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Ten reader food quandaries solved!

In Checkout Line, Lou Bendrick cooks up answers to reader questions about how to green their food choices and other diet-related quandaries. Lettuce know what food worries keep you up at night.   Dear Checkout Line readers, You know how those languishing items on your to-do list start to gnaw at you like — I […]

Tufts study: Corn subsidies are a sop to HFCS industry, but don't alone make bad food cheap

I have a complex and much criticized view of farm subsidies. 

On the one hand, I acknowledge that the "commodity program" embedded in the Farm Bill is a back-door sop to agribusiness giants like meat titan Tyson and grain-processor Archer Daniels Midland. By encouraging farmers to produce as much corn and soy as possible even when prices are low, subsidies push down the price of commodity crops -- and fatten the profits of the firms that buy them.

On the other hand, I disagree with sustainable-food activists who claim that subsidies are the root of our food-system problems. Take them away, I've argued more than once, and you'd still have a food system that mainly produces junk churned out by a few big companies. Plus, rather than campaigning to end subsidies, I think we should be pushing to redirect them to more useful purposes: like rebuilding local and regional food infrastructure.

A study just released by the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts illustrates my point. The authors -- veteran Tufts researcher Tim Wise, plus Alicia Harvie -- look at the effect corn subsidies have had on consumption of high-fructose corn syrup, the U.S. food industry's favorite sweetener.

They essentially pose two questions: 1) Do HFCS producers benefit from the subsidy program?; and 2) Can the rise in obesity/overweight and diabetes rates be tied to corn subsidies through HFCS?  Their conclusions might surprise you.

Bernie Sanders to head new green jobs panel in Senate

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has been named chair of the newly formed Green Jobs and New Economy Subcommittee of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the senator announced on Thursday. “Today we face the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. There is no better moment to move forward aggressively on energy efficiency and […]

Biggest California utility contracts for world’s biggest solar power deal

Wind power has come of age (see here). Concentrated solar thermal power is next. Southern California Edison has contracted with BrightSource Energy Inc. for seven projects totaling 1,300 megawatts of concentrated solar-thermal power. CSP is a core climate solution, probably the zero-carbon form of electricity with the most potential, since it can be easily integrated […]

Biggest California utility contracts for world’s biggest solar power deal

Wind power has come of age (see here). Concentrated solar thermal power is next. Southern California Edison has contracted with BrightSource Energy Inc. for seven projects totaling 1,300 megawatts of concentrated solar-thermal power. CSP is a core climate solution, probably the zero-carbon form of electricity with the most potential, since it can be easily integrated […]

Obama should make like Lincoln and abolish fossil fuels

As the economy tailspins, President Franklin D. Roosevelt has replaced Abraham Lincoln as the favored Great President of commentators, against whom Obama is most often measured (or illuminated).

President Obama still expresses his "affinity" with Lincoln and, as we are learning about this smart and subtle man, he makes the point with small, deft gestures. Seafood stew was served for lunch on Inauguration Day, just as it was for President Lincoln.

So which is he, another Lincoln or an FDR? And which crisis -- the looming secession of the southern states in 1862 or the Great Depression of 1932 -- is the better model for our own terrible straits?

A decadent chocolate cake for your sweetie, minus the animal products

In the many years I worked in the restaurant world, Valentine’s Day meant whipping up confections for other people’s sweethearts. The pressure was steep: People scramble for reservations on the romantic holiday, and desserts are expected to impress. This year, I’ll be at home — and focusing on a Valentine’s Day sweet for my very […]

Using stimulus funds to make mass transit free

Irwin Kellner, chief economist for MarketWatch, suggests a better use for the billions contained in the economic stimulus legislation:

Right now federal money for states and local governments is aimed at big capital projects such as buying new trains or busses. But what is the point of buying new transit equipment if the local systems are mothballing their fleet because of service cuts?

Better to use these funds to help eliminate fares and maintain or increase service. It also avoids the government giving people tax cuts with one hand while taking them away with the other.

The entire 'clean coal' effort could be fruitless

Part 1 noted that the U.S. Geological Survey's stunning December report found

The coal reserves estimate for the Gillette coalfield is 10.1 billion short tons of coal (6 percent of the original resource total).

Although the report didn't get much media attention, it was a shocker because the Gillette field, within Wyoming's Powder River Basin "is the most prolific coalfield in the United States" and in 2006 provided "over 37 percent of the Nation's total yearly production."

Now Clean Energy Action has issued a new report, Coal: Cheap and Abundant ... Or is it? that goes beyond the analysis in the USGS study and concludes:

It appears that rather than having a "200 year supply of coal," the United States has a much shorter planning horizon for moving beyond coalfired power plants. Depending on the resolution of geologic, economic, legal and transportation constraints facing future coal mine expansion, the planning horizon for moving beyond coal could be as short as 20-30 years.

A top priority of Energy Secretary Steven Chu and the Obama administration must be a detailed mine-by-mine analysis to resolve the issue of the U.S. coal resource. The imminent reality of peak oil production should be clear to all by now (see here). If we are running short of coal, the urgency of jumpstarting the transition to a clean energy economy is all the greater -- and the possibility that coal with carbon capture and storage will be a major contributor to greenhouse gas reductions would be greatly diminished.

Clean Energy Action notes:

This weekend's NBA All-Star Game to be greenish

The NBA All-Star Game on Sunday will be the greenest yet -- perhaps not such a tough bar to reach, but still worth a note.

Greenish plans include, of course, carbon offsets. They also include PSAs about recycling, starring figures from the host team Phoenix Suns; lotsa recycling bins; and "sustainable" T-shirts for volunteers. Bigger-scale projects include construction of a local playground from post-consumer materials. The Suns themselves are also greening up their act, with plans to install solar panels at their arena later this year.

As we've seen before, Phoenix is surprisingly sustainable in its way, despite the whole water-sucking-city-in-a-desert thing. Hosting (and boasting about) a high-profile green sports event is another point in its favor, small though it be.