Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do about It
Language: English
Pages: 336
ISBN: 1596916591
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Beyond what we already know about "food miles" and eating locally, the global food system is a major contributor to climate change, producing as much as one-third of greenhouse gas emissions. How we farm, what we eat, and how our food gets to the table all have an impact. And our government and the food industry are willfully ignoring the issue rather than addressing it.
In Anna Lappé's controversial new book, she predicts that unless we radically shift the trends of what food we're eating and how we're producing it, food system-related greenhouse gas emissions will go up and up and up. She exposes the interests that will resist the change, and the spin food companies will generate to avoid system-wide reform. And she offers a vision of a future in which our food system does more good than harm, with six principles for a climate friendly diet as well as visits to farmers who are demonstrating the potential of sustainable farming.
In this measured and intelligent call to action, Lappé helps readers understand that food can be a powerful starting point for solutions to global environmental problems.
Long Shadow, xxi. See also P. Smith et al., “Agriculture,” in O. R. Davidson et al., eds., Climate Change 2007: Mitigation. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 510. 23 . Steinfeld et al., Livestock’s Long Shadow, xxi. 24. See, for example, Carbon Farmers of Australia, http://www.carbonfarmerso faustralia.com.au. 25. Jacqueline Switzer, Environmental
A coalition of organizations across the country, the NOC is working to provide a “Washington voice” for farmers, ranchers, environmentalists, consumers, and progressive industry members to strengthen the organic movement. The Coalition is working to maintain the integrity of the organic label, promote the environmental benefits of organic agriculture, encourage diverse access to organic foods, and overall, ensure the long-term viability of organic family farmers and businesses.
global corporate wealth and power have overwhelmed the voices and values of citizens so much that we as taxpayers have even subsidized key pieces of our own undoing. Probing policies driving the growth of CAFOs, to pick but one example, we discover how an industry that is one of our worst climate-change culprits is actually encouraged by public policies and subsidies. In the United States, livestock producers receive billions in direct payments etched into our Farm Bill, the
can’t—claim about a product, as well as strict definitions. In the meantime, Consumer Reports’ Greener Choices, at www.greenerchoices.org, is a great resource for sorting out the solid claims from the spurious ones. 3. Is it a decoy? Consider a processed-foods company that boasts of the ecological benefits of its organic ingredients, while producing its packages with the toxic plastics ingredient bisphenol A. What about the paper company that touts Forest Stewardship Council–certified
possibility that the days of massive tax subsidies for commodity crops, like corn and soy, may someday end, with subsidies instead going to programs that can be painted as climate friendly. Here I share examples of initiatives Big Ag is promoting and for which companies, and the sector as a whole, are lobbying for government support. But as you’ll see, these initiatives represent Big Ag tinkering around the edges of the industrial model, capitalizing on our climate-change concerns without