Thanks To Factory Farming, Backyard Eggs Are Still A Better Choice Than Store-Bought Ones

Backyard chickens raised for eggs and meat have been linked to an outbreak of salmonella, according to a recent story published by NPR. But though the outbreak was the largest ever to stem from contact with live poultry, it isn’t reason for people to abandon their outdoor flocks out of fear of illness.

The story cited a news brief from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which reported that between March 1 and September 24 last year, 195 people in 27 different states were infected with strains of salmonella, and 79 percent of them had been in contact with live poultry in the week before they became ill. But the story doesn’t note that the number pales in comparison to salmonella outbreaks linked to factory-farmed eggs and poultry. In one CDC study, the agency estimates there were more than 182,000 cases of egg-caused salmonella in the U.S. — including 70 deaths — in 2000. In 2010, more than 1,900 people contracted salmonella in an outbreak linked to Iowa egg farms that produced more than 2.3 million dozen eggs a week. And just last month, 124 people were sickened with salmonella in an outbreak linked to Foster Farms chicken.

These high numbers of salmonella cases from eggs and poultry are linked to the effects of factory farming. Chickens raised for meat are crammed tightly into warehouses that hold as many as 20,000 chickens, while the chickens raised for eggs live in sheds that can hold 100,000 birds and are often packed in battery cages with five to 10 other birds. Factory farms often contain huge amounts of feces and fecal dust produced by the birds, along with rat droppings and flies, and certain strains of salmonella can pass to the chicken if their food comes in contact with the fecal matter. In order to try to stem off the flow of disease within their flocks, farmers regularly feed the poultry antibiotics, which can lead to antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella: in 2011, 107 people were sickened and one killed from an antibiotic-resistant strain of salmonella in turkey.

Raising backyard chickens, without the help of antibiotics, provides no risk of developing antibiotic-resistant strains of disease, and is also a way of avoiding the health risks and cruelty associated with factory farms. The practice could decrease the risk of egg-bourne salmonella: one study found cage-free poultry facilities had about 40 percent less risk of harboring salmonella. Eggs from chickens allowed to eat grass and bugs can be healthier too, containing a third less cholesterol, twice as much omega-3 fatty acids and seven times more beta-carotene.

The NPR article states the outbreak from live poultry was traced back to a single hatchery in Ohio, and quotes the CDC in saying the best way to reduce risk of salmonella through live poultry contact is to wash your hands and clean equipment used to raise poultry. There are risks involved with raising animals for food — and backyard chickens are no exception — but in this case, the benefits of home-raised eggs outweigh any the risk of disease.

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Why J.J. Abrams Is A Bad Choice To Direct Star Wars Episode VII

Because we really need our pop culture franchise to be dominated by an increasingly limited number of visions, Deadline and other outlets are reporting that J.J. Abrams will direct Star Wars Episode VII:

Star Trek director J.J. Abrams will be helming the next Star Wars movie. “It’s done deal with J.J.,” a source with knowledge of the situation told Deadline today. Argo director Ben Affleck was also up for the gig, the source says. Michael Arndt is writing the script for the first installment of the relaunch of George Lucas’ franchise by Disney.

There are two issues here: how well-suited Abrams is for Star Wars in particular, and the consolidation of big franchises under a very limited number of perspectives (especially since the perspectives are those of white dudes).

On the question of Abrams as a fit for Star Wars, I’m deeply ambivalent. I think the franchise has been at its weakest when it’s delving too deeply into the details of its mythology. In the initial trilogy George Lucas and his collaborators had the wisdom to retain the emotional power of the Force as a cinematic device by leaving it relatively mysterious. Once the movies started delving into midichlorians and the manifestations thereof, the Force started to seem clunky and silly, no longer something those of us at home could dream of accessing. Abrams and his collaborators have a weakness for focusing on mysteries and exploring them to death, be they Smoke Monsters, strings of numbers, or aliens rampaging around New York City. I do think there’s an extent to which Abrams will be protected from this tendency by Arndt’s script, and the larger plans of Disney, which will presumably will be thinking about projects like television shows and Zack Snyder’s rumored stand-alone Star Wars movie. But I do think that Abrams’ interests in mysteries are actually a relatively a poor match for the greatest strength of the Star Wars movies: using a mysterious concept to open up a larger world, rather than focusing obsessively on the mystery itself.

