This week’s GreenLinks are about inspiration. Each of the following stories inspired me to believe that we can solve the economic and environmental crises the world is now facing, and they also powerfully prodded me to do what I can to make a difference in my home and community. I hope they inspire you too… 

1. Good news! By significantly slowing deforestation, improving worldwide energy efficiency, and working towards a global renewable energy standard of 20%, we could cut 13 gigatonnes of CO2 emissions a year—and save $14 billion while we do it. Read more at Treehugger >>

2. In a story that just warms the cockles of my heart, this week I read about Ed Shank, a farmer who made the decision to end years of running an industrial confinement operation as the fourth generation owner of The Family Cow farm, and transitioned to an organic, free-range system, modeled heavily on Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm, and Mark McAfee’s Organic Pastures Dairy Co. Read about how this man changed his mind, his heart, and his business (and just might change the world!) at The Complete Patient. >>

3. If you haven’t yet read the New York Times investigative piece about the production practices that give rise to E. coli in industrial beef, it will make you never want to eat feedlot meat again. And that’s a good thing. The story is centered on the plight of Stephanie Smith, a young dance instructor left comatose, near death and now paralyzed from eating a single Cargill hamburger. Read the groundbreaking exposé. >>

This story makes the best case I have ever heard for eating only grass-fed meat produced by small, preferably local, farmers. The Weston A. Price Foundation agrees. Here’s their response to the New York Times piece. >>

4. If you pay any attention to environmental news, it can be so easy to feel discouraged. But a recent Orion Magazine story about a non-profit cooperative called LivingFuture can give you great hope for our ability to solve our environmental problems. At LivingFuture, they are “conceiving a future where life—in all of its biological and cultural potential—is enhanced and advanced by human action.” How’s that for a mission!

Their flagship project is Teal Farm where their approach to everything, including producing food, is created through something called regenerative design. Rather than working to limit the negative effects of human action, Teal Farm demonstrates regenerative systems that mimic, benefit, and take advantage of the ways living systems work. It’s an exciting, hopeful story of a model for how to live well and in harmony with our planet. Read more at Orion. >>

Have an inspired, green week!

Farming and sustainable agriculture are very close to my heart. I’ve spent a lot of my life gardening and homesteading and a good chunk of my career helping city dwellers develop community gardens, farmettes, and rooftop planting systems. So this week, I was really happy to find so many exciting links about the importance of organic farms and local food systems. I hope after reading these articles, you become as committed to your local farmers as we have…

1. Are you sure that slaves didn’t pick the produce that fills your fridge? According to an Alternet article this week, sexual harassment and abuse, non-payment, being forced to drink water from irrigation ditches, having no access to the fresh food harvested for others consumption, constant pesticide exposure, heat-related deaths, 12 to 14 hour work days and child labor are all routine in our agricultural system. And unfortunately, if you think buying organic, locally-raised food from the farmers’ market means that the workers who harvested your food were treated fairly, it’s not necessarily a given. Read more about what you can do for this important social justice issue.

2. If ever there were an argument for buying local, pasture-raised meat from family farms, here’s one: According to ABC News, last Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Protection named poultry the No. 1 source of food-borne outbreaks. And the sector doesn’t exactly have a stellar record when it comes to employee care, either. Seventy-one percent of U.S. contract poultry farmers earn subpoverty-level wages, according to a 2005 report from the United Food and Commercial Workers. So what happened? And why is the chicken industry floundering on all fronts? Read more about industrial, grocery-store chicken.

3. According to Sandor Katz, author of The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved, “There is no way we can consider all the political issues revolving around food we eat without talking about water.” Water is a precious and dwindling resource that desperately needs protection. (See Tuesday’s post called Be Water Wise for info about how you can conserve and protect our water.) Agriculture accounts for the majority of the water humans use. Irrigation systems are often inefficient, with the majority of the water evaporating or running off the field, carrying with it agricultural chemicals into surface water supplies. Irrigation also alters soil conditions, eroding precious topsoil and depositing salts, which accumulate and eventually render the land inhospitable to plant life. To learn more about the world’s water crisis, read this article.

