Based on current trends, the authors calculated the world would need to produce 56 percent more calories in 2050 than it did in 2010. If farmers and ranchers met that demand by clearing away more forests and other ecosystems for cropland and pasture, as they have often done in the past, they would end up transforming an area twice the size of India.”

A study that came out on Wednesday from the World Resources Report states a few easy ways we can move towards more sustainable practices. It includes a push for consumers to eat less meat, and more vegetables, as well as to waste less food overall. It states that if consumers could cut back by 40% on their beef and lamb consumption, it could be a considerable difference to greenhouse gas emissions. Another big thing that they suggest is being more efficient with the farm land we currently have available, and preserving the forests we have, so that they aren’t cleared and turned into farm land to try and feed the masses. 

To read the full article click here. 

Schools in Oakland, California, are working to Fight Food Waste 

With 40% of all food we grow going to waste, food waste is an issue we cannot ignore any longer. One arena that this issue has highlighted, is in schools, where the government currently offers free lunch (and in New York City offers free breakfast as well.) And offering free food to millions of children a day is prone to have  waste. Many schools can barely deal with how to logistically feed their hungry children, and so the food waste issue gets pushed to the side, not for lack of care, but for lack of time and resources to deal with it. 

One school district that is rising to the occasion is in Oakland, California, at the Oakland Unified School District, where one woman has taken on this task. Nancy Deming is the school district’s sole sustainability manager for custodial and nutrition services. In this position, she has created a system where the kids have learned to sort their food when throwing it out, which automatically reduces the amount of food going to landfills, by simply composting. Kids have the option of regular garbage, compost, and recycling, and are taught what the difference are from a young age.

She has also been a champion for getting the school district to donate leftover food to local shelters and food banks. Another way they are fighting food waste is by implementing wide-spread share tables. This is a system where kids can put untouched perfectly good food on a table in the lunchroom to share with other students who might want their leftover or surplus food. It is a great way to reuse perfectly good food, and teach kids what is acceptable to share and keep, and what needs to be composted or thrown out. 

A lot of these initiatives have been met with some resistance, simply because they require a lot of time commitment, and many schools are too busy to follow through. That being said, with Deming at the bow, the Oakland school district has made some big impacts, that could be a shining light for other school districts throughout the country. 

To read the full article click here. 

Dow Chemicals May have Forged Safety Reports to Continue Using Brain-Damaging Pesticide, Chlorpyrifos 

Dow (renamed DowDuPont after its 2017 merger with DuPont) likely knew for decades that its pesticide, chlorpyrifos, was harmful to humans—especially young children and developing fetuses. Despite this, the company hid that information from regulators, both in the U.S. and EU, according to a new study, published in the journal, Environmental Health.

This new revelation comes just in time, as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently duking it out in the legal system over an August, 2018, court ruling, requiring the agency to finalize a ban on chlorpyrifos. This ban had been originally proposed under the Obama administration, but was overturned by Scott Pruitt, the appointed head of the EPA after Trump took office. This means that the pesticide has been continually in use this entire time, despite it being a known harmful agent.

On September 24th, the EPA—the agency responsible for protecting us from all of these types of environmental contaminants—asked the courts to rehear the case. This means that chlorpyrifos is still being used widely while the request for a rehearing is being tried in court. This is especially upsetting because the new study was created off of information from studies in the EU, which exposed the pesticide as being harmful as far back as the 1990’s. 

The Organic Consumers Association states: “The study’s authors attempted to replicate the findings in Dow’s original study. But they discovered serious flaws, even omissions, in the company’s analysis. The industry study found “no selective effects on neuro-development” in rats, even at high levels of exposure to chlorpyrifos. This contradicts mounting evidence linking chlorpyrifos to neuro-developmental problems in developing fetuses and young children—even at very low levels. 

The scientists found “treatment-related changes in a brain dimension measure for chlorpyrifos at all dose levels tested.” These findings went unreported in Dow’s original analysis. In other words, Dow’s own data showed that chlorpyrifos hurt rats, but the company didn’t communicate that fact to regulators.” 

It is appalling, but unfortunately not surprising, that a corporation would choose money over human safety, and blatantly lie to consumers and governments about the effects of their product. To make your voice heard on the issue and to try and get this harmful pesticide banned for good, the Organic Consumers Association is collecting signatures on a petition to the EPA, asking the agency to rescind its request for a rehearing, and ban chlorpyrifos now.