Assessing the U.S. Climate in 2017 – “Based on preliminary analysis, the average annual temperature for the contiguous U.S. was 54.6°F, 2.6°F above the 20th century average. This was the third warmest year since record keeping began in 1895, behind 2012 (55.3°F) and 2016 (54.9°F), and the 21st consecutive warmer-than-average year for the U.S. (1997… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Food and Nutrition
Study – deploying solar energy dev across non traditional sites
Land-Sparing Opportunities for Solar Energy Development in Agricultural Landscapes: A Case Study of the Great Central Valley, CA, United States. Environ. Sci. Technol., 2017, 51 (24), pp 14472–14482. DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.7b05110. Publication Date (Web): December 19, 2017. “Land-cover change from energy development, including solar energy, presents trade-offs for land used for the production of food and… Continue Reading
EPA Releases Draft Risk Assessments for Glyphosate – Denies cancer risk to humans
EPA Releases Draft Risk Assessments for Glyphosate – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is releasing for public comment the draft human health and ecological risk assessments for glyphosate, one of the most widely used agricultural pesticides in the United States. The draft human health risk assessment concludes that glyphosate is not likely to be… Continue Reading
The EFSA Comprehensive European Food Consumption Database
“The Comprehensive Food Consumption Database is a source of information on food consumption across the European Union (EU). It contains detailed data for a number of EU countries. The database plays a key role in the evaluation of the risks related to possible hazards in food in the EU and allows estimates of consumers’ exposure… Continue Reading
Wealthy countries throw out up to 40% of food
The New York Times: “Globally, we throw out about 1.3 billion tons of food a year, or a third of all the food that we grow. That’s important for at least two reasons. The less the world wastes, the easier it will be to meet the food needs of the global population in coming years.… Continue Reading
The Power of Regional Food System Investments to Transform Communities
New book published jointly by the USDA and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis – Harvesting Opportunity: The Power of Regional Food System Investment to Transform Communities “This publication is designed to highlight the prospects available in the regional food systems sector, advance efforts to provide meaningful earnings and job opportunities for low- and… Continue Reading
USDA – Household Food Security in the United States in 2016
Household Food Security in the United States in 2016 – “An estimated 87.7 percent of American households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2016, meaning they had access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (12.3 percent) were food insecure at least… Continue Reading
Fortune – Change the World List
Fortune places JPMorgan Chase at the top of the latest Change the World List – doing well by doing good: “More companies than ever are using the profit motive to solve a multitude of societal problems. Here’s our third annual list of the best of them. Click here to read more about the list and… Continue Reading
Guardian – Study finds plastic fibers found in tap water around the world
theguardian: “Tests show billions of people globally are drinking water contaminated by plastic particles, with 83% of samples found to be polluted. Microplastic contamination has been found in tap water in countries around the world, leading to calls from scientists for urgent for health. Scores of tap water samples from more than a dozen nations… Continue Reading
Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food from Farm to Fork to Landfill
NRDC: “In 2012, NRDC published a groundbreaking report that revealed that up to 40 percent of food in the United States goes uneaten. That is on average 400 pounds of food per person every year. Not only is that irresponsible—it’s expensive. Growing, processing, transporting, and disposing that uneaten food has an annual estimated cost of… Continue Reading
Axios – Visualizing the Flow of Goods Across America
“This map shows the flow of all domestic freight between states in 2015 using data from the Freight Analysis Framework, which is a comprehensive accounting of all commercial freight movement between states by all modes of transportation. This includes freight moved by trucks, trains, planes and pipelines, but excludes foreign imports and exports and freights… Continue Reading
Paper – Environmental impacts of food consumption by dogs and cats
Okin GS (2017) Environmental impacts of food consumption by dogs and cats. PLoS ONE 12(8): e0181301. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0181301 “In the US, there are more than 163 million dogs and cats that consume, as a significant portion of their diet, animal products and therefore potentially constitute a considerable dietary footprint. Here, the energy and animal-derived product consumption… Continue Reading
