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"Earth Democracy is based on living cultures." Those that practice different beliefs, faiths, and lifestyles all have a rightful place in the world. Today, this is very relevant as we battle it out all across the globe over who is right, either with AKs or Tweets. Diversity spawns democracy and progress, without it we do not grow.

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History is littered with the corpses of those who lost their lives as a consequence of fanaticism and intolerance. Nero ordered Rome to be set on fire and blamed the Christians for its destruction, many of whom ended up being severely persecuted and executed.

In 1506, more than 5,000 converted Jews were massacred in Lisbon in less than 48 hours after a new outbreak of the "Black Death", and around 30,000 Huguenots were assassinated in Paris in 1572, in what has gone down to history as the "St Bartholomew's Day massacre". The Crusades, the "Holy" Office of the Inquisition, or the Thirty Years' War are other important chapters of the European horror book of religious atrocities.

However, despite the deep mark left by past atrocities, religious intolerance and violence has continued to devastate large parts of the world during the 20th and 21stcenturies. Hatred towards religious minorities is a plague that affects millions of people, who are slaughtered, tortured, displaced or raped simply for their religious beliefs.
Religious wars of the 21st century
The Central African Republic (CAR) is in the grips of its own disaster, the catalyst seen as religious intolerance, where the confrontation between the Muslim group Seleka and the mainly Christian and animist group anti-Balaka is committing serious human rights violations.

This conflict, which started as mainly political, is progressively taking a religious character as there are increasing reports of retaliation killings by the Christian and Muslim populations respectively.

The confrontation began in 2012 when Seleka, an armed organised rebel movement, representing Muslims in the northeast of the country and other groups dissatisfied with then President Francois Bozize, launched a major military offensive. Although the troops were stopped close to Bangui, they seized power in March 2013 and their leader, Michel Djotodia, became president of the CAR.

Theoretically, the Seleka group was dissolved afterwards, but several of its members joined the Central African Armed Forces by decree and it continued operating de facto, expanding its control over the country.

The anti-Balaka group started to fight Seleka forces in June 2013 and attacked Muslim civilians. Selekaretaliated by killing non-Muslims, particularly those of Gbaya ethnicity. Several international organisations and NGOs determined that these attacks against the civilian population constituted international crimes under the Rome Statute.

The UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) has not been able to stop abuses in the country and the CAR is still governed by a culture of impunity that allows atrocities to prevail.

In this renewed episode of religious hatred, thousands of civilians have lost their lives; villages have been burned to the ground and half-a-million civilians have been forced to leave their homes escaping from the fierce eye of blind faith. Once again, the plague of religious intolerance creates rivers of blood that flow "above the ankles".

Lessons learned
However, not all hope is lost. The ICC is currently investigating whether both sides of the conflict have committed crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, rape, forced displacement, attacks against humanitarian missions and the use of children in combat.

For example, the Treaty of Westphalia, which put an end to the Thirty Years' War, is considered by many as the founding act of international law. This religious war had devastated Europe and taken the life of more than three million people, which encouraged European monarchs to inaugurate the principle "whose realm, his religion". This principle, base of the modern concept of sovereignty, sought to finish all religious hostilities between Protestants and Catholics.

Moreover, wars of religion are essential in understanding the development of the concept of "human rights". As a matter of fact, Voltaire's Treatise on Tolerance or Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration,which specifically call for religious tolerance and condemn fanaticism, are significant precursors of the 18th century concept of human rights.

This concept of human rights, so intrinsically linked with religious tolerance, respect of minorities and freedom of worship, revolutionised international law in the 20thcentury and fostered the development of international mechanisms to collectively address situations of fanaticism and religious violence.

The international community was suddenly provided with jurisdictional mechanisms and new principles that allow them to intervene when intolerance prevails and atrocities are committed. Therefore, it is time for the international community to take a more proactive approach to the situation in the CAR.

It should support the development of the Special Criminal Court, the new hybrid tribunal established by the CAR's transitional parliament to prosecute crimes against humanity committed in the territory. This tribunal, composed of both national and international judges will complement the activities of the ICC and bring justice closer to CAR's citizens, who are the direct victims of the conflict.

The international community must financially support the creation of this court and the development of new rules and precedents to fight against impunity and protect citizens from future massacres. After all, this recent religious war could be a new opportunity for the international community to learn from past mistakes and enhance cosmopolitanism, international law, and human protection.

Today, in a world surrounded by religious fanaticism and violence, more than ever it is necessary to recover Voltaire and Locke's spirit of respect and tolerance and help create societies where men of all faiths could live in peaceful coexistence.
Toby Cadman is an international criminal law specialist. He is a barrister member at Nine Bedford Row International Chambers in London and a member of the International Criminal Bureau in The Hague. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.

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Religious war in Central African Republic

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History is littered with the corpses of those who lost their lives as a consequence of fanaticism and intolerance. Nero ordered Rome to be set on fire and blamed the Christians for its destruction, many of whom ended up being severely persecuted and executed.

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6. "Living economies are built on local economies"

Don't complain if companies are shipping jobs overseas, just buy local. Keep the money in your local economy and you help create local jobs. Here is a link to Gandhi's version of buying local which he called Swadeshi.

