Climate Food and Agriculture

Is it enough to tax junk food and subsidize good food?

The New York Times' Mark Bittman is right that we need to tax junk food and make healthy food more affordable. But we also need to quash junk-food advertising.

Green crush: Two girls from Manhattan

How do you honor the two friends who made a movie showing the power of community to change the food system? A limerick, of course.

Sea-urchin fishing, crab tacos, and the delicious rewards of hard work [VIDEO]

Why hand-picking your catch on a fishing trip is worth the extra effort, and what 20 years picking strawberries can teach you about empowerment.

Viva veggies: In which I try tofustrami, and like it

The Humane Society wrote and offered to buy me a delicious vegetarian lunch. My general policy is to eat lunch when it's offered, so I took them up on it.

In defense of organic

A "mythbusting" Scientific American blogger took on organic agriculture recently, but she got much of the story wrong. Grist sets her straight.

Critical List: Operators say the grid can handle the heat; green tech investment down

Grid operators say they're ready to handle the extra load that air conditioners and other cooling devices will put on electricity supplies during the heat wave.

Venture capitalists invested less money on green tech projects last quarter; they're hot on "internet-specific" companies. (Think businesses like Twitter or Spotify.) So if you’ve got an internet-specific green startup idea burning a hole in your laptop cover, now may be the time.

Apparently it's cool with Republicans if the government interferes with private businesses' decisions, if those decisions would mean being involved in the E.U.'s airline carbon trading program.

Would the FDA let raw milk politics influence its food safety alerts?

The suspicious timing of a press release about tainted raw milk suggests the FDA hypes concerns over this product more than others.

Our economy is hungry for food stamps

Food stamps do more than feed the needy-- they also boost a struggling economy.

Urban gardens: The harvest is not just food, it's community

Community gardens have an almost magical power to change the urban landscape. Now many in New York City are safe in the hands of those who tend them.

Is it meaningless to talk about ‘sustainable’ food?

How sustainable is your jar of Ragu tomato sauce? That is an insane question, says self-described “anti-foodie” Frederick Kaufman in his TED Talk.

Sustainability, Kaufman suggests, can be sort of like porn: you know it when you see it. But people really want it to be quantifiable. Kaufman describes efforts by a grand consortium of scientists, farmers, agribusiness, and environmentalists to track all the inputs into a product and mush those into one number that would reflect its overall sustainability.