4. Scientists are in agreement that climate change and its effects are well under way, affecting everything from severe weather to sea levels to agriculture. Happily, new research shows that organic farming methods (not using chemical fertilizers or pesticides, hybrid or genetically engineered seeds, etc.) help crops and soil become more resistant  and resilient to systemic shocks like drought, pests and disease. Organic farming is a win-win. Read more at Chelsea Green.

5. September was Local Food Month, and one of my favorite bloggers, Rob Smart over at Every Kitchen Table just finished a family experiment of eating completely locally for a whole week. He had some ups and downs in finding local purveyors for things like flour, and some struggles with his kids, but overall he found many satisfying things about eating local and the impact it can potentially have on the economy and health of one’s community. He chronicled each day and included his menu plans too! Read about his experiment on his blog.

6. One of my heroes, Will Allen of the acclaimed urban agriculture program in Detroit called Growing Power, has committed to “strengthen food security for school children and their care givers in South Africa and Zimbabwe.” Growing Power will help build a new model of local food systems by bringing its community-based, low-input style of agriculture to Africa, where it is sure to have greater impact on food security and local self-reliance than any top-down, Big Ag program ever could. Read more about the innovative project at Grist.org.

7. As a wildcard this week, I stumbled across this funny video at Farmfed about the popular Facebook game Farmville.
The video is called “Facebook versus real life: The questions Farmville doesn’t ask” It’s very cute and I hope it makes you smile…

According to many experts, we are at or very near “Peak Oil“—the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate of production enters terminal decline.

Whether we have reached the peak, or perhaps have another decade or more, one thing is certain: oil is a finite resource that is becoming increasingly expensive to extract, that also costs us dearly in climate, environmental, and human health. The world’s leaders are debating on how to stop this harm this very week.

This weeks’ GreenLinks are about Peak Oil and transitioning from a fossil fuel economy. I hope you are as inspired to make changes in your life as I was.

1. This week, leaders from over 85 countries met at the United Nations to discuss climate change and what we all must do to reduce global warming. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao each vowed urgent action to cool an overheating planet, even as prospects dimmed for a full treaty by the end of the year. Read more about it at the Huffington Post.

2. A great map over at Treehugger shows us that the total area of land and ocean needed to install enough solar and wind power plants to provide energy to the entire world is surprising small. All we need is the political will to make it a priority.

3. Despite the fact that we have the technology to transform our energy systems now, CBS News article called “Living Through the New Energy Crisis” tells us that our transition from a fossil fuel economy to one based on renewable energy is likely to be a bumpy ride. So great is our demand for energy, and so well-entrenched the existing systems for delivering the fuels we consume, that (barring a staggering surprise) we will remain for years to come in a no-man’s-land between the Petroleum Age and an age that will see the great flowering of renewable energy.

4. This week, an Alternet article asks: Would you know how to survive after the oil crash? It’s hard to imagine what our lives would look like if oil was no longer cheap and plentiful. Sure, there will always be some in the ground, but when it becomes too expensive to get it out, there will be big changes afoot.

We depend on oil to get us to the store and to get our food and goods there as well. It’s a huge component of the industrial agriculture model that feeds most of our country. And petroleum is in just about everything we buy—from bubble gum to tires to eyeglasses.

There will be life after cheap oil, at least for many of us, but it will be vastly different from what most Americans are accustomed to. We may crash and burn, or we can aim for something called “creative descent.” This involves teaching people about the coming crisis, retraining them in skills that will be useful and helping communities to be more localized.

This idea has recently spun into a concept called transition towns. The basic premise is for communities to become more self-sufficient, and hence more resilient. This often means more local-food networks, more local energy and water systems and robust community businesses. Transition town groups provide a structure for communities to relocalize. Towns form working groups on issues like energy, food, transportation and local economics. Read more about surviving—even thriving—in a post peak oil world here.

There are many things you can do to reduce your need for fossil fuels: buy locally produced food, carpool, bike or walk, install solar panels, hang your clothes to dry outside, and more…

What are you doing this week to be less dependent on fossil fuels?

Because of my background in sustainable agriculture, I think the choices we make about eating are some of the most powerful means through which we can live our values. I believe the idea of “better living through chemistry” is a myth—particularly when applied to food and health. Food should come from family farms, not from factories.

With that in mind, this week I stumbled onto several great articles that helped to reaffirm some of my dietary choices and to rethink others. I hope you learn as much as I did. 