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Definition of Swadeshi | Articles : On and By Gandhi

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large collections of articles on and by gandhi on various issues, relevance of gandhi

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"Earth Democracy globalizes peace, care, and compassion"

This principle struck my attention because I believe the world should live by this. When we start to divide people, what good is that? That only creates hatred, discrimination, and segregation. This democracy needs to love and accept one another. The article discusses if Donald Trump can be a good leader of the United States considering the bias that he may have against different cultures.

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In the aftermath of Trump's candidacy, these voters will either scatter back into a diffuse population of marginally attached voters, with little if any remaining love for the Republican Party, or they will become a more permanent fixture of American politics and an enduring source of disorder for GOP leadership.

Which path they take depends to an unusual extent on Trump himself-and on his interest in politics absent the immediate promise of ultimate power.

Trump's campaign, like his private-sector career, has been an outgrowth of his own ego. In traditional campaigns, candidates delegate tremendous authority to their top staffers, because the task of winning a nomination and then an election is difficult and time-consuming. Trump has little patience for any of that. Media exposure and massive rallies at which he is the main attraction are the lifeblood of his candidacy. To the extent that he delivers speeches, he writes them. If there's a strategy, it's to win by starving his opponents of exposure and enticing them into the mud, confident that he is the dominant mud-wrestler.

As Trump lives for money, power, and fame, his most dependable source of sustenance might now be in politics.

This isn't the profile of a typical movement leader. They sometimes achieve measures of fame, but much of the work of movement-building is done in the field, and requires strategic acumen, organizing, fundraising, mobilization, recruitment, endurance, and ideological dedication.

On the strength of his fame and shamelessness, Trump has proven somewhat adept at running a campaign (or, perhaps, a cult of personality). But Trumpism in its current form is not a movement, and it cannot survive without Trump himself. Trump has several high-profile, career-minded endorsers, but he has developed almost no campaign infrastructure that could become a movement foundation, and he's inspired almost no down-ballot proteges.

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Can Donald Trump Lead a Political Movement?

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In the aftermath of Trump's candidacy, these voters will either scatter back into a diffuse population of marginally attached voters, with little if any remaining love for the Republican Party, or they will become a more permanent fixture of American politics and an enduring source of disorder for GOP leadership.

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10. “Globalizing Peace, Care and Compassion”

To me, this principal means that what goes around, comes around. What you put out into this world, whether it is positive or negative will come back to you in that same way. If you care for others, others will care for you. I think this quote is relevant today because of all the issues going on in the world. While there is so much hate, which is followed by competition and conflict, it would easily be resolved through cooperation and compassion. People are so quick to jump to jump to what history has carried over, but are so resilient to start a the new “new.”

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Papers presented at the National Workshop on Decentralised Democracy and Planning, held at Newman College, Thodupuzha on Dec. 19, 2003.

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7. Earth democracy is a living democracy.

I believe we all can agree that education is incredibly important. Education helps us grow mentally, socially, physically, economically, and even spiritually. "Earth democracy is...organized on principles of inclusion, diversity, and ecological and social responsibility," The article I chose is from NBC news discussing how New York will become the first state to offer free-tuition, four year college. I know many people who have had to put their dreams of going to college on hold due to lack of funds. In the article Governor Andrew Cuomo is reported saying, "Today, college is what high school was--it should always be an option even if you can't afford it,". No one should be denied an education if they wish to pursue one and New York is on the right path to providing a new and different model for higher education and I think that is something we all can be excited about!

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According to Cuomo's office, the budget includes a record $7.5 billion for higher education - though that's only a 6.3 percent increase from 2016.

An estimated 80 percent of New York State's families with college-age kids could use the new program. The governor's estimate of 940,000 affected families does not include adult students entering college for the first time, who are also eligible.

The Excelsior Scholarship will be included in the state's Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), and students will see that they are eligible when they fill out the forms this spring.

There is no age limit for the program; once students receive the Excelsior Scholarship they must be enrolled full-time with an average of at least 30 credits per year and continue to meet the minimum GPA requirement for their program.

The state is also investing $8 million in electronic books in order to lower costs for students, a spokesperson for Cuomo's office told NBC News.

Despite additional funding for supplies, the program left some critics wondering about whether it fairly addresses the needs of low-income students.

New York Assemblyman Victor M. Pichardo, based in the Bronx, represents a district where nearly one-third of families live below the poverty line. He told NBC News that very poor students face a different reality than students making $99,000 a year. The Excelsior Scholarship would award the same tuition assistance to both.

"Many students in my district qualify for funding opportunities like Pell Grants, EOP or TAP Awards, but still have to face the back-breaking cost of housing, food and transportation," said Pichardo. "This program does nothing to address the needs of countless low-income students and will only end up impacting a small percentage of CUNY students."

Pichardo told NBC News he hopes to "continue this dialogue" with state legislators and expand access to high education.

Free coverage of two-year colleges already exists in Tennessee, Oregon, and Minnesota. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, about a dozen other states have seen legislation proposed that would do the same.

In January, Cuomo paired up with Sen. Bernie Sanders at a press conference to announce plans for the Excelsior Scholarship. Free college was a central element of Sanders' presidential campaign platform.

"Today what Gov. Cuomo is proposing is a revolutionary idea for higher education," said Sanders at the January press conference. "And it's an idea that is going to reverberate not only throughout the state of New York, but throughout this country."

New York's budget was approved one week after Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the College for All Act in an effort to eliminate college tuition-and the crippling debt that so often comes along with it.

