Mia MacDonald Joins Green Belt Board 1/31/10

OpEdNews Reprints Brighter Green Article 1/8/10

Presentations from Copenhagen Climate Talks Now Available 1/7/10

Brighter Green on Air America Radio 12/18/09

Meat World: China Screening a Hit in Copenhagen 12/17/09

COP 15 Post Covers Wangari Maathai and Side Event 12/17/09

In the Media 12/14/09

Check Out the Green Belt Movement Website for More Blogs from Copenhagen 12/14/09

Three New Draft Papers Added to Website 12/11/09

Brighter Green Fall Newsletter Published 12/11/09

In The Media 12/10/09

MCAN Presentation Now Available as PDF 11/16/09

Boston Vegetarian Society Conference Presentation Available 11/6/09

The International Herald Tribune Interviews Brighter Green Associate Stella Zhou 11/1/09

"Meat of the Matter" Lecture Available on Video 10/20/09

Fertilizer Futures

Industrial pig farm under construction, south-central China

Mergers and acquisitions in the global fertilizer industry are on the rise, even as those among steel companies are slowing. Why? And why does it matter? According to Reuters, China's demand for meat will continue to grow, even as its demand for steel levels off. "The revolution of the stomach moves at a slower pace," the author informs us, adding that merger activity among fertilizer giants went "hog wild." Perhaps not the most original metaphor, but the point is made. China is the world's largest consumer of potash, a form of potassium that's used principally for fertilizer, along with animal feed. Predicting the future in a pile of potash? Focus on feed -- and the inputs to produce it. "As long as China's taste for meat increases," the article concludes, "fertilizer companies should continue to eat one another up." The absent referent? The planet, being eaten up, too.

The Visibility of Vegetarianism: Show me the herbivores!

Would you rather change your car or change your diet? Why not both?

As climate skeptics become more heavily outnumbered, concerned citizens are trading in their SUVs for hybrid cars, exchanging incandescent bulbs for compact fluorescents, and sorting their garbage into separate piles for recycling, compost, and waste. However, if you ask the average omnivore to give up meat for the environment, you should be prepared for a strong reaction. Human beings are very attached to their meat habits; as Americans, most of us eat meat every day, some with every meal—we consume an average of 200 pounds of meat, fish, and poultry per person every year!

So, why is vegetarianism such an unwilling sacrifice for most people? We don’t need meat to live or be healthy; I’ve abstained from meat for 10 years and I’m still standing. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, about one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to the production and consumption of livestock, a larger portion than the entire transportation industry. Many vegetarians base their dietary practices on personal beliefs, ethics, and health reasons; now, herbivores may use ecological considerations to support their choices.

Pig Pericope: Copenhagen and Athens Redux

Not on pottery

Pericope (pronounced /pəˈrɪkəpi/) (Greek περικοπή, "a cutting-out") in rhetoric is a set of verses that forms one coherent unit or thought, thus forming a short passage suitable for public reading from a text....

Denmark has a year-round pig population of about 13 million, more than two pigs for every Dane and the highest pig density in the world, according to a report co-published by Friends of the Earth Denmark. Denmark's pigs, almost all consigned to factory farms, are fattened on soy imported from Argentina (where deforestation has accelerated as has the "soyanization" of Argentinean agriculture) plus home-grown corn. Welfare standards are low, giving Danish pork a price advantage in the marketplace, and export levels are high. Pork comprises half of all Denmark's agricultural exports. I didn't spot any live pig at the recent Copenhagen climate talks.

Winged Migration?

50 million year resident

Floating, whether on water or air, sounds pretty appealing, doesn't it? But floating as a way for whole species to migrate sounds pretty far-fetched. Nonetheless, that's the conclusion of new research on why Madagascar, the island nation off the east coast of the African continent, has such a range of unique mammal species, all of them on the small side, like lemurs, those petite primates with the long noses and tails. Scientists now think that lemurs and other small mammals "rafted" to Madagascar, today the only place they're found, about 300 mile across the Indian Ocean from Africa on floating vegetation. This was more than 50 million years ago, and such migrations, accidental or intentional, continued for 30 million years. The flow of ocean currents during back then, unlike now, made such a journey possible.

Matthew Huber, who's a palaeoclimate modeller (who knew there was such a specialty?) at Purdue University in Indiana, explains: "What the model suggests is that occasionally, say one month in 100 years, the currents were strong enough to allow a raft, for example a large log, carrying a family of lemurs to make the journey in about three weeks." It's fascinating to consider this ancient migration route even as climate change is encouraging biologists to explore "assisted migration" for species whose habitats become inhospitable as temperatures shift. But the world's land masses are far more crowded than they were 50 million years ago. We're here, after all. If habitat loss or climate shocks required evacuation, and if the currents allowed lemurs to raft again today, would they find a new home? Maybe if they could fly.

Haiti's Cycle of Debt, Poverty and Destruction

An assistance camp set up by the Brazilian army

Though the full extent of Haiti's earthquake Tuesday is yet to be truly understood, the images emerging from the country are heart-wrenching: bodies are piled outside an overflowing Port-au-Prince morgue, men, women and children sit, waiting - bandaged and stunned, a series of makeshift tents has sprung up to shelter the city's homeless - to replace the somewhat-less makeshift houses that many of them previously inhabited.

It was the current disaster in Haiti that framed last night's conversation at New York's Society for Ethical Culture, among Amy Goodman, Raj Patel and Naomi Klein. Together the three painted a picture of a Haiti impoverished by foreign economic decisions - from the early insistence that Haiti pay reparations to French slave owners for its country's independence, to modern day IMF loans whose conditions included reduced tariff protections for Haitian rice - turning it from self-sufficient in rice production to virtually dependent on American "Miami rice."

UN Climate Change Conference

Brighter Green's Executive Director Mia MacDonald attended the United Nations Climate Change Summit (COP15) held in Copenhagen, Denmark from December 7-18, 2009.
Read more about what Brighter Green did there, and how the talks unfolded.

Meat World: China

Can people in the developing world eat as much meat and dairy as people in the industrialized countries without destroying the planet? And do they really want to? We’re exploring these issues in China through the medium of film. Follow us as we track the film's progress, from filming to post-production.

East African Girls' Leadership Initiative

Brighter Green's collaborative Girls’ Education, Leadership and Rights Training Initiative is underway with an initial cohort of 10 girls from Maasai communities in Kenya and Tanzania. The program’s intent is to invest deeply in a small number of girls with significant potential but who are trapped by their families’ poverty. Meet the girls as they begin their studies in boarding schools in Kenya. Watch a video here.

Challenge Published

Maathai's Challenge

Author, activist, Nobel Prize laureate and Brighter Green colleague Wangari Maathai's new book, The Challenge for Africa has just been published by Pantheon. In it, Maathai offers a compelling look at the problems facing Africa and the promises of the future. She stresses the need for Africans to become self-sufficient, rather than relying foreign benefactors, and to pursue an identity rooted in their own ideals and solutions, instead of Western visions. Read more here.

Climate Change and Food

Brighter Green is supporting ongoing efforts to see passage of the Foodprint NYC Resolution. As reported in the New York Times, the resolution calls for the city to create a more local, climate friendly and healthy food system. Check out this video to learn more.

China and Factory Farming

Brighter Green's policy paper, Skillful Means: the Challenges of China's Encounter with Factory Farming, (PDF) explores the challenges facing China's environment, public health, and food security due to the rapid increase in consumption of meat and dairy products and the industrialization underway of its animal agriculture sector.