Latest Articles

First Lady promotes 'fresh and local and delicious' veggies at state dinner

I wish I could "friend" Michelle Obama -- in  real life, not on MyFace or whatever that thing is called. 

Last week, she sent a verbal Valentine to community gardens. More recently, she snuck a bunch of  reporters into the White House kitchen, where she sang the praises of local food. According to a New York Times report, the First Lady served up a discourse worthy of the Berkeley sustainable-food doyenne Alice Waters:

When food is grown locally, [Obama] said, "oftentimes it tastes really good, and when you're dealing with kids, you want to get them to try that carrot."

"If it tastes like a real carrot, and it's really sweet, they're going to think that it's a piece of candy," she continued. "So my kids are more inclined to try different vegetables if they are fresh and local and delicious."

Now, some wags might protest that, as the Times reports, Wagyu beef appeared on the menu that night. Was it imported all the way from Japan? Fed on grass -- or industrial corn? Why isn't the White House sourcing beef from celebrated, pastured-based nearby farms like Polyface?

All legit questions, but ... when can we come by and perform a perfection-check on your fridge and larder?

I like Ms. Obama, not just because she can wax Waters-esque about carrots. I also admire her sharp critical edge -- the one she displayed during the campaign, when she made her famous speech about being proud of America for the first time in a while.

She got pilloried by cable TV hosts and muzzled by campaign handlers, but she had a point: 30 years of stagnant wages, a Ponzi-like financial system reliant on a series of absurd bubbles, a hollowed-out education system, the buildout of a high-profit, low-nutrition, high-polluting food system, the willlful refusal to address vital issues like climate change...

As Ms. Obama finds her sea legs aboard the good ship White House, I hope she continues to explore her inner locavore -- and season it with a dash of critical political/economic thought.

Two visions of school lunch square off in the political playground

This year, Congress will reauthorize the Child Nutrition and WIC Act -- which either cleverly directs low-quality industrial food to our nation's most vulnerable population, or ensures the health of our most precious resource, depending on whom you ask.

Like the Farm Bill, the Child Nutrition Act comes up for review every five years. It encompasses the School Breakfast and the National School Lunch Programs, the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC).

If you ask me, it's geared pretty precisely to fit the needs of the processed food industry; "child nutrition" has little to do with it. That's why I was thrilled to see the recent NYT op-ed by Alice Waters and Katrina Heron called "No Lunch Left Behind." Surveying the wreckage of the school-lunch program -- declining childhood health metrics, hollowed-out school kitchens that have become centers for reheating pre-fab chicken nuggets, etc. -- Waters and Heron conclude that:

How much would it cost to feed 30 million American schoolchildren a wholesome meal? It could be done for about $5 per child, or roughly $27 billion a year [vs. current spending of $9 billion] plus a one-time investment in real kitchens.

"Yes, that sounds expensive," they continue. But does it really? The Treasury and Federal Reserve hand that much cash over to insolvent mega-banks like Citigroup before the first coffee break some days. And unlike propping up "zombie banks," a robust school-lunch program offers plenty of positive synergies, as the authors make clear: healthier children and future adults, stronger local and regional farming economies, etc.

While Waters and others push to transform school lunches, some of our nation's largest corporations and trade groups aim to keep it just the way it is. From the American News Project, here's a great video documenting lobbying efforts from the likes of Pepsico and the National Pork Producers Council.

Japan may force utilities to buy surplus domestic solar power

TOKYO — Japan plans to soon require electricity companies to buy surplus power generated by household solar panels at about twice the current price, a government official said Tuesday. The scheme, to start as early as the fiscal year beginning in April, aims to promote solar power as part of efforts to cut greenhouse gas […]

Climate change risk underestimated: study

WASHINGTON — The risk posed to mankind and the environment by even small changes in average global temperatures is much higher than believed even a few years ago, a study said Monday. Published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study updated a 2001 assessment by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change […]

Obama names additional appointments in environmental posts

The White House on Monday announced several additional appointments of interest to enviros, with the biggest being that Interior Department Inspector General Earl E. Devaney has been tapped to serve as the chairman of the new Recovery Act Transparency and Accountability Board, along with VP Joe Biden. Devaney played a crucial role in investigating the […]

NASA mission to monitor carbon dioxide fails

WASHINGTON –A US satellite to monitor global carbon dioxide emissions plummeted into the ocean near Antarctica Tuesday after failing to reach orbit, NASA officials said, calling it a major disappointment for climate science. NASA said the satellite launched successfully from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a Taurus XL rocket at 1:55 am […]

What will Obama say about climate change in tonight’s big speech?

Buzz around D.C. is that President Obama will address climate change and energy policy in his speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night — amid, you know, all those other things weighing on the new commander in chief. And folks are already parsing what it means if Obama includes revenues from the auction […]

Search giant plans to devote more IT expertise to energy issues

If you're a fan of Google's efforts to encourage energy efficiency and the development of renewable energy (i.e. RechargeIT, Clean Energy 2030, and PowerMeter), get ready for more.

A post on the official Google blog says the company plans to "to put even more engineers and technical talent to work on these issues and problems."

Larry Brilliant, the "chief philanthropy evangelist" at Google.org, offered up that bit of news in a post about a larger change at the Google philanthropy arm -- that Google exec Megan Smith will take over day-to-day management of Google.org, allowing Brilliant to "spend more time motivating policy makers, encouraging public and private partnerships, and generally advocating for the changes that we must make as a global society to solve these problems."

More from Brilliant's post:

In this global economic crisis, the work Google.org is doing, together with our many colleagues around the world, to help develop cheap clean energy, find and fight disease outbreaks before they sweep the globe, and build information platforms for underserved people globally, is more important than ever. We stand behind the commitment made in 2004 to devote 1% of Google's equity and profits to philanthropy, and we will continue to iterate on our philanthropic model to make sure our resources have the greatest possible impact for good.

Eat fried food, save the planet

“You’ll be able to eat fried chicken and save the environment. We’ll be working on our marketing for that …” — former Walmart CEO Lee Scott, discussing the company’s plan to retrofit part of their truck fleet to run on grease from their frying operations

Obama taps a real reformer, Kathleen Merrigan, for deputy USDA secretary

Last time a president had the occasion to name a deputy USDA secretary, I had a rhetorical cow, man. Back in 2005, President Bush chose Chuck Conner, a man who had previously worked as a flack for Archer Daniels Midland, for that position. Could Bush have made a more explicit bow to the gods of agribusiness? 

President Obama suddenly seems intent on blazing a new path for USDA. Sure, he picked a farm-state governor with ties to the ethanol and biotech industries as USDA chief. But that's almost reflexive in our political system. The key question became: who would he pick as the deputy -- the official who typically gets things done and sets the tone for the department? Would he pick a corn-fed flack, like Bush did? Another go-along to get-along type in the Vilsack mode? Or a real reformer? 

Obama chose Kathleen Merrigan, director of the Agriculture, Food and Environment Program at Tufts. From what I can tell at first blush, she's a real reformer.