll be exposed to and how they'll be raised. And they have fewer children (one or two).

Hating kids is strange to me, though I do understand not being interested in them, particularly if they can't yet speak. And I do understand being annoyed when they're next to you watching an R-rated film (that happened to me recently) and they're screaming. But it's the parents you should be angry with.

In fact, when I think of all of the problems we have in our neighborhood with what have come to be known as "the miscreants" (11-14 year old boys), their behavior is due to their lack of supervision, support and discipline. I've asked them why they include various anti-social actions in their daily repertoire, and they've told me that they have no one to talk to, no one listens to them, they're bored, and their parents both work and aren't home until 7pm. I ask them if there's a grown-up they trust and can talk to, and they say there isn't. As terrible as their behavior is, I understand where it's coming from. (And yes, I'm creating a list of after-school programs in the area for the kids.)

As far having your own child who will then tap the world's resources goes, my belief is of the zero population growth variety. And you can't be responsible for other people having five kids or 10 kids (I have a client who's one of 10), so take that off the table. I'm responsible for me and my family. Not having a child because your neighbors had more than their share makes no sense to me.

Furthermore, I think having a child when you have a clear idea of how you want to change the world is a philanthropic act. Spending a couple of decades raising a good citizen is no small commitment and no small feat and the idea should be supported by others in the movement who want to change the world.

After all, as my husband now says about his former self: You can't leave it to those people to create a new generation. This planet needs a fighting chance, and it's gonna come from people who want to fight for it. Raising someone like that is a gift to the world.

Palin and The Bush Doctrine

I couldn't get this to post on a comment, and thought it was important. In case you missed it . . .

I agree with Ta-Nehisi Coates over at The Atlantic: "Forget about moose-hunting and pipelines. You simply can't be a credible VP nominee and have no idea what the Bush doctrine is."

Global Warming Justifies Breaking the Law

However you feel about direct action that includes property damage, it appears that at least when it comes to global warming, and at least in the UK, property damage might actually be a catalyst to help nudge an administration to alter their policies for the better.

Steve directed me to "Cleared: Jury Decides That Threat of Global Warming Justifies Breaking the Law" in yesterday's Independent, which made me feel hopeful about the effects of a type of direct action that often makes us wonder, "Does that do any good? Is that a waste of time? Does that make us look silly?"

Here are some high points:

• "The threat of global warming is so great that campaigners were justified in causing more than £35,000 worth of damage to a coal-fired power station, a jury decided yesterday. In a verdict that will have shocked ministers and energy companies the jury at Maidstone Crown Court cleared six Greenpeace activists of criminal damage."
• "The acquittal was the second time in a decade that the 'lawful excuse' defence has been successfully used by Greenpeace activists. In 1999, 28 Greenpeace campaigners led [by] Lord Melchett, who was director at the time, were cleared of criminal damage after trashing an experimental field of GM crops in Norfolk. In each case the damage was not disputed – the point at issue was the motive."
• The activists on trial this time intended to scale the chimney at a Kingsnorth power station in Kent and paint "Gordon, Bin it" on the side of it. They got as far as "Gordon" before they came down (by court injunction).