I continually find myself in a personal struggle as to whether I should maintain a vegetarian lifestyle or consume meat. I switched to vegetarianism for many years after first learning about the practices that the industrial meat industry participates in. Michael Carolan touches on many of these points, which ignites my internal debate about returning to a diet void of… Read more »
Vertical farming is an innovative way to garden and conserve water. By stacking multiple “shelves” of vegetation, one can reuse water as it drains from one raised bed to another. This format of farming is an effective way to produce lettuce, kale, and other greens. It is also an effective way to contribute to water conservation because as each “shelf”… Read more »
Fertilizer is a major component of fossil fuels—one that has completely transformed the number of crops produced, and in turn has transformed our way of life. Chemical fertilizers are responsible for spiking the production and growth of crops, which has increased the food supply worldwide, allowing for an increase in population. This change in agriculture began with the Green Revolution,… Read more »
The current industry of agricultural seed production is broken into two competing sides. One is made of corporate behemoths, behaving in absolutely capitalist ways with attempts to privatize and patent living items as intellectual property. The other side are smaller scale entities, some comprised of activists and others that are simply individuals trying frame support for balanced policy. Unfortunately these… Read more »
What we choose to eat is a hotly contested topic. If animal welfare doesn’t influence your decision perhaps health experts do? If health doesn’t make a difference to you, what about your impact on the environment? Still doesn’t make a difference? Well, have you considered how your choices are impacting people around the world? Eating seems as though it would… Read more »
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this blog post, because there is so much to distill. The global food system is one of the densest, most complex subjects I’ve ever studied. I suppose the main thought I took away from this class is that there will need to be some massive overhauls and a much deeper and widespread… Read more »
Several years ago, my brother was traveling regularly to Israel, Palestine, and the surrounding areas as part of a team working to research and advocate for the water rights of the Bedouin tribes. He was in law school, working with the Muslim Student Association on a project that I took very little interest in. Now I have an entirely different… Read more »
My favorite contemplative practice was from Lesson 8, Soil and Water. I think about soil every day, believe it or not, from the small amount that gathers under my fingernails when I repot my flowers to the large swaths of it that make agriculture possible. When learning about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, I thought about what an… Read more »
Whenever I would think about things I could do for environmental change it seemed overwhelming. Reading articles about individualization and realizing that one person changing their eating habits isn’t really making that big of a difference helped me think about the bigger picture. With collective action if someone is changing their eating, recycling, or farming practices then yes that can… Read more »
Let’s talk about the water where I live in Naples, Italy. I am an American military spouse and living in Italy because my husband is stationed in Naples. Every year the US Navy does a test on the quality of tap water on the US military base. The report is called, U.S. NAVAL SUPPORT ACTIVITY NAPLES SUPPORT SITE – GRICIGNANO… Read more »