It’s gettin’ hot in here | ‘Climate change: how a warming world is a threat to our food supplies’ (Infographic)

Source: The Guardian

Related:

• ‘Millions face starvation as world warms, say scientists’ (The Guardian)
• ‘Climate change and rising food prices heightened Arab Spring’ (Scientific American)
• ‘World Bank chief says global warming threatens the planet and the poorest’ (Washington Post)

The SoleFood Urban Farm on East Hastings Street is sprouting to life once again. C’mon spring!

You can find more of my pics on Instagram at @itcaughtmyeye

It’s Gettin’ Hot in Here: ‘Weathergirl Goes Rogue 2: Still Hot, Still Crazy’

After the huge viral success of ‘Weathergirl Goes Rogue’, the folks at Deep Rogue Ram are back with another hilarious, but deadly serious weathercast.

Related:

• ‘September Bookends the Warmest 12 Months on Record’ (Climate Central)
• ‘Extreme Weather Means Extreme Food Prices Worldwide, Aid Agency Warns’ (NPR)
• U.S. Election 2012: ‘Climate Change, The Debate’s Great Unmentionable’ (New Yorker)

Connect the Dots: Lester Brown on ‘Why Food Is The New Oil And Land The New Gold’

From CNBC:

The United Nations food agency reports that food prices are rising again, reaching 6-month highs and nearing levels not since 2008. Higher prices then spurred food riots in the Middle East and North Africa, which fueled the Arab Spring.

There’s no sign of widespread food riots now but eventually there could be, says Lester Brown, president and founder of the Earth Policy Institute and author of the new book “Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity.”

“The term ‘food unrest’ will become part of our daily vocabulary,” Brown tells The Daily Ticker.

It reflects the imbalance between the supply of food and demand for food globally.

Check out the rest of the article here.

Related:

• New England Complex Systems Institute ‘Food Briefing’
• ‘Americans waste, throw away nearly half their food: study’ (Reuters)
• ‘How much in food do Canadians waste a year? Think billions’ (Globe & Mail)
• ‘7 ways to reduce household food waste’ (CBC)

Grow your own: ‘How we can eat our landscapes’ (Video)

From TED Talks via YouTube:

What should a community do with its unused land? Plant food, of course. With energy and humor, Pam Warhurst tells at the TEDSalon the story of how she and a growing team of volunteers came together to turn plots of unused land into communal vegetable gardens, and to change the narrative of food in their community.

Pam Warhurst cofounded Incredible Edible, an initiative in Todmorden, England dedicated to growing food locally by planting on unused land throughout the community.

(Photo source: Incredible Edible)

In a week where Arctic ice has reached a new low and food prices have spiked due to severe droughts in Europe and the United States it feels strange to think that progress is being made in the fight against global climate change. However, over the last couple of weeks four big initiatives have been announced that have potential to make a significant dent in our collective carbon footprint.

Last week, China announced it will spend some $372 billion on clean energy, energy efficiency, and reducing its use of the dirtiest of fossil fuels: coal. Its announcement also made clear that:

Seven Chinese cities and provinces will launch CO2 emissions trading schemes over the next two years ahead of a national scheme later in the decade. (Reuters)

The country is currently the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions.

On Tuesday, Australia and the European Union announced a partnership to create the world’s largest carbon market, which will begin trading by 2015. Harvard environmental economist Robert Stavins encouragingly described the move in an interview:

Given the relatively primitive state of climate change policy around the world, especially considering the scope of the problem, this is a very significant step forward. (Atlantic Cities)

For those keeping score at home, when California’s carbon trading system opens in November it will be the world’s second largest.

Finally, this week the United States stepped up and delivered a big one-two punch:

Lester Brown on ‘How the battle for water will reshape our world’

From AlterNet via YouTube:

By 2025, two-thirds of people worldwide are expected to face water shortages as businesses, agriculture and growing populations compete for the ever more precious commodity.

Map source: Water for Life Decade (UN)

Feeding Cities:‘Urban farming shows its “Growing Power”’ (Video) 

From CBS:

While driving through Milwaukee, Will Allen saw a plot of land that would bring him back to his childhood roots of working on a farm. Byron Pitts reports on his mission to bring healthy food to the inner city and to create jobs in the community.

Related:

• ‘Soil survivor: An interview with urban farming legend Will Allen’ (Grist)

From The Vancouver Sun:

The city’s urban fruit orchard is poised to expand steadily over the next eight years with new plantings planned for city parks.

The city has created new orchards in three city parks in just the past couple of years — Falaise, Gaston and Slocan — with the Renfrew-Collingwood Food Security Institute and a handful of neighbourhood partners. Its goal is to create at least seven more orchards by 2020 as part of the Greenest City Action Plan.

…

Although the city doesn’t have a complete inventory of fruit and nut trees in parks, the figure is believed to be around 425. The city’s inventory lists more than 600 fruit and nut trees on boulevards.

The biggest opportunity to expand the number of fruit and nut trees in the Vancouver is the city’s street tree planting program, which council has instructed to plant 150,000 trees to complement the 139,000 trees already lining Vancouver streets. But the city is hesitant to plant any more fruit and nut trees on the boulevards because trees that are not carefully maintained can create a tripping hazard on sidewalks and rotting fruit attracts vermin and wasps, according to Alan Duncan, environmental planner for the park board.

Planting fruit trees on the city’s boulevards would make sense for the city from a policy point of view as it satisfies the twin goals of increasing the number of street trees in the city and increasing food assets under Mayor Gregor Robertson’s Greenest City 2020 Action Plan, said Anthony Nicalo of FoodTree, a web- and mobile app-based local food sourcing system.

FoodTree has created an online map of the more than 600 fruit and nut trees already planted on streets and boulevards across Vancouver, which allows people to search for their favourite fruits in season and where they can be picked for free.

Nicalo said planting trees is just a first step toward creating a “food asset,” an accessible and sustainable food source for Vancouverites. Fruit trees need care, fruit needs to be picked and either eaten or processed.

“People need to adopt and care for fruit-bearing street trees,” he said.

Check out the rest of the article here.

(Photo source: Renfrew-Collingwood Food Security Institute)

Urban Farming Goes Big in Brooklyn: ‘World’s Largest Rooftop Garden’ 

From Urban Farm Online:

A new hydroponic greenhouse set atop an old warehouse in Brooklyn, N.Y.’s Sunset Park is set to begin construction this fall — and just might transform New York City into the new model for urban agriculture. Announced in April, the greenhouse will break ground in September and is scheduled for completion in early 2013. When it’s finished, it promises to be the world’s largest rooftop farm, spanning 100,000 square feet and producing up to 1 million pounds of produce per year, including several varieties of tomatoes, lettuces and herbs.

…

Created by BrightFarms Inc., an organization that designs, finances and manages hydroponic greenhouse farms across the United States, the farm will produce enough vegetables and herbs to meet the vegetable consumption needs of 5,000 New Yorkers. And with a newly announced partnership with A&P stores, it truly will. The partnership with the New Jersey-based chain to sell the farm’s produce locally will allow BrightFarms to fulfill its mission of “eliminating time, distance and cost from the food supply chain.”

Check out the rest of the article here. Above is one of a series of TEDxManhattan talks themed ‘Changing the Way We Eat’ featuring the CEO of Brightfoot Farms, Paul Lightfoot.

(Video source: TEDx via YouTube; photo via ArchDaily)