When Anti-Waste Becomes A Movement in China

During an interview with Legal Weekly, Mr. Xu Zhijun, the initiator of the food waste campaign “Operation Empty Plate”, said he did not want the operation to become a movement. While the campaign received endorsement from Mr. Xi… Read More

Antibiotics in Pig Farming: How We Poisoned Ourselves

On March 15, 2011, World Consumer Rights Day, the clenbuterol pork scandal was exposed in China and shocked meat-lovers with this health-threatening “lean meat powder” used to make animals grow muscle rather than fat. But in addition to… Read More

The Global Climate Crisis & Animal Agriculture: Doha and Beyond

[Note: this blog was published originally on the Huffington Post.] Delegates from the world’s governments, and a range of scientists, advisers, and advocates have gathered in Doha, Qatar for the 18th session of the Conference of the Parties… Read More

Climate Wake Up Call: Answered, or Not?

Will world leaders agree on a plan to address global climate change? The question doesn’t yet have an answer. This week at the United Nations, Nobel peace laureate Wangari Maathai delivered a message to the heads of state… Read More

Along the Pearl River: Manufacturing, a Multi-Course Meal, and a Meta Narrative

The “Meat World: China” crew wrapped up the film’s three-week shoot in Guangdong province in southern China. They toured a computer parts factory and interviewed the chef in the industrial city of Dongguan, on the Pearl River. Then… Read More

Guangdong: Pigs, Pollution, and Politics

Three weeks of filming in China and just over three weeks of blogging….The last stop for the “Meat World: China” documentary team is Guangdong province in the far south of the country. It’s here that industry and animal… Read More

40 Billion and Counting (Back, That Is)

How did the world’sbag habit get so outsized? Just about a year and a half ago, the Chinese government decided to end, or seriously discourage, the use of thin plastic bags. You know the kind. You hardly get… Read More

Secretary Clinton’s Summer Reading

As I read about U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s multi-country trip through Africa this month, I couldn’t help but wonder how the diligent Clinton would prepare. Would she (or her aides), for example, read Nobel peace laureate… Read More

From Rockstars to Analysts – Chinese Talk About Vegetarianism, Animal Rights, Climate Change

The shoot begins. In director Jian Yi’s treatment for “What’s For Dinner?”, three main locations and a number of characters and themes are woven together into a record of a day in the life of China’producing and eating… Read More

Illuminating?

From mere idea to more likely reality: a huge solar power project in North Africa, funded by European investors, to provide electricity to much of Europe and perhaps to much of North Africa as well. The many billion… Read More