Climate Crisis On Our Plates
While speaking up for policy reform, individuals can help provide market demand for climate-friendly foods by following the principles of a climate-friendly diet, writes Anna Lappé. [...more]
While speaking up for policy reform, individuals can help provide market demand for climate-friendly foods by following the principles of a climate-friendly diet, writes Anna Lappé. [...more]
The entire electric utility industry spent more than $264 million on lobbying alone in 2009 and the first half of 2010. Oil and gas interests spent a record $175 million lobbying in 2009 a 30 percent increase from 2008 and have spent $75 million already in 2010. The oil, gas, and coal industries have spent over $2 billion lobbying Congress since 1999 [...more]
The collapse of the talks at Copenhagen took away all momentum for change and the lobbyists are back in control. So what next? [...more]
Everything from our food systems, water sources, oceans and deserts is negatively influenced by our obsession with mining, transporting and burning carbon-based fossil fuels. [...more]
A new study says the seas are acidifying ten times faster today than 55 million years ago when a mass extinction of marine species occurred. And, the study concludes, current changes in ocean chemistry due to the burning of fossil fuels may portend a new wave of die-offs. [...more]
It was the pivotal international conference of the new century. Tens of thousands showed up, including heads of state, officials at all levels of government, representatives of environmental organizations, and ordinary citizens from nearly 200 countries. Scientists had warned that, without a strong agreement to reduce carbon emissions, the consequences for civilization and the world's ecosystems would be cataclysmic. [...more]
I gave a talk in South Texas recently on the environmental virtues of a vegetarian diet. As you might imagine, the reception was chilly. In fact, the only applause came during the Q&A period when a member of the audience said that my lecture made him want to go out and eat even more meat. "Plus," he added, "what I eat is my business -- it's personal." [...more]
We can join Bill McKibben on Oct. 24 in nationwide protests over rising carbon emissions. We can cut our consumption of fossil fuels. We can use less water. We can banish plastic bags. We can install compact fluorescent light bulbs. We can compost in our backyard. But unless we dismantle the corporate state, all those actions will be just as ineffective as the Ghost Dance shirts donned by native American warriors to protect themselves from the bullets of white soldiers at Wounded Knee. [...more]
The state of our environment has gotten so bad, that if you’re paying attention and have a bone of compassion in your body, it’s more than a little disturbing. A lump of trash is floating in the water near the North Pole twice the size of France; it’s about 33 feet deep. Landfills around the world are overloaded. "First world" trash is shipped to "third world" countries and people living near the dump sites are getting sick. Even our healthy foods have become nutrient deplete because of improperly cared for soils, and all while literally millions of pounds of pesticides are dumped onto the land daily. [...more]
As the frozen soil in the Arctic thaws, bacteria will break down organic matter, releasing long-stored carbon into the warming atmosphere. [...more]