Mann: ‘Agriculture needs systemic change’ – CNN Video

Amanpour

Professor of Atmospheric Science at Penn State University Michael Mann speaks to Christiane Amanpour about the IPCC latest “Climate Change and Land” report.
Source: CNN

Food-matters,

Ex-Techie who is revolutionizing farming | Shankar Venkataraman | The Tribal Box

The Tribal Box
Published on Sep 18, 2018

Shankar was a successful techie in Calfornia, living the Indian dream until his baby girl was hit by eczema, a disease that is caused due to the chemicals in pesticides used to grow food. This turned his world upside down and lead to creating a whole community of organic farmers in his homeland India.

Food-matters,

The Heat: Record setting temperatures raise climate concerns

CGTN America
Published on Aug 9, 2019

Heatwaves happen pretty much every summer. But 2019 has been exceptional as records tumble across the northern hemisphere. CGTN’s Owen Fairclough has more in this report.

The Heat: Record setting temperatures raise climate concerns Pt 2

CGTN America
Published on Aug 9, 2019

To discuss all of this, tonight’s panel includes Ma Tianjie, the Beijing managing editor for China Dialogue; Arunabha Ghosh, the founder and CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water; Bob Ward, the policy and communications director at London’s Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and Paul Bledsoe, who served as a climate advisor for U.S. President Bill Clinton and is a strategic adviser for the Progressive Policy Institute.

FOOD FOR THE FUTURE – A Short Documentary

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Published on Oct 13, 2017

Ahead of World Food Day, we’re premiering a new documentary film, Food for the Future (#Food4theFuture).
It documents the world’s current food revolution. Global agriculture generates as much greenhouse gas as the worldwide transport sector. Sustainable food production is therefore not a luxury but a necessity for our common future. How can we best balance the need for nutritious and affordable food and that of protecting the environment?

Food-matters,

 

A global food crisis may be less than a decade away | Sara Menker

TED

Published on Oct 26, 2017

Sara Menker quit a career in commodities trading to figure out how the global value chain of agriculture works. Her discoveries have led to some startling predictions: “We could have a tipping point in global food and agriculture if surging demand surpasses the agricultural system’s structural capacity to produce food,” she says. “People could starve and governments may fall.” Menker’s models predict that this scenario could happen in a decade — that the world could be short 214 trillion calories per year by 2027. She offers a vision of this impossible world as well as some steps we can take today to avoid it.

Food-matters,

Report: Monsanto Ran Spying and Intimidation Campaign Against Critics

Aug 09, 2019

An explosive new report by The Guardian reveals that U.S. agribusiness giant Monsanto ran a “fusion center” to surveil and discredit journalists and activists who publicly criticized or wrote damning reports about Monsanto’s weed killer Roundup. Documents show Monsanto collected extensive intelligence on the legendary singer-songwriter Neil Young, paid Google to promote search results that cast critics unfavorably, and contacted at least one reporter’s editor in hopes of having her fired. Later in the broadcast, we’ll speak to that reporter, Carey Gillam, as well as Gary Ruskin of the group U.S. Right to Know, which was also targeted by Monsanto.

See related:

• I’m a journalist. Monsanto built a step-by-step strategy to destroy my reput ation | Carey Gillam | Opinion | The Guardian
• Documents Reveal Monsanto Surveilled Journalists, Activists & Even Musician Neil Young

Food-matters,

I’m a journalist. Monsanto built a step-by-step strategy to destroy my reputation | Carey Gillam | Opinion | The Guardian

Carey Gillam interviews Dewayne ‘Lee’ Johnson, the first cancer patient to beat Monsanto in court. Photograph: Araceli Johnson

Fri 9 Aug 2019 06.00 BST Last modified on Fri 9 Aug 2019 17.03 BST
Company records show an action plan that includes promoting certain search results and targeting book reviews

As a journalist who has covered corporate America for more than 30 years, very little shocks me about the propaganda tactics companies often deploy. I know the pressure companies can and do bring to bear when trying to effect positive coverage and limit reporting they deem negative about their business practices and products.

But when I recently received close to 50 pages of internal Monsanto communications about the company’s plans to target me and my reputation, I was shocked.