But really, the profound disappointment I felt on hearing this news is less about my specific feelings about Abrams as a director. It’s more that franchises like The Avengers, Star Trek, Justice League, and Star Wars are opportunities for writers and directors to exert enormous cultural influence, and to accrue the kind of capital and credibility that can become enormous springboards for their more personal projects. The Avengers, for example, gave Joss Whedon an opportunity to bring his unique spin on female characters to Black Widow, who’d been poorly served in Iron Man 2. And its success won him a long-running and one assumes extraordinarily lucrative position overseeing the franchise: his ideas about superheroism will play a major role in American moviegoing for as much as a decade to come, and the money he makes from it gives him the opportunity to pursue more passion projects like his adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. That is an extraordinarily precious thing, and it makes me terribly sad to see that power concentrated in one person, rather than spread out to a number of people with different interests and perspectives on the kinds of questions raised by our biggest franchises.

There should be debates about what it means to have extraordinarily powerful people emerge in our society, which is why I’m glad that Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel apparently is going to explore a much more ambivalent reaction to the rise of superheroes than either The Avengers or Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies ever contemplated. There should be arguments about what our future is going to look like, which is one of the reasons Abrams’ Star Trek, which was a dramatic retreat from the socially engaged tradition of the franchise, was a disappointment even as it was highly entertaining. And while Star Wars is a space opera, it’s also always been about totalitarianism, religious extremism, torture, and the moral value of political engagement, too. The source and meaning of mystery isn’t the only issue worth considering. And white, male geek gods aren’t the only people with profound investment in these franchises, and the way they express these questions.

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School choice: 49 million students still without options

By Robert Enlow, president and CEO, Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice - 01/23/13 11:00 AM ET

Heidi and Frank Green used to worry about their daughters while they were at school. The Clarksville, Indiana couple was concerned about bullying, cursing, large class sizes, a revolving teaching staff, and a general lack of attention for students.

Thankfully, the Greens say their lives have changed for the better as daughters Gillian and Emma are now eager to attend school. Today they are getting quality instruction at their new Catholic school thanks to a voucher program adopted in Indiana two years ago.

“School choice should be everywhere,” said Mrs. Green. “Parents should be able to decide what’s best for their kids.

Gillian and Emma are among the 255,000 students nationwide who attend a private school of their family’s choice using vouchers or tax-credit scholarships. Another 2.3 million students utilize public charter schools as their preferred option.

But there are still almost 49 million public school students throughout the country who do not have such freedom. They must attend their neighborhood public school regardless of its safety, quality, class sizes, teaching staff, or other issues outside their parents’ control. But such restriction doesn’t have to be the case.

Sunday marks the beginning of the third annual National School Choice Week, which runs through Feb. 2. There will be 3,000 events across 50 states including rallies and forums where parents will ask lawmakers for more choices for their kids.

National School Choice Week highlights the private, charter, online and home school education options available to families and those stuck with a school assigned to them by their address. Parents can choose public or private colleges for their children using many federal and state aid programs. They should be able to do the same with K-12 schools.

After major school choice victories last fall in which Washington voters agreed to allow charter schools to open in the state and Georgia voters agreed to an easier path to create more charters, a host of other states will consider additional school choice measures in 2013. Among the highlights:

•    Tennessee’s governor will include a school voucher program in his legislative package.
•    The Texas legislature will consider a program in which taxpayers would receive tax credits for donations they make to nonprofits that provide private school scholarships for low-income students.
•    Mississippi’s governor proposed a private school choice program for students in underperforming public schools.
•    North Carolina’s lawmakers will review proposals for opportunity scholarships and quite possibly education savings accounts, a new type of private school choice available only in Arizona.
•    Alaska lawmakers will vote on a school voucher plan for all students statewide regardless of their family income.
•    Indiana’s new governor has proposed expanding its voucher program to increase scholarship amounts and student eligibility.
•    Maine lawmakers will hear a proposal from their governor to give children school vouchers.

Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman, the father of the school choice concept, believed that offering parents education options other than their neighborhood school would not only be good for children but would improve education. Studies show school choice is helping children in their new schools and those who don’t participate – something vitally important when so many children don’t get a quality education.

The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University found that high school dropouts are more dependent on government assistance such as food stamps, housing assistance, and Medicaid. They are also more likely to be in jail or prison, another cost to federal, state, and local taxpayers. And unemployment rates are highest among dropouts, according to the study.

If our society is to address its burgeoning debt problem and give young people a chance to become successful, offering parents an opportunity to access high-quality schools is a path to prosperity for themselves, their children, and society.

In several states, policymakers are ensuring more students have access to the schools, public or private, that work best for them. National School Choice Week is the time to shine a spotlight on those leaders and anyone else working to make sure every family is free to choose in education.

