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Why the global food system isn’t kind to local farmers

Recently, I've come across two articles that pungently demonstrate the place of small-scale farmers in a global economy geared toward long-distance trade.

The first, a Salon-published excerpt from Charles Fishman's recent book The Wal-Mart Effect, explores what the U.S. love affair with $5/pound salmon means for Chile. (Prepare to click through a few ads to get to the story.) The other, a NY Times piece, depicts high-level hand-wringing in China over rural "land grabs by officials eager to cash in on China's booming economy."

(Thanks to Tyler Bell for alerting me to the Salon piece.)

It’s ugly

I know Hurricane Katrina is so 2005, but nonetheless there are some loose ends and ongoing outrages that deserve a little attention.

• The White House was warned, hours before Katrina hit, that New Orleans would likely be flooded. As you may recall, they didn't do much about it. You might also recall that Bush said "no one anticipated" a breach of the levees. That was -- what's the polite term these days? -- misleading.
• The Bush administration has refused to turn over documents and emails relevant to its preparation and response to the hurricane to Congressional investigators. Joe Lieberman, ranking Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, says the Bushies have also instructed other government departments not to cooperate. He says they're trying to run out the clock on the investigation.
• Former FEMA director Michael "Brownie" Brown (who came in at a lowly 35 on the America's most loathsome list, though I would argue for higher placement) kept his $148,000 FEMA salary for two months after he was booted, allegedly to serve as a consultant and help Congressional investigators figure out what went wrong. But now he's refusing to cooperate with the investigation -- though he's taking money to speak on the very same subject at conferences. Toad.
• Meanwhile, New Orleans remains a farrago of opportunism, venality, and despair.

I don't know about y'all, but I feel super comfortable about what might happen in the wake of another terrorist attack or weather disaster. We're in good hands!

Update [2006-1-25 16:34:13 by David Roberts]: On Katrina, James Wolcott is a good read.

Sagebrush ecosystems are overlooked by conservationists cause they’re, um, not pretty

Oregon State University just won a $3.6 million grant for sagebrush-ecosystem restoration. That's good news -- sagelands conservation always seems to take a back seat to other landscapes. I wonder if the explanation for sagebrush's short shrift isn't surpisingly superficial (how's that for alliteration?). Looks matter, and sagebrush just doesn't sell like the prettier places do.

If so, sagebrush ecology is paying the price for its lack of glam appeal. The American West is home to 100 million acres of sagebrush country, but it is a battered landscape. As the AP story today puts it:

Because of the invasion of non-native plants, increasing wildfires and the expansion of juniper woodlands, sagebrush ecosystems have become one of the most threatened land types in the United States, researchers say.

"We are losing sagebrush-steppe ecosystems at an alarming rate, as wildfires fueled by cheatgrass sweep across the landscape," said project coordinator Jim McIver, an associate professor of rangeland resources.

The ongoing tragedy of conservation biology, with its limited resources, is that large attractive creatures -- "charismatic megafauna," in biologist speak, such as the ivory-billed woodpecker -- generate most of the hoopla and therefore receive most of the protection. Less sexy creatures are often ignored, though they may be no less critical to complete and well-functioning ecosystems.

Landscapes tend to go the same way as wildlife. People get animated by old-growth forests, coastlines, canyons, and alpine settings. These are the places we protect in national parks, photograph endlessly, and write volumes of earnest prose about. Big conservation organizations have little trouble "branding" these ecosystems and drumming up the dollars necessary to protect them from depredations. But sagebrush country is another matter.

But It’s Still Friggin’ Raining in Seattle

2005 is hottest year on record, and 2006 weather is wacked We know you’ve been waiting with bated breath to hear the outcome of the competition between 1998 and 2005 for hottest year on record, and NASA’s results are in: 2005 wins! 1998 had El Nino, but 2005 had a remarkably warm Arctic. Congratulations, 2005, […]

Tadpole Position

Real-world combos of pesticides highly lethal to frogs, study shows Frogs exposed to a pesticide mix similar to what’s found on the average farm die in greater numbers than those dosed with just one pesticide, a new study shows. In new research in the online edition of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, scientists at UC-Berkeley […]

Al’s Well That Pens Well

Al Gore to publish new book on global warming The self-proclaimed “former next president of the United States” — currently at the Sundance Film Festival (and, may we point out, looking quite natty) to promote his new documentary about global warming, An Inconvenient Truth — has announced that he’ll soon be coming out with a […]

A recyclable museum houses Gregory Colbert’s photos of charismatic animals

The Nomadic Museum … wandering the globe. Photos: Gregory Colbert. Over the next few months, hundreds of thousands of animal lovers, art lovers, and the odd Bill or Billy or Mac or Buddy will take a left off Santa Monica Boulevard and head down toward the Nomadic Museum, an extraordinary structure made entirely of reusable […]

America’s most loathsome

Did you know that you're the fourth most loathsome person in America (for 2005, anyway)?

And my fellow blogger Tom will be happy to see that someone agrees with him about the Mustache of Understanding, who comes in at No. 7:

A cool head on Cape Wind

Ultimately, I come down against Bobby Kennedy on the Cape Wind issue. But I've been bothered by the strident, dismissive tone of some of the criticism directed against him by his fellow environmentalists.

My sentiments are expressed eloquently in a post by Tom Andersen, author of This Fine Piece of Water: An Environmental History of Long Island Sound. It's the most thoughtful thing I've seen written on this contentious topic.

Energy use matters as much as — or more than — energy supply

Of the many ideas Amory Lovins has pushed into our cultural dialogue, here's one of the most important, one that everyone involved in energy debates should take to heart:

It is not energy that people want; it is the services energy provides.

The obsessive focus of energy debates on supply -- nuclear or wind? clean coal or hydrogen? -- is so narrow as to distort. The way we use energy is just as important: How do we store it? Transmit it? Where do we live? How do we get around? How can the same services be provisioned with less energy? How much is wasted?

The whole energy system is the proper focus of our attention.

Not a new point, obviously, but worth repeating, as it leads to very different policy debates and outcomes.