1. Audubon Magazine had a great article this week on eating meat to save the environment. Sound counterintuitive I know, but perhaps the conventional wisdom about animal foods is only half correct. That’s because much of livestock’s emissions come as a result of dismantling the natural farm system and replacing it with confinement systems (CAFOs). In an industrial CAFO, manure is managed in man-made lagoons, where it produces millions of tons of methane and nitrous oxide every year. On pasture however, cattle can boost soil’s ability to sequester carbon. In fact, highly managed, intensive grazing can shift cattle’s carbon count so dramatically that the animals actually help reduce greenhouse gases significantly. But for these benefits to be realized, we need to choose grass-fed meats whenever we eat meat.

2. An article in Grist this week informed me that not all of the healthy choices I make in my kitchen are environmentally sustainable. Palm oil, while an excellent source of saturated fat for high-heat cooking and baking, is simply terrible for Asian rainforests. The palm oil industry is responsible for burning down vast tracts of the Malaysian and Indonesian rain forest, threatening orangutans and many other important species. Consequently, there will be no more palm oil in my kitchen, nor will I choose packaged foods and personal care products that contain palm oil or palm kernel oil either.

3. Norman Borlaug, father of the “Green Revolution” died this week. While he is often hailed as saving millions in Mexico and India from famine and starvation with his development of hybrid seeds and industrial farming practices, farmer Tom Philpott at Grist has a compelling argument that the short term rewards of industrial farming have cost us enormously in the long run, leading to less food security worldwide than ever before. Check it out.

4. And speaking of farming, can “Slow Money” help remake America’s food industry to be socially and environmentally sustainable? An article in Time Magazine asks this very question. The Slow Money Alliance brings the tenets of the Slow Food movement (buying local) to finance—exploring investment vehicles that re-circulate within the local economy, minimize environmental impact, stress diversity over monoculture, and earn decent returns. The Slow Money Alliance wants to give investors a stake in “restorative economy,” building the food and ecological infrastructure on a community to community basis. This means healthier environments, economies and people!

5. Finally, one of my favorite authors, Michael Pollan, argues in the New York Times Op-Ed this week that our success in bringing health care costs under control ultimately depends on whether Washington can summon the political will to take on and reform a second, even more powerful industry: the food industry. He goes on to state that our government is putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup. It’s a brilliant article that I think everyone would be wise to read.

Have a great, green week!

There is so much gloom and doom environmental news these days, sometimes it’s hard not to feel depressed. So this week, for a mental health pick-me-up, I’ve intentionally searched out good news; stories of positive events and people making a difference. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did! 

1. According to an article in the Washington Post, buying locally-grown food is not only a healthier, more ecological way to shop, but it’s also excellent for the local economy. According to researchers, if people in southeastern Minnesota bought just 15% of their food from local sources, it would generate two-thirds as much income as all the region’s farmers receive from subsidies. And if the population in and around Seattle bought 20% of their food dollars at local businesses, it would inject an extra billion dollars each year into the local economy. So here’s one more good reason to shop at the farmer’s market every week!

2. And speaking of local and sustainable food, I had the honor of guest posting this week at Farm to Table about thirteen ways we can create a sustainable food tipping point. Our current fossil-fuel, chemical and subsidy-dependent food system benefits no one but big agribusiness companies. Some think that if just 5% of consumers refuse to buy products that contain genetically modified organisms or animal foods from confinement operations and instead choose local, organic food and grass-fed animal products, we could tip the scales toward a healthier, more humane and more sustainable food system pretty quickly. But shopping differently is only part of the solution. See what else we can do to turn the tables on industrial, heavy-footprint food.

3. Similarly despite a tough economy, the number of eco-city initiatives popping up lately around the world continues to grow, according to Treehugger. Fascinating and inspiring new eco-friendly development concepts in Abu Dhabi, South Korea, Amsterdam and Belgium promise to be energy independent and carbon neutral, as well as quirky and refreshing in design. Check them out!

4. The current global downturn, the worst since the Great Depression 70 years ago, has pounded the last nail into the coffin of globalization, according to analyst Walden Bello at Foreign Policy in Focus. If corporate bailouts, outsourcing, layoffs, and growing economic and environmental problems make you mad, check out this 11 point plan for deglobalizing the economy and restoring health and sustainability to local communities worldwide.

