With the effects of climate change becoming a reality, food security has become a growing global concern. And though each country will look for ways to combat the threat to their national security, one movement stands out from the rest. Buried deep in the permafrost mountains on the remote Norwegian island of Svalbard that rests halfway between Norway and the… Read more »
Fossil fuels are everywhere, even in our food. As we learned in week 6, oil is used to power the heavy machinery used on industrialized farms, it is in the fertilizer in the form of petroleum, it is in the plastics that are used to neatly package our food, and it is used to power the planes, trains and automobiles… Read more »
In a world that is ever increasingly subjected to the consequences of climate change, weather patterns have not just become a bigger part of public and private discourse, it is having real effects on our lives. One of the many manifestations of climate change is severe drought. This is evident across the globe from Southern California to the Middle East…. Read more »
The industrial revolution brought with it numerous benefits for the modern age. Perhaps most significant is the technology that has made it possible to feed 7 billion people worldwide. The improvements in industrialized farming equipment made farming more efficient, producing higher yields while expending less energy for the farmers. However, less energy spent by people, cattle and horses to operate… Read more »
The modern world is divided economically into the global north and global south, or simply put, developed and developing nations. Due to the economic inequalities between developed and developing countries, there are vast disparities in the daily lives of the citizens of France for example, and those who call Chad home. While families in France visit a local market… Read more »
In week 3, we discussed how chocolate gets from the cacao farms on the Ivory Coast, to the neatly packaged commodity that we all know and love. As images of children, taken from their families as slave laborers, were shown performing the difficult tasks of harvesting cacao beans, my heart sank. As we learned that farmers, who are underpaid, had… 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 »
Having taken previous nutrition courses, and being someone who has spent the better part of my adult life as a vegetarian, I am cautious about what I consume, though admittedly, not as strict as I could be given what I know about the food I eat and its effects on the body. That being said, much of what was discussed… Read more »