Category: Uncategorised

From the heartless streets
of Tel Aviv
you found haven
in Becky’s heart.

Bound for Toronto,
but a murmur of doubt
from your own heart,
so ravaged by its outcast past.

Now it’s cheated you
of all but the first 7 days
of your would-be
forever home.

knargles2.mov

Filming instead of rescuing is despicable. How many of those hasardous moments that end well end ill (so never make it to WIMP)? — and we just keep filming, for fun, without regret, without remorse, without shame?

Images and evidence of atrocities are extremely important to sensitize people, but to film when one could intervene to help the victim is unpardonable.

De filmer au lieu de venir à la rescousse est odieux: Combien de ces moments hasardeux qui terminent bien terminent mal (donc ne paraissent jamais sur WIMP, etc.)? — puis on continue à filmer, à s’amuser, sans soucis, sans regrets, sans remords, sans vergogne…

Les images et preuves d’atrocités sont extrêmement importantes pour sensibiliser les gens, mais de filmer quand on pourrait intervenir pour aider la victime est impardonnable.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=n4tgkyUBkbY

One way trip to Mars
No return
No provision for aging or medical problems
No test of sustainability (though I certainly don’t want them to try it first with animals!)
Huge cost
No point in doing it at all

And all those resources utterly wasted at a time when there are so many problems on earth that need them.

Companies making their charity contributions to create the “World’s biggest media event ever” rather than to remedy the worst humanitarian, environmental, social and geopolitical disasters ever…

It may be potentially “fun” the way joining ISIS is (and deciding to do it no doubt involves a similar depth of reflection, as the three people in the video sample with the Onuzu article illustrate):

Chibundu Onuzuis right on every point:

It’s Reality TV for the Me generation and the Lost.

It’s based on superficial, empty, pop hype stereotypes, kleped “science” or “progress.”

And for people who think they are seeking the “meaning of life”: that’s really much simpler and closer than they think, but they are actually only thinking of themselves.

(Nobel Laureate Gerard t’Hooft seems to have gone senile, venal or loco…)

A recent survey by the Pew Research Center shows the following results about attitudes toward animal research:

“The general public is closely divided when it comes to the use of animals in research. Some 47% favor and a nearly equal share (50%) oppose animal research. Support for the use of animals in research is down slightly from 52% in 2009. By contrast, there is strong consensus among AAAS scientists for the use of animals in research (89% to 9%). Among the general public, men and women differ strongly in their views about animal research. Six-in-ten men favor the use of animal research. By contrast, 35% of women favor animal research while 62% oppose it. College graduates, especially those who studied science in college, tend to express more support than do those with less education for using animals in scientific research.”

Of course opinion and attitude polls are useful, but they cannot be decisive for, say, public health questions.

It’s good to hear that people’s attitudes on animal research are negative, but it would take so little to destroy completely the credibility of that opinion, by pointing out that of that 50% of people who say they oppose animal research, 99% of them do not oppose the far more widespread horrors of slaughterhouses, but rather sustain them, by eating meat.

And that they do that because they think (incorrectly) that meat is necessary for their health.

And that they think (also incorrectly) that the breeding and slaughter of animals for food is done more humanely than what is done in research laboratories.

And they haven’t even asked themselves whether, while not ready to give up meat, at no cost to their own health, to protect animals from needless hurt, have they really asked themselves whether they are ready to give up any health benefits that come from animal research?

I’m an abolitionist, but most people are still fur-wearing meat-eaters. So the reason fur is a good one for activists to concentrate on first is that — unlike meat-eating, which many people still believe (wrongly) to be necessary for their health, and animal research, which many people believe (mostly wrongly) to be necessary to save lives — everyone knows that fur is not necessary for their health; nor does it save lives. So that’s the strongest entry point for awakening them to the horrors they are supporting and sustaining for no vital reason. Once they see that, then the next step is the evidence that meat is not necessary for their health. And after that, the evidence that much (though not all) animal research is just curiosity- or career-driven, not life-saving. There’s no way to get most people to see all of that at once.

Traduction Française par Th.F. au dessous du texte en anglais.