5. Finally, according to Science Daily, Americans used more solar, biomass and wind energy in 2008 than they did in 2007. The nation used less coal and petroleum during the same time frame and only slightly increased its natural gas consumption. The estimated U.S. energy use in 2008 equaled 99.2 quadrillion BTUs (“quads”), down from 101.5 quadrillion BTUs in 2007. Can you believe it, we actually saved energy! Keep up the good work America. We can make a difference!

Have a great, green week!

It’s been a busy week in the world of eco-friendly living, and choosing just a few links out of the dozens of great, breaking stories on environmental health, sustainable agriculture and nutrition has been challenging to say the least. Here are a few that I thought were too important to go unnoticed… 

1. Last week, I posted on how America’s carb addiction is causing our epidemics of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and more. If you needed any more reasons to quit eating 6-11 servings of processed grains and corn syrup every day, this week researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah have uncovered new information on the notion that sugar “feeds” cancer tumors.

2. This week the Environmental News Service tells us that 1 in 3 women have significant levels of inorganic mercury in their bloodstreams. The study also cites research that has found chronic mercury exposure associated with elevated risks for autism, mental impairment and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease—all of which are expected to increase overall in the population over time.

Yikes! Is there any better argument for transitioning away from the fossil fuel economy as quickly as possible?

3. Fortunately, until we finally abandon coal power plants and eliminate the main source of mercury poisoning, there are a few ways to help chelate mercury and other heavy metals from your body using special foods and supplements. An article over at Natural News describes how.

4. A report in the UK Times reveals that energy efficiency for the First World comes at a high cost for factory workers in China, with high rates of mercury poisoning being reported among employees in the plants that make compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Surely we can find an energy-efficient way to light our homes that doesn’t require evacuating a room if the bulb breaks?!

5. And speaking of China, here’s some good news for all of us: An outstanding article over at Alternet describes how China ended its dependence on food aid, almost overnight, and became the world’s third largest food aid donor. Their success holds a key to food sustainability and security as the human population grows.

And guess what, they did it by dismantling large-scale, industrial farms!

6. And to inspire you through the rest of the week, The Good Human recently posted a very uplifting Ten Commandments of Mother Earth.

Have a great, green week!

This week was more positive for environmental and health news fortunately. Here are some interesting highlights: 

1. Two weeks ago, I posted on preventing osteoporosis with nutrition, and to follow up, this week an article at Natural Health News came out touting strontium as more important than calcium in preventing bone loss and fractures. This is exciting news for people facing this disease, as strontium is easy to supplement!

2. Also this week, a great article at Grist by Eliot Coleman (one of the most revered and influential small-scale farmers in the U.S.), debunks the meat/climate change myth, making the case that in many areas of the country (and the world), it is more sustainable to eat a local diet with pasture-raised meat and dairy where properly grazed ruminants can actually help sequester carbon and build topsoil. The culprit, he states, is not meat eating but rather the excesses of corporate/industrial agriculture. This one is a must-read!

3. And speaking of local diets, Millfield, Ohio residents Brandon Jaeger and Michelle Ajamian are pioneering a local food system based on a traditional idea: staple foods like grains and beans should be processed, milled and consumed in the same area in which they are grown. Ajamian and Jaeger believe that staple food crops—and a local facility that can process and store them—are the missing pieces in the local food economy puzzle. Their project is now known as the Appalachian Staple Foods Collaborative.

4. According to TreeHugger, the latest green stimulus package to come out of the White House is good news for those of you who still have an avocado-green fridge in your kitchen. Planned for this fall, the Obama administration will allot $300 million dollars to states to provide incentives for residents to buy Energy Star-approved goods like washing machines, refrigerators, and other appliances. Don’t miss out!

5. When you can buy a solar-powered bikini that will charge your iPod, it would seem that the tipping point for green living is here. A whimsical article at Alternet tells us about the 8 weirdest ways to go green. I laughed out loud and I think you might too.

Have a Great, Green Week!

It seems the more people wake up to environmental sustainability, holistic health, and whole food nutrition, the stronger the backlash from corporate interests. But the rising tide of interest in a more sustainable, nourishing way of life will not be contained. In that spirit, here are this week’s Green Links: 

1. In case you haven’t heard the reports, The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is recommending cholesterol screening for kids as young as two if there are weight issues or a family history of heart attacks or high cholesterol.

