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‘IPCC for agriculture’ has little teeth, but great timbre

Some are calling it a project that will transform global agriculture as we know it. Others are calling it a utopian dream. One thing is for sure, however: When the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAAST) releases the final draft of its report on April 15, sparks will still be flying.

Instigated in 2005 by the United Nations and the World Bank, among others, the IAAST was supposed to be an IPCC for agriculture. (Indeed, the project's leader, Robert Watson, was former chair of the IPCC.) Its goals were impressive:

How can we reduce hunger and poverty, improve rural livelihoods, and facilitate equitable, environmentally, socially and economically sustainable development through the generation, access to, and use of agricultural knowledge, science, and technology?

With such lofty aims, the participants necessarily included not only farmers and policy makers, but also academics, industry scientists, social justice NGOs, environmental advocacy groups (Greenpeace, to name one), and agribusiness representatives. As you might imagine, this motley crew had plenty to fight about, and in October, Syngenta and Monsanto walked out of the talks.

Green TNR, brought to you by BP

The New Republic has a new blog devoted to environment and energy issues. On the bright side, it includes the work of Brad Plumer, one of the most honest, thoughtful, and insightful writers in D.C. For that alone it’s worth bookmarking. On the not so bright side, it’s … "powered by BP." Really. Here’s a […]

Digging into the relationships between business and environmentalism

Admittedly, this is more of a link dump than a true blog post, but sometimes the green goodness is too good to pass up ... As Sarah and David have mentioned, the May edition of Vanity Fair is their third annual green issue. Featuring, ironically, the material girl on the cover, it's crammed with features that will enlighten, illuminate, and ... disturb.

Manhattan congestion-pricing plan kicks the bucket

Hopes had run high that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s ambitious congestion-pricing plan for the Big Apple would move forward, but the measure has died a quiet death. Democratic members of the State Assembly, determining that the measure was overwhelmingly opposed, neglected to even bring it to the Assembly floor, instead shooting it down with […]

Umbra on library furniture

Dear Umbra, I work in an academic library that has just received funding to purchase new furniture for the first time in over 20 years. As such, the committee examining this is very interested in purchasing stuff that will last a long time and be attractive and comfortable well into the future. We are purchasing […]

Food prices and ‘level playing fields’

In last week’s Victual Reality, I took Alice Waters and Michael Pollan to task for praising recent hikes in industrial food prices as a prod for promoting sustainable agriculture. "Higher food prices level the playing field for sustainable food that doesn’t rely on fossil fuels," Pollan told The New York Times. Not likely so, I […]

Getting distracted

There the World Health Organization goes again: Millions of Asians could face poverty, disease, and hunger as a result of rising temperatures and increased rainfall expected to hit hardest poor countries, the World Health Organization warned Monday. Malaria, diarrhea, malnutrition and floods cause an estimated 150,000 deaths annually, with Asia accounting for more than half, […]

Industrial agrofuels: enemy of the entire planet

Apologies for the terrible photo, but it was pouring (and snowing) when I took it. That's Duff Badgley again, the dirty hippie, protesting at a Safeway store. You can see the marquee advertising the price of B-5 (5 percent) biodiesel at $4.20 a gallon.

Biofuel proponents are not going to like having their fuel compared to coal, but think about it. Most of the CO2 in the United States comes from liquid fossil fuels. Replace them with today's biofuels, and you would have an unmitigated ecological disaster of planet-killing proportions. In other words, the more we use, the worse it gets.

Removing mountaintops and dumping the tailings in mountain streams is beyond bad, but biofuels have already razed more ecosystems than all the coal mines in history, and coal has never contributed to food shortages. So, which sign is more appropriate? The icing on the cake, of course, is the new science pointing out that biofuels are also worse for global warming.

Enough with the ‘children are our future’ already

On the notion that idealistic young people should save the planet, Natasha Chart on MyDD writes:

It's deeply frustrating to me to to hear someone with 20-30 years worth of professional experience, social networking, capital accumulation, and political influence say that what they're really waiting on is for a bunch of people with none of those advantages to come do what they couldn't manage. In the same vein, I know that leading figures in many activist issue camps, whether elected officials or NGO staff, hope that young people, or bloggers, or 'local' activists, really, anyone else, will get out and start rocking the boat so it doesn't have to be them. I've heard some version of this conversation too many times.

NYT says blogging can be deadly

There's a story in The New York Times in which a journalist uses the recent death of two bloggers from heart attacks to cobble together a fairy tale that links blogging to myocardial infarction. Ah, the lay press ... entertainment for the masses -- or better yet, the art of turning nothing into advertising revenue.