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Articles by Tom Laskawy

A 17-year veteran of both traditional and online media, Tom Laskawy is a founder and executive director of the Food & Environment Reporting Network and a contributing writer at Grist covering food and agricultural policy. Tom's long and winding road to food politics writing passed through New York, Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, Florence, Italy, and Philadelphia (which has a vibrant progressive food politics and sustainable agriculture scene, thank you very much). In addition to Grist, his writing has appeared online in The American Prospect, Slate, The New York Times, and The New Republic. He is on record as believing that wrecking the planet is a bad idea. Follow him on Twitter.

All Articles

  • Big Ag on climate change: “What, me worry?”

    Once again, topics covered at length in the pixels of Grist are slowly percolating out into the wider media world. Newsweek over the weekend posted an article by Jeneen Interlandi about the grave effects of climate change on agriculture, summed up as the triple threat of “droughts, bugs and big storms.” And once again, we […]

  • Illinois points the way to food system reform

    Not your father’s Corn Belt. This development in Illinois managed to pass somewhat under the radar, probably because it took place during the dog days of summer. But it’s still a big deal — Illinois has a new law that starts building the infrastructure for a real regional food system: The legislation establishes a council […]

  • Can plastics make us fat?

    Hmm… That title doesn’t quite seem to capture the urgency of the issue, does it? Yet despite rampant skepticism, the data continue to pour in — chemicals in some of the most common plastics and household products, things that surround us every minute of the day, are major culprits in the obesity epidemic. At least […]

  • The soda wars heat up — and the possibilities are thrilling

    To read the news, it would look like soda taxes are just around the corner. First, President Obama mildly suggested in an interview in Men’s Health that soda taxes were worth some consideration. Then Obamafoodorama broke the news of Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent’s reaction to said soda tax: “I have never seen it work where […]