Not Being a Silent Witness to the Events of our Times

Werner Herzog's "Encounters at the End of the World" is an insightful, haunting and dreamy look at the personalities who live in Antarctica, including its scientists. Many of these scientists, Herzog observes, doubt man's long-term existence on the Earth. Nature, they believe, will regulate us. I couldn't agree more.

Our exploitation of the land and its resources is shameful. Here is just one way we disrespect the Earth: garbage. Many throw things "away" giving little thought to where "away" is and its impact. Unfortunately, "away" often means our waterways, to the great detriment of the fish, birds and other living creatures that depend on these waterways. That includes us too. In our road to a disposable society, we have disposed of our responsibility and ethics along the way.

I participated in Hackensack Riverkeeper's annual clean-up of Overpeck Park in Leonia. Seeing the amount of garbage, you can completely understand how humans created the atrocity that is the Great Garbage Patch.

I spent nearly two hours in the 90 degree heat picking up bottles, mostly water, but also beer, soda and Gatorade. Tires, food containers, plastic bags and other items were in the mix too. Here are some of the frightful images, which speak for themselves.






The cleanup is just 10% of the effort. The rest is about education and changing behavior. We have become waste enablers, allowing for massive consumption and thoughtless disposal. The trick is to enable better behavior and more responsible choices. At my office's kitchen, for example, I've picked up reusable plates, bowls, silverware and glasses at my favorite thrift shop, which many people are now using instead of the disposable alternatives. If you give an easy solution, some (not all) will change their behavior. The same can be said for a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle.

And please, avoid bottled water, which is not a "healthy" choice. On the contrary, it causes great detriment to our health, when you take into account the oil used to produce it, the fuel spent transporting it, and pollution it creates sitting in the landfill. I always find great irony that many of the people who insist on consuming it are willing to pay a premium, but short change animals by buying the cheapest eggs, milk and meat available, which we all know means the worst welfare standards possible. Many of these same bottled water consumers seem to show little concern about the pesticides their food is grown with.

Please be an activist in your own microcosms (your workplace, home and among friends), both for the animals and the environment. Ingrid Newkirk tells us, "Most important things have been done because just one person cared. Please, don't ever be afraid of seeming radical. All the best people in history have been radical." The only thing radical to me is being a silent witness to this environmental destruction and not being an activist.

The next Hackensack Riverkeeper clean-up is Saturday, May 16, in Staib Park, Hackensack. Click here for a full list of clean-ups.
If you haven't already, check out FLOW (For Love of Water), about the world water crisis. Check out their extensive Take Action page to learn what you can do.

On this Earth Day...

...some words of wisdom from one of the founders of the animal rights movement, Ingrid Newkirk.

"Human beings should be in awe of all the other animals. They're never greedy. They live well on the Earth. They don't despoil it, they don't pollute it. They live simply. It isn't because of them that the sun is searing into the Earth bringing starvation to the peoples of Africa. That no one can drink from our waterways. That sparrows are dying throughout Europe, frogs are disappearing in South America, and penguins are found floating dead in the Antarctic."

"We should be in awe. Our own species has trashed the place."

On the disappearance of the Congo and its vast natural resources, she bemoans, "We humans here have so much greed, not need, but greed, that we want more rubber, more minerals, we want more logs, more lumber. We just want more. That's what our species is defined as."



How green is your diet? Find out.



In the 19 years I've been a vegetarian, it calculated I saved 5,320 animals. By sticking with it, I will save 13,160 more animals from death and 155,100 lbs. of CO2e from polluting the Earth in my lifetime. Learn more about the environmental impact of that steak on your plate.

"Can you blame nature if she's had enough of us?" Tori Amos, Father's Son.

Foie Gras: Crossing the Boundry of Human Descency

"We don't face firing squads, lifetime prison sentences or the gas chambers for saying what's on our minds and in our hearts. We won't lose our lives if we speak out against animal wrongs wherever we see them, but the animals do lose theirs if we don't, so we must." - Ingrid Newkirk

Ducks destined to become foie gras. Learn about Farm Sanctuary's No Foie Gras campaign.


On Friday night, I joined 10 other animal rights advocates to take a stand against foie gras, fatty, diseased goose liver considered by some to be a delicacy, but what Farm Sanctuary president Gene Baur has more appropriately labeled it: "gustatory narcissism."

