Are you stumped by which has a lower carbon footprint: chemically grown Washington apples or organic New Zealand Fujis? Do you wonder which is worse for the climate: processed soy or pastured beef?
The abundance of our choices ~ including year-round availability of food from around the globe ~ depends entirely on a steady supply of fossil fuels. The concept of Food Miles has brought needed attention to the carbon footprint of the American meal. But food miles alone cannot provide the complete picture of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with what we eat.
Fossil fuel inputs, and therefore carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, exist in all stages of food production and distribution ~ from plowing and fertilizing fields to processing and packaging the food ~ and every phase of transportation, from the field to the consumer’s home. To paraphrase author Michael Pollan, our food is marinated in crude oil by the time it reaches our table.
According to the EPA, agriculture accounts for a whopping 7 percent of total GHG emissions in the United States, primarily nitrous oxide from fertilizers and methane from livestock. This figure does not account for the CO2 emissions from food-related transportation, manufacturing, storage and cooking mentioned above.
The good news is that there are choices we can make to reduce our climate impact. One primary way to reduce our carbon footprint is to reduce the oil from our diet. Perhaps trickier is to limit the other diet-related greenhouse gases.
But how do we distinguish which food choices have a lower greenhouse gas impact? And how do we balance these considerations with convenience, cultural tastes, nutritional needs and the pleasure of eating? While the answers are not all straightforward, arming yourself with a framework to make decisions can alleviate some food shopping dilemmas.
GO ORGANIC
Organic farming is a powerful tool in the fight against global warming, according to findings of the Rodale Institute’s Farming Systems Trial (FST) that began in 1981. In collaboration with Dr. David Pimentel of Cornell University, the FST found that organic farming systems have the potential to use 30 to 50 percent less energy than non-organic farming systems.
Additionally, results from the long-term FST conclude that organic cover-crop agriculture is a better “carbon sink” than non-organic agriculture. It better absorbs and sequesters natural carbon emissions from decaying matter in the soil, holding more carbon deeper than non-organically managed farmland.
USDA researcher David Doubs, Ph.D., found that this difference is due to the fact that organic matter decays more slowly in organically managed soil, in part because organic soil has more microbial activity ~ key to carbon sequestration.
Finally, non-organic farms generally rely on synthetic fossil fuel-based pesticides, fertilizers and herbicides, which require additional energy to manufacture, ship and apply. Organic farms, on the other hand, rely more on beneficial insects to control pests and on manual labor for weeds.
EATING WITH THE SEASONS
Typically, eating locally grown foods in season can trim your GHG emissions while also supporting local farmers and your community’s food security and offering flavor-packed meals.
Enjoy fresh asparagus in the spring and eggplants in summer to cut carbon. Tomatoes that appear in the dead of winter either traveled from outside our region or grew in a hothouse, both of which require additional fuel inputs. In the case of the hothouse, fossil fuels probably were used for plastic covering and heat.
During winter, many Pacific Northwest markets offer a variety of locally grown produce including winter greens, leeks, hard squashes, potatoes, onions, apples, pears and highly nutritious root vegetables.
PLANES, TRAINS AND TRUCKS
In 2001, the Leopold Center produced a seminal report showing that “food miles” ~ the average distance food traveled from where it’s grown to where it’s purchased ~ were increasing across America. The term “food miles” now is part of the national lexicon, reflecting concern about the pollution caused by flying, trucking and shipping food around the globe.
The challenge is that lower food miles don’t always translate into lower carbon emissions. Recent studies reveal that the difference in emissions between modes of transport can be staggering. A 2006 study by the Stockholm Consumer’s Association showed that transporting broccoli 12,000 kilometers from Ecuador to Sweden by boat produced only 40 percent of the GHG emissions of trucking broccoli 3,200 kilometers across Europe from Spain.
Air freight has the highest carbon emissions of any form of transport. It can generate up to 177 times the emissions of shipping, according to the U.K. Soil Association, which has launched a major campaign against airfreighted food products.
These studies reflect the importance of considering the mode of transport together with food miles in buying decisions.
SUSTAINABLE MEAT
Livestock production is responsible for 18 percent of the world’s human-caused GHG emissions, according to a report by the United Nations. The CO2 portion of these emissions derives from deforestation and other land-use changes for grazing and feed production, as well as from fossil fuels used to refrigerate, transport and fertilize crops for feed production.