---

SUMMARY: With rare exceptions (involving progeny and other kin) Darwinian evolution (if it were a matter of conscious design) would have to be described as brutal and psychopathic. Our own species, however — thanks to the evolution of language and with it the invention of civilization and the adoption of moral and legal codes of conduct to protect one another from harm — has by conscious design outlawed all but one of our brutal Darwinian tendencies: It is illegal to enslave, torture, rape or kill human beings just about everywhere on the planet. Brutality has not been eradicated; not everyone obeys the laws (there are still true psychopaths, criminals and fanatics); but most people both abide by and approve of the laws protecting other human beings from harm. The one brutal tendency that has not been outlawed is the enslavement, torture and killing of nonhuman animals. The quantity and quality of agony that our species imposes on other conscious animals, needlessly, for food, fashion and entertainment is of a scale that far exceeds the residual brutality that humans still impose on one another. It is time to outlaw this last residual relic of our species’ brutal evolutionary legacy.

I am going to start by saying some very graphic words to you, although I could have shown you equally graphic images instead. The gist of my talk is that we are unconsciously supporting and sustaining something horrible, something most of us could never support if we knew the truth about it. So we need to know the truth.

Every minute, as I speak, and as you listen, living, feeling animals are being torn from their mothers, confined and caged, pumped with drugs and hormones, kept in a state of deprivation and stress and fear for the entire length of their short lives, only to meet a brutal, terrifying and agonizing end at the hands of overworked, impatient, angry and often sadistic assembly-line workers charged with slaughtering as many of them as possible, as quickly as possible, because time is money and the supermarket counters are waiting for their fresh produce.

The mother cows from which their calves are wrenched as soon as they are born, are kept standing, almost immobile, in a constant state of lactation, by hormones, under the unending stress of pregnancy, of being severed from their offspring 2 days after they are born and deprived of the natural cycle of interaction for which their genes and their brains and their hearts have been prepared by evolution, their udders grotesquely swollen and varicose and increasingly inflamed, infected and painful – that’s why they are pumped with antibiotics – they are mechanically and mercilessly sucked by machines, according to the clock, until the day – somewhere in the 4th year of the life of a creature that normally has a life span of 20 years – when their udders are utterly depleted and spent and they can no longer stand painfully on their feet and can hardly walk at all, when they are forcibly prodded and pushed to the slaughterhouse, again with the help of machines, because if they cannot be made to limp in on their own, the last piece of revenue to be sucked out of them for meat is lost to the agribusiness industry that thrives on their misery.

And it’s not just meat and fish and poultry, and dairy, and eggs: The fashionable fur trim that is making a stealthy come-back in recent years, if it does not come from coyotes and foxes and lynx that have spent agonizing days in traps that are eating through the flesh of their limbs, if they have not themselves succeeded in chewing them off in their desperate struggle to free themselves, the ones still alive when the trapper comes — are freed with the brutal blows that end their struggles so they can be parted from their flesh and fur for your collar trim.
These days many of those collars are actually from China, and from dogs, who are bred, industrial scale for this purpose, and where efficiency dictates that there is no time or need even to kill them before you skin them, so they are violently restrained and skinned alive, leaving them afterward with 10 minutes of agony with their eyes still open and staring out from what’s left of their shocked, trembling bleeding bodies, as the skinners move on to the next victim.
This brutal, heartless, industrial-scale agony that human beings are globally inflicting, daily, hourly, every second, everywhere on the planet, on countless helpless, innocent non-human victims is by far the biggest and most pressing moral problem – and shame – of our age and out species.

Many will respond: How can that be? Surely the horrors that we inflict on our own species are an even greater moral abomination, and far more pressing. And it’s certainly true that there is not one horror that we inflict on non-human animals that we have not also inflicted on human beings, and still do. But the huge difference is that we have outlawed the horrors that humans do to humans, and most humans deplore and would never commit or support such horrors. Not so with the horrors that we inflict on non-human animals. We have, and follow, laws protecting against enslavement, bondage, torture, and killing – for human victims, but not for nonhuman victims.
Why? I will discuss the two paramount reasons we have these double standards – the first is the belief that eating and wearing animals is necessary for our survival and for our health and the second is the belief that we are doing this necessary thing in the most humane way possible. Both these beliefs are in fact false, profoundly, demonstrably and patently false. But the evidence that they are false is not widely known, and this is not because the evidence is not available but because people are reluctant to face it. Most of us are in a state of denial about it. We prefer to look away.