"Higher education in America should be a right for all, not a privilege for the few," Sanders said in an April 3rd statement. "If we are to succeed in a highly competitive global economy and have the best-educated workforce in the world, public colleges and universities must become tuition-free for working families and we must substantially reduce student debt."

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New York becomes only state to offer free four-year college

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According to Cuomo's office, the budget includes a record $7.5 billion for higher education - though that's only a 6.3 percent increase from 2016. An estimated 80 percent of New York State's families with college-age kids could use the new program.

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3. Diversity in Nature and Culture must be defended.

It's truly awe inspiring seeing children participate in a diversity day. Teaching the youth that everyone's background is important, and to understand that we are all different but at the same time we are so much alike is important for our future connecting to one another. Diversity day should be implemented in more curriculum's and it should be taught throughout life that just because we look different or are from different places doesn't mean we cant love one another.

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10. “Earth Democracy globalizes peace, care, and compassion.”

This is seeing other people as our fellows rather than as the competition. It is not hating people, but finding compassion. Seeing ourselves in others and vice versa. This is so important in our world today because of our current political status. Accepting refugees and allowing everyone to have a place to feel safe is necessary.

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rebel valley: defiant french community opens its doors to refugees - cnn

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The rebel valley opening its doors to refugees in France

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In the south of France, heartland of far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen, a small community is sending a defiant message.

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1. All species, peoples, and cultures have intrinsic worth.

This principle is especially relevant in our world today. People exploit other people all of the time, especially when they might not have the same beliefs, may not dress the same, may not have similar interests, or may not have the same skin color. We see this going on in our world constantly. With white privilege in the mix, white people feel that they have some sort of control in society, expressing ownership over those who are not white. When non-white people challenge the white people, white people use their privilege for evil, exploiting the non-white people in some sort of way. I think it's incredibly important to remember that race is a social construct and only a way for the superior race to own other races. Society's definition of race cannot hide the truth. We are all the same species. We are all one race. We are all human.

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RACE - The Power of an Illusion . Ask the Experts | PBS

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Hitler, it has been said, gave racism a bad name. People's moral revulsion against the extremes of Nazi Germany, reinforced by new scientific discoveries, served to finally discredit overt scientific racism. Biological racism, however, is not a thing of the past.

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1. "All species, peoples, and cultures have intrinsic worth"

I believe this principle is especially important now in a time where our world has so much hate and ethnocentrism is so high. What is being fed to us as American's is that we are the best and no one from a different culture or people deserves to live her, or come here. we are being told that these cultures and these people have no intrinsic worth and that we should ban them from our country because they could be a danger just because they are different. We do not value that this country was build on immigrants. We do not believe immigrants have any intrinsic worth because our government is banning them and america is buying that this is the right thing to do

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The new order retains central elements of the old one, cutting the number of refugees admitted to the United States each year to 50,000 from about 110,000. Mr. Trump is also leaving open the possibility of expanding the ban to other countries, or even putting Iraq back on the banned list if the country's leaders fail to comply with a requirement that they increase intelligence sharing, officials said.

"Unregulated, unvetted travel is not a universal privilege, especially when national security is at stake," said John F. Kelly, the homeland security secretary, appearing alongside Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson and Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Ronald Reagan Federal Building in Washington on Monday.

Mr. Kelly said the order was now "prospective" and applied "only to foreign nationals outside of the United States" who do not have a valid visa. None of the men took questions.

The Trump administration quickly tried to break the legal logjam, filing papers in United States District Court in Washington late on Monday seeking to lift an order blocking the fulfillment of the initial ban.

But the president's revisions did little to halt criticism from Democrats and immigrant rights advocates, who predicted a renewed fight in the courts.

The Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, described the new order as a "watered-down ban" that was still "meanspirited and un-American."

Margaret Huang, the executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in a statement that the new order would "cause extreme fear and uncertainty for thousands of families by, once again, putting anti-Muslim hatred into policy."

The new measure will be phased in over the next two weeks to avoid the frenetic, same-day execution of the order in January, which prompted protests across the country and left tearful families stranded at airports abroad and in the United States.

The redrafted order, delayed by a week so it would not overshadow Mr. Trump's address to a joint session of Congress last Tuesday, represented a recognition that the rushed first attempt at the ban did not pass muster legally or politically.

Administration officials privately conceded that the initial version of the order was a political debacle that damaged Mr. Trump's nascent presidency. But they were much more sanguine about the second order, arguing that the new, multiagency review process could be used in the future to bend Mr. Trump's uncompromising messages toward Washington's bureaucratic realities.

Mr. Trump signed the first ban with great fanfare, in front of reporters, at the Pentagon. "We don't want them here," Mr. Trump said of Islamist terrorists. "We want to ensure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas. We only want to admit those into our country who will support our country, and love deeply our people."

This time, the White House issued a photograph of the president signing the order alone at his desk in the Oval Office.

Justice Department lawyers said the revisions rendered moot legal cases against the original travel ban. But opponents said the removal of a section that had granted preferential treatment to victims of religious persecution was a cosmetic change that did nothing to alter the order's prejudicial purpose. Immigrant rights lawyers had argued that the provision was intended to discriminate against Muslims, pointing to recent statements by Mr. Trump.

"This is a retreat, but let's be clear - it's just another run at a Muslim ban," said Omar Jadwat, the director of the Immigrants' Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups that sued to stop the first order. "They can't unring the bell."

Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York and a plaintiff in a suit seeking to block the first order, said his office was reviewing the new ban, adding, "I stand ready to litigate - again - in order to protect New York's families, institutions and economy."

Congressional Republicans, who were split over the first travel ban, had a more muted reaction. But Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who backed the first order, issued a statement saying the revised order "advances our shared goal of protecting the homeland."

Citizens of Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Libya will face a 90-day suspension of visa processing as the administration analyzes how to strengthen vetting procedures, according to a homeland security summary of the order.

The removal of Iraq from the list came after talks with security officials in Baghdad and at the urging of Mr. Mattis and State Department officials, who have been in communication with Iraqi officials alarmed that the ban will turn public sentiment in their country against the United States.

"On the basis of negotiations that have taken place between the government of Iraq and the U.S. Department of State in the last month, Iraq will increase cooperation with the U.S. government on the vetting of its citizens applying for a visa to travel to the United States," homeland security officials wrote in a fact sheet given to reporters.

The timing of the ban seemed intended to reset the White House political narrative, after a turbulent week that began with Mr. Trump's well-received address to Congress. That success was quickly overshadowed by the controversies over Mr. Sessions's failure to inform the Senate of his contacts with the Russian ambassador and Mr. Trump's unsupported accusation that President Barack Obama tapped Mr. Trump's phones during the 2016 campaign.

Critics say that Mr. Trump's vow to impose "extreme vetting" on migrants, especially those fleeing the war in Syria, disregards already stringent screening measures, and the fact that none of the recent terrorist attacks or mass shootings on American soil were perpetrated by people from the nations listed in the ban.

Last week, The Associated Press reported that it had obtained a draft homeland security assessment concluding that citizenship was an "unlikely indicator" of a threat.

Homeland security officials, speaking to reporters by telephone on Monday, pushed back against that news report, arguing that it was culled from public sources and excluded classified information that paints a more dangerous picture.

An official speaking on the call said the Justice Department had identified 300 "refugees" who were being investigated for their links to Islamist terrorist groups or for holding pro-Islamic State positions. Some of those people already have permanent resident status, the official said.

But homeland security and Justice Department officials declined to provide further details, and would not say how many of the 300 people being investigated came from the countries covered by the revised travel ban.

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Trump's New Travel Ban Blocks Migrants From Six Nations, Sparing Iraq

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The new order retains central elements of the old one, cutting the number of refugees admitted to the United States each year to 50,000 from about 110,000. Mr. Trump is also leaving open the possibility of expanding the ban to other countries, or even putting Iraq back on the banned list if the country's leaders fail to comply with a requirement that they increase intelligence sharing, officials said.

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4. "All beings have a natural right to sustenance"

This principal, I believe, is highly relevant right now. Water is being polluted everyday & people and animals are being affected by this. In North Dakota, The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is actively fighting (along with others) to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. A pipeline intended to go from North Dakota and end in Illinois (approximately 1,172 miles). The reason this is relevant to Vandana Shiva's Principals of Each Democracy is because it's actively refusing humans and animals to safe and clean water. If the access line were to break, crude oil would be flooded into the Missouri River. This is the main reason why The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is actively protesting because if it does break, access to clean water for the surrounding areas would be greatly affected. Water is life and in the words of Vandana Shiva, "all humans have to right to sustennce- to food and water, to a safe and clean habitat"

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Thousands of protesters have been camping out for months in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, to protest the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a proposed 1,172-mile oil project that would shuttle half a million barrels of North Dakota-produced oil to refining markets in Illinois.

The protesters, which include representatives from more than 100 Native American tribes, have camped out on the Standing Rock Sioux reservation nestled along the border between North Dakota and South Dakota along the Missouri River.

They are there because the proposed pipeline would pass through North Dakota's Lake Oahe, a burial site sacred to the Standing Rock Sioux and a major source of drinking water for the community. "The main reason it's such a big deal here is that it's going to affect our water supply," Aries Yumul, an assistant principal at North Dakota's Todd County School District and a self-identified water protector with the Oceti Sakowin, the proper name for the people commonly known as the Sioux, told Business Insider.

Should the pipeline leak or burst, the impact could be devastating.

And leak pipelines do. Since 1995, more than 2,000 significant accidents involving oil and petroleum pipelines have occurred, adding up to roughly $3 billion in property damage, according to data obtained by the Associated Press from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. From 2013 to 2015, an average of 121 accidents happened every year.

Actors Shailene Woodley, Susan Sarandon, and Rosario Dawson are among celebrities who have joined thousands of activists in nearby rallies and demonstrations in support of the Standing Rock Sioux. The project has been halted since last month, when t he Obama administration blocked construction on federal land and asked the company behind the project, Dakota Access, a subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners LLP, to suspend work nearby.

Contaminated water is a massive health problem

An in-depth 2010 report from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, which looked at the effects of three major oil spills, found increased incidences of cancer and digestive problems in people who had ingested the oil directly (in drinking water) or indirectly (through eating the meat of livestock exposed to the oil).

In addition, people who had used contaminated water for bathing or laundry appeared to experience a higher incidence of skin problems, ranging from mild rashes to severe and lasting eczema and malignant skin cancers.