There are plenty of ways to make our livestock production systems less GHG intensive through feeding, farming, transportation and processing practices. For example, pastured animals digest their food better and therefore produce fewer methane emissions.
Recent studies from Lincoln University found that, for the British, importing dairy products and pasture-raised lamb from New Zealand produces fewer CO2 emissions than consuming dairy and lamb raised on a concentrated diet in English feedlots.
Fertilizers for producing livestock feed crops also result in nitrous oxide emissions, while poor digestion from eating an unnatural diet causes even more gas (including burping), accounting for 35 to 40 percent of global emissions of methane ~ a greenhouse gas that’s 21 times more potent than CO2. Livestock overall add about 80 percent of agriculture’s total contribution to GHG and more than 50 percent of the emissions from land-use changes.
For the consumer, by simply decreasing the amount of meat in our diets from 35 percent of calories to 20 percent, we can have the same impact on personal GHG emissions as switching from driving a Camry to a Prius hybrid, according to researchers Eshel and Martin at the University of Chicago.
Nutritionists already advise that three ounces of meat is the recommended portion for health, far less than what is typical in the American diet. Adjusting our diets would be good for personal health as well as the planet!
The Chicago study showed also that a fish-based diet is second only to a red meat-based diet in creating GHG emissions. Diets that include chicken and diets that derive protein from dairy and eggs tie for third ~ but only when a non-meat diet includes the same number of calories from animal products, such as cheese, yogurt, milk, butter and eggs. (A vegetarian diet generally is more energy efficient and lower in GHG emissions since fewer calories come from animal products.)
The authors conclude that if the entire country switched to a plant-based diet, that alone could trim our national GHG emissions by 6 percent.
WHOLE NUTRIENTS
According to a life-cycle assessment of the food system by the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan, 23 percent of the energy used in the U.S. food system is for processing and packaging. Foods in their whole, natural form embody less of the energy and emissions associated with manufacturing, packaging and transportation between farms, processing plants and retailers.
Moreover, processed foods often are high in sodium and sugars, so choosing fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes offers health benefits along with trimming your GHG emissions.
Home energy and growing your own food
In the comfort of your own home, 30 percent of the energy in the U.S. food supply is used for refrigeration, cooking and dishwashing. Refrigerators tend to use more energy than any other household appliance. Find out how efficient your fridge is at www.homeenergy.org/consumerinfo/refriger
Purchase renewable energy from your utility, or install solar hot water or electricity at home to eliminate emissions from all your home energy use.
Biking, walking, using public transportation, or combining trips to get your groceries trims your transportation emissions.
Finally, growing your own food can eliminate transportation, manufacturing and packaging emissions.
WASTE versus COMPOST
About 4,000 calories of food are produced per U.S. resident per day, despite recommendations that we eat closer to 2,000 daily calories. That extra food ends up in landfills and on our ballooning waistlines. Reducing waste cuts out the life-cycle emissions embodied in those wilted greens that get tossed at the end of the week!
If the greens have to go, composting them will reduce their end-of-life emissions. The reason is that when organic matter decomposes aerobically in a compost pile, it releases CO2 rather than the methane released when organic matter decomposes in landfills without oxygen. Home composting also reduces emissions from transporting waste, frees up space in the landfill, and may save you money if you can decrease your trash services.
Finally, finished compost provides great fertilizer for garden beds instead of petroleum-based fertilizers. For apartment dwellers, indoor worm bins provide many of the same benefits.
SETTING A LOW-CARBON TABLE
Growing concern about climate change has spurred greater awareness of how personal choice and consumption make a difference in lowering global carbon emissions. Every product we consume has a “carbon footprint” ~ the emissions resulting from a product’s life cycle, including production, distribution and consumption.
The supermarket is one place where conscientious consumers are taking on the challenge to make “low-carbon” buying decisions. There are many choices that can reduce the carbon footprint of our diets.
We don’t have to compromise taste, nutrition and, most of all, the pleasure of eating. Trading a little convenience now for an inconvenient truth later may be the equation to consider.
by Natalie Reitman-White and Sarah Mazze
book: In Defense of Food; by Michael Pollan
~~~~~
GANDHI: EAT LOCAL ORGANIC FOOD AND ABATE GLOBAL STARVATION
How the environment and eating (Local Organic Food) is linked to Gandhi's ideology for transforming the world. Many links.
