economic crisis

Why deficit hysteria isn’t good for food-system reform

The Beltway has been overcome by a wave of deficit hysteria. That may spell doom for farm subsidies -- but it can only hurt the effort to reform the food system.

Tom Philpott Politics

Anatomy of a Senate climate bill death

Ryan Lizza's recent New Yorker piece provides an interesting insider view of the rise and fall of climate legislation in the Senate. But Lizza gives short shrift to the real reasons Senate passage of climate legislation was impossible in 2010: the deep recession, unified and uncompromising opposition in the Senate, and big spending by oil, coal, and other energy interests. Let's take a close look at these factors.

Daniel J. Weiss Politics

The fate of mass transit in an age of deficit hysteria

As deficit hysteria mounts, the bad economy is derailing what little green infrastructure we have. Now it's really time for greens to get active in the economic-policy debate, or risk being stuck with outdated technologies like the car.

Tom Philpott Politics

Feed the economy, or starve it? The answer’s clear.

Photo: greenforall.orgIn economic-policy circles, a debate rages around what medicine might cure the ailing economy. The topic doesn’t draw much attention in environmental media, but I would argue that the direction of economic policy is at least as important as the hopelessly vexed question of energy policy. Before I get to the green implications, let’s […]

Tom Philpott Technology

Thoughts on Pollan’s food-movement essay

I want to add a few thoughts on the significance of Michael Pollan’s recent essay in The New York Review of Books to Bonnie Powell’s summary. Pollan posits the existence of a social movement geared to transforming the food system. He emphasizes that it’s loose, internally conflicted, and nascent — but all the same, “one […]

Tom Philpott Food

Dmitry Orlov on why the U.S. is headed toward Soviet-style collapse

Dmitry Orlov“Really, there’s no one at the helm now,” Dmitry Orlov says nonchalantly. We are talking about the economic crisis and the way that the destructive system of our economy operates without anyone really leading it. It’s a perfect statement from a man who has traded in his house and car to live on a […]

Andrée Collier Cities

A Cleveland mall turns lost retail space into farm stand

Photo: Fast CompanyShopping malls, those bastions of American consumerism, have not been immune to the recent economic downturn. In a recent piece by our own Greg Lindsay, we looked at the impending decline of the mall, which is part of the “single-use environment” category of real estate development that will slowly disappear over the next […]

Fast Company Culture

From dominant Monsanto to ‘innovative Med-American,’ tasty morsels from around the web

When my info-larder gets too packed, it’s time to serve up some choice nuggets from around the Web. —————- Get ’em while they’re hot. • NPR delivers a blunt report on Monsanto’s dominant position in the seed industry, complete with farmers complaining about monopoly pricing. With this sort of straight talk in mainstream media, one […]