And if the kids have high cholesterol levels? Medicate! According to the New York Times, “Proponents say there is growing evidence that the first signs of heart disease show up in childhood.” And: “For some children, cholesterol-lowering drugs, called statins, may be their best hope of lowering their risk of early heart attack, proponents said.” Just exactly who are these “proponents?”

It would seem Big Pharma wants to market their best-selling drug with horrible, lingering side effects to our children now. Hello? When is the mainstream going to accept the overwhelming scientific evidence that foods containing cholesterol and saturated fat DO NOT cause heart disease! In fact most of the grey matter in our brains is made of cholesterol, and kids—more than anyone else—need plenty of cholesterol to help their growing, learning minds. Read The Great Cholesterol Con for a complete overview of the overwhelming scientific data that cholesterol and saturated fats in our food are NOT bad for us. Or read this article, listen to this radio show, or watch this movie for similar information.

The real culprit in our fight against heart disease, obesity and cancer is corn and soybeans and the Omega 6 fatty acids they contain that make up the majority of our diet. Read the latest news about this from Prevention Magazine here.

2. And speaking of healthy eating, this week, Amelia Hill at The Guardian Observer out of London tells us that fixation with healthy eating can be a sign of a serious psychological disorder. It would seem that orthorexia nervosa is a grave new eating disorder characterized by refusing to touch sugar, table salt, caffeine, alcohol, wheat, gluten, yeast, soy, corn, animal or dairy foods, among other foods deemed “taboo” by those with the disorder. Any foods that have come into contact with pesticides, herbicides or contain artificial additives are also out.

Sufferers of this horrible affliction tend to be “middle-class, well-educated people who read about food scares in the papers, research them on the internet, and have the time and money to source what they believe to be purer alternatives.”

Wow, so now those of us who have celiac disease or other food allergies, or who are trying to eat a healthy, eco-friendly, humane, whole foods diet, or who want to avoid the hundreds of toxic chemicals added to our foods have a MENTAL DISORDER? Amazing. (Never mind that the author severely misrepresented the true symptoms of orthorexia nervosa.)

Please write to Ms. Hill and tell her exactly where she can put her eating disorder at letters@observer.co.uk.

3. You’ve probably heard about the recent British FSA (Food Standards Agency) study that challenges the superiority of organic foods to their conventional counterparts. If you’re like me, your immediate reaction was probably “bullpucky,” and you’ve no doubt been patiently waiting for the real story. This week, The Organic Center responds brilliantly to the FSA study by noting that the FSA drew conclusions about organic food that are NOT supported by their data:

“Despite the fact that three categories of nutrients favored organic foods, and none favored conventionally grown foods, the London-based team concluded that there are no nutritional differences between organically and conventionally grown crops.”

A team of scientists convened by The Organic Center (TOC) carried out a similar, but more rigorous, review of the same literature. The TOC team analyzed published research just on plant-based foods. Results differ significantly from the more narrow FSA review and are reported in the study “New Evidence Confirms the Nutritional Superiority of Plant-Based Organic Foods.”

Apparently, even according to the FSA study itself, organic food IS indeed MORE nutritious than conventional food, and the report we heard last week is just another attempt to discredit the growing demand for organic, sustainable, toxin-free food.

Give it up, Big Agra, the tipping point is almost here, and you can’t stop it.

4. And speaking of tipping points, this eloquent preface to a new book called Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization by Lester R. Brown at the Earth Policy Institute explains that “we are in a race between tipping points in nature and our political systems. Can we phase out coal-fired power plants before the melting of the Greenland ice sheet becomes irreversible? Can we gather the political will to halt deforestation in the Amazon before its growing vulnerability to fire takes it to the point of no return? Can we help countries stabilize population before they become failing states?”

Plan B 3.0 outlines a survival strategy for our early twenty-first-century civilization. Brown explains, “We have the technologies to restore the earth’s natural support systems, to eradicate poverty, to stabilize population, and to restructure the world energy economy and stabilize climate. The challenge now is to build the political will to do so. Saving civilization is not a spectator sport. Each of us has a leading role to play.”

Indeed.

What role will you play this week to help create a more sustainable future for your family?

Here’s a video to inspire you…