With risks this high, most large-scale environmental projects require extensive legal review

To build the pipeline, the Army Corps of Engineers, the group in charge of the project, must comply with several environmental laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act. Passed in 1970, NEPA's basic policy is to ensure that the government considers the potential environmental impacts of any federal project, like a new highway or airport, before building it.

The Standing Rock Sioux claim this review process, in the case of the Dakota Access Pipeline, was not done properly. In a lawsuit it filed in July against the Army Corps of Engineers, the group claims the permitting process was rushed and undertaken largely without its input.

If the pipeline were to leak or burst, it would send oil deep into the Missouri River, the Standing Rock Sioux's single source of water- water the group relies on for everything from bathing to drinking. For that reason, the Standing Rock Sioux say the Army Corps of Engineers could violate not just one but two laws: NEPA as well as the Clean Water Act. The 1972 Clean Water Act makes it unlawful to discharge any pollutant from single identifiable source - such as a pipe - into certain bodies of water without a permit.

"The Missouri River is the tribe's only source of water. If this leaks, it is going to spill into the river. So the tribe's legal stance - that they were not adequately consulted, that there are potential water issues here - their legal concerns are strong," Devashree Saha, a senior policy associate at Brookings Institution, told Business Insider.

Dakota Access responded to Business Insider's request for comment by stating in an email, " Crude pipelines in the country have a very specific review and approval process that must be followed. Crude/oil lines are approved at the state level, which is why all of the review and environmental analysis was done by the four states through which this pipeline passes. The exception to that is the crossing of waterways and federally-owned land, which are under the jurisdiction of the Army Corps of Engineers to review and approve."

The pipeline was originally designed to run much farther north, near the North Dakota capital of Bismarck. But as Bill McKibben writes in The New Yorker, officials rerouted it when people there raised concerns that it could put that community's water supply in jeopardy.

But now, instead of risking Bismarck, the new route could threaten the Standing Rock Sioux.

"Our aquifers and rivers are fed by this river," Yumul, the assistant principal, said. "If it were to get contaminated, it would affect all of the tribal nations. The idea of that ... it would be a death sentence at this point."

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People at the front lines of the battle over the Dakota Access Pipeline are calling it a 'death sentence'

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Thousands of protesters have been camping out for months in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, to protest the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a proposed 1,172-mile oil project that would shuttle half a million barrels of North Dakota-produced oil to refining markets in Illinois.

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6. Living economies are built on local economies.

I agree with the article regarding Shiva's explanation that -"Conservation of the earth's resources and creation of sustainable and satisfying livelihoods are most caringly, creatively, efficiently, and equitably achieved at the local level".
Most people truly understand their local economy, and will thrive in an environment that is familiar to them, as well as concerned about their well-being. This principle currently exists today and "if enforced properly" will eliminate the for profit slave- wage mentality that outsourcing produces; as well as transcend across all impoverished opportunistic communities in need of economic stability.
https://d2ct263enury6r.cloudfront.net/RUcOjiA6ztdbFJc03c4ocqr5ZpjQkSusWyUg4ICXqx1sZSh0.pdf
Let's truly embrace that "Our diversity is our strength"!

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Diversity in nature and culture must be defended.

Statements of principles are bold, but can be tricky when brought down to specific cases.  We're in the grip of one of the great mass extinctions of history -- sometimes called the Sixth Extinction, although it kind of depends on how you count.  It's the second mass extinction humans are directly involved in (a previous one was affected by large-scale migrations of hunter-gatherer peoples across Eurasia and the Americas), and the third caused by the actions of living organisms.

We cannot stop this event.  Even if every human died today, the effects of our impact on the environment would lead to tens of thousands of additional extinctions.  The greatest mitigating factor we could have is to actively work to save threatened species, as this principle states.  But the question becomes: which ones?

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The Really Wild Show presenter insisted that although the giant black and white animals might be cute, they are a colossal waste of money and people's focus should instead be on saving other animals more worthwhile.

Speaking in The Sun newspaper today, he said: "I love all life, every last species, and I'd very much like to live on a planet where there are as many of those species living as possible - including pandas.

"But I don't think it should be saved at the expense of so many others."

These comments come as Edinburgh Zoo prepares for another breeding attempt with their two giant pandas.

Giant pandas have been dying out because of the destruction of their natural habitat and are only found in about 20 patches of forest in a densely populated region of China.

There are around 1,600 in the wild with around 180 more being reared in captivity.

However, Packham has revealed that he doesn't believe there's much point in the process because "not a single panda bred in captivity has been successfully released into the wild."

He then named a number of other "less cuddly" species that are in desperate need of funds squandered by the panda, including the Hawaiian Crow and the Siamese Crocodile.

Pandas are one of the most expensive animals to keep in captivity thanks to their bamboo diet.

"We should constantly reassess and reconsider how we spend our money in conservation, because we have limited resources and a huge amount to do," said Packham.

"My question is: Can we afford to conserve pandas - and is it worth it? I think perhaps it is time to stop wasting money.

"Let the pandas go with a degree of dignity - and let's focus on more realistic conservation attempts instead."

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'It's time to let the pandas die out' says Wildlife expert Chris Packham

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The Really Wild Show presenter insisted that although the giant black and white animals might be cute, they are a colossal waste of money and people's focus should instead be on saving other animals more worthwhile.

