Among other things, we may want to simply sign up to become students of uncertainty, or as the Buddhists say, “When you’re falling, dive.” This will require intention and practice. It does not require us to become news anorexics, but it does require us to temper our projections into the future as we practice staying present. This also gives us an opportunity to observe how attached we are to outcomes.
It is time for us baby boomers to honestly acknowledge what we did and didn’t do with the gifts given to us by our forebears and be clear about our legacy with which we have saddled the next and succeeding generations.
When it comes to the climate crisis, what nobody wants to talk about is precisely what everybody needs to be talking about. Up until now, the climate debate has been premised on a false dichotomy between climate science deniers and everyone else. What the Paris accords have revealed is that this overweening emphasis on the science of anthropogenic climate change fails to answer the real question: Why the disconnect between what we know to be the threat and how we are choosing to respond to it?
The very sobering data of our planetary predicament
The sacred within us instinctively resonates with the sanctity of food. Therefore, the growing, transporting, distribution, and consumption of food are sacred acts that deserve ritual and reverence from the moment the seed is planted in the earth to the moment we have washed and put away the plate on which our food was served.
Contrary to popular imagery, it is not lawn watering, car washing, and long showers that are depleting aquifers and draining rivers. As Derrick Jensen points out, 90% of the freshwater in the U.S. is used by Industry, including industrial agriculture, with the remaining 10% being split evenly between municipal users (such as people in homes) and golf courses. Here in Eastern Oregon it’s a small constituency — the ranchers — sucking up most of the moisture, and whining about it to boot. There’s your real scam.
A study released last week by Stanford scientists, which claims organic foods are no more healthy than non-organic foods, was funded by corporate agriculture and biotechnology giants, according to a new report by the Cornucopia Institute.
In today’s post by Charlotte Kellogg, she explores the public health threats caused by inner-city food deserts as well as the new and innovative approaches to solving this problem. In communities that lack access to healthy food choices and fresh produce, the job of a public health advocate is often to combat and treat the afflictions that accompany food deserts, namely obesity and diabetes. Here, Madison expands on Mark Bittman’s suggestions for promoting fresh food in inner-city food deserts, as reported in a Carolyn Baker post, arguing that simple changes and plans can make significant differences.
With a gallon of gasoline in America now averaging almost $4.00, the topic of oil dependence is timely. Cheap oil and other fossil fuels have helped create the modern American economy, and to a lesser extent, the economies of other industrialized cultures around the world. Big industry totally depends on them. Naturally, this includes the food industry.
There have been persistent rumors of shortages at some of the biggest suppliers of emergency food in the United States. Mountain House the largest supplier of freeze dried and dehydrated food in the United States is not accepting orders for the next couple of months.