Filed under: Food + Health, Local Events + Action | Tags: Amy's Meats, bridge, eco-friendly, KS, Lawrence, Local Burger, The Community Mercantile, University of Kansas, vegetarian
Paul McCartney once said, “If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is stop eating meat. That’s the single most important thing you can do.” It seems that GoVeg.com is also a key supporter of this statement. The United Nations argues that the meat industry “emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problem at every scale from local to global.”
This is when I start to feel a bit guilty stopping for a quarter pounder at McDonalds on 23rd street last week because I thought it was convenient. In reality, my laziness led to increases in carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide emissions, which is only hurting our planet even more. After taking numerous approaches to become eco-friendly (using a aluminum reusable water bottle, consciously turning off lights when not in use, and turning off the water when I brush my teeth in the morning), I still have not been able to take that step towards vegetarianism. Yet, I want to save the world. I want my children to be able to enjoy beautiful landscapes, just like the KU campus. I have to wonder how I am going to begin to walk across that bridge towards this ultimate goal of saving the planet.
Fortunately, the city of Lawrence is two steps ahead of me. Lawrencesustainability.net has shown me multiple ways to begin my trek on that bridge towards saving our planet. Food joints like Local Burger support Lawrence’s local farmers by advocating the humane treatment of animals. Local Burger also recycles and composts their organic waste. The Community Mercantile’semphasis on natural and organic foods, as well as local foods exhibits their attempts to save the world, too. Amy’s Meats is also a prime example of efforts to save the world and be able to eat delicious meats. I understand where Paul McCartney and the United Nations are coming from in their attempts to show awareness about the benefits of being a vegetarian. At the same time, some unique food establishments in Lawrence speak in a way that I agree with: enjoying meat with this ideal of saving Mother Nature at the same time. What do you think? Is it better to support these innovative approaches of saving our planet by eating organic, hormone-free meat? Or is it just easier to become a vegetarian?
picture taken from
http://www.goveg.com/environment-globalwarming.asp
This right here is the one of the largest and significant contributors to today’s environmental problem. But they look so innocent!
Dena Hart
Filed under: Society + Media
I’m a 21-year-old journalism student with reporting emphasis. This is my third year at KU and living in the U.S. I spent most of my life in Tokyo. Many people associate Tokyo with skyscrapers, overpopulation and Lost in Translation. But it’s a beautiful city, too, which has many parks, shrines and temples. Especially cherry blossoms in spring are very pretty!
I have also lived in Shanghai, China for three years because of my father’s job. It was an eye-opening experience in my life. At first, I found rejection to the different culture and shut myself in a small Japanese community. After a year or two, I realized I was missing out something important and decided to transfer to Chinese school. (technically international school but everybody spoke Chinese there) My Chinese level was like a five-year-old kid. I had a hard time communicating with people and lost 20 pounds from stress. Eventually I learned to speak some Chinese, got lifelong friends and learned to assimilate myself into a different environment.
Why I’m studying in an American college? Usually I just answer to study English or journalism. Well, there’s more than that. I wanted to see lives, values and decisions of ordinal Americans. When I was in Japan, I saw the U.S. through politics, economy and popular cultures. I had a mixed feeling toward America. I admired American pop culture and wealth. At the same time, I felt frustration and even anger at how America tried to reign over the world economy and politics, demonstrate its own justice and start war. My stereotypes about Americans were patriotic, aggressive, self-assertive, arrogant and ignorant. America’s influence over the world is huge after all. I wanted to see the country from inside. Now, I learned America, which I saw in the media, is not everything. I’ve met great people and learned values and wisdom which Japan could learn. From my experience of living in the three countries, I found some universal values. Things like meeting all of you who’re enthusiastic about the environment keep me update my view of America.
I’m interested in the environment partly from social-justice. But more than anything, it’s exciting. I feel thrilled at new technology, inventions and products that satisfy both environmentalists and businesses. If I were good at science, I’d be an architect and design green buildings.
I’m so happy to have chosen a journalism major. I still struggle with writing in English and meeting at deadlines. But I love to learn about new things, inform people and fill gaps between different cultures and values. Hopefully, I’ll be a foreign correspondent and get to travel around the world.
Sachiko Miyakawa
Filed under: Society + Media | Tags: eco spin, environment public relations, green spin, Thank You For Smoking
Who wants to take a swing at corporate malice?
I do, I do.
But we can’t go off the deep end pointing out corporate faults. As in the article “Journalists: Know Your Sources” companies have Public Relations departments that can spin bad publicity better than most environmentalists can dish it out.
