Climate Food and Agriculture
All Stories
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Rethinking food production for a world of 8 billion
In April 2005, the World Food Programme and the Chinese government jointly announced that food aid shipments to China would stop at the end of the year. For a country where a generation ago hundreds of millions of people were chronically hungry, this was a landmark achievement. Not only has China ended its dependence on […]
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New book looks at economic devastation in an Iowa meat-packing town
An Iowa house, no longer neededPhoto: McMorrIt’s become axiomatic that to peer deep into our reliance on fossil energy is to gaze upon human wreckage: bombed-out Baghdad slums, desolated Nigerian townships, or Appalachian communities eviscerated by the removal of mountaintops. The food system has its own war zones, its own spaces of suffering and despair. […]
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Must-read: urban farmer Will Allen in the NYT Magazine
Will makes soil–and you can, too.Source: The New York TimesAnyone who wants to understand the paradoxes and promise of urban agriculture must read the luminous profile of Growing Power’s Will Allen by Elizabeth Royte, online now and forthcoming in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine. I could gush about the elegance of Allen’s farming system or […]
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As GOP politicians take the school-lunch debate to new lows, perk up with berry ice cream
Stick a spork in it: Is this really the best we can do?Photo: bookgrlA few years ago I was asked to serve on the Wellness Committee that was being formed by the Iowa City School District, under a federal mandate to improve the health of school children. Having made lunch every morning for my kids […]
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California is new front line of BPA fight
The following is a guest post submitted by Elisa Odabashian, Director, West Coast Office and State Campaigns, and Dr. Urvashi Rangan, Director of Technical Policy, Consumers Union. It’s the stuff of a good Hollywood movie-a potentially toxic chemical lurking in the bodies of most unwitting Americans; a decade of mounting but scuttled scientific evidence; government […]
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The oil intensity of food
Today we are an oil-based civilization, one that is totally dependent on a resource whose production will soon be falling. Since 1981, the quantity of oil extracted has exceeded new discoveries by an ever-widening margin. In 2008, the world pumped 31 billion barrels of oil but discovered fewer than 9 billion barrels of new oil. […]
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Food Inc. Director Robert Kenner speaks on the ills of the food system
Food Inc. director Robert KennerRobert Kenner never set out to make a terrifying film when he started Food, Inc. But along the way, he found the food industry to be stunningly secretive–and what it’s hiding to be downright scary. The film shines a bright light on the handful of corporations that, behind a cloak of […]
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Three-acre organic farm appears in the middle of New York Harbor
Could. Not. Resist. From NYT’s City Room Blog: The sustainable garden with the most exclusive real estate in Washington is no doubt the one at the White House. The sustainable farm with the most exclusive view in New York City is the one that opened on Governors Island last week. Oh. Yeah. Governors Island is […]
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In which I go toe to toe with H. Clinton’s science czar over GMOs
Seed blinded me with science. The questions were shamelessly loaded: Why do many environmentalists trust science when it comes to climate change but not when it comes to genetic engineering? Is the fear really about the technology itself or is it a mistrust of big agribusiness? When do you plan to stop beating your wife, […]
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Stand up for rural America while you still can
The assault on rural America continues unabated. For the past six months dairy farmers across the country have suffered a historic drop in milk prices while operating costs remain high. Since December 2008, the price that farmers are paid for the milk they produce has plunged over 50 percent, the largest single drop since the […]
