Unique Maine Farms is a volunteer project dedicated to the depiction and promotion of all types of agricultural pursuits throughout the state of Maine. This website, a 296-page book, a traveling photo exhibit, a slideshow and discussion program, and an interactive farm-related puppet show are the components of the educational outreach program of Unique Maine Farms.
Food-Matters
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
Posted in Uncategorized
Published on Jun 24, 2012
Coming Soon! A lot of FoodPorn for your eyes…
Food porn is a glamourised spectacular visual presentation of cooking or eating in advertisements, infomercials, cooking shows or other visual media,foods boasting a high fat and calorie content exotic dishes that arouse a desire to eat or the glorification of food as a substitute for sex Food porn often takes the form of food photography and styling that presents food provocatively, in a similar way to glamour photography or pornographic photography.
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
Food-Matters
Posted in Uncategorized
Published on Mar 15, 2012
Bill McKibben shares a message with the 350 community about what we’ve done so far, and the plan for the months ahead. Our next big fight: taking on the billions in subsidies that the fossil fuel industry makes.
Global Climate Change
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“For anyone attempting to make sense of the world food crisis, or understand the links between U.S. farm policy and the ability of the world’s poor to feed themselves, Stuffed and Starved is indispensable.”
—Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma
It’s a perverse fact of modern life: There are more starving people in the world than ever before, while there are also more people who are overweight.
To find out how we got to this point and what we can do about it, Raj Patel launched a comprehensive investigation into the global food network. It took him from the colossal supermarkets of California to India’s wrecked paddy-fields and Africa’s bankrupt coffee farms, while along the way he ate genetically engineered soy beans and dodged flying objects in the protestor-packed streets of South Korea.
What he found was shocking, from the false choices given us by supermarkets to a global epidemic of farmer suicides, and real reasons for famine in Asia and Africa.
Yet he also found great cause for hope—in international resistance movements working to create a more democratic, sustainable and joyful food system. Going beyond ethical consumerism, Patel explains, from seed to store to plate, the steps to regain control of the global food economy, stop the exploitation of both farmers and consumers, and rebalance global sustenance.
Food-Matters
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
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Every day, we are presented with a range of “sustainable” products and activities—from “green” cleaning supplies to carbon offsets—but with so much labeled as “sustainable,” the term has become essentially sustainababble, at best indicating a practice or product slightly less damaging than the conventional alternative. Is it time to abandon the concept altogether, or can we find an accurate way to measure sustainability? If so, how can we achieve it? And if not, how can we best prepare for the coming ecological decline?
In the latest edition of Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World series, scientists, policy experts, and thought leaders tackle these questions, attempting to restore meaning to sustainability as more than just a marketing tool. In State of the World 2013: Is Sustainability Still Possible?, experts define clear sustainability metrics and examine various policies and perspectives, including geoengineering, corporate transformation, and changes in agricultural policy, that could put us on the path to prosperity without diminishing the well-being of future generations. If these approaches fall short, the final chapters explore ways to prepare for drastic environmental change and resource depletion, such as strengthening democracy and societal resilience, protecting cultural heritage, and dealing with increased conflict and migration flows.
State of the World 2013 cuts through the rhetoric surrounding sustainability, offering a broad and realistic look at how close we are to fulfilling it today and which practices and policies will steer us in the right direction. This book will be especially useful for policymakers, environmental nonprofits, and students of environmental studies, sustainability, or economics.
Global Climate Change
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21 November 2014 Last updated at 07:00 ET By Judith Burns Education reporter, BBC News
Embracing the arts can help with new products, says Sir John O’Reilly
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Engineering needs to emphasise its creative side to encourage more young people to take it up as a career, says a leading member of the profession.
Engineers should embrace the arts, Sir John O’Reilly, a fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, argued in a lecture.
About 59% of engineering companies in the IET’s 2014 survey feared skill shortages could threaten business.
“There is nothing as creative as engineering,” Sir John told BBC News.
He says science, technology, engineering and mathematics – often known as “Stem” subjects, are vital for a modern knowledge economy.
But there is a massive shortfall in the number of recruits – with a recent study by the Royal Academy of Engineering saying the UK needs to increase by as much as 50% the number of Stem graduates it produces.
Competitiveness
Delivering this year’s Mountbatten Lecture at the Royal Institution, Sir John argued that engineers should recognise the role of the arts in their work – among other benefits, this could attract more people into the profession.
The lecture, Full Steam Ahead for Growth, advocated adoption of a wider acronym – Steam, or science, technology, engineering, arts and maths.
Engineers should embrace the arts as being key to creativity and an important component of innovation, crucial to creating new products and boosting future competitiveness, he argued.
“Engineering and technology is an increasingly diverse and creative domain,” said Sir John.
Some university engineering departments already collaborated with art schools to develop understanding, he told BBC News.
…(read more).
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
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20 November 2014 Last updated at 07:39 ET 
One UK minister said rich nations must help developing nations struggling with the effects of climate change
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Thirty nations meeting in Berlin have pledged $9.3bn (£6bn) for a fund to help developing countries cut emissions and prepare for climate change.
The Green Climate Fund was to have held at least $10bn by the end of 2014, so the pledge is just shy of the target.
The South Korea-based fund aims to help nations invest in clean energy and green technology.
It is also designed to help them build up defences against rising seas and worsening storms, floods and droughts.
Rich nations previously vowed that by 2020, developing countries would get $100bn (£64bn) a year from such a fund.
The US had already pledged $3bn and Japan $1.5bn. The UK, Germany and France have promised about $1bn each, and Sweden more than $500m million.
