Executive Director Mia MacDonald gave two talks in Portland earlier this month on the links between the globalization of industrial meat production and the global environment, public health and food security.

Click here to listen to a podcast of an interview with Mia MacDonald on KINK radio in Portland.

Mia MacDonald appeared on Thom Hartmann's Air America radio program today to discuss a world without meat -- and the world we actually live in.

Farm Sanctuary by Gene Baur was number 12 on the Los Angeles Times' hardcover bestseller list for the week ending March 30, 2008.

On Friday, April 25th, join Francis ole Sakuda and Daniel Salau of Simba Maasai Outreach Organization (SIMOO) in Kenya as they discuss the realities of climate change and solar and wind power for indigenous communities in Kenya and elsewhere. Co-sponsored with the Sierra Club NYC Group and Tribal Link Foundation.

Executive Director Mia MacDonald gave a presentation on Monday, April 7, at the University of Chicago entitled: "Meat World?: Current and Future Scenarios."

Farm Sanctuary: Changing Hearts and Minds About Animals and Food, by Gene Baur, co-founder and president of Farm Sanctuary, has just been published by Simon & Schuster, with Brighter Green's participation.

Mia MacDonald, Brighter Green's Executive Director, has been elected to the Executive Committee of the New York City Group of the national environmental organization, the Sierra Club.

Brighter Green has gathered reports, media articles, policy papers and other materials on factory farming and its impacts on the world's environment, public health, animals, poverty and food security. Click here to visit the Resources section.

I know that for most readers, the words "National Geographic" don't conjure anything very exciting. Interesting, sure. Many of us grew up amid stacks of the yellow-bordered periodical in our living rooms or stored carefully in our basements, thumbing through the pages to learn about Pharaohs or Incan gold or Hawaii's big waves and to ogle the often-stellar photos (with or without our parents hovering). But exciting? Not so much. About a year ago, after decades of not reading NG, I decided to get a subscription. Now, I wouldn't say reading it is as scintillating as being at a rave or atop a big wave on a surfboard may be (neither of which I've experienced), but it is almost always really interesting.

And less, how can I say it, hoary than I remember? (OK, I am just a bit older now.) Today's NG delves much further into socio-economic realities, equity, poverty, sustainability, and other essential issues than I ever recall it doing before. As if it realized that we, the junior high schoolers, could take--indeed, needed--more reality, semi-unvarnished (the photos are still incredibly glossy).

I'd highly recommend checking out two recent editions: the first is a whole issue devoted to China. Lots on the environment and the toll of industrialization, China's building and consumption booms, and the diversity of China's peoples. Just one nugget: 37% of people driving cars in China today didn't know how to drive three years ago...and 1,000 new cars a day take to the road in Beijing.

The other is the current issue, with the very 21st century title, "Who Murdered the Mountain Gorillas" emblazoned over a portrait of a silverback in Congo. Note that NG uses "murdered," implying personhood, rather than the more generic term "killed," much more usually used when referring to non-human animals. The article on the seven mountain gorillas slaughtered in 2007 reads like a political and ecological thriller, but with substance. It delves into the complex factors that put gorillas at risk in Congo's Virunga National Park and the complex factions in whose hands their lives rest (from charcoal traders to a warlord who professes to be a conservationist to noble rangers--and at least one park ranger suspected of being extremely unnoble). The photos are stunning, and also harrowing.

If you read the article and want to know more about the gorillas and the rangers' daily--blogged--efforts to protect them, here's a link to Wildlife Direct's gorilla protection page. You can also support the rangers' work. Now, I don't store the new old NG's in a basement anymore, but before I pass them along, I do tend to find myself reading them (almost) yellow-bordered cover to cover.

Sometimes people say the strangest things...the International Whaling Commission meeting yesterday rejected Greenland's request to hunt 10 humpback whales. The IWC judged the hunt not essential for Greenland's indigenous population and too commercial to qualify as subsistence whaling. At least 25% of the meat ends up in supermarkets, according to a recent report by the World Society for the Protection of Animals. Denmark, of which Greenland is an autonomous territory, dissented, as did Japan, South Korea and perhaps surprisingly, the U.S. But amid the angry words, one response left me, well, without words. It was this, from Daven Joseph of the St Kitts and Nevis delegation: "At a time when the world is witnessing food shortages, we are seeing a small group of countries that are purporting to be world leaders depriving marginal peoples of the right to eat."

As if...an infusion of whaling and whale meat could solve the global food crisis (which is nothing to joke about). Why not an infusion to Greenland of tofu, lentils or even Boca burgers? I was lucky enough to visit Greenland several years ago. It's a remarkable place: beautiful, austere, enveloping. The population is about 26,000 and compared to Denmark, Greenland is quite poor. But its people are not facing a food crisis. There are supermarkets. And subsistence hunting of seals and yes, whales: minkes. Speaking of whales, when I was there, my colleagues and I went on a boat trip with Greenlanders. Two boats. Mine saw a seal -- not unexciting. But the other group saw a humpback and came back ecstatic. Ever since I've regretted not being on that boat.