Environmentalists might want to take a page out of their play book. If only the environmental movement had people that can bring up the points that need to be addressed when confronted with a tough question. As was the case (I think it was Lauren Keith) who told the story in class about the Coal Plant hearings in Topeka. When a scientist was asked about pictures of coal plants, he gave a scientific, just the facts response. Instead if that scientist had a PR guy or gal who could plug in the points that needed emphasis, even in a simple yes or no question, the environmental movement would probably be far more successful.
A perfect example of this is the move Thank You for Smoking. What we need is the Nick Nailer of the environment. Someone who knows the issues and can spin it to make it palatable for the general public.
Environmentalists aren’t getting through to people on the scare tactics, we need to schmooze them a little bit. As I said in my sexing the green movement post, it is the personality of green we need to change.
That is where we come in. We, everyone in class. We all have very interesting and thought provoking things to say. Just look at our blogs. We are all very different, and resonate to different audiences. And to the right audience, we all can be Nick Nailer. That is where the values based communication comes in. We all can relate to certain groups and find something that would encourage them to make changes and work towards a sustainable future.
We should think of a snappy name like the, “Statistical Assessment Service” like DuPont’s PR firm. And then get ourselves out there to be the faces and voices of the environmental, or green, or whatever name we are now, movement. That is how we get the little zingers in to media like Sarah was talking about in her comments on John’s post, “Niche Media’s Green Obligations?“
fired up thoughts by Adam
Filed under: Food + Health | Tags: agriculture, beef, carbon dioxide, cattle, cow, emissions, fart, global warming, Kansas, Lauren Keith, meat, methane, sustainable, vegetarian
Art by Lydia Marano, flickr.com
Carbon dioxide soaks up the limelight as the big bad wolf of global warming, but its partner-in-carbon-crime, methane, might huff and puff and build up in our atmosphere first.
A large source of atmospheric methane is from the world’s cattle.
Every day, one cow farts and burps 240 liters of methane. That’s 120 two-liter bottles filled with silent-but-deadlies multiplied by the world’s 1.3 billion cattle.
It’s the most inconvenient truth of all, Al Gore: Eating steaks and hamburgers is killing the planet (among other things).
Not once in his 96-minute presentation did Gore mention methane. But methane is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide, and emissions have increased by 240 percent since 1994, when carbon dioxide has increased only 30 percent in the same time.
Scientists are attempting to correct the problem by altering the bacteria in the cow’s stomach. But we are failing to address the real problem: our increasing consumption of meat.
Not to toot my own horn, but becoming a vegetarian is a more sustainable lifestyle. I wouldn’t dare suggest that everyone become a vegetarian, but saving meat for certain occasions may save the planet. All food can be made with meat substitutes or without meat.
Feedlots, especially in western Kansas, forget that global warming will hurt them from rising temperatures but no extra rainfall. Warmer temperatures will force them to pull water from the already water-stressed aquifer.
Global warming is playing its own version of natural selection by changing the types of plants found in Kansas. Plants resistant to droughts survive while native species die. If grazing animals refuse to eat these new plants, companies would move north to find suitable plants again, taking a devastating portion of Kansas’ $7.3 billion agriculture industry with it. (PDF)
Eliminating beef from your diet may seem a little un-Kansan, but making up for that by eating locally grown produce should keep farmers in business.
Whatever the solution, we can’t keep farting around with such a serious problem.
Cows, cows, the musical food. The more you eat, the more we’re screwed.
—Lauren Keith
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Filed under: Society + Media | Tags: 7th Heaven, Buffalo Grove, Days of our Lives, environmentalist, Judaism, KU Hillel, Olin Sang Ruby Union Institute, Temple Chai
(that’s me at the Mediterranean Sea in Tel Aviv, Israel last January)
I come from a northwest suburb of Chicago (Buffalo Grove) of about 40,000 people. My graduating class in high school had over 1,000 people. Let’s just say there was never a dull moment. I am the daughter of a Rabbi (which I try to tell myself doesn’t mean anything…but it really does.) My father’s congregation has almost 1000 families (so our family motto is “You can run…but you can’t hide.”) If anyone likes bad television like myself and has seen the show 7th Heaven (which is no longer on TV, but has re-runs on ABC family)…that is my life in a nutshell (except for the fact that we don’t have random homeless, abandoned, or run-away people living in our house). Having my father be a local celeb, life has certainly been made for the public eye (which during my early teenage years I had to learn the hard way.)