June 5, observed annually as World Environment Day, turns the spotlight on issues like deforestation, pollution, climate change and global warming, but these discussions seldom make a connection with Gandhian ideology which offers a simple but powerful answer to the environmental ills that beset the earth today. Now validation of what Bapuji advocated, comes from an unlikely source -- the Worldwatch Institute, a research organization based in the USA.
Although Gandhi is remembered for his espousal of non-violence as an effective strategy for conflict resolution, his philosophy covered a much wider canvas and included a vision of development based on small, self-sufficient communities that grew their own food, in a sustainable model with decision-making vested at the grassroots level. The same idea of local self-sufficiency, particularly in food, is the central theme of the Worldwatch Institute's publication titled "Eat Here", which describes the enormous environmental price that modern societies pay, in terms of transport costs (and the pollution that millions of trucks and lorries cause, leading to widespread increases in respiratory illnesses around the world), the tons of chemical preservatives that get added to food products to prevent spoilage in transit across long distances, and the health costs that the community ends up paying under this global supermarket pattern of development.
Only 6 per cent of what one pays for a supermarket loaf of bread, Eat Here points out, goes to the farmer who actually grows the wheat.The rest goes into the pockets of middlemen, transporters, and oil companies. It is the same with perishable fruit and vegetables hauled over long distances. No wonder farmers, who feed the country, remain impoverished and contemplate suicide, while mammoth agribusiness corporations rake in earnings greater than the GDPs of some nations.
It is considered an 'improvement in the quality of life' if a community can enjoy out-of-season fruit or exotic vegetables imported from thousands of miles away, but what about the costs involved in packaging, refrigeration, the huge amounts of waste and pollution? Who pays? Also, if the availability of Washington apples (or Australian butter) in Bangalore is construed as 'progress', what about accountability when problems arise? An outbreak of mad cow disease saw millions of cows being burnt on massive pyres in England recently (causing dioxin scares from the smoke) and the slaughter of millions of chicken worldwide in the wake of a fear of bird flu. When food comes from far, it becomes impossible to trace the trouble spot in the long chain from producer to importer to retailer to buyer. Whereas, with food grown locally, consumers know what they get, where it was produced, with what inputs, and who sold it. The supermarket model of food retailing defaults on accountability and dehumanizes the community links between buyer and producer. The non-quantifiable costs are huge.
No wonder then, that initiatives for small community level food production and sales, are growing all over the West, as part of a "healthy, holistic model of living'. "The food tastes fresher, it is tastier, there is less processing and less of additives, and less chance of contamination between farm and plate, so it is healthier," say members of this growing movement for 'eating local'. It is described as "food democracy" (because there is less dependence on huge companies that can dictate monopolistic terms, to suppliers as well as buyers) and a movement against "culinary imperialism" (protesting against mass promotion of invariant fast food items that over-ride the attractions and advantages of local, culture-related eating traditions in the name of 'novelty' or 'modernity' especially in the developing countries).
Gandhi's protest was against another kind of imperialism, but his ideology encompassed a pattern of local self-sufficiency that is exactly what members of the 'local foods' movement in Europe and USA are promoting. Some of the shelf food is actually described by these groups as "embalmed food", because of the enormous amounts of synthetic chemicals that go into them.
Food trucks account for 40 per cent of road freight in the UK. In the US, food travels on average 2,400 km from farm to plate. That calls for enormous amounts of oil for transport - and oil becomes the reason for even going to war, because without oil the nation starves. Under the Gandhian model of local self-sufficiency, not only is dependence on extraneous factors (oil imports) reduced, the costs too get reduced. Imported foods, Eat Here estimates, costs four times as much as local food if the environmental costs are added. There are also the additional bonuses of better human relations within the community, cultural cohesiveness, and the dignity of individuals that comes with self-reliance that Gandhi valued so highly.
From consumer activist Ralph Nader, to the president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in the US, and professors of bio-ethics and nutrition at Princeton and Columbia, praise for Eat Here's focus on 'reclaiming homegrown pleasures in a global supermarket' has flown instintedly from different quarters of the West. Farmers' markets are burgeoning, and even American school cafeterias are choosing locally grown foods. While we, in the developing countries, scurry to adopt the dehumanized, cost-ridden, environmentally unsound models of supermarket retailing of food, in the name of 'progress'.