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"2. The Earth Community Is A Democracy Of All Life

This principle is very important within our society today. It seems that we have forgotten the value of life over time. Both each other's lives as humans but other forms of life like animals. We don't seem to revere other forms of life on earth or appreciate them. An example would be the April 2010 BP Oil spill. Millions of gallons of crude oil spilled into the gulf and destroyed many underwater ecosystems and it's creatures. Many environmentalists still believe that some remnants of oil still remain on the ocean floor 7 years later.
+http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/14/us/gulf-oil-spill-unknowns/

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"1. All Species, peoples, and cultures have Intrinsic worth"

This principle is extremely important and relevant today because the way humans are treating each other, animals and this planet. Humans aren't seeing the value in anything, people seem to only see the value in their wants and needs. This plays out in many ways. Some examples are how humans imprison each other, sell people into sex slavery, destroy the ocean with commercial fishing, make animals became endangered by poaching, and the list goes on.

According to Shiva (2005)  through this principle, " no humans have the right to own other species, other people, or the knowledge of other cultures through patents and other intellectual property rights." The Washington Redskins break this principle with their logo and name. There has been outrage from the Native American community and their alleys. Despite the lawsuits and outrage, to this day, the name and logo remain. The team might own the stereotype of the Native American culture but they still own a part of the culture. No group of humans should be a mascot for a team. It is disrespectful and blatantly shows the Native American culture isn't being valued. +http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/03/politics/supreme-court-washington-redskins-trademark/

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"All species, peoples, and cultures have intrinsic worth". This principle is important today because the now more than ever people are just worried about making money and the humans forget that other species have value and are alive too. The article says humans have influenced 80% of earths land mass and the majority of this is negatively. Because of this humans do not appreciate animals, plants, or other species just for their beauty or just being on earth.

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"All species, peoples and cultures have intrinsic worth."
This principle is relevant because so much of the meat on the market is from CAFO's. It is important because these animals are abused and treated with antibiotics. This directly and indirectly poses health threats to the environment and all populations of humans. Animal agriculture is extremely destructive to food health, air quality, water quality and biodiversity.

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After a decade of exposing and demonizing Monsanto and genetically engineered foods, including an intense four-year battle to force mandatory labeling of GMOs (a battle rudely terminated in July when Congress rammed through the outrageous DARK Act), the U.S. food movement stands at the crossroads.

Should we keep badgering Monsanto's minions in Washington for the right to know what's in our food, a sentiment shared by the overwhelming majority of consumers? Or should we focus more on single-issue reforms, such as banning neonicotinoid bee-killing pesticides, better nutrition in schools, taxes on soda, and an end to the reckless use of antibiotics in animal feed?

A growing number of food activists believe it's time to move beyond limited or single-issue campaigning and lobbying and take on the entire degenerative food and farming system, starting with the malevolent profit-driver and lynchpin of industrial agriculture, GMOs and fast food: factory farming.

We obviously can't count on a corrupt Congress or a Clinton/Trump White House to enact significant policy change, no matter how popular or just our demands. So we need to shift our strategy and tactics. We need to aggressively mobilize a full-blown online and on-the-ground food fight, complete with marketplace pressure, popular education, boycotts, litigation, brand de-legitimization, and direct action.

To bolster these strategies and tactics, we need to increase independent lab testing of brand-name foods so we can expose the human health and environmental poisons and toxins lurking in chemical-GMO-factory-farmed foods. At the same time, we will reveal the nutritional and environmental superiority of organic, grass-fed and regenerative foods and crops.

Millions of Americans are rejecting Big Food's tainted fare, voting with their consumer dollars for healthier, humane, environmental- and climate-friendly foods and products. Our job as consumer advocates is to move organic and regenerative food and farming, including meat, dairy and eggs, from being a niche market to being the dominant force in U.S. and world agriculture.
Factory farms are the malevolent profit-driver of Big Food
Why do we categorize factory farms (euphemistically called Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations or CAFOs by the government and industry) the "malevolent profit-driver and lynchpin" of industrial and GMO agriculture?

Factory farming is a trillion-dollar industry that has a devastating impact on food quality, human health, animal welfare, farmworkers, rural communities, water quality, air pollution, biodiversity, and greenhouse gas emissions. Globally, two-thirds of all farm animals are now confined on factory farms. In the US the figure is even higher-90-95 percent.

The overwhelming majority of U.S. and global farmland today is used either to raise animals before they are sent to the CAFO feedlots, or to grow the GMO and chemical intensive crops such as alfalfa, canola, corn, cotton, soybeans and sugar beets.

The U.S. factory farm meat, dairy and poultry industry is an out-of-control system based on cruel, filthy, disease-ridden and environmentally destructive animal prisons; GMO-and pesticide-tainted feeds; labor exploitation; false advertising; corporate corruption of government; and the use of massive amounts of dangerous pesticides, chemical fertilizers, antibiotics, hormones and growth promoters.

Factory-farm meat, dairy, poultry and fish are the number one cause of water pollution, soil degradation, greenhouse gas emissions diseases such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, reproductive defects, hormone disruption and obesity.
We will never get rid of GMOs, chemical-intensive mono-crops, antibiotic resistance, animal cruelty and agriculturally derived greenhouse gas emissions until we eliminate factory farms.

We need to stop feeding herbivores (cattle, sheep, goats) billions of tons of GMO and pesticide-contaminated grain. We need to stop lacing animal feed with antibiotics and growth hormones. We need to promote zero consumption of factory farm foods. We need to move the world's billions of farm animals back onto the pastures, rangelands, and agroforestry paddocks where they belong.

