food

http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~mk296603/

The surging demand for corn, sugar cane and vegetable oils to make Earth-friendlier biofuels is pitting hungry cars against hungry people, and trouble’s brewing, says sustainable development pioneer Lester Brown.

"...In effect what we have are 800 million motorists who want to maintain their mobility and two billion people who want to survive,..."

Food is easily and conveniently cooked with solar energy as the "fuel" in devices called solar cookers (or solar ovens). Solar cookers are an ideal addition to any kitchen wherever there are predictable hours of sun many days of the year. Solar cooking and baking are easy. Solar cookers are safe around children and provide a great way to learn about and use solar energy. Solar cookers are clean, convenient, non-polluting and easy on the environment. And, for millions of people living in arid, fuel-scarce regions of the world, solar cookers can literally save lives. Solar Cookers International (SCI) spreads solar cooking awareness and skills worldwide, particularly in areas with plentiful sunshine and diminishing sources of cooking fuel. SCI has enabled 30,000 families in Africa to cook with the sun's energy, freeing women and children from the burdens of gathering wood and carrying it for miles. Tens of thousands of individuals and organizations — from all over the world — have learned about solar cooking through SCI's excellent publications and educational materials, and have benefited from SCI's information exchange networks, research, technical support, and the SCI-sponsored Solar Cooking Archive, the internationally recognized Internet resource for solar cooking information. SCI's nonprofit, tax-deductible work is supported by generous individuals, private foundations, and sales of solar cookers and supplies. If you are a current member of Solar Cookers International, we thank you. If you are learning about solar cooking for the first time, please explore the possibilities and join us in teaching the world that with sunshine, cooking is free and easy. 

China's insatiable demand for proteins as well as oil is turning Brazil into the takeaway for the workforce of the world. In the second part of our series, we reveal how the soya trade is creating a gold rush which is deforesting the Amazon

One in six countries in the world face food shortages this year because of severe droughts that could become semi-permanent under climate change, UN scientists warned yesterday...

"...Today the food system is even more reliant on cheap crude oil. Virtually all of the processes in the modern food system are now dependent upon this finite resource, which is nearing its depletion phase."

Beijing - China's leaders have raised the alarm about their country's ability to feed itself as rapid development sucks land, water and people from the food-producing countryside into increasingly large and hungry cities. After a steady fall in grain harvests, the world's most populous nation recently became a net importer of food for the first time in its history, raising domestic political concerns and driving up international prices of wheat, rice and soya

"The prolonged heatwave has devastated crops across Europe, leaving some countries facing their worst harvests since the end of the second world war...""..."The heatwave came at a time when world food supplies were already at their most precarious ever. The amount of grain produced for each person on earth is now less than at any time in more than three decades."..."

"...Greed and corruption are draining the gulf, also known as the Sea of Cortés. It is not dead yet, but it is exhausted. American and Japanese ships were the first to exploit it. Now fleets of Mexican fishermen, mostly unlicensed and ungoverned, are taking whatever they can, as fast as they can, for American and Asian markets. Every important species of fish in the sea is in sharp decline, fishermen and marine scientists say. Overfishing is a global problem. People are taking marine life faster than it can reproduce. The world's catch peaked at 86 million tons in 1989, up fourfold in 50 years. But many governments, including the United States, Mexico, the European Union, Japan and China, kept on pouring subsidies into commercial fishing fleets to keep them afloat. Crucial fisheries have collapsed worldwide..."

"It could have ended all plant life on this continent," geneticist David Suzuki says in the book. "The implications of this case are nothing short of terrifying."