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Concerns about the impact on water from biofuels production have been voiced before and are becoming louder. A little more than a year ago, then U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Dick Kempthorne, stated: “To reach our ethanol production target of 7.5 billion gallons per year by 2012 will require 30 billion gallons of water a year to process, or the amount of the annual water needs of Minneapolis, Minn. And if just 25 percent of the new corn crop requires irrigation, ethanol will demand more water than the combined annual usage of all cities in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho and Nevada. As we increase ethanol production, we must have a holistic approach that takes into account its impact on water supply.”

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Originally published on the Daily Table, written by Sophy Bishop.
Walking through the door of the renovated Bed-Stuy warehouse, you may ask yourself, “what is this place?” Ahead, people swipe cards and work on touch screens computers. To your left, a well-stocked lending library; further ahead, a sun-drenched stairway, and to the right, a cheery [...]

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A Video Valentine from Vote Solar from Vote Solar on Vimeo.
Just a couple of days left before the big day and our friends at Vote Solar are still looking for their Valentine.  They haven’t given up hope, though, because they released a video in which they spell out their every desire for a perfect match:
Dependable?  [...]

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The No Impact Project was born from the film and blog “No Impact Man,” in which New Yorker Colin Beaven and his family chose to live with as little environmental impact as possible for a year. Buying locally produced food and forgoing unnecessary shopping, public transportation, and even electricity at one point, Beaven and his family found that they gained much more than they lost during the project. The No Impact Project transforms some of the lessons learned by Beaven and his clan into lesson plans that teachers can use to help students learn about sustainability.

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Originally published by our friends at Cooking Up a Story.
This is the second in a series of “how-to” videos showcasing the knowledge and creativity of farmers who are have worked with the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program (SARE)—either as grant recipients, cooperators or leaders. In the first video, Jeanne Carver (Imperial Stock Ranch, Eastern [...]

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It surprised us to learn that despite the many farms on the island and the trees everywhere dripping with citrus, many of the children living on Maui don’t have access to fresh fruits and vegetables and have no idea how they grow or where they come from.

It turns out that despite a long-standing agricultural heritage and the lush environment for growing, over 90% of the food eaten on this island is imported–yet another example of our food system gone topsy turvy.

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Spreading the word is something each one of us can do. The more people we educate, and the sooner we do it, the faster we will see improvements in our food system. You can help spread the word by talking to the people you know, writing letters to the editor and commenting on blog posts. You can also do it by organizing events, such as lectures, film festivals, conferences, classes, teach-ins and other sustainably focused events… or how about a sustainable dinner party? That sounds like fun and we are here to help!

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For young urbanites, organic farming is more than a job; it is a conscious step toward realizing our worldview. Farming allows us new relationships with food, with our environment, with our communities, and with our bodies. Moving “back to the land,” then, is actually a progressive step forward. It is a rejection of our circumstances. In other words, young organic farmers are seeking to change the current state of things by producing an alternative. I think this is the key to understanding young urbanites’ interest in organic farming: it is at once an affront and an offering to the status quo.

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In his newest eating guide, Michael Pollan once again urges readers to cut back on meat. He notes that “the more meat there is in your diet –red meat in particular- the greater your risk for heart disease and cancer. Why? It could possibly be its saturated fat, or its specific type of protein, or the simple fact that all meat is pushing plants off the plate.” Pollan feels we should treat meat as a side dish or flavoring to be used sparingly.

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As 2009 drew to a close, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) quietly issued a decision that will dramatically decrease the destruction of fish within Long Island’s south shore estuary. Tucked into the large expanse of salt marshes there, the E.F. Barrett Power Station can silently kill more than one billion fish and other marine life specimens every year.

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