~~~~~
LOCAL ORGANIC CONSUMER
http://www.organicconsumers.org
LOCAL HARVEST
http://www.localharvest.org
WINE INDUSTRY DESTROYED. FOOD SECURITY at RISK
http://wine2hot.livejournal.com
http://italy.indymedia.org/news/200
http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/wi
http://www.livescience.com/environm
http://www.commondreams.org/headlin
http://ru.indymedia.org/newswire/displa
http://uruguay.indymedia.org/news/2
STOP CLIMATE CHAOS and the DESTRUCTION of the POOR
http://www.itdg.org/?id=stopclimatechao
GLOBAL WARMING DESTROYS MAPLE SUGAR INDUSTRY
http://hm.indymedia.org/newswire/displa
http://arizona.indymedia.org/news/2
http://www.vpirg.org/globalwarming/inde
http://www.dps.state.vt.us/vem/emd/Appe
http://www.ecostudies.org/press/Chronog
COLLAPSE OF INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE, correcting the problems.
http://www.energybulletin.net/22584.htm
http://www.acus.org/docs/051007-Hirsch_
India's Lessons for Africa's Small Farmers
http://www.foodfirst.org/files/pdf/poli
PLANET DIVERSITY AND GLOBAL FOOD DISASTER
http://wmass.indymedia.org/?q=node/227
HARVEST OF SUICIDES
http://www.foodfirst.org/node/1626/prin
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.p
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~anthro/researc
http://www.countercurrents.org/eco-shiv
http://o3.indiatimes.com/farmersuicide
http://www.countercurrents.org/glo-shiv
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/w
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/r
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Harvest+o
http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/pr
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/pri
http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/?q=n
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4021
book: GATT to WTO: Seeds of Despair; by Devinder Sharma
book: In the Famine Trap; by Devinder Sharma
book: Seeds of Destruction; by William F. Engdahl
THE MELTING RUSSIAN TUNDRA IS RELEASING METHANE
http://scotland.indymedia.org/news
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryos
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories200
http://scotland.indymedia.org/news
GLOBAL WARMING IMPACTS on ARCTIC ECOSYSTEM
and the DESTRUCTION of Native Alaskans and artic people.
http://www.montreal2005.gc.ca/default.a
GLOBAL WARMING is a massive THREAT to BIODIVERSITY and WILDLIFE
http://conservation.org/xp/CIWEB/progra
REFINERY REFORM, POLLUTION and DEATH
Does Big Oil have a body bag with your name on it?
http://www.refineryreform.org http://www.cleartheair.org/dirtypo
IS GOD GREEN
http://www.chelseagreen.com/2006/i
http://www.creationcare.org
book: Care of Creation; by R. J. Berry
book: Serve God, Save the Planet; by J. Matthew Sleeth
book: Our Father's World; by Edward R Brown
book: Redeeming Creation; by Fred Van Dyke
book: Earth-Wise; by Calvin B. Dewitt
book: Caring for Creation; Edited by Sarah Tillett
book: A Moral Climate, the Ethics of Global Warming; by Michael S. Northcott
book: For the Beauty of the Earth; by Steven Bouma-Prediger
book: Saving God's Green Earth; by Tri Robinson
book: God Is Green; by Ian Bradley
book: God in Creation; by Jurgen Moltmann
journal: Creation Care Magazine http://www.creationcare.org
Keepers of the Earth.
BUSH SLAMS CHRISTIANS
a Bunch of Nuts
http://madrid.indymedia.org/newswire/di
http://scotland.indymedia.org/news
http://beirut.indymedia.org/ar/200
http://thunderbay.indymedia.org/news/20
CRIMES AGAINST NATURE
http://valparaiso.indymedia.org/news/20
http://kcindymedia.org/newswire/di
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/20
POLLUTION and RACISM, INJUSTICE
book: Confronting Environmental Racism; by Robert Bullard
book: Environmental Injustices; by David Camacho
book: Environmentalism and Economic Justice; by Laura Pulido
book: Pollution and the Death of Man; by Francis Schaeffer
book: From the Ground Up, Environmental Racism; by Luke Cole
book: Struggle for Ecological Democracy; by Daniel Faber
book: No Safe Place, Toxic Waste and Community Action; by Phil Brown
DICK CHENEY MADE MILLIONS WITH SADDAM HUSSEIN
http://nhindymedia.org/newswire/di
http://arkansas.indymedia.org/news
http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/20
Proverb: A good person leaves an inheritance to their children’s children.
What kind of inheritance are you leaving?