So I believe that the only hope for animals is a direct appeal to humans’ hearts. Not all humans have hearts. There are sadists, sociopaths and people with hearts that are impenetrably hardened for an entire lifetime.

I am not addressing myself to the sadists, the sociopaths and the hard-hearted. That only leads to conflict and anger. It doesn’t help the animals who are suffering every instant on the kill-counter. And time matters, not to us, but to them.

Every instant means mounting agony for helpless, innocent, feeling beings. By 2050, at the rate of growth of the human population and the industrial means of producing meat and milk to feed it, the kill-counter’s total, which is already grotesque, will be twice as high as today. In just two years, as many animals are killed by humans as the total number of humans killed by humans since the beginning of the human race. We feel the urge to throw up our hands and say it’s hopeless: we’re each just too small to do anything about it, and it – meaning the rest of carnivorous, fur-wearing, milk-drinking, puppy-milling, animal-experimenting and hunting humanity – is just too big. And that is even after we have set aside the minority sadists, sociopaths and impenetrably hard-hearted.
No, the only hope for animals is if that huge majority of humanity whose hearts are not impenetrably hardened can be reached – if those who have faced, and seen and understood the suffering can manage to win their hearts, by opening their eyes to the enormity, the monstrosity of animal agony imposed by us, and to the fact that this suffering is not necessary in any way, not for our survival, not for our health.

That’s two huge things: communicating the enormity of animal suffering and its utter needlessness, its gruitousness.

The vast majority of people who still have hearts do not know either of these things. They do not know how cruelly, and on what a scale animals are actually suffering in order to feed and clothe them. And they are completely unaware of the fact that that enormous suffering is totally unnecessary. They think we need to breed, use and kill animals for our own survival and health. They think that’s a law of nature. And they think that what we are doing to animals, because we need to do it, we are doing in the most humane way possible, in fact much more humanely than our ancestors did it in cave-man days.

And this potentially reachable majority is kept in the darkness of these two huge, false beliefs – necessity and humaneness – by a global conspiracy of interests, industrial and personal – that are profiting from keeping the majority ignorant.

I want to stress that this global conspiracy is not human; it does not have a heart. It is collective and corporate. And as that excellent Canadian film a few years ago, the Corporation, showed so graphically, corporations are not humans, and their behavior best fits the description of a psychopath.

The appeal to real humans with hearts is the only hope for animals. There is no way to change directly the industries that have evolved to exploit animals on the monstrous scale that they are doing it today unless there is first a way to reach and change the hearts of the individual human beings that constitute the majority that is sustaining these psychopathic industries. These industries can only be made unsustainable if the hearts of their consumers can be touched, so they realize that laws have to be changed, collectively, globally, so as to put an end to the needless, heartless exploitation of nonhuman animals.

We are in the Web era. PETA and others have provided us with the graphic evidence, many times over, of the horrors that the majority of people do not know about. Domestic pet breeding is also an abominable industry, but one of its immediate effects is that most people have formed bonds with nonhuman animals. I do not believe it is humanly possible to love a family animal and look at the atrocities that are being committed to other animals just like their loved ones.
People will try to look away, because it hurts to see such things, but we must be shown these things, kindly but relentlessly. The truth hurts, but it is hurting them far more then it hurts us.

“It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.”
Craig, W. J., & Mangels, A. R. (2009). Position of the American Dietetic Association: vegetarian diets. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 109(7), 1266-1282.

---

L’échelle industrielle et planétaire de la souffrance infligée aux animaux par les humains est le plus grave problème moral et la plus grande honte de notre époque. Un compteur des victimes en ligne indique les chiffres monstrueux et en constante évolution des animaux qui sont cruellement tués à chaque seconde qui passe. La plupart d’entre vous êtes déjà conscients du problème et de ces chiffres monstrueux qui évoluent à chaque instant. La plupart d’entre vous êtes déjà véganes, activistes et essayez de résoudre le problème. Espérons que cette conférence vous aidera à structurer vos idées pour travailler ensemble et réussir à ouvrir les yeux et le cœur du reste du monde. Parce qu’ultimement, le seul espoir pour les animaux est de toucher le cœur des humains.