Enlow is president and CEO of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, the legacy foundation of Nobel laureate Milton Friedman and his wife Rose.

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Editor’s Choice: Five Important U.S. Energy Stories Of 2012

The presidential and congressional elections dominated the American news cycle in 2012. And although climate change took a backseat during the campaign, energy played a surprisingly prominent role.

The news cycle was dominated by energy: Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney made fossil fuel extraction his number one priority; fossil fuel interests spent hundreds of millions of dollars to promote oil, coal, and gas during the election; and President Obama busily defended his promotion of renewable energy after getting attacked by the fossil fuel lobby.

Looking back at 2012, here are some of the most important energy stories of the year:

AP Fact Check: In 36 Years Of Data, Not A Shred Of Evidence That Drilling Reduces Gas Prices

In March, the Associated Press analyzed more than 30 years of gas price and domestic drilling data. It found absolutely no correlation between increased domestic drilling and lower prices for consumers. Why? Because oil is a global market and U.S. production represents a small portion of global demand.

This was a particularly important story in 2012. Throughout the election season, the fossil fuel lobby and proponents of “drill-baby-drill” pushed a plan for unchecked fossil fuel development, falsely claiming it would lower gas prices. Experience proved otherwise. Even though the U.S. is producing more oil than at any point since the mid 1990's, gas prices have remained “stubbornly high.”

Big Polluters Spend $270 Million In Final Months Of 2012 Elections

Fossil fuel interests spent unprecedented amounts of money this election season. In the last two months of the campaign, groups promoting fossil fuels spent $270 million on television ads to influence the presidential, House, and Senate races. From April to November, these groups spent $265.9 million on the presidential campaign alone, according to a Center for American Progress Action Fund analysis.

But the lavish spending didn’t work. Despite spending record amounts of money, polluter groups failed to change the presidency, failed to change the balance of power in Congress, and failed to give Republicans the important coal states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

Environmental Groups Celebrate A Political Victory: ‘Knock, Baby, Knock’ Beat ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’

Judging by pure spending, the 2012 election wasn’t looking good for environmentalists. Polluter groups outspent environmental groups 4-1, making it seem like the momentum was on their side. But the results showed otherwise: Four out of the “flat earth five” climate deniers in the House lost their races; Seven of eight Senate candidates supported by environmental groups won their races, thus preventing Republicans from taking the Senate and cutting off the drumbeat of anti-environmental legislation in the House; 11 of the 12 “Climate Heroes” promoted by environmentalists won their races; and the President kept his job.

While gridlock will likely define Obama’s second term, environmental advocates said the 2012 elections proved their strength: “We went head to head with the likes of Crossroads and Karl Rove,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president of Defenders of Wildlife, after the elections.

Shell’s Woes In The Arctic Underscore Challenges In The Region

The Arctic is shedding ice at an alarming rate due to global warming. The response? Oil companies want to use the opportunity to look for more offshore oil and gas that will only accelerate warming. In 2012, Shell became the first company to drill exploratory wells in U.S. Arctic waters, raising concerns about the local and global environmental impact. (For more on this, check out the great documentary produced by the Center for American Progress oceans team).

Shell’s troubles throughout the year proved just how tough it is to drill in the region. From crushing its oil containment unit “like a beer can” to losing control of its drilling rig, the company faced numerous challenges. And major organizations responded. In April, insurance giant Lloyd’s of London warned that responding to an oil spill in a region that is “highly sensitive to damage” would present “multiple obstacles, which together constitute a unique and hard-to-manage risk“; German bank WestLB announced it would not finance offshore oil or gas drilling in the Arctic, saying the “risks and costs are simply too high”; and Total SA, the fourth largest publicly traded oil and gas company in the world, said drilling in the region could be a “disaster.”

Renewable Electricity Nearly Doubles Under Obama

President Obama was attacked hard in 2012 for his promotion of renewable energy, green jobs, and environmental regulations. Many opponents claimed that stimulus investments in renewables didn’t work. But the figures told otherwise.

According to figures from the Energy Information Administration, non-hydro renewable electricity generation has nearly doubled since Obama took office, reaching 5.75 percent of net electricity. In 2008, before Obama entered the White House, non-hydro resources like solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass represented just over 3 percent of generation. While political uncertainty has made 2013 prospects for renewables uncertain, the U.S. has still maintained a strong role in the global market. Since 2004, one trillion dollars have been invested in the global clean energy sector, with a large portion of that coming from the American private and public sectors.

This is just a small selection of the many important stories throughout the year. Tell us what your top energy stories are below.

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