- are high prices for industrial food a good thing?

A few weeks ago we noted that high prices for industrially-produced food might be a good thing if you wanted people to buy more organics. Even the New York Times came to the same conclusion.
But not so fast, says Tom Philpott over at Grist.org.
Philpott worries that, as supermarket prices for conventional goods rise, people [...]

Read Full Post »

- a distopian Earth Day

Gloom — appropriately perhaps — seems to be the theme this Earth Day.
Joseph Romm in Salon thinks it’s already too late to save much of the flora and fauna on our planet. It’s time to worry out ourselves, he says.
Over at Alternet, Michael Klare worries at length about a ‘new world order in energy.’ [...]

Read Full Post »

- corn prices soar. Hurray!

It’s a slightly perverse argument but we’re not the only ones to be making the connection between the recent rise in US corn prices and the good that might do us all.
As followers of Michael Pollan know well, major subsidies to US corn producers have made processed foods containing high fructose corn syrup much cheaper [...]

Read Full Post »