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PostMay 16, 2017

Food Movement Helps Address Climate Crisis

Just finished J Purdy’s After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene – which makes clear that a sharp distinction between humans and “nature” is no longer useful or accurate. 

Our world is increasingly one we’ve made – in which politics, economy and ecology are all in near-perpetual crisis.  Purdy suggests that these crises, as revealed by climate change, are also opportunities for taking shared global responsibility.  He sees the current food movement, including locally oriented agriculture, as offering a way to make abstract ecological values (e.g., interdependence, integration, humility) concrete, and part of our daily lives.  Some question include:

How does or could the food movement help address crises of politics, economy and ecology?

What incentives could move industrial agriculture toward lower fossil fuel intensity?  Which incentives could increase the share of locally-oriented farms?

What would best communicate the climate implications of people’s food choices and encourage them to move to a more climate-friendly diet?

Any thoughts about these questions?  What questions do you have?

by Dave Damm-Luhr
Topics
Finance & Economics

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