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The U.S. needs a food bill more than a farm bill

<img src="http://grist.org/images/home/2006/03/13/farmer-on-tractor_150.jpg" class="blog4" width="150" height="100"

America is scheduled to write a new farm bill in 2007. With the World Trade Organization ruling that our farm subsidies distort trade, and public expenses for flood relief and the war effort taxing the treasury, this could be a time of interesting shifts in how we view farm policy.

Moreover, both farmer and consumer groups say subsidies are harming Americans and developing nations (see Tom Philpott's fine story "I'm Hatin' It").

On the other hand, there are also signs that the same coalition of grain traders and producer groups will persuade Congress to extend the provisions of the existing farm bill for a few more years.

This gets me thinking about what a proper farm bill should do.

The first thing to note is: We don't need a farm bill in 2007. We need a food bill, or a rural development bill. We need to invest in communities, not commodities.

When the world comes together

In the spirit of using film and television to make a difference, I introduce you to 2006 Ted Prize winner Jehane Noujaim:

In her moving acceptance speech, TED Prize winner, Jehane Noujaim described her wish for using film to bring people together in a more meaningful way. Jehane is the award-winning filmmaker behind Control Room and Startup.com. Jehane's wish is to create a worldwide cinema event for one day each year with programming that highlights the themes of unity, the common ties that bind us into a global culture, a film festival called "Pangea Cinema, the day the world comes together." "Pangea" refers to the single land mass that broke up millions of years ago to create the disparate continents we know today.

Pangea Cinema is still very much in the brainstorming phase but the hope is to develop the idea well beyond the act of showing films. The goal is to invite the viewers of these films to join a global conversation about the issues that affect us all.

Watch Jehane's acceptance speech and proposal here.

And as for the subject matter for this day of film? May I suggest climate change.

Charisma

I walked into the study this morning to find my wife and youngest daughter watching an eagle on a wildlife webcam. They asked me if male eagles sit on eggs. No sooner had I said, "Pfft, I seriously doubt it," than another eagle appeared. The one sitting on the eggs flew off, allowing its partner to take over. Hey, roosters don't sit on eggs! Where would conservation (a major branch of environmentalism) be without charismatic wildlife? Speaking of which, Luna, the killer-whale orphan, was just killed by a boat.

Later, while poking around on the webcam site, I discovered a cool video of a black snake making short work of a nest of baby robins (click on the picture of the robin). I watched the exact same thing happen on my uncle's farm when I was a kid in Indiana. Black rat snakes can get up to six feet long. They are the generalists of the snake world, known to eat just about anything: rodents, amphibians, birds, other snakes, and even eggs. I was glad the webcam owner, obviously a bird lover, allowed nature to take its course. I bet that wasn't easy.

How do Canadians feel about fueling America’s empire?

Something I've wondered about for a while: Canada is our No. 1 source of oil imports. And Canadian tar-sands are often cited by energy optimists as a virtually unlimited source of future oil.

But, um, has anyone asked Canada about this? Or rather, asked Canadians, as opposed to the Canadian government? 'Cause it seems like a pretty raw deal for them. Extracting tar-sands oil is horrifically destructive to the environment and the workers involved. And because of NAFTA, Canada is stuck exporting most of it to us, meaning they're fueling our dreams of empire at the possible expense of their own future energy security. Furthermore, in times of energy scarcity, being a fruitful source of oil immediately contiguous to the world's largest consumer of oil -- and also its most powerful, hyper-militarized country -- might prove to be a little, ahem, awkward.

Anyhoo, Oil Drum has a thread going about all this, playing off this Canadian think-tank report (PDF), which raises all the above concerns. Lots of interesting stuff.

From clubbin’ to clubbing

Hey, I'm not really sure why we stopped blurbing these in Gristmill. Maybe we'll start again. But regardless: A new Grist List is up, sure to amaze and amuse. Check it out.

Makower on the service sector

I was going to try to say something smart about this great Joel Makower post on the environmental footprint of the service sector, but it's obvious now I'm never going to have time, and hell, it's Friday, so I'm just going to poach a chunk and tell you to go read the rest:

Billionaires

In other exciting news: "The number of billionaires surged this year, as did their collective pile of cash, according to Forbes magazine's annual billionaire list."

Wealth gradients

Ever wonder what it is that holds people in poverty? Although never expressed in polite company, there is an undercurrent in many circles that the poor are victims of their genes. There isn't a word for it, like racism or sexism, but the mindset still exists.

Here's the real skinny: poverty, like wealth, is usually inherited. Poverty is primarily the result of competition from other human beings. People like you and me took their jobs. It is also a matter of statistics and energy. A street orphan in Bangladesh has essentially zero chance of becoming CEO of Boeing, no matter how hard he or she tries.

How do you suppose President Bush, a man who rarely reads and can hardly string a grammatically correct sentence together, became president of the most powerful nation on Earth? He was not only accepted into Yale (SAT scores: 566 verbal and 640 math), but managed to graduate as well. He later attended AA, and with the help of a higher power managed to kick the drinking habit he had developed while at Yale. The best analogy I can come up with is a ten-mile race (having been a long distance runner for most of my life, I prefer footrace analogies to football analogies). Dubya started life's race two feet from the finish line and staggered over it. Others started in a huge pack at the starting line. Arrayed before them, somewhere between the starting line and the finish line, were people born to wealthier parents.

The gentleman from Colorado

I was going to blog about this, but I honestly can't add anything to the ThinkProgress post. So I'll just steal it:

Colorado State Rep. Jim Welker (R) blasted an email to his colleagues containing "an essay written by someone else that accused 'welfare-pampered blacks' of waiting for the government to save them from Hurricane Katrina." A excerpt from that essay, written by the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson:

President Bush is not to blame for the rampant immorality of blacks. Had New Orleans' black community taken action, most would have been out of harm's way. But most were too lazy, immoral and trifling to do anything productive for themselves.

Welker forwarded the essay "without comment." Here is his defense:

"Some of my best friends are of different skin color, like Ed Jones," said Welker, referring to Sen. Jones, a Colorado Springs Republican who is black.

According to Jones, "he and Welker are friends, but not best friends."

Wow. Just ... wow.

Greens are fond of thinking that when another Katrina happens -- maybe another hurricane, maybe a flood, maybe a heatwave -- people will finally "wake up" and start cutting back on consumption, lobbying lawmakers to address global warming, etc. This bespeaks a rather naive view of human nature, if you ask me. Seems to me just as likely that you see stuff like the above: An outbreak of tribalism.

I'm not sure what could swing things one way or the other, but one thing that will certainly help is to have a model of a good green life, ready at hand, so people willing to resist tribalism have something easy to fall back on.

The Daily Grist Headline Battle Royale: Match 3

First, last week's winner ... d'oh! "Nobody Undoes It Like Sara Lee" with 40% of the vote. And I thought it was going to be "Bring in Da Illinois, Bring in Da Hunk" for sure!

Now, here are this week's nominees:

1. It's Hard Out Here for a Chinook: Fishing ban considered for Klamath chinook along West Coast
2. Fools Russia In: Russia to build oil pipeline within half-mile of world's deepest lake
3. Tray's Anatomy: Hospital menus getting green overhaul
4. Can We Sue Them for Label?: House passes industry-beloved food-labeling bill
5. The Leak Shall Inhibit the Earth: Northern Alaska pipeline leak may rank as one of region's largest

Vote!