One of the most promising possible solutions to an increasingly at-risk world food system is the concept of urban farming. Already a popular initiative and social movement in many cities, urban farming brings people closer to their food and vice versa. We already have heard compelling arguments from Authors like Pollan, and seen undeniable evidence via ethnographic studies of non-Western… Read more »
Water is the new oil…meaning that moving forward conflicts over resources will concern water. The finite amount of water, growing world population and continued climate change will force us to make some tough decisions in the near future. One of these tough decisions involves poppy farmers in Afghanistan. It is easy and not necessarily wrong to conclude that growing poppy… Read more »
“Euphrates River Map.” Euphrates River Map, The Bible Study Site, www.biblestudy.org/maps/euphrates-river-valley-map.html. For me, the most interesting themes of this week revolved around water. I was surprised to find how much the political ecology of water can affect different groups. I think the common thought is that water is so plentiful that there is no reason for conflict or differing access to… Read more »
Kwak-Hefferan, Elisabeth. “Spoil Sport: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dumpster.” Grist, 5 Nov. 2012, grist.org/food/spoil-sport-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-dumpster/. For me the most interesting topic discussed this week was the TED talk about food waste. It tied in well with other course work we have read. For example, Stuart in the talk asked the audience how many of them did not… Read more »
Taking a look at Peter Menzel’s online Hungry Planet gallery , a photographic essay on the dietary habits of families all around the world… Making a side-by-side comparison of the food cultures of the two contrasting countries, Germany (an affluent one) & Chad (a developing one), stirs up a plethora of heavy economic, political, and social subject matter and disparities simply… Read more »
Many people care about keeping their house clean. We always think of ways to improve our quality of our home. People care about what is happening in their house. Most of us would be offended if someone came into our homes and made a mess. In the film, Anthropocene, watching the Earth from outer space allowed us to stop, take… Read more »
The interconnectedness of the topics discussed in the course thus far offer a thought provoking global view on the future of the human species on Earth. The issues of populations growth, the recognition of the impact that we have on our ecosystem, the global food system, and the water and ecological footprint we are leaving on our planet, are huge… Read more »
Why do Afghans grow grapes if there are so many reasons not to? Wine is illegal there; they don’t have many refrigerators to keep grapes fresh; and it’s a hard crop to grow in many ways. But if you lay the grapes out on your rooftop to bake in the sun, you’ll eventually find a reason to grow grapes in… Read more »
“Apparently it’s easier, or at least a lot more profitable, to change a disease of a civilization into a lifestyle than it is to change the way that civilization eats.” Michael Pollan – In Defense Of Food More than anything else the connections between bad food, declining health and corporate profits stands out from our survey of the industrialization of… Read more »