Advocacy
- Advocacy Overview
- Humane Planet
- Humane Living
- Humane Commerce
- Humane Eating
- Campaigns
- Legislation and Public Policy
- Humane Library
Earth-friendly is Animal-friendly. Read more about PAHS' understanding of the interdependent relationship of people, place and animals and how this inherently supports a natural humane ethos.
Humane Planet
Planting the seeds to grow a more compassionate world.
With clear realization of the enormity of issues plaguing animals, people and planet, this program was formed to educate the ways in which all are tightly interconnected, while addressing pertinent issues and providing solutions. Our purpose is to foster the creation of a more humane community to contribute to the evolution of a more humane planet.
The three areas of focus are:
Humane Living Educating about human-animal relationships, problems and solutions
Humane Commerce Providing information and ethical options for “consumption”
Humane Eating Addressing the realities food sources, food options, and climate change.
Humane Planet directly addresses our current, yet transitioning, paradigm – one which is dominance-oriented, competition-based, reductionist, hyper quantity-focused, and thus imbalanced and unsustainable – to one which is the way of evolved living systems and based on equality, cooperation, networks, qualities, and sustainable balance. This evolved paradigm, based on the wisdom of nature, considers the whole - the relationships to which we are reliant and accountable - and is imbued with cooperation and natural ethical action.
Humans are only one strand in the web of life and only one part of the wider community of beings, as Chief Seattle, Ecotheologian and Cultural Historian Father Thomas Berry, Physicist Fritjof Capra, Cosmologist Brian Swimme, Biologist Elisabet Sahtouris, and countless others have taught. This knowledge that we are one of many and not one over many is crucial to deeply understanding the value and interconnectedness of all life.
PAHS' research provides the community with knowledge to make healthy and ethical action easy.
Humane is defined as: “Having the good qualities of human beings, as kindness, mercy, or compassion.”
It is also: “Tending to evoke these qualities; refining; civilization.”
Mahatma Gandhi was once asked what he thought about Western civilization by a news reporter, to which Gandhi smiled and responded, “I think it is a good idea”.
The definitions above from The American Heritage Dictionary speak to PAHS’ century of compassion, and remind us that humans sometimes do not think or act “civilized”. Often it is Earth and animals that are the easiest targets of dominance constructs. They do not speak in human voices, however they have a voice which needs to be heard and respected. Earth Jurisprudence (click to learn more) is just one of the organizations bringing a voice to our planet, and the Palo Alto Humane Society continues its rich history of bringing a voice to animals. Follow PAHS into the next century of compassionate service as we communicate about the value of animals and foster a more humane planet.
“We see quite clearly that what happens to the nonhuman happens to the human. What happens to the outer world happens to the inner world. If the outer world is diminished in its grandeur then the emotional, imaginative, intellectual, and spiritual life of the human is diminished or extinguished. Without the soaring birds, the great forests, the sounds and coloration of the insects, the free-flowing streams, the flowering fields, the sight of the clouds by day and the stars at night, we become impoverished in all that makes us human.” - Thomas Berry, from his book called The Great Work: Our Way into the Future