I attended one of three major biodiversity planning meetings this February, originally scheduled for China, but relocated to Rome. The day I arrived, there were three cases of the coronavirus COVID-19 in northern Italy. Two days later there were 21, and five days later there were 229. I left the fifth day, without even attending the primary workshop. A colleague teased me, and I worried that I had over-reacted.
Read more
The frightening COVID-19 pandemic, slowly but surely infecting millions, fueling an economic and political meltdown and metastasizing in the midst of a global Climate Emergency, has pushed a critical mass of us all to the brink.
Words can barely convey our waking nightmare, or fully expose the cabal of monsters and the degenerate “business-as-usual” practices that have brought on this disaster. Like a horror movie rerun, every night I wake up.
How did we ever let this happen? What can we do to protect ourselves and others? Can we rise to the occasion and organize a massive Grassroots Rising, head off disaster, and take advantage of this tragic “trigger moment”?
Can we deal with the degenerative practices that have unleashed this mega-crisis and bring to heel the perpetrators, the greedy elite who created and/or abetted this catastrophe?
As an international chorus of climate, environmental and political leaders warned this week, it’s now or never “to harness our fears, build hope and drive action to respond to the human health, economic, climate and biodiversity crisis with solutions that build resilient societies on the longer term.”
Read more
Working with the Regenerative Agriculture Alliance in Minnesota, Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin is the architect and engineer behind the regenerative poultry system, one of many farm operations at the 100-acre farm in Northfield, through the Main Street Project. His approach to regenerative agriculture involves a biodiverse system of symbiotically connected livestock and perennials, with no chemical inputs, building soil, cleaning water and delivering economic benefits to the community.
Read more
Droughts, fires, floods . . . climate instability is forcing U.S. farmers and ranchers to face increasingly frequent and intensifying natural disasters that threaten their land and their livelihoods—and increase food insecurity for everyone.
A growing number of farmers and ranchers understand that the more organic and regenerative farming and grazing practices they deploy, the more climate-resilient their operations become.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) knows it, too. But instead of increasing funding for programs to help farmers adapt to climate change—and help them become part of the climate solution—the Trump administration is proposing drastic cuts to those programs.
Read more
Droughts, fires, floods . . . climate instability is forcing U.S. farmers and ranchers to face increasingly frequent and intensifying natural disasters that threaten their land and their livelihoods—and increase food insecurity for everyone.
A growing number of farmers and ranchers understand that the more organic and regenerative farming and grazing practices they deploy, the more climate-resilient their operations become.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) knows it, too. But instead of increasing funding for programs to help farmers adapt to climate change, the Trump administration is proposing cuts to those programs.
TAKE ACTION: Ask your members of Congress to help organic farmers by supporting the Agriculture Resilience Act!
Read more
Monsanto and the rest of the Biotech Giants promised that GMO foods would reduce pesticide use, increase the nutritional content of food, boost farmers’ profits and feed the world by increasing yields.
Instead, they turned glyphosate into one of the most widely and recklessly used herbicides in history—and destroyed the natural biodiversity so critical for a resilient ecosystem.
Now, we’re fighting back . . . with a plan for regeneration.
Read more
What will life be like after peak oil, in an age of major climate shifts? Hollywood movies often depict it as a bleak, dystopian world where each day is a struggle to survive after every system we depend on has been stripped away. Unfortunately, that version of the story seems to be on track so far.
Read more
“Much of the book talks about how we need to transform our food and farming system, not only in the United States but worldwide, if we're going to solve a lot of these problems that we're seeing — environmental pollution, health problems, the climate crisis and the fact that we have so much poverty in rural areas …” Cummins says.
Read more
Representative Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) introduced legislation today that would set a national goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions from the U.S. agriculture sector by 2040. The Agriculture Resilience Act also introduces sweeping changes to federal conservation and agriculture programs to reach that goal.
Read more
Over the past five decades, as a food, natural health and environmental campaigner, anti-war organizer, human rights activist and journalist, I’ve had the inspiring and at times depressing opportunity to work and travel across much of the world.
Perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned through my work is that people respond best to a positive, solutions-oriented message. Gloom-and-doom thinking—the kind that offers no plausible solution—doesn’t generally inspire people to get involved or take action.
That doesn’t mean we should downplay the seriousness of our current situation. We face unprecedented life-or-death threats. We’re up against formidable political, economic and cultural obstacles. We must continue to highlight and criticize, with passion, facts and concrete examples, the bad actors, practices and policies that have brought us to the brink of a global crisis.
Read more- Page 1
- ››
Get Local
