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Read the full story in The Guardian. For an interesting discussion of statistical analysis and scientific research, see Science Isn’t Broken over at FiveThirtyEight.
A new paper finds common errors among the 3% of climate papers that reject the global warming consensus.
Thu, Sep 17, 2015 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM CDT
Register at https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/9090418359952984578
Every year, Americans throw away $165 billion worth of food. World-wide, 1/3 of all food is lost or wasted. We use 25% of our potable water to grow food that is ultimately lost or wasted. This occurs while 1 in 6 Americans is food insecure.
This U.S. EPA-hosted webinar will show K-12 schools how to improve their bottom line, feed hungry people, and reduce wasted food by learning from schools engaged in surplus food donation from school cafeterias. Also, the USDA will clarify its food donation policy and the legal implications of surplus food donation.
Speakers
Jimmy Nguyen – U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington D.C., works for the USDA Food and Nutrition Service, where part of his role is to promote food waste reduction, recovery, and recycling activities in school cafeterias. Jimmy is also a part-time farmer and home builder in Fauquier County, Virginia, where he employs sustainable techniques to reduce consumption and increase fertility.
Gloria Quinn – Faculty at Ramona High School, Ramona, California, teaches functional skills training for grades 9-12 where students participate in hands-on activities that connect learning in a meaningful way.
André Villaseñor – Sustainable Materials Management coordinator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Los Angeles Field Office has served at EPA since 2005 and coordinates the Food Recovery Challenge. Prior to EPA, he served in the U.S. Peace Corps in Ecuador.
Kathleen Weil – Founder and Executive Director of The Food Bus, Arlington, Virginia leads this non-profit organization that helps K-12 schools build the foundation for recovering surplus food that is then donated to local food banks. Before Food Bus, Dr. Weil was an asst. professor of Health Sciences at Marymount University, after having spent many years working in the research areas of Genomics & Mental Health at the National Institutes of Health.
Read the full story in the Los Angeles Times.
The drought’s toll on California has been measured mostly in terms of idled cropland, dried up domestic wells and brown lawns. Less visible but more devastating has been damage to native fish that struggle for survival in the best of times.
Read the full story at Huffington Post Green.
Something as simple as water winds up becoming immensely complicated in the hands of a multinational corporation like Coca-Cola.
On Tuesday, the company announced it had almost reached its goal of “replenishing” all of the water in the beverages it sold in 2014…
By “replenishing,” Coke does not literally mean it’s putting back the water it takes out of each locality where it operates. To come up with its number on replenishment, Coke and its partner, the nonprofit Nature Conservancy, measured the amount of water it reclaimed through various conservation efforts around the globe — everything from tallgrass restoration in North Texas to reforestation in Ghana to canal rehabilitation in Kyrgyzstan. The company is involved in hundreds of these projects.
“That’s not how it works,” said Amit Srivastava of the India Resource Center, an activist group based in India that opposes corporate globalization in the country. “Water issues are local issues. You need to put water back at the source.”
Read the full story in The Guardian.
The retail giant’s foundation is calling for innovative solutions to waste and pollution but critics say it’s just a way to keep the wheels of fast fashion spinning.
Read the full Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times.
Generally speaking, in the last decade or so, the research community has been moving toward increased transparency, particularly when it comes to any financial entanglements that might cast doubt upon a scientist’s objectivity. The backlash, however, has begun, and calls to reverse the trend are coming from some surprising places.
Read the full post at Shareable.
An estimated 40 percent of food in the U.S. is wasted by either being thrown away or left to rot. Considering that 49 million Americans live in food insecure households, this is a sobering statistic. Food waste also exacts an incredible toll on the environment. Food waste in landfills creates methane, one of the most harmful greenhouse gases; it leads to the wasteful use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers; and it causes unnecessary energy and transportation impacts.
The Food: Too Good to Waste Challenge, designed by the Environmental Protection Agency with input from the West Coast Climate & Materials Management Forum, aims to bring awareness to families about household food waste, show them where, and how much, they are wasting, help them reduce their waste, and collect data for local officials on the household food waste habits in their community.
The challenge includes a toolkit, which is free and openly available and full of practical tools to help cut down food waste. The toolkit includes detailed instructions and tools for tracking your food waste, doing smarter shopping, eating food before it goes bad and more.
In a recent West Coast Climate & Materials Management Forum webinar, representatives from the Food: Too Good to Waste (FTGTW) team, as well as three cities that implemented the toolkit, provided an overview of the toolkit, shared their experience of using it, and made suggestions for running a successful food waste reduction challenge. Here are steps to take to implement the challenge in your community.