Les êtres humains n’ont pas tous un cœur… Il y a des sadiques, des sociopathes et des gens dont le cœur est dur comme la pierre et restera impénétrable tout au long de leur vie. Nous ne nous adressons pas aux sadiques et aux sociopathes ou à ceux qui ont un cœur de pierre; nous les garderons pour plus tard. Tenter de s’adresser à ces gens mène immanquablement à des conflits et cela n’aide pas les animaux. Le temps est compté; pas pour nous, mais pour eux. Je vous demande de toujours vous souvenir que le temps compte. Chaque instant que nous échouons (et nous échouons toujours), provoque des millions d’agonies pour ces animaux, innocents et impuissants.

Ceux qui ont un cœur faible voudront baisser les bras et dire que c’est sans espoir… Ils penseront que nous sommes trop peu nombreux et que le reste des carnivores, porteurs de fourrure, buveurs de lait, exploiteurs de chiots, responsables de l’expérimentation animale et les chasseurs sont beaucoup plus nombreux et ce, même en excluant les sadiques, sociopathes et les cœurs de pierre. À ceux qui pensent que la majorité des carnivores est trop grande, détrompez-vous. Le seul espoir pour les animaux est la majorité de l’humanité qui possède un cœur qui n’est pas dur comme la pierre ou impénétrable et qui peut encore être touché. Nous devons réussir à gagner leur cœur, en ouvrant leur cœur devant la réalité et la monstrueuse situation des animaux qui souffrent à cause des humains. Il faut leur montrer que cette souffrance est aucunement nécessaire, ni pour notre survie, ni pour notre santé.

Voici deux concepts très importants: communiquer l’énormité de la souffrance animale et le fait qu’elle ne soit pas nécessaire. La vaste majorité des gens qui ont toujours un cœur ne savent pas ces deux choses. Rappelez-vous qu’ici nous parlons et nous prêchons à des gens déjà convaincus et sensibilisés. Nous savons tout ça et nous avons déjà vu les images d’horreur de la réalité; ce n’est pas le cas de la vaste majorité des gens qui ont toujours un cœur. Ils ne savent pas combien cruels sont les humains et à qu’elle échelle les animaux sont en train de souffrir. La majorité ignore le fait que cette immense souffrance est complètement inutile. Ces deux concepts évidents pour nous, que nous connaissons tous, ne le sont pas pour la majorité. Ils pensent que nous avons besoin de reproduire, d’utiliser et de tuer les animaux pour notre propre survie et notre santé. Ils pensent que c’est la loi de la nature. Ils pensent que ce que nous faisons aux animaux, parce que nous devons le faire, nous le faisons de la façon la plus humaine possible. En fait, encore plus humainement que nos ancêtres préhistoriques le faisaient dans le temps des cavernes ou que les animaux font entre eux. C’est ce qu’ils pensent… Et cette majorité susceptible de comprendre est gardée dans l’ombre en cultivant de fausses croyances: La nécessité de le faire et l’exécution la plus humaine possible. Cette conspiration d’intérêts planétaires, industriels et personnels, profite de la situation en gardant la vaste majorité des gens ignorants. Je veux ajouter que cette conspiration globale n’est pas humaine. Elle n’a pas de cœur. Elle est collective et corporative. À ce sujet, un excellent film canadien présentait, il y a quelques années, les corporations sous forme de graphiques révélant ces dernières comme n’étant pas des êtres humains. En fait, le comportement des corporations concorde avec le comportement et la description d’un psychopathe.

Nous devons adresser notre appel aux humains qui ont un cœur. Ils sont le seul espoir pour les animaux. Nous ne pouvons pas changer l’industrie qui exploite les animaux à l’échelle planétaire, sans changer le cœur de la majorité des humains qui rendent cette industrie profitable actuellement. Nous devons mettre un terme à cette industrie. Nous devons gagner le cœur des consommateurs, afin qu’ils réalisent que les lois doivent changer collectivement et globalement. Nous devons mettre fin à cette industrie inutile et à l’exploitation honteuse des animaux. Nous sommes dans l’ère d’Internet. PETA, ainsi que d’autres organismes nous ont fourni des preuves et des évidences à plusieurs reprises dénonçant l’horreur que la majorité des humains ignorent encore.

