How Eating Fruits and Vegetables Can Help The Planet

Eat More Vegetables

What comes to mind when you think of sustainable food production? If you’re like many Americans, you probably picture a local farmer’s market, celebrity-branded salad dressing or an organic farmer growing heirloom lettuces and free-range chickens. Now, what comes to mind when you think of industrial food production? Do you envision acres of conventionally grown corn stretching as far as the eye can see? Giant feed lots? Factories that process food into “center aisle” products for the supermarket? When we think about sustainable food production, most people don’t think about solutions coming from Big Business. Yet corporations have the potential to become our biggest ally in meeting SDG 12, the sustainability development goal set forth by the United Nations to ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns by 2030. Here’s why Our need to eat poses serious threats to the natural systems that sustain us. Whether it’s small and organic or large and conventional, farming of both livestock and crops already uses up nearly 40 percent of Earth’s non-ice surface and is responsible for 14 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions — more if you count the GHG emissions caused by deforestation, which has largely been driven by agricultural expansion. Agriculture also […]

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Behind The Label: A Blueprint for Safer Products for Consumers

Safer Chemicals Fasttrack

Shampoo. Nail polish. Sofas in the halls of Congress. All have been the subject of recent stories about the hidden dangers to our health in products we buy and use. Governments around the world are stepping up actions to better protect their citizens. Here in the United States, Congress is finally poised to strengthen the Environmental Protection Agency’s chemical safety authority. But improved government oversight is only part of the solution. Companies along the retail supply chain must also make it their mission to create products that are safer for consumers. To put it simply: We need companies to revolutionize how business is done. We need them to get Behind the Label. We began our crusade for safer chemicals in the marketplace by partnering with the largest retailer in the world, Walmart, a few years back. It prompted the company to announce a new policy in September 2013 for chemicals in its household and personal care products that will transform the world’s largest retailer – and its vast supply chain. But Walmart is, despite its size, only one piece of the global retail industry. We won’t get the revolution consumers deserve unless the majority of retailers and product manufacturers everywhere adopt safer chemicals policies and practices. We […]

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The Latest Threat to Bees Stops Them From Smelling the Flowers

Bee-Ozone

New research finds that as climate change increases ozone levels, pollinators will have a harder timing finding plants that feed them. A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, but a rose after climate change may not smell much at all. That’s going to be a problem for the bees that pollinate a third of the world’s food supply, according to new research. Flowers and other plants rely on microscopic scent molecules to attract the bees and other pollinators that feed on them. Climate change is going to disrupt that process, mostly because of ground-level ozone, which is projected to increase over the coming decades. The research, published in the journal New Phytologist, found that flowers’ fragile scent molecules break down more quickly as they are exposed to greater levels of ozone. “Ozone is a highly reactive pollutant that enhances the degradation of all plant volatiles in general, reducing their lifetimes,” said the study’s lead author, Gerard Farré-Armengol of the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry in Barcelona, Spain. Increasing ozone levels will make flowers less attractive to pollinators because the plants won’t maintain their scent for as long or over as great a distance, a change that […]

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Enough of Us vs. Them

belief-disbelief

Hello Open Minded One That Can See the Forest for the Trees, There is nothing more disruptive to the progress of the green movement than separating the so-called good guys (environmentalists, activists, green businesses, etc.) from the bad guys (corporations, capitalists, conservatives, etc.). After over a decade of being entrenched in green marketing and environmental work, I have seen enough barbs thrown at “them” – and where did that get us? As polarized as our government, that’s where. I must confess I too took shots in the early days. But like a one-night stand, it feels good in the moment, but leaves you empty in the morning. The truth is we’re all in this together. We all breathe the same air. We all want our children to be happy and healthy. Why can’t we start there? Why can’t we come from the premise that we are one human family? Sounds too lofty? Not really… The last few years, I have had the unique experience of consulting with a corporation some love to hate. What I found out is there are deeply devoted people inside working hard for the environment in every way they can. Go figure? Nelson Mandela once said, “If […]

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HABITAT: Exploring Climate Change Through the Arts