And we need to stop the overconsumption of meat and animal products in general. Americans consume on the average 10 ounces a day of meat, whereas natural health experts recommend three.

It's time to mobilize public consciousness and market pressure against factory farming. It's time to transform our entire degenerate chemical- and energy-intensive industrial food and farming system into a system that regenerates-a system that can restore biodiversity and revitalize public health, animal health, the environment, rural communities and the body politic, while drawing down billions of tons of excess CO2 from the atmosphere and safely sequestering this carbon in the soil and forests, where it belongs.

It's time to drive factory farms and GMOs off the market, for good.

Factory farms are the lynchpin of the GMO industry

The multi-billion dollar GMO and pesticide industries could not survive without factory farms (or CAFOs). These animal prisons monopolize farmland for chemical fertilizer and pesticide-dependent GMO grains while denying animals access to pasture and the ability to exercise their natural behavior.

Ninety-five percent of the nine billion cows, pigs, goats, chickens and turkeys raised for meat in the U.S. every year are kept in confinement for most of their lives. These CAFO prisons are the lynchpin and foundation of Monsanto and the Gene Giants.

Factory farming creates a huge market for "animal pharma"-the divisions of drug companies that create livestock drugs. CAFO meat, dairy, and poultry is routinely laced with antibiotics, vaccines, anti-inflammatory drugs, hormones and growth chemicals to keep animals alive in deplorable conditions. These dangerous drug residues end up in food and drinking water.

For example, the Office of Inspector General of the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) found in 2010 that beef released to the public contained penicillin, the antibiotics florfenicol, sulfamethazine and sulfadimethoxine, the anti-parasite drug ivermectin, the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug flunixin and heavy metals.

Factory farms are also unremittingly cruel. "We have industrialized the production of animals for food, putting them wing to wing and shoulder to shoulder in factory farms," writes Wayne Pacelle of HSUS. "We confine animals in small cages and crates; mutilate them by cutting off their tails or beaks without painkillers; slaughter them when they're too sick or injured to walk; and cause them immense chronic pain and disease through unhealthy breeding practices that swell their size and unnaturally accelerate their reproduction."
Factory farms are a blight on the environment
Mono-Cropping-repeatedly growing a single GMO crop with chemical fertilizers and pesticides on large amounts of land to feed animals -decarbonizes soil, reduces food quality and nutrients, destroys biodiversity and creates "super pests" and "super weeds."

If that weren't bad enough, factory farms are the nation's biggest polluters, contaminating not only soil, but air and water. For example, Tyson Foods alone released 104.4 million pounds of toxic pollutants into waterways between 2010 and 2014 according to a report by Environment America.

In 2003, Tyson the second worst polluter of U.S. waterways (second only to a polluting steel manufacturing company) pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Water Act with effluvia from its Sedalia, Mo. facility and agreed to pay $7.5 million. But before its probation ended, Tyson was charged by the state of Oklahoma with polluting the Illinois River watershed. Poultry polluters eject as much phosphorous into the watershed as a city of ten million people, said State Attorney General Drew Edmondson in bringing charges.

Factory farming and the mismanagement of fertilizers also have long been known to cause huge "dead zones" in the Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere. A 1998 EPA study found 35,000 miles of streams in 22 states and ground water in 17 states that had been polluted by factory farms. Even though six of the top 15 polluting industries in the U.S. are food producers-paper and gasoline producers pollute less-these factory farm polluters are exempt from federal water-pollution regulation.
Factory farms harm workers
Those people who are against immigration or foreign workers don't seem to realize that without cheap labor their fast-food hamburgers would cost $10-not $1 - $4. The fact is, the fast food industry relies on cheap, foreign labor at factory farms to help keep costs and prices down.

When it was raided in 2008, the huge kosher slaughterhouse Agriprocessors in Postville, Iowa, employed 290 Guatemalans, 93 Mexicans, two Israelis and four Ukrainians. (It also had a meth lab in the plant to keep workers motivated.) Within weeks of the raid, Agriprocessors was canvassing homeless shelters and running radio ads in Mexico to replenish its workforce. At many meat plants legal workers from places like Somali and the Palau Islands-not U.S. workers-dominate.

Factory farms invariably treat these workers, who cannot protest their working conditions, as abysmally as they do animals and the environment. Still, lawmakers defend factory farms because they allegedly create "jobs." But what kind of jobs?

Here's just a sampling of what factory farm workers have endured.

"Aaron," an undercover investigator for Mercy for Animals who was employed at the egg producer Norco Ranch in Menifee, Calif., told the author that only two employees were in charge of seven barns, each holding 30,000 hens when he worked there. His job, maintaining conveyer belts 12 hours a day, six days a week with no overtime paid $8.50 an hour but his non-English-speaking coworkers earned less, he said.

The death of a slaughterhouse worker from tuberculosis at a Tyson Foods slaughterhouse in 2007 brought tempers to a froth in Emporia, Kan. "Was Tyson attempting to deceive the public as to the reason or cause for this employee's death?" asked a commentator on the Emporia Gazette's website, according to an article on Counterpunch.

According to a 2013 article in Alternet, the case of Jose Navarro, a federal poultry inspector who died at the age of 37, also raised questions. Navarro, who coughed up blood several months before his death, may have had lung and kidney failure, according to the autopsy report.