The abundance of our choices ~ including year-round availability of food from around the globe ~ depends entirely on a steady supply of fossil fuels. The concept of Food Miles has brought needed attention to the carbon footprint of the American meal. But food miles alone cannot provide the complete picture of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with what we eat.
Fossil fuel inputs, and therefore carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, exist in all stages of food production and distribution ~ from plowing and fertilizing fields to processing and packaging the food ~ and every phase of transportation, from the field to the consumer’s home. To paraphrase author Michael Pollan, our food is marinated in crude oil by the time it reaches our table.
According to the EPA, agriculture accounts for a whopping 7 percent of total GHG emissions in the United States, primarily nitrous oxide from fertilizers and methane from livestock. This figure does not account for the CO2 emissions from food-related transportation, manufacturing, storage and cooking mentioned above.
The good news is that there are choices we can make to reduce our climate impact. One primary way to reduce our carbon footprint is to reduce the oil from our diet. Perhaps trickier is to limit the other diet-related greenhouse gases.
But how do we distinguish which food choices have a lower greenhouse gas impact? And how do we balance these considerations with convenience, cultural tastes, nutritional needs and the pleasure of eating? While the answers are not all straightforward, arming yourself with a framework to make decisions can alleviate some food shopping dilemmas.
GO ORGANIC
Organic farming is a powerful tool in the fight against global warming, according to findings of the Rodale Institute’s Farming Systems Trial (FST) that began in 1981. In collaboration with Dr. David Pimentel of Cornell University, the FST found that organic farming systems have the potential to use 30 to 50 percent less energy than non-organic farming systems.
Additionally, results from the long-term FST conclude that organic cover-crop agriculture is a better “carbon sink” than non-organic agriculture. It better absorbs and sequesters natural carbon emissions from decaying matter in the soil, holding more carbon deeper than non-organically managed farmland.
USDA researcher David Doubs, Ph.D., found that this difference is due to the fact that organic matter decays more slowly in organically managed soil, in part because organic soil has more microbial activity ~ key to carbon sequestration.
Finally, non-organic farms generally rely on synthetic fossil fuel-based pesticides, fertilizers and herbicides, which require additional energy to manufacture, ship and apply. Organic farms, on the other hand, rely more on beneficial insects to control pests and on manual labor for weeds.
EATING WITH THE SEASONS
Typically, eating locally grown foods in season can trim your GHG emissions while also supporting local farmers and your community’s food security and offering flavor-packed meals.
Enjoy fresh asparagus in the spring and eggplants in summer to cut carbon. Tomatoes that appear in the dead of winter either traveled from outside our region or grew in a hothouse, both of which require additional fuel inputs. In the case of the hothouse, fossil fuels probably were used for plastic covering and heat.
During winter, many Pacific Northwest markets offer a variety of locally grown produce including winter greens, leeks, hard squashes, potatoes, onions, apples, pears and highly nutritious root vegetables.
PLANES, TRAINS AND TRUCKS
In 2001, the Leopold Center produced a seminal report showing that “food miles” ~ the average distance food traveled from where it’s grown to where it’s purchased ~ were increasing across America. The term “food miles” now is part of the national lexicon, reflecting concern about the pollution caused by flying, trucking and shipping food around the globe.
The challenge is that lower food miles don’t always translate into lower carbon emissions. Recent studies reveal that the difference in emissions between modes of transport can be staggering. A 2006 study by the Stockholm Consumer’s Association showed that transporting broccoli 12,000 kilometers from Ecuador to Sweden by boat produced only 40 percent of the GHG emissions of trucking broccoli 3,200 kilometers across Europe from Spain.
Air freight has the highest carbon emissions of any form of transport. It can generate up to 177 times the emissions of shipping, according to the U.K. Soil Association, which has launched a major campaign against airfreighted food products.
These studies reflect the importance of considering the mode of transport together with food miles in buying decisions.
SUSTAINABLE MEAT
Livestock production is responsible for 18 percent of the world’s human-caused GHG emissions, according to a report by the United Nations. The CO2 portion of these emissions derives from deforestation and other land-use changes for grazing and feed production, as well as from fossil fuels used to refrigerate, transport and fertilize crops for feed production.
There are plenty of ways to make our livestock production systems less GHG intensive through feeding, farming, transportation and processing practices. For example, pastured animals digest their food better and therefore produce fewer methane emissions.