I came to KU because I did not get into my top 2 schools (let’s just say KU was my safety.) It ended up being one of the best decisions I have ever made. I wanted to get away from home to start a new life. If anything, I have realized what is important. In the end, being Jewish has been apart of my everyday life and apart of everything that I believe. Being Jewish is how I got interested in the environment. The whole ‘environmenalist’ thing is still very new to me, and that is why I am taking this class. To learn and to be inspired. I am a junior majoring in Psychology with a minor in Judaic Studies. I am currently working at KU Hillel (a Jewish student organization on campus) as a cook. (I cook for Shabbat meals, events, etc.) Who knows where life will take me…
Likes: Days of Our Lives (I told you, I love bad TV), kitties, steak, my family, the colors green and purple, being Jewish, friends, laughing, being original, camp, coffee, Israel, traveling, deep discussions about the meaning of life, etc.
-Dena Hart
Filed under: Society + Media
I am a 24-year-old graduate student who was born and raised in Kansas City, but had yet to step foot into Lawrence until I started school here in August 2006.
I went to college at Marquette University in probably my most favorite city in the world, Milwaukee. Don’t laugh if you have never been there because it is truly awesome. The people are friendly, there are tons of fun things to do, and there is literally a bar on every corner. My freshman dorm was closer to four bars then it was to class!
After graduating with a degree in broadcast journalism, I was pretty sure that people would be throwing jobs at me. Unfortunately, they weren’t.
I ended up meeting an ophthalmologist at the Royals Stadium Club (where I have worked for the past seven seasons) and was offered a job working in his office. After being there for two and a half years, I was very thankful that I had not gone into the medical field. On the upside, I did get free lasik out of the deal!
Last December, I got hired at Fox 4 as a production assistant and I absolutely LOVE my job. The only bad thing is that I have to wake up at 3 a.m. and go to bed at 6 p.m. There goes my night life.
Right now I am working hard to finish my thesis so that I can graduate in May and at the same time I am busy planning my wedding in September. But I like being busy so it’s been kind of fun.
Some of my likes include reading US Weekly, taking my dogs for walks, going to the lake, and watching the Royals.
My dislikes include winter, driving long distances, Paris Hilton, and not getting enough sleep.
I absolutely love to travel and I just booked my first cruise for our honeymoon. I have been to Italy, Ireland, England, Canada, Mexico, and I lived in Australia for six months when I studied abroad one semester. I have been to 40 states and I hope to visit them all before I turn 30.
I am Catholic and recently gave up sweets for Lent so it was very hard for me to turn down the chocolate and cookies last week. I attended Catholic schools from kindergarten all the way through my senior year of college at Marquette. I even met my fiancee Tim in grade school when I was five years old.
And even though I aspire to be on television someday (I was on the Price is Right a few years ago and won a fridge) I sometimes get shy and kind of nervous when I have to talk to a group of people. So when I present in class next week, feel free to smile at me!
Lindsay
Filed under: Food + Health, Local Events + Action | Tags: gardening, Lawrence Sustainability Network, seed saving, seed+saving, traditional agriculture
“Pawnee Blue Flour Corn: white cob with long slender ears, dark purplish to blue grey to blue speckled color. Grows six to ten feet tall in about 110 days from planting, crushes well into blue flour.” I read this description on the back of a seed packet at the latest meeting of the Lawrence Sustainability Network (LSN) gardener’s club. It had been brought by Dianna Henry, along with half a dining room table full of other seeds, neatly stored in envelopes taped closed with masking tape and covered with handwritten notes.
“From USDA who lists their source as ‘Gilmore in late 1800s’” – this note was more puzzling, and definitely not a typical descriptor on a seed packet. It meant that the seeds I was holding in my hand had lineage back to the 19th century; that the corn had been planted, harvested, and saved for over 100 years by indigenous peoples, a man named Gilmore, my friend Dianna Henry, and now this summer, my roommate Berrigan.
Dianna is a seed saver; a self-appointed protectorate of our food. That’s not to say she stands guard over the produce department at Dillon’s, armed and ready for battle; but Henry does collect, propagate, and save seeds from plants that have grown in this area for centuries -she even wears a necklace of corn seeds she has preserved. In this age of a globalized food economy, where everything we eat has traveled an average of 1500 miles from field to table, the packet of Pawnee Flour Blue Corn seeds is a rare and precious gift.
With the spread of genetically identical monocultures to all corners of the world, having the knowledge and the resources to grow food acclimated specifically to this region is all we have to prevent a second Irish potato famine. The good news is Dianna’s work with the LSN extends beyond the gardener’s club, and her knowledge about ancestral food systems is available to anyone interested in learning. She also has seeds, lots of them –you can find her and her seeds here – if you want to take a stand to ensure the safety of our food’s future… and play in the dirt.
Corn and Sunflower seed varieties
from picturethepromise; flikr.com
-Jennifer Kongs