Our target: Damien Brassel's Knife & Fork restaurant in New York City. The Farm Sanctuary-sponsored demonstration may have rustled the feathers (pardon the pun) of a few neighbors, who were vocally annoyed with our loud chants. I'm not sure how their suffering compared to the suffering endured by the ducks and geese who live of modern day foie gras farms, who are confined to their cages or pens for their entire existence and force fed until their livers are expanded to 10 times their size. It's all about perspective, I suppose.

While I can't get into the mind of Brassel, I think Anthony Bourdain's sentiments speak for many chefs of his ilk. In his book, Kitchen Confidential, he writes, "Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food."

But enjoyment at what cost? With no boundaries whatsoever? Is torture socially acceptable in the culinary world? As Gene Baur has asked, "What are willing to do for this flavor?" Their sense of entitlement knows no bounds. To me, that attitude is an affront to everything natural, Mr. Bourdain.

Thankfully, there are chefs, such as Jamie Oliver, who actually give a second thought to the life of the animal that ended up on people's plates for their fleeting enjoyment. Chefs like Bourdain and Brassel perpetuate some false image of the "good life," but there is nothing good, nothing natural, about the way factory farmed animals, including ducks and geese tortured for foie gras production, live, if you can even consider it living at all. It seems more like these animals have to endure their entire time alloted to them on Earth, until we are ready to slaughter them to satisfy our whims. What is good and descent in the human spirit about that?

As Gene writes in his book, Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food, "Critics of animal welfare reform always ask "Where will it end? What's next?" Those are exactly the questions I ask about unnecessarily cruel treatment of animals. Where does that end?"

Please use this web form to contact Knife & Fork, and tell them you will not patronize their restaurant until they permanently remove foie gras from their menu.
Learn about ACT, Farm Sanctuary's Advocacy Campaign Team.

Some lucky ducks and geese at Farm Sanctuary's Watkins Glen, NY, shelter, enjoying a swim at the pond and socializing freely. Some 500,000 ducks are killed each year for foie gras in the U.S. and in Canada, respectively, according to Farm Sanctuary.

"All Living Beings Wish to be Free"

I first heard of PETA in my teen years, when I made the life-changing decision to become a vegetarian. I've never eaten animal flesh since, save a few years in my late twenties when I confusingly decided to dabble in pescetarianism. Why I thought consuming any level of mercury in fish, whatever amount of omega 3 fatty acids it contained, was an acceptable notion I have no idea. Let alone neglecting their feelings as living, breathing creatures who have as much a desire to live as any cow, chicken, pig or human. But I am now fully committed down the path of veganism, with no desire to look back.

Ingrid Newkirk continues to be a source of inspiration, particularly in her arguments on the moral issues of how we treat animals. Our society is so dependent on animals, as a food source (often poor), for fashion (which we tire of so quickly), for entertainment (to amuse ourselves for a few fleeting hours) and more. Yet they are such an after-thought to many, and to most, their treatment is not thought of at all.

On this snowy weekend, I took the time to listen to Ingrid's moving speech, "Non-Violence Includes Animals," and encourage others to as well.

"How we treat animals goes to the very heart of who we are."


"failure to recognize the us in them."


"They are treated like things, like commodities, machines and objects. They are treated like everything but as animals."

"There is no human nature. It is shared nature, for all animals laugh, and lie and cheat and love and breathe and are lonely and feel pain and wish to be free."


"There will be a day...when we will stop saying, we are human beings, treat us like human beings and start saying, we are living beings, treat us, please like living beings."


Check out PETA's official page on Youtube.

One Can Make a Difference

I had the great pleasure of meeting Ingrid Newkirk at a book signing in Borders Columbus Circle in NYC for her new collection of essays entitled, "One Can Make a Difference." Filled with more than 50 writings from everyone from Moby to Oliver Stone, this book is meant to inspire personal activism in even the most jaded of us. She was completely gracious and it was a true honor to meet one of my long-time heroes. Her speech on Speaking Up for Animals planted the seed in me to go vegan. She is truly one of the great orators of our day and of our movement.

"Looking out for your baby or your friend is easy. The test of moral fiber is to stick up for those you relate to least, those you understand minimally, and those you do not think are that much like you." – Ingrid Newkirk

Speaking Up For Animals video; Speaking Up For Animals podcast (March 3, 2008, Why Animal Rights?)