Recent studies from Lincoln University found that, for the British, importing dairy products and pasture-raised lamb from New Zealand produces fewer CO2 emissions than consuming dairy and lamb raised on a concentrated diet in English feedlots.
Fertilizers for producing livestock feed crops also result in nitrous oxide emissions, while poor digestion from eating an unnatural diet causes even more gas (including burping), accounting for 35 to 40 percent of global emissions of methane ~ a greenhouse gas that’s 21 times more potent than CO2. Livestock overall add about 80 percent of agriculture’s total contribution to GHG and more than 50 percent of the emissions from land-use changes.
For the consumer, by simply decreasing the amount of meat in our diets from 35 percent of calories to 20 percent, we can have the same impact on personal GHG emissions as switching from driving a Camry to a Prius hybrid, according to researchers Eshel and Martin at the University of Chicago.
Nutritionists already advise that three ounces of meat is the recommended portion for health, far less than what is typical in the American diet. Adjusting our diets would be good for personal health as well as the planet!
The Chicago study showed also that a fish-based diet is second only to a red meat-based diet in creating GHG emissions. Diets that include chicken and diets that derive protein from dairy and eggs tie for third ~ but only when a non-meat diet includes the same number of calories from animal products, such as cheese, yogurt, milk, butter and eggs. (A vegetarian diet generally is more energy efficient and lower in GHG emissions since fewer calories come from animal products.)
The authors conclude that if the entire country switched to a plant-based diet, that alone could trim our national GHG emissions by 6 percent.
WHOLE NUTRIENTS
According to a life-cycle assessment of the food system by the Center for Sustainable Systems at the University of Michigan, 23 percent of the energy used in the U.S. food system is for processing and packaging. Foods in their whole, natural form embody less of the energy and emissions associated with manufacturing, packaging and transportation between farms, processing plants and retailers.
Moreover, processed foods often are high in sodium and sugars, so choosing fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes offers health benefits along with trimming your GHG emissions.
Home energy and growing your own food
In the comfort of your own home, 30 percent of the energy in the U.S. food supply is used for refrigeration, cooking and dishwashing. Refrigerators tend to use more energy than any other household appliance. Find out how efficient your fridge is at www.homeenergy.org/consumerinfo/refriger
Purchase renewable energy from your utility, or install solar hot water or electricity at home to eliminate emissions from all your home energy use.
Biking, walking, using public transportation, or combining trips to get your groceries trims your transportation emissions.
Finally, growing your own food can eliminate transportation, manufacturing and packaging emissions.
WASTE versus COMPOST
About 4,000 calories of food are produced per U.S. resident per day, despite recommendations that we eat closer to 2,000 daily calories. That extra food ends up in landfills and on our ballooning waistlines. Reducing waste cuts out the life-cycle emissions embodied in those wilted greens that get tossed at the end of the week!
If the greens have to go, composting them will reduce their end-of-life emissions. The reason is that when organic matter decomposes aerobically in a compost pile, it releases CO2 rather than the methane released when organic matter decomposes in landfills without oxygen. Home composting also reduces emissions from transporting waste, frees up space in the landfill, and may save you money if you can decrease your trash services.
Finally, finished compost provides great fertilizer for garden beds instead of petroleum-based fertilizers. For apartment dwellers, indoor worm bins provide many of the same benefits.
SETTING A LOW-CARBON TABLE
Growing concern about climate change has spurred greater awareness of how personal choice and consumption make a difference in lowering global carbon emissions. Every product we consume has a “carbon footprint” ~ the emissions resulting from a product’s life cycle, including production, distribution and consumption.
The supermarket is one place where conscientious consumers are taking on the challenge to make “low-carbon” buying decisions. There are many choices that can reduce the carbon footprint of our diets.
We don’t have to compromise taste, nutrition and, most of all, the pleasure of eating. Trading a little convenience now for an inconvenient truth later may be the equation to consider.
by Natalie Reitman-White and Sarah Mazze
book: In Defense of Food; by Michael Pollan
~~~~~
GANDHI: EAT LOCAL ORGANIC FOOD AND ABATE GLOBAL STARVATION
How the environment and eating (Local Organic Food) is linked to Gandhi's ideology for transforming the world. Many links.
June 5, observed annually as World Environment Day, turns the spotlight on issues like deforestation, pollution, climate change and global warming, but these discussions seldom make a connection with Gandhian ideology which offers a simple but powerful answer to the environmental ills that beset the earth today. Now validation of what Bapuji advocated, comes from an unlikely source -- the Worldwatch Institute, a research organization based in the USA.
