Ask Umbra dishes with Anna Lappe'

[bananas]

http://www.grist.org/article/2010-04-28-ask-umbra-dishes-with-anna-lappe/P1

Ask Umbra dishes with Anna Lappé
by Umbra Fisk
28 Apr 2010 1:05 PM

The next time you bite into a burger, consider this: Livestock create more greenhouse gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, planes, and other fossil-fueled modes of transportation in the world. In fact, our current food system—from industrial farming to packaging to transporting—contributes as much as one-third of total greenhouse gas emissions.

Food's critical place in the climate-change equation is not common knowledge. But author Anna Lappé is doing her best to change that.

Lappé cofounded The Small Planet Institute with her mother, Frances Moore Lappé, author of the 1971 classic Diet for a Small Planet. And Anna Lappé's new book, Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It, picks up where her mother left off nearly 40 years ago, shining a light on the dangerous impacts of our flawed food system on our fragile, warming planet. Lappé chatted with me recently from her home in Brooklyn about corporate greenwashing, what her baby eats, and how to help people find the lost connection between nature and food.

Q. Why do you think this food-climate connection hasn't really been made until recently?

A. First and foremost, it comes down to the fact that the broader climate change conversation is such a relatively new public conversation. As we began to wrap our minds around climate change, we first focused on some of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions. It made sense that we would be talking about coal-fired plants in the energy sector. Now here is broader consensus that this is a crisis, and we understand that every sector needs to play a role.

The second core reason goes back to a historic disconnect between the environmental movement and food. Most of the large, mainstream environmental organizations in this country have largely been silent on the question of food and agriculture. That's why I'm particularly encouraged by groups like Rainforest Action Network talking about agribusiness.

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