Tierra Lucero
Research into Food and Energy Sovereignty
IMPORTANT THINKERS, WRITERS & BOOKS
Michael Pollan
In Defense of Food — by Michael Pollan
When is food really food, and when is it just “foodlike”? Is the nutrition industry making us sicker? If a packaged product says it’s “healthy” — should we put it back on the shelf?? These strange-but-true questions and more are answered by Michael Pollan in his latest book, a must-read for anyone interested in why our diet is killing us, and what we can do about it. The answer is simple; eat food.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma — by Michael Pollan
From the Michael Pollan website:
What should we have for dinner? The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, how we answer it today, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may well determine our very survival as a species.
Eric Schlosser
Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All American Meal — by Eric Schlosser
Fast food. It’s a multi-billion dollar American empire and a global menace. What is it doing to our health, our cultures, our economies? Award winning investigative journalist Eric Schlosser dives head first into the grease and toxic chemicals (and that yummy flavoring), emerging with the shocking truth about what most Americans — children in particular — are eating every day, and why the rest of the world has good reason to worry.
Click here to read an excerpt from Fast Food Nation.
Click here to read the book online.
Vandana Shiva
Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability and Peace
A leading voice in the struggle for global justice and sustainability, here Shiva describes what earth democracy could look like, outlining the bedrock principles for building living economies, living cultures, and living democracies. These ideals, which Shiva calls Earth Democracy, will serve as unifying points in our current movements, an urgent call to peace, and the basis for a just and sustainable future.
Click here to read the book online.
Wendell Berry
The Books of Wendell Berry
Naturalist, farmer, thinker, writer. Wendell Berry’s prolific output includes essays, poems and books, many of which contain the seeds of a gentle radicalism that can change the way see ourselves in the world. (See links to some of his essays below).
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ARTICLES
What is Food Sovereignty?
Food sovereignty is increasingly being promoted as an alternative framework to the narrower concept of food security, which mostly focuses on the technical problem of providing adequate nutrition. For instance, a food security agenda that simply provides surplus grain to hungry people would probably be strongly criticised by food sovereignty advocates as just another form of commodity dumping, facilitating corporate penetration of foreign markets, undermining local food production, and possibly leading to irreversible biotech contamination of indigenous crops with patented varieties. U.S. taxpayer subsidized exports of Bt corn to Mexico since the passage of NAFTA is a case in point.
The Long Emergency — by James Howard Kunstler
“What’s going to happen as we start running out of cheap gas to guzzle? A few weeks ago, the price of oil ratcheted above fifty-five dollars a barrel, which is about twenty dollars a barrel more than a year ago. The next day, the oil story was buried on page six of the New York Times business section. Apparently, the price of oil is not considered significant news, even when it goes up five bucks a barrel in the span of ten days. That same day, the stock market shot up more than a hundred points because, CNN said, government data showed no signs of inflation. Note to clueless nation: Call planet Earth.”
The Pleasures of Eating — by Wendell Berry
Many times, after I have finished a lecture on the decline of American farming and rural life, someone in the audience has asked, “What can city people do?”
“Eat responsibly,” I have usually answered. Of course, I have tried to explain what I mean by that, but afterwards I have invariably felt there was more to be said than I had been able to say. Now I would like to attempt a better explanation.”
Food Freedom vs. Food Slavery — by Vandana Shiva
Monsanto through the U.S. government, is trying desperately to reverse its failing fortunes by creating markets for its genetically engineered crops (GMOs) through coercion and corruption.
Global Problems, Local Solutions — by Wendell Berry
If governments fail to protect their citizens, then those citizens must protect themselves by developing local economies.
Instant-Mix Imperial Democracy: Buy One Get One Free — by Arundhati Roy
In these times when we have to race to keep abreast of the speed at which our freedoms are being snatched from us, and when few can afford the luxury of retreating from the streets for a while in order to return with an exquisite, fully formed political thesis replete with footnotes and references, what profound gift can I offer you tonight? ( *Ed Note:This is a terrific speech)
In Distrust of Movements — by Wendell Berry
I HAVE HAD WITH MY friend Wes Jackson a number of useful conversations about the necessity of getting out of movements — even movements that have seemed necessary and dear to us — when they have lapsed into self-righteousness and self-betrayal, as movements seem almost invariably to do. People in movements too readily learn to deny to others the rights and privileges they demand for themselves. They too easily become unable to mean their own language, as when a “peace movement” becomes violent. They often become too specialized, as if finally they cannot help taking refuge in the pinhole vision of the institutional intellectuals. They almost always fail to be radical enough, dealing finally in effects rather than causes. Or they deal with single issues or single solutions, as if to assure themselves that they will not be radical enough.
Profits for Justice — by Michael Shuman and Merrian Fuller
“Now that the religious right dominates all three branches of the federal government, one of the few avenues still open for creative progressive initiative is business. . . Gandhi understood that the key to freeing India was to transform his fellow citizens into economically productive agents by spinning their own cloth and taking their own salt from the sea. Martin Luther King Jr. implored African-Americans to form their own credit unions and community development corporations. The secret to being as radical as we want to be — and as radical as we need to be — is to finance the revolution ourselves.”
The Future of Food, the Future of Taos — by Victoria Linden and Bob Pedersen
“There is reason to believe that a time may be coming when we, you and I, will need to grow our own food. Or at least to live in a community where a significant quantity of food is being grown locally, and consumed locally. Why? Because there are real and present dangers to our national food supplies that are not being addressed by our government.”