Smaller amounts were offered by countries including Switzerland, South Korea, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Mexico, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic.
…(read more).
Global Climate Change
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21 November 2014 Last updated at 17:38 ET 
The authorities can use insecticide to try to halt outbreaks of the plague.
Related Stories
An outbreak of plague in Madagascar has killed 40 people and infected almost 80 others, the World Health Organization has said.
The WHO warned of the danger of a “rapid spread” of the disease in the capital, Antananarivo.
The situation is worsened by high levels of resistance among fleas to a leading insecticide, the WHO added.
Humans usually develop the bubonic form of the plague after being bitten by an infected flea carried by rodents.
If diagnosed early, bubonic plague can be treated with antibiotics.
…(read more).
Global Climate Change
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The United States in a Warming World: The Political Economy of Government, Business and Public Responses to Climate Change
Thomas L. Brewer
Cambridge University Press, 2014
Addressing the widespread desire to better understand how climate change issues are addressed in the United States, this book provides an unparalleled analysis of features of the US economic and political system that are essential to understanding its responses to climate change. The introductory chapter presents a firm historical context, with the remainder of the book offering balanced and factual discussions of government, business and public responses to issues of energy policies, congressional activity on climate change, and US government involvement in international conferences. Abundant statistical evidence illustrates key concepts and supports analytic themes such as market failures, free riders, and the benefits and costs of alternative courses of action among industry sectors and geographic areas within the US. Written for audiences both outside and within the US, this accessible book is essential reading for anyone interested in climate change, energy, sustainable development or related issues around the world.
http://www.usclimatechange.com/
This web site includes updates and other materials that can facilitate greater in-depth examination of key topics. Please select a topic of interest to you from the above menu. The web site and the book have been written entirely in my capacity as an independent scholar; they do not reflect in any way the work of organizations with which I have been affiliated. My professional positions include: Georgetown University Emeritus Faculty, International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) Senior Fellow, Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) Associate Fellow, and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Lead Author. I appreciate very much a research grant from the Schoeller Foundation, which facilitated my research without imposing any restrictions on it.
Thomas L. Brewer is a Senior Fellow at the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) in Geneva. He is also a Lead Author of the chapter on International Cooperation in the IPCC report of Working Group III (AR5, April 2014). He has twice been a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University in the Smith School for Enterprise and the Environment, and he has been a Schöller Foundation Senior Research Fellow at Friedrich-Alexander University in Nuremberg, Germany. He is an Associate Fellow of the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels, and an emeritus faculty member of Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
He is the author of The United States in a Warming World©: The Political Economy of Government, Business and Public Responses to Climate Change (Cambridge University Press, 2014). His previous publications include articles in the refereed journals Climate Policy and Energy Policy, as well as chapters in books published by the Brookings Institution, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and other leading publishers. He has research in progress focused on the intersections of climate change issues with international trade, investment and technology transfer issues, including papers on liquified natural gas (LNG) issues in international trade. He also has a book in progress on the potential of Denmark as a model for other countries’ responses to contemporary energy and climate change challenges.
He has been a consultant to the World Bank, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
He maintains two websites: www.usclimatechange.com and www.TradeAndClimate.net.
Global Climate Change
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Published on Friday, November 21, 2014 by Moyers & Company
by Bill Moyers
Portrait of Louis the XVI by Antoine-François Callet. (Portrait: commons.wikimedia.org)
We’ve been watching Congress since the mid-term elections and reading Zephyr Teachout’s terrific history book, Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin’s Snuff Box to Citizens United. That snuff box was a gift from King Louis XVI of France. His Majesty was a good friend of the American Revolution but when he gave Benjamin Franklin the gold box, featuring the monarch’s portrait surrounded with diamonds, some of our Founding Fathers objected. They worried that the gift would corrupt his judgment and unduly bias Franklin in France’s favor.
The framers debated the meaning of corruption at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and Americans have been arguing about it ever since. Today, gifts to politicians that were once called graft or bribes are called contributions. The Supreme Court has granted corporations the rights our founders reserved for people, and told those corporations they can give just about anything they want to elect politicians favorable to their interests. Diamond and gold snuff boxes are as outmoded as the king’s powdered wig. Now we’re talking cash — millions upon millions of dollars. Quadrupled, quintupled and then some – and it’s not considered corruption.
Consider the new report from the watchdog Sunlight Foundation: From 2007 to 2012, the two hundred most politically active corporations in the United States spent almost $6 billion for lobbying and campaign contributions. And they received more than $4 trillion in US government contracts and other forms of assistance. That’s $760 for every dollar spent on influence, a stunning return on investment.
Peter Overby at National Public Radio reported that “Military contractors lead the list of contract recipients, and they hover in the upper ranks of companies with the biggest campaign contributions.” Raytheon, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin – all of them made hefty political donations to Republican campaigns. Not coincidentally, this year the Pentagon is due to spend $163 billion on research, development and procurement.
Our government has become a clearing house for corporations and plutocrats whose dollars grease the wheels for lucrative contracts and easy regulation.
Then look at who’s expected to be the new Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee – Thad Cochran of Mississippi. Breathlessly, The Washington Post writes, “This could mean additional funding for the Navy to modernize its fleet and potentially benefit contractors such as shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls.” Guess what company describes itself as “the largest manufacturing employer in Mississippi and a major contributor to the economic growth of the state,” not to mention a major contributor this year to Thad Cochran’s re-election campaign? Why, shiver our timbers, it’s Huntington Ingalls.
…(read more).
Global Climate Change
Environment Ethics
Environment Justice
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Transition Studies 