Although Gandhi is remembered for his espousal of non-violence as an effective strategy for conflict resolution, his philosophy covered a much wider canvas and included a vision of development based on small, self-sufficient communities that grew their own food, in a sustainable model with decision-making vested at the grassroots level. The same idea of local self-sufficiency, particularly in food, is the central theme of the Worldwatch Institute's publication titled "Eat Here", which describes the enormous environmental price that modern societies pay, in terms of transport costs (and the pollution that millions of trucks and lorries cause, leading to widespread increases in respiratory illnesses around the world), the tons of chemical preservatives that get added to food products to prevent spoilage in transit across long distances, and the health costs that the community ends up paying under this global supermarket pattern of development.
Only 6 per cent of what one pays for a supermarket loaf of bread, Eat Here points out, goes to the farmer who actually grows the wheat.The rest goes into the pockets of middlemen, transporters, and oil companies. It is the same with perishable fruit and vegetables hauled over long distances. No wonder farmers, who feed the country, remain impoverished and contemplate suicide, while mammoth agribusiness corporations rake in earnings greater than the GDPs of some nations.
It is considered an 'improvement in the quality of life' if a community can enjoy out-of-season fruit or exotic vegetables imported from thousands of miles away, but what about the costs involved in packaging, refrigeration, the huge amounts of waste and pollution? Who pays? Also, if the availability of Washington apples (or Australian butter) in Bangalore is construed as 'progress', what about accountability when problems arise? An outbreak of mad cow disease saw millions of cows being burnt on massive pyres in England recently (causing dioxin scares from the smoke) and the slaughter of millions of chicken worldwide in the wake of a fear of bird flu. When food comes from far, it becomes impossible to trace the trouble spot in the long chain from producer to importer to retailer to buyer. Whereas, with food grown locally, consumers know what they get, where it was produced, with what inputs, and who sold it. The supermarket model of food retailing defaults on accountability and dehumanizes the community links between buyer and producer. The non-quantifiable costs are huge.
No wonder then, that initiatives for small community level food production and sales, are growing all over the West, as part of a "healthy, holistic model of living'. "The food tastes fresher, it is tastier, there is less processing and less of additives, and less chance of contamination between farm and plate, so it is healthier," say members of this growing movement for 'eating local'. It is described as "food democracy" (because there is less dependence on huge companies that can dictate monopolistic terms, to suppliers as well as buyers) and a movement against "culinary imperialism" (protesting against mass promotion of invariant fast food items that over-ride the attractions and advantages of local, culture-related eating traditions in the name of 'novelty' or 'modernity' especially in the developing countries).
Gandhi's protest was against another kind of imperialism, but his ideology encompassed a pattern of local self-sufficiency that is exactly what members of the 'local foods' movement in Europe and USA are promoting. Some of the shelf food is actually described by these groups as "embalmed food", because of the enormous amounts of synthetic chemicals that go into them.
Food trucks account for 40 per cent of road freight in the UK. In the US, food travels on average 2,400 km from farm to plate. That calls for enormous amounts of oil for transport - and oil becomes the reason for even going to war, because without oil the nation starves. Under the Gandhian model of local self-sufficiency, not only is dependence on extraneous factors (oil imports) reduced, the costs too get reduced. Imported foods, Eat Here estimates, costs four times as much as local food if the environmental costs are added. There are also the additional bonuses of better human relations within the community, cultural cohesiveness, and the dignity of individuals that comes with self-reliance that Gandhi valued so highly.
From consumer activist Ralph Nader, to the president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in the US, and professors of bio-ethics and nutrition at Princeton and Columbia, praise for Eat Here's focus on 'reclaiming homegrown pleasures in a global supermarket' has flown instintedly from different quarters of the West. Farmers' markets are burgeoning, and even American school cafeterias are choosing locally grown foods. While we, in the developing countries, scurry to adopt the dehumanized, cost-ridden, environmentally unsound models of supermarket retailing of food, in the name of 'progress'.
