News & commentary on sustainability, activism, urban planning, politics, and our world.
Officials in San Francisco are considering a citywide ban on the practice of declawing cats. In August, San Francisco Board Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, introduced legislation banning the practice of declawing in the city and county of San Francisco unless deemed medically necessary. Another California town, West Hollywood, passed similar legislation banning the procedure unless medically necessary.
A gas project of Chevron and Total is responsible for major funding of the military junta in Myanmar, allowing Burmese generals to accumulate billions of dollars in Singapore banks, and human rights abuses have been linked to the Yadana Pipeline, says human rights group EarthRights. EarthRights claims that both Total and Chevron have tried to [...]
It was these two provocative ideas–that species cold become extinct, and, that new species could arise–that first began to chip away at the mighty edifice that was The Great Chain of Being. Darwin’s later, key concept of “descent with modification” was but a final, intellectual nail in the coffin of Special Creation. From this observation—coupled with the Lyell’s theories of vast geological time scales and continuity of action–one could readily infer descent from earlier, but morphologically related, forms. To be sure, this was truly a revolutionary synthesis. But it was these former two notions— hinted at in the pre-Origin writings of Wallace, Darwin and others–that caused the first disruptive waves of the advancing scientific flood. For they implied the unthinkable: a creation neither perfect (creatures could die out) nor complete (new creatures could emerge). This was a dual assertion that anyone, of nearly any social stature, could comprehend.
The recent death of a male lion at the Dhaka Zoo brings the total number of animal deaths at the facility this year to 20. Negligence, inadequate care, inexperience, and poor living conditions the Dhaka Zoo are to blame for the reported deaths of 20 animals so far this year. Three days ago, a young [...]
