Miley Cyrus' fans have watched her grow into a gorgeous young woman with a kind and compassionate heart, so to celebrate her 20th birthday on November 23, PETA is surprising Miley with something that she really wants.

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During a recent appearance on Ellen, Miley talked about how much she loves pigs, so PETA sponsored a very special pig in her honor. Nora, whom PETA helped rescue, is a resident at Kindred Spirits Sanctuary, a picturesque farm in Ocala, Florida, that gives refuge to animals who have been abused, neglected, or abandoned, including pigs, cows, goats, sheep, chickens, turkeys, horses, and donkeys.

Miley proved her affection for pigs when she retweeted a PETA action alert to her 10 million followers asking them to urge Walmart to ban its suppliers from cruelly confining pigs to tiny metal-barred gestation crates for months at a time.

And the singer's compassion for animals doesn't stop there. She lavishes love on her rescued dogs and consistently encourages people always to adopt and never buy. And she's striving to rid her diet of dairy products.

Miley's fans are awesome animal advocates, too. They've set up a special fundraising page where people can donate to PETA's lifesaving work for animals in honor of the compassionate birthday girl.

Happy birthday, Miley! We love you!

Happy Earth Day 2011! If you rode your bike to work today or planted a tree, that's fantastic. But if you're passing on meat and dairy products today to help the planet, that's even better.

For damage to the environment, meat takes the icky, Earth-destroying first-place prize. Consider the following:

• Producing a single pound of meat emits the same amount of greenhouse gases as driving 40 miles in an SUV.  
• It takes 10 times as much fossil fuel to produce one calorie from animal protein as it does to make one calorie from plant protein.
• Animals raised for food in the U.S. produce 89,000 pounds of waste per second without the benefit of waste-treatment systems.
• If every American  skipped one meal of chicken per week and opted for plant-based foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads.

Celebrate Earth Day today by opting for delicious, meat-free dishes and sharing this with your eco-conscious Facebook friends.
 

Written by Michelle Sherrow