La reproduction des animaux domestiques est aussi une industrie abominable, mais elle a des effets immédiats sur la majorité des gens qui développent des liens avec ces animaux. Je ne crois pas que c’est possible d’aimer un animal, tel un membre de la famille, et être capable de regarder et de tolérer l’atrocité qui est commise à d’autres animaux. Les personnes qui sont véganes sont déjà convaincues que les choses doivent changer et n’ont pas besoin de voir les images d’horreur, parce qu’elles les ont déjà vues et prennent déjà des actions pour y faire face. Par contre, nous avons besoin de convaincre tous les autres. Rappelons qu’il n’y a pas de différence entre nos animaux domestiques et les créatures qui subissent l’horreur; c’est comme voir son propre chat être torturé.

Les gens vont tenter de regarder ailleurs, parce que ça fait mal de voir les images de l’horrible réalité, mais ils doivent quand même se faire montrer la réalité; gentiment, mais pertinemment. Par qui? Par nous. Les images de la réalité ont déjà eu un impact sur nos cœurs véganes, alors notre mission est d’ouvrir les yeux de tous les autres sur la planète.

Il faut établir un ordre dans nos priorités et le compteur des victimes mentionné plus haut est notre priorité première. Argumenter avec les sadiques ou les sociopathes n’aide personne. N’entrez pas en conflit avec les gens. Notre objectif n’est pas d’ endurcir le cœur des gens, mais bien de l’adoucir. Ce n’est pas une priorité et ça n’aide pas les animaux de rendre les gens en colère envers vous. Je ne sais pas combien de fois j’ai entendu un chasseur ou le propriétaire d’un animal, quand il se sent confronté par une personne végane indignée, répondre “Je vais faire tout ce que je veux faire avec mon [!] d’animal” et ils rentrent chez eux et font mal à leur animal juste par vengeance à cause de la provocation. Restez loin des sadiques et des sociopathes. Réservons leur cas pour plus tard, lorsque le reste de l’humanité aura découvert son cœur et aura rédigé des lois pour protéger les animaux. Alors, ce qu’ils font deviendra illégal; pour l’instant ce n’est pas illégal. S’impliquer dans de violents conflits avec eux n’aide personne. Ça peut seulement satisfaire votre conscience, mais ça n’aide pas les animaux.

J’ai participé à un panel de discussion sur les recherches médicales. Évidement je suis un abolitionniste à 100%. Je souhaite mettre une fin à tout ça, absolument tout: les manger, les revêtir, les utiliser pour l’expérimentation, mais ça ne peut pas être fait tout en même temps. Il faut mettre de côté les cibles pour qui les deux concepts mentionnés plus haut ne sont pas applicables: l’exploitation des animaux n’est pas humaine et est aucunement nécessaire, ni pour notre survie, ni pour notre santé.

Le dossier des recherches médicales doit être le dernier dossier à être réglé. Nous devons d’abord mettre fin aux dossiers qui ne sont complètement inutiles et tout à fait inhumains. L’industrie médicale, pour ce que ça vaut, est règlementée. Elle est mal règlementée, mais au moins il y a une règlementation. Les rats de laboratoire sont traités infiniment mieux que les animaux reproduits pour l’abattage, ou que les chiens encore vivants sur lesquels on déchire la peau à vif. Je présente souvent une image d’un cas réel montrant un chien chinois qui se fait déchirer la peau du corps et qui est dans un état de souffrance et de terreur inimaginable. Ses yeux sont encore ouverts et il agonise pendant 10 minutes avant de mourir. Ce genre de chose atroce est notre priorité première. Et ce genre de chose peut être défendu avec le principe que ce n’est pas nécessaire pour notre survie ou notre santé. Ce n’est pas le cas des expérimentations et recherches médicales. Certaines recherches contribuent vraiment à sauver des vies humaines. Gardons ce dossier pour plus tard. Remettons les choses en contexte.

Below is a letter to the NY Times from Judith Economos about “U.S. Research Lab Lets Livestock Suffer in Quest for Profit: Animal Welfare at Risk in Experiments for Meat Industry

---

Sir: Where do they find enough psychopaths willing to do these things?