~~~~~
LOCAL ORGANIC CONSUMER
http://www.organicconsumers.org
LOCAL HARVEST
http://www.localharvest.org
WINE INDUSTRY DESTROYED. FOOD SECURITY at RISK
http://wine2hot.livejournal.com
http://italy.indymedia.org/news/200
http://www.organicconsumers.org/corp/wi
http://www.livescience.com/environm
http://www.commondreams.org/headlin
http://ru.indymedia.org/newswire/displa
http://uruguay.indymedia.org/news/2
STOP CLIMATE CHAOS and the DESTRUCTION of the POOR
http://www.itdg.org/?id=stopclimatechao
GLOBAL WARMING DESTROYS MAPLE SUGAR INDUSTRY
http://hm.indymedia.org/newswire/displa
http://arizona.indymedia.org/news/2
http://www.vpirg.org/globalwarming/inde
http://www.dps.state.vt.us/vem/emd/Appe
http://www.ecostudies.org/press/Chronog
COLLAPSE OF INDUSTRIAL AGRICULTURE, correcting the problems.
http://www.energybulletin.net/22584.htm
http://www.acus.org/docs/051007-Hirsch_
India's Lessons for Africa's Small Farmers
http://www.foodfirst.org/files/pdf/poli
PLANET DIVERSITY AND GLOBAL FOOD DISASTER
http://wmass.indymedia.org/?q=node/227
HARVEST OF SUICIDES
http://www.foodfirst.org/node/1626/prin
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.p
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~anthro/researc
http://www.countercurrents.org/eco-shiv
http://o3.indiatimes.com/farmersuicide
http://www.countercurrents.org/glo-shiv
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/w
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/r
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Harvest+o
http://www.earthisland.org/eijournal/pr
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/pri
http://www.oaklandinstitute.org/?q=n
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/4021
book: GATT to WTO: Seeds of Despair; by Devinder Sharma
book: In the Famine Trap; by Devinder Sharma
book: Seeds of Destruction; by William F. Engdahl
THE MELTING RUSSIAN TUNDRA IS RELEASING METHANE
http://scotland.indymedia.org/news
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryos
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories200
http://scotland.indymedia.org/news
GLOBAL WARMING IMPACTS on ARCTIC ECOSYSTEM
and the DESTRUCTION of Native Alaskans and artic people.
http://www.montreal2005.gc.ca/default.a
GLOBAL WARMING is a massive THREAT to BIODIVERSITY and WILDLIFE
http://conservation.org/xp/CIWEB/progra
REFINERY REFORM, POLLUTION and DEATH
Does Big Oil have a body bag with your name on it?
http://www.refineryreform.org http://www.cleartheair.org/dirtypo
IS GOD GREEN
http://www.chelseagreen.com/2006/i
http://www.creationcare.org
book: Care of Creation; by R. J. Berry
book: Serve God, Save the Planet; by J. Matthew Sleeth
book: Our Father's World; by Edward R Brown
book: Redeeming Creation; by Fred Van Dyke
book: Earth-Wise; by Calvin B. Dewitt
book: Caring for Creation; Edited by Sarah Tillett
book: A Moral Climate, the Ethics of Global Warming; by Michael S. Northcott
book: For the Beauty of the Earth; by Steven Bouma-Prediger
book: Saving God's Green Earth; by Tri Robinson
book: God Is Green; by Ian Bradley
book: God in Creation; by Jurgen Moltmann
journal: Creation Care Magazine http://www.creationcare.org
Keepers of the Earth.
BUSH SLAMS CHRISTIANS
a Bunch of Nuts
http://madrid.indymedia.org/newswire/di
http://scotland.indymedia.org/news
http://beirut.indymedia.org/ar/200
http://thunderbay.indymedia.org/news/20
CRIMES AGAINST NATURE
http://valparaiso.indymedia.org/news/20
http://kcindymedia.org/newswire/di
http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/20
POLLUTION and RACISM, INJUSTICE
book: Confronting Environmental Racism; by Robert Bullard
book: Environmental Injustices; by David Camacho
book: Environmentalism and Economic Justice; by Laura Pulido
book: Pollution and the Death of Man; by Francis Schaeffer
book: From the Ground Up, Environmental Racism; by Luke Cole
book: Struggle for Ecological Democracy; by Daniel Faber
book: No Safe Place, Toxic Waste and Community Action; by Phil Brown
DICK CHENEY MADE MILLIONS WITH SADDAM HUSSEIN
http://nhindymedia.org/newswire/di
http://arkansas.indymedia.org/news
http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/20
Proverb: A good person leaves an inheritance to their children’s children.
What kind of inheritance are you leaving?