516 ARTS: HABITAT

516 ARTS in Albuquerque, NM, is organizing a collaborative season of public programming in the fall of 2015 that explores climate change through the arts to create a platform for education and dialogue. The public programs for HABITAT: Exploring Climate Change Through the Arts will include: a series of exhibitions at 516 ARTS; the popular Downtown Block Party; special events with guest speakers; film screenings; and youth programs. Climate change is an urgent issue of both global and local concern. The Southwest can be considered one of the most “climate-challenged” regions of North America, with rising annual temperature averages, declining water supplies, and reduced agricultural yields. In New Mexico we’ve already seen destabilized and unpredictable weather patterns, water sources going dry, forests not recovering from fire, loss of urban trees, and crop failures. Public programs for HABITAT strive to raise awareness about these issues by taking an innovative approach to engaging with social and environmental change, and by bringing the community together to focus on sustainability. 516 ARTS will present a series of speakers to address the issues around climate change from both the science and art perspectives.  Speakers include renowned artist Mel Chin, who is currently working on a project about […]

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Why It Matters That GMO and Organic Foods Share This Secret

GMO scientist paid to promote

Scientists and industry professionals are often called in to offer their expertise on various causes and products. And while practically all specialists can agree on some topics—such as climate change or the efficacy of a brand of toothpaste—there’s no clear consensus about the safety of GMO foods, which have been genetically altered to contain more nutrients or resist diseases.

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Your Next United Flight Might Be Powered By Farm Waste

United Airlines Eco-Skies

Travelers from Los Angeles to San Francisco will have a lower carbon footprint this fall. Many other flights could soon follow. If you happen to get on a United flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco this fall, you might be traveling on leftovers from the farm. The airline will be the first in the country to start flying regular passenger flights on alternative jet fuel—in the case, made from a mix of non-edible oils and agricultural waste blended with traditional fuel. “We believe that one of our greatest opportunities to reduce the aviation industry’s environmental footprint is through sustainable alternative fuels,” says Angela Foster-Rice, United’s managing director for environmental affairs and sustainability. United flew the first biofuel test flight in the U.S. in 2009 (using algae), and the first commercial flight in 2011. The company signed an agreement with AltAir Fuels—the company supplying the new fuel to LAX—six years ago. But it’s only now that the biofuel industry is beginning to get to the point to supply regular flights. The challenges of scaling up have involved the cost alternative fuel feedstock and raising sufficient capital investments, Foster-Rice says. Over the next three years, United plans to buy 15 million […]

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Changing the Climate of Climate Talk

Climate Change Marchers

During a poetry reading in Missoula, MT, a Vietnam combat veteran reminded his audience that he and other veterans returned not to waves of gratitude, but to a line of protesters calling for peace. He spoke of being a child during the war as he introduced his poem, “I Think I Died In Vietnam.” By its nature, standing a line is combative. Any statement for something is also a statement against something. On the heels now of the largest climate march to date, 310,000 people gathered in the streets of New York City September 21, 2014, we begin a wave of actions with the potential to change the global course from disaster to harmony. Unless all of us work together, this wave will not continue to flow and disharmony will reveal itself as the prevailing chord. As I think of this Vietnam veteran and my own father who served as a surgeon in that war, I, too, consider men who have spent the majority of their lives building businesses in an air of cut-throat competition, my son’s paternal grandfather included. I want compassion for all of them. Man, each in his own way, has slaved to provide for many while protecting those […]

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Going Green: More Than Shopping at Whole Foods and Driving a Prius?

We Stock The Hood Wi Good

As environmentalism goes mainstream, corporations are marketing the word “green” as a panacea for the world’s climate crisis. Today the word describes a set of prescribed, mostly consumerist actions: buy local, organic and fresh; go vegan; eat in season; skip the elevator, take the stairs. “Green” has come to mean shopping at Whole Foods and possessing a Prius.

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The Year of the Cricket? These 3 Young Women Entrepreneurs Think So

Six Foods Founders

A growing number of start-ups are finding an expanding market for an unlikely new protein. But is mainstream America finally ready for the six-legged food revolution?

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