Food, water, agriculture
Dec. 31st, 2017 11:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rebeccmeisterA juxtaposition of things.
First, the highly irksome. Two news articles about terrible trends in eating and drinking among the privileged European-centric upper classes:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/11/why-we-fell-for-clean-eating
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/dining/raw-water-unfiltered.html
The first story does a much better job of talking about the challenges when a movement contains small grains of truth. (ack, I mentioned grains, oh noes, puns; I love grains, ha ha) In the second story - I am a bit disappointed to see a home water acquisition system lumped in with some of the other loony water-acquisition methods. While the home water system would be overkill in most of the US, I could see it being invaluable in other places where clean water is much, much harder to come by. There are, again, small grains of truth to some of the issues with municipal water (NOT fluoride, I would note). But I am a longtime believer in supporting the municipal water supply, as a social justice issue and an environmental issue. The vast majority of us don't have the privilege of sneaking around at night to go get water illegally from primo sources - the privilege of time, the privilege of white maleness and money to avoid getting caught and punished. The water might be clean or whatever, but in my mind it is deeply sullied by the resources that must be used to obtain it.
Next, two stories about agriculture and climate change:
http://www.biographic.com/posts/sto/better-beef
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-agriculture-climatechange-anal/can-agriculture-and-the-climate-fix-their-unhappy-marriage-in-2018-idUSKBN1EM0UA
For the first link: I am pleased to see the BioGraphic article highlighting shifts in beef production in Brazil. We need more stories from outside the United States, because government policy and enforcement play roles in what happens. So does local culture. Can anything be learned from the situation in Brazil and applied to what's still happening in Indonesia for palm oil production? I hope something can be done, before Indonesian forests and their diversity disappear.
For the second: I hope there's recognition that this isn't a situation that can be fixed via technological means alone, yeesh. Maybe that angle is just a product of where the article is published.
First, the highly irksome. Two news articles about terrible trends in eating and drinking among the privileged European-centric upper classes:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/11/why-we-fell-for-clean-eating
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/dining/raw-water-unfiltered.html
The first story does a much better job of talking about the challenges when a movement contains small grains of truth. (ack, I mentioned grains, oh noes, puns; I love grains, ha ha) In the second story - I am a bit disappointed to see a home water acquisition system lumped in with some of the other loony water-acquisition methods. While the home water system would be overkill in most of the US, I could see it being invaluable in other places where clean water is much, much harder to come by. There are, again, small grains of truth to some of the issues with municipal water (NOT fluoride, I would note). But I am a longtime believer in supporting the municipal water supply, as a social justice issue and an environmental issue. The vast majority of us don't have the privilege of sneaking around at night to go get water illegally from primo sources - the privilege of time, the privilege of white maleness and money to avoid getting caught and punished. The water might be clean or whatever, but in my mind it is deeply sullied by the resources that must be used to obtain it.
Next, two stories about agriculture and climate change:
http://www.biographic.com/posts/sto/better-beef
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-agriculture-climatechange-anal/can-agriculture-and-the-climate-fix-their-unhappy-marriage-in-2018-idUSKBN1EM0UA
For the first link: I am pleased to see the BioGraphic article highlighting shifts in beef production in Brazil. We need more stories from outside the United States, because government policy and enforcement play roles in what happens. So does local culture. Can anything be learned from the situation in Brazil and applied to what's still happening in Indonesia for palm oil production? I hope something can be done, before Indonesian forests and their diversity disappear.
For the second: I hope there's recognition that this isn't a situation that can be fixed via technological means alone, yeesh. Maybe that angle is just a product of where the article is published.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-01 03:34 am (UTC)And then of course the people that have food restrictions for life-threatening reasons don't get taken seriously because of all the people that don't need the caution taken or are obnoxious about it.
I hadn't heard about the raw water fad. Though as someone who grew up on well water I'm not that impressed. And I don't think I'll ever be able to drink unfiltered water out of a spring, anywhere. But to each their own parasites, right?
The atmospheric collection system is interesting. I could see places where that could be very useful, but I think I'd still want some kind of filtration or treatment process.