Climate Food and Agriculture

Umbra on the environmental impacts of soy

Dear Umbra, I’m interested in learning more about the treatment and genetic modification of soy and how prevalent this is. I think a lot of folks choose products such as soy milk because they think they are making a better choice for the earth, as well as themselves. I think this is an overlapping issue […]

More windmill tilting from PETA

Do you ever feel a slight twinge of guilt when digging into a plate of baked salmon, envisioning the poor fish frolicking with its family and thinking deep thoughts?  Yeah, me neither.  But PETA hopes to change that.  Their "Fishing Empathy" (seriously) campaign kicked off yesterday. It's built around convincing folks that fish are more intelligent than we thought (based on several recent studies).  "No one would ever put a hook  through a dog's or cat's mouth. Once people start to understand that fish, although they come in different packaging, are just as intelligent, they'll stop eating them," says PETA's Bruce Friedrich with that characteristic PETA blend of earnestness, hope, and slight creepiness.

Reception thus far has been, shall we say, skeptical.

Scrap Happy

San Francisco food-composting program is a hit In 1996, a company called Norcal Waste found that 19 percent of landfill matter in San Francisco consisted of discarded food scraps — and it sensed a market opportunity. Now the city boasts a popular and growing composting program, with discarded food collected and processed into organically certified […]

Now That’s a Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Pumpkins found to absorb pesticides from soil Pumpkins are not only good for jack-o’-lanterns, pie, and carrying Cinderella home — they are also extremely effective at drawing persistent organic pollutants like the toxic pesticide DDT out of soil, according to a new study by Canadian researchers. They tested rye grass, tall fescue, alfalfa, zucchini, and […]

Fish ‘n’ Chicks

Study finds excessive mercury in 20 percent of women of childbearing age A new Greenpeace-commissioned study on the correlation between fish consumption and levels of mercury in the body has produced interim results, and they may cause you to think twice about your next order of a tuna-salad sandwich. The study analyzed hair samples sent […]

We Take Our Coffee Green

Central American coffee industry rebounds by going green A global surplus of coffee five years ago sent the Central American coffee industry into a tailspin, but it is gradually recovering by focusing on high-quality beans — which in many cases means organically grown. In that rarest of things, a genuine win-win situation, the industry is […]

Dairy Err

Millions in California anti-pollution money went to, uh, pollution Almost $70 million in California state bond money designated to fund industry pollution-reducing measures has gone to fund the expansion of polluting mega-dairies in the San Joaquin Valley, the nation’s most polluted air basin. In each case, the Pollution Control Financing Authority approved tax-exempt, low-interest loans […]

Let a Thousand Species Bloom

Organic farming increases biodiversity, research indicates According to the largest review yet done of studies comparing organic to conventional agriculture, organic farming increases biodiversity at every level, from bacteria to birds to mammals. The two groups that conducted the reviews — English Nature, a government group, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds […]

Umbra on the eco-relevance of health concerns

Dear Umbra, As a practicing vegan for quite some time now, I take pride in my knowledge of nutrition and my ability to enrich my body through a varied diet with all the essentials. For the past five years or so, I have heavily relied on soy products for protein and other nutrients. Recently, however, […]

Indelicacies

Chinese appetite for exotic foods driving trade in endangered species Many Chinese believe that wild game improves health. Whether or not that’s true, the country’s enormous market for rare and exotic “delicacies” is not improving the health of endangered species. “Just in the last two years, 12 to 13 species have had to be CITES-listed […]