It is certainly not scientific. They show no understanding of either fitness by Natural Selection or the logic of gestation and the bearing of offspring. Mammals are capable — often just barely — of sustaining the number of babies which they customarily produce (after many many generations of adaptation). Unless you find a way to reduce a sheep or cow to a giant womb and its auxiliary support systems, these animals currently bear as many young in one parturition as their bodies can nourish and support. It is obvious that if you short-circuit this ancient arrangement to generate more embryos, the nourishment will necessarily be divided among them, resulting in not enough for any of them. Thus are lambs — sentient as are all animals — born starving and already dying. The mother’s resources are depleted; even the ones the she accepts are bound to be malnourished.

STOP THIS SO-CALLED RESEARCH! It is bad enough that we eat meat unkindly raised and often brutally killed. That we now support fake science to make “meat production” (we don’t want to call it animals and their babies, do we? Not that many people care) more profitable for the meat factories is insupportable.

It is horrifying.

It is psychopathic.

Judith Economos
44 Beech Hill Road
Scarsdale NY 10583
914 725 5430

Schubert died

at 31

and I

at 69

not

a single song

writ

In “Consider the Oyster,” Christopher Cox [CC] seems to me to be rather glib in discussing animal suffering, even though his heart seems to be roughly in the right place:

CC: “There are dozens of reasons to become a vegan, but just two should suffice: Raising animals for food (1) destroys the planet and (2) causes those animals to suffer… 
    While there are limitless ways in which humans are different from nonhuman animals, one thing we share with most is the ability to feel pain.”

So far, this all seems both kind and reasonable. (I would add only that (3) eating animals isn’t necessary for human survival and health.)

But then:

CC: “[S]ince oysters don’t have a central nervous system, they’re unlikely to experience pain in a way resembling ours”

1. Oysters (like all bivalve molluscs) don’t have a central nervous system, but they do have a nervous system, including a nociceptive (pain-sensing) system that resembles the nociciceptive system in other invertebrates as well as vertebrates, anatomically, physiologically, and pharmacologically.

2. The issue is surely not whether the way other species experience pain resembles the way humans do, but whether they experience pain, i.e., whether they suffer.

CC: “We also can’t state with complete confidence that plants do, or do not, feel pain”

We can’t feel anyone else’s pain. So forget about “complete confidence” when it comes to what or even whether others feel. (On doubt vs. certainty, see Descartes!) This is called the “other minds problem“, and it applies to our own species too — and not only to prelinguistic infants but even to people telling you that they are in pain: You believe them, and give them the benefit of any doubt, because of their similarities to you and your own own pain. Those similarities are both behavioral and neural. And oysters share them (even though they can’t talk). It’s just a matter of degree.

Plants, in contrast, do not share these behavioral and neural similarities (fortunately, because even if they did share them, we would have to eat them anyway, or else we could not survive). Plants lack nervous systems altogether (although there is a bit of controversy over some more general similarities with tissue signalling systems that fall in the category of information transmission rather than feeling).

Not so of cows and pigs and chickens and fish and lobsters and, yes, oysters: They do have nervous systems. They do behave and function as if they feel pain. And it is not necessary to hurt, kill and eat them, for human survival and health.

So why are we speculating on the possibility that despite having nociceptive systems and despite behaving like creatures that feel pain, oysters might not feel pain? If it were a life-or-death survival issue, we would have to do the same as we do with plants, and hope they don’t feel.

But it is not a life-or-death survival issue:

CC: “make an exception for oysters—for it is surely foolish to deprive yourself of an icy plate of white-shelled Watch Hills.”

In other words, CC is proposing to withold the benefit of the doubt from oysters simply because he likes the taste — which is more or less the justification of most meat eaters for eating cows and pigs and chickens and fish and lobsters.

Not something to speak about so glibly, I think.

Yes, it would be far better if everyone ate only oysters and plants, rather than cows and pigs and chickens and fish and lobsters.

But why not just eat plants only, and give the oysters, too, the benefit of the doubt? It’s not just a matter of taste, but of compassion.

[And is it not idle — if not callous — to speculate about whether it would be more destructive to the planet to feed the growing number of human mouths by cultivating oysters vs. cultivating plants (or waiting for a way to clone meat) while taking human population growth for granted, rather than seriously considering ways to reduce or reverse it?]