In 2007 and 2008, a debilitating neurological disease called progressive inflammatory neuropathy (PIN) broke out at Quality Pork Producers in Austin, Minn., Indiana Packers Corp. in Delphi, Ind. and Hormel Foods Corp. in Fremont, Neb. PIN afflicted only those workers at the "head table" where hog brains were turbo-charged out the animals' snouts with a high pressure hose and poured into containers for shipment to countries where brains are considered a delicacy. A Plexiglas shield protected the hose operator, but other workers were likely breathing the pulverized brain material and developing PIN.

PIN led to limb weakness, paralysis, wheelchairs and hospitalization. Employees protested at the Quality Pork Producers plant in Austin holding signs that said "Hormel and QPP Guilty For Our Disease."
The dismal lives of animals on factory farms
Confining animals wing-to-wing and shoulder-to-shoulder over their own manure, then inundating them with chemicals to keep them from dying is clearly a recipe for disease.

By May 2013, the scourge of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDv) had killed one-tenth of all U.S. pigs-a fact Big Meat was able to downplay in the media. By 2014, PEDv had killed at least 7 million piglets in their first days of life. PEDv was so bad that the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) caught a Kentucky farm that lost 900 piglets in two days feeding dead pigs to other pigs in an attempt to induce "immunity" in survivors. Footage from the Iron Maiden Hog Farm in Owensboro, Ky. also shows pigs whose legs had been bound together to keep them standing when they otherwise would have collapsed.

Big Meat hopes the public has forgotten about bird flu which took the lives of 50 million chickens and turkeys in 2015, mostly healthy animals killed through cruel suffocation methods to protect farmers' profits.

"It's reasonable when we see these outbreaks to wonder if they are a manifestation of the unsustainability of the system," says Suzanne McMillan, senior director of the farm and animal welfare campaign at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) citing the intensive confinement, unsanitary conditions, unnatural and unsustainable conditions on factory farms.

Big Meat downplayed both porcine epidemic diarrhea and bird flu in the press, not wanting customers to fear their products-or to reveal the appalling conditions factory farmed animals live in.
GMO animals on the dinner plate
While the FDA approval of the AquAdvantage "frankensalmon" got media attention, other, less well-publicized GMO animals are also in the works.

Scientists at the University of Missouri, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Harvard Medical School have developed "White piglets with muscle tissue larded with omega-3 fatty acids," that can lead to "healthy pork," reports the New York Times, because such fatty acids are linked to a lowered incidence of heart disease. "People can continue to eat their junk food," rhapsodized Harvard's Alexander Leaf. "You won't have to change your diet, but you will be getting what you need." Aren't animals great?

Brave New scientists at the Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, where the cloned sheep Dolly was created, have developed chickens that produce eggs with interferon functioning as living, breathing biofactories for humans. "Once you've made the transgenic birds, then it's very easy," enthused scientist Helen Sang, PhD. "You can breed up hundreds of birds from one cockerel [young male] - because they can be bred with hundreds of hens and you can collect an egg a day and have hundreds of chicks in no time."
The end product-unhealthy, toxic food
In addition to causing water pollution, soil degradation, fish kills, dead zones, greenhouse gas emissions and extreme animal cruelty, factory farms harm human health itself. They make fattening, over-processed, chemically-adulterated food so cheap, obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome are epidemic. The average American man today weights 194 pounds and the average woman 165 pounds--everything from airline seats to coffins to hospital operating tables are being made bigger to accommodate the growing girth.

But there is money in growing GMOs for livestock and unhealthy human foods and the industry increasingly monopolizes. Ninety-five percent of all grain reserves in the world are now controlled by just six multinational agribusinesses and the same concentration of power is seen with beef packers, pork packers and flour milling. Big Food has become so wealthy and politically powerful, it "money bombs" politicians in the U.S. to pass laws that ensure our degenerate chemical- and energy-intensive industrial food and farming system. The system pumps out billions of tons of climate-disruptive greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and destroys soils, destroys biodiversity and drives climate change.

But even though Monsanto, its indentured scientists, politicians, regulatory agencies and members of the mass media succeeded in ramming through the DARK Act this summer, consumers are building a grassroots-powered revolution that will succeed.

Fast Food giants like McDonald's, Burger King, and KFC; factory farm kingpins like Cargill, Tyson, JBS, Perdue, and Archer Daniels Midland; along with junk food multinationals such Pepsi, Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola, General Mills, Kellogg's, Nestlé, Campbell's, Dannon, Smuckers and Starbucks are losing credibility and sales. Yet even as their profits stagnate, they want to hang on to their chemicals, their food additives, GMOs, their cronies in government, and their "cheap food" factory farm empire.

But Big Food, Ag, and Pharma's current problems are just the beginning. It's time for a change, Big Change. It's time to zero in on factory farms and the entire degenerate food and farming system before it kills us all.

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Time to Drive Factory Farmed Food off the Market

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Time to aggressively mobilize a full-blown online and on-the-ground food fight. After a decade of exposing and demonizing Monsanto and genetically engineered foods, including an intense four-year battle to force mandatory labeling of GMOs (a battle rudely terminated in July when Congress rammed through the outrageous DARK Act), the U.S.

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Post one principle, insert a link to a related article (use the PLUS sign so that the webpage preview is visible), and comment on why this principle is relevant and important today.