I knew the company did not like the fact that in my 21 years of reporting on the agrochemical industry – mostly for Reuters – I wrote stories that quoted skeptics as well as fans of Monsanto’s genetically engineered seeds. I knew the company didn’t like me reporting about growing unease in the scientific community regarding research that connected Monsanto herbicides to human and environmental health problems. And I knew the company did not welcome the 2017 release of my book, Whitewash – The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer and the Corruption of Science, which revealed the company’s actions to suppress and manipulate the science surrounding its herbicide business.

But I never dreamed I would warrant my own Monsanto action plan.

The company records I’ve obtained show a range of actions. One Monsanto plan involved paying for web placement of a blogpost about me so that Monsanto-written information would pop up at the top of certain internet searches involving my name. The correspondence also discussed a need to produce “third party talking points” about me. In addition, Monsanto produced a video to help it amplify company-engineered propaganda about me and my work.

Revealed: how Monsanto’s ‘intelligence center’ targeted journalists and activists

Read more

I even inspired a Monsanto spreadsheet: as part of “Project Spruce”, the “Carey Gillam Book plan” lists more than 20 items, including discussion of how the company might get third parties to post book reviews about Whitewash.

…(read more).

See related:

• Report: Monsanto Ran Spying and Intimidation Campaign Against Critics
• Documents Reveal Monsanto Surveilled Journalists, Activists & Even Musician Neil Young

Food-matters,

Documents Reveal Monsanto Surveilled Journalists, Activists & Even Musician Neil Young

Democracy Now!

Published on Aug 9, 2019

Explosive new documents reveal the U.S. agribusiness giant Monsanto ran a “fusion center” to surveil and discredit journalists and activists who criticized or wrote damning reports about Monsanto, as well as legendary singer-songwriter Neil Young, who released an album in 2015 called “The Monsanto Years.” Monsanto monitored Young’s Twitter activity and even analyzed the lyrics of his album. The fusion center also surveilled journalist Carey Gillam, who has done extensive research and writing about Monsanto and its popular pesticide Roundup, which has been linked to cancer. The corporation also targeted the nonprofit research group U.S. Right to Know, which submitted Freedom of Information Act requests about the company. From Kansas City, Missouri, we speak to Carey Gillam, a veteran investigative journalist and author of “Whitewash: The Story of a Weed Killer, Cancer, and the Corruption of Science,” and from Berkeley, California, Gary Ruskin, co-founder of U.S. Right to Know.

See related:

 

• Report: Monsanto Ran Spying and Intimidation Campaign Against Critics
• I’m a journalist. Monsanto built a step-by-step strategy to destroy my reput ation | Carey Gillam | Opinion | The Guardian

Food-matters,

 

Climate change food calculator: What’s your diet’s carbon footprint? – BBC News

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46459714
By Nassos Stylianou, Clara Guibourg and Helen Briggs BBC News
9 August 2019

Avoiding meat and dairy products is one of the biggest ways to reduce your environmental impact, according to recent scientific studies.

Switching to a plant-based diet can help fight climate change, according to a major report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which says the West’s high consumption of meat and dairy is fuelling global warming.

But what is the difference between beef and chicken? Does a bowl of rice produce more climate warming greenhouse gases than a plate of chips? Is wine more environmentally friendly than beer?

To find out the climate impact of what you eat and drink, choose from one of the 34 items in our calculator and pick how often you have it.

…(read more).

Supersizing Climate Change: U.N. Says Meat Production Destroys Land & Diminishes Key Water Sources

Democracy Now!

Published on Aug 9, 2019

The United Nations’ top panel of climate scientists warns that humans are consuming land and water resources at an unprecedented rate, with the destructive effects of the climate crisis increasingly threatening the planet’s biodiversity and the food security of hundreds of millions of people. In its latest climate change and land special report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that without dramatic action, extreme weather and rising temperatures will turn even more fertile land into desert, shrinking the global food supply, even as the world’s population rises to more than 7.5 billion people. The IPCC recommends dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, along with more efficient farming methods and a shift in diets away from dairy and meat — which produce vast amounts of methane and carbon dioxide while using large amounts of land. We speak with Pamela McElwee, an associate professor in the Department of Human Ecology at the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University and co-author of the IPCC report.