Author: Tom Wright
-
Regenerative Organics: Drawing a Line in the Soil
In recent years, we’ve seen a boom in production and sales of organic foods worldwide. The global organic food market is expected to grow by 16 percent between 2015 and 2020, a faster rate than conventionally-grown foods. This seems like good news—but in truth, organic farming makes up just a tiny fraction of the global…
-
Portugal reaches 100% renewables, ends fossil fuel subsidies
Portugal’s renewable energy sources generated enough power to exceed total grid demand across the month of March, a new report has found, setting a standard that is expected to become the norm for the European nation. According to Portuguese grid operator, REN, renewable energy output over the month reached 4,812GWh, surpassing the nation’s total electricity…
-
Wrapped in a Sea of Plastic
Half a century of this “uncontrolled experiment” is fast becoming as serious a problem as climate change. Plastics everywhere was bad enough, but now multiple studies have found that 94 percent of our drinking water and 93 percent of sampled bottled water worldwide are full of plastic particles and chemicals, including BPA, heavy metals, phthalates, pesticides, PCBs and other…
-
Ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup spray linked to shorter pregnancies
Women in Indiana’s “corn belt” had shorter pregnancies if they were regularly exposed to glyphosate, a new peer-reviewed study has found “Glyphosate is the most heavily used herbicide worldwide but the extent of exposure in human pregnancy remains unknown,” Indiana University researchers write in the journal Environmental Health. The chemical is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup…
-
Try ‘Wildevore Diet’ For Healthy Living
We have all heard of vegetarian, vegan and flexitarian diets. But have you heard about wildevore diet? Surely, no! Nowadays, dieting is considered a national obsession among everyone. These types of diets mentioned above are definitely healthy and less fatty, but it might have a negative impact on one’s health and sense of well being.…
-
Coffee and Deforestation: Addressing Coffee’s Footprint
About one third of the world’s land, more than four billion hectares, is forest. Every year, this area decreases by an average of 13 million hectares, about the same size as 35 football fields per minute. The largest losses are observed in Africa and South America, mainly due to agriculture. Coffee originates from the humid,…
-
‘Great Pacific garbage patch’ is 16 times bigger than we thought, scientists say
Scientists arrived at this figure, which is around 16 times higher than previous estimates, by assessing aerial images alongside data from ships dragging nets through the region. Occupying the waters between California and Hawaii, the patch is the largest of five major offshore waste accumulation zones that result from converging ocean currents. The 23-year-old planning…
-
Most plastic waste appears to come from five developing nations in Asia.
Around 8 million tons of plastic waste is dumped in the ocean annually. That equates to emptying a garbage truck of plastic into the sea every minute , most of it single-use products, such as plastic bags, candy wrappers, sachets and soda bottles. This mismanagement not only pollutes oceans and harms marine wildlife, but also makes life harder…
-
Ride shotgun on this game-changing farm in “One Hundred Thousand Beating Hearts,” streaming now on Salon Premium
Will Harris, a good ol’ boy Georgia rancher, may well be our nation’s best bet for a better, more sustainable future. He’s the subject of a documentary by Peter Byck, “One Hundred Thousand Beating Hearts.” Tell us one story about the production. When Will was taking me around the surrounding counties, to see the dying towns,…
-
General Mills is transitioning 53 square miles of South Dakota farmland to certified organic.
This headline from the smart website newfoodeconomy.org caught our attention: “General Mills is transitioning 53 square miles of South Dakota farmland to certified organic.” That’s 34,000 acres that will be converted to organic by planting a mix of hard red spring wheat (for pasta) hard red winter wheat, dry yellow peas, corn, soybeans, sunflowers and…