From Regina over at The Green Fork blog:

In a ruling certain to discourage communities from fighting the construction of factory farms in their areas,  last week the Illinois Supreme Court rejected an appeal by residents who are being sued for $300,000 in costs and damages after their unsuccessful attempt to have environmental issues addressed before construction of a Cargill-affiliated pork CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation).

This case hinged substantively on whether the construction was defined as a new facility, or an expansion of an existing facility, under the Illinois Livestock Management Facilities Act.  The act was amended by the Illinois legislature in 1996 in recognition of the fact that market forces were leading to the construction of larger CAFOs, which increased the threat of groundwater and air pollution.  To balance these issues with the state’s desire to promote agriculture, the updated law requires “minimum setbacks, stiffer design requirements, and an opportunity for public notice, comment and hearing” when a new animal confinement facility is proposed.

According to the Illinois Appellate Court – which issued the ruling the state Supreme Court refused to review – the farmer who is the defendant in this lawsuit, “admitted [that] the location of the proposed facility would violate setback requirements” if the CAFO he plans to construct was considered new.  However, the same court accepted the defendant’s argument that the planned structure qualifies as an expansion of an existing CAFO under the law, and therefore does not trigger the more stringent environmental requirements imposed on new facilities.

The farmer’s claim that he is “expanding” his facility, rather than building a new one, was based upon his plans to build on the site of a hog confinement building that was demolished in 2004 and which housed, at times, as many as 2,300 animals.  Supporting his claim was a finding by a state agriculture department employee that the cost of the proposed “expansion” would be less than half the cost of a “new” facility.  Under the Livestock Management Facilities Act, an expansion that costs less than half of what it would cost to build a new CAFO is not deemed a new facility.

The CAFO to be built will house 3,750 hogs – about 62 percent more than the one that was demolished in 2004 – bringing 62 percent more waste to a community with at least 60 homes within a two mile radius.  In fact, even as they ruled against the community, the appellate court wrote, “plaintiff no doubt has valid concerns about the arrival of 3,750 hogs in the neighborhood.”

The dissenting judge on the three judge panel reasoned that the court should have considered “not necessarily whether the defendant’s project constitutes a ‘new’ facility, but whether it is the sort of project that [the] legislature intended to be subjected to more strenuous notice, processing, and setback requirements.”  To support this contention, he cited a 1988 case in which the Illinois Appellate Court found that expansion of a landfill could trigger the more stringent requirements and review generally reserved under the law for a “new” landfill because it, “in effect, increases its capacity to accept and dispose of waste.”

In the landfill ruling, the court took into account that “adjusting the dimensions of a landfill . . . will surely have an impact on the ‘danger to the surrounding area.’”  Sadly, in deciding the CAFO lawsuit, the court failed to make this connection between the consequences of its ruling and the legislature’s intent to prevent environmental and public health damage from the construction of large factory farms.

Illinois courts routinely allow defendants to sue the losing party for fees and damages when a trial court’s preliminary injunction is found to have been “wrongly issued,” as the appeals court ultimately decided happened in this case.  This appears to leave the plaintiffs, area residents who came together to address environmental concerns about this new factory farm, holding the Big Feed bag.

What’s the best way to feed Haiti’s starving masses?

The earthquake that devastated Haiti on January 12th shocked the world. Immediate relief efforts must continue for as long as necessary and need to focus on providing food, shelter and medical care for the millions of Haitians affected. But, at the same time, experts must start looking at ways to rebuild the country, and a strong focus needs to be put on agriculture and the country’s food system.

The United Nation’s Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) has called for $23 million for agriculture to support farms, backyard gardens, urban agriculture and rural development. And to be most effective, a sustainable system of agriculture needs to be introduced, where many farmers work small plots of land to yield many types of crops, and minimal to no pesticides or fertilizers are used.

In addition, the government needs to rebuild infrastructure such as roads and canals, provide subsidies for Haitian farmers, reforest destroyed land and increase tariffs on imported foods. Efforts must be made to help Haitians become self-sufficient so food riots like in April 2008 do not happen again.

This is vital to the rebuilding of Haiti. According to the United Nation’s World Food Programme, 76% of Haitians live on less than $2 day and 56% on less than $1 a day. The FAO reports that around 80% of Haitians are involved with agriculture, but they do not have the necessary expertise or equipment. Haitians need to be given the tools – training, seeds, hand tools, livestock such as pigs and chickens – in order to rebuild their food system.

In a developing country such as Haiti, expensive inputs such as chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides need to be replaced with natural ways to grow food – compost, beneficial insects, crop rotation, diversified crops. These types of inputs are low to no cost and are more practical for the type of farming that needs to be done in the country. Because of the rugged mountainsides, large machinery is not feasible which saves on costs for parts and oil.

Haiti should look to its neighbor Cuba for inspiration. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba imported over 50% of its food and had an industrial-based agriculture system. After the Soviet Union disbanded in 1991, Cuba had nowhere to export and nowhere to get their pesticides, chemicals and industrial inputs from, so they were forced to create a sustainable food system.

Large farms were broken up into smaller plots and urban agriculture was introduced on a large scale. According to Food First, by 1999 sustainable urban agriculture produced 65% of Cuba’s rice, 46% of fresh vegetables, 38% of non-citrus fruits, 13% of roots, tubers and plantains, and 6% of eggs. Farmers and researchers from around the world now visit Cuba to learn more about their sustainable food system.

The planting season in Haiti is March, and the hurricane season begins in June. With so much effort now needed to provide emergency food relief and secure shelter for the upcoming storm season, there isn’t much focus on providing Haitians ways to produce their own food in the long term. But it is necessary. They need to plant as many crops as possible come March and also to look at how they can become a food secure country.

Join families across the country for a Family Cook-In! on Sunday, February 7th and spend an afternoon learning with your kids about food – what it’s made of, where it come from and how to enjoy every bite. It shows on Sunday at 2pm, perfect timing to watch the movie and make some fun nutritious snacks for the Super Bowl! If you can’t fit it in on Sunday, Discovery’s Planet Green is playing it throughout the week, see below for additional times.

HOW TO JOIN IN THE “FAMILY COOK-IN!”

First, download our Screening Toolkit.

It has all the stuff you need to have a fun and delicious Family Cook-In!

Second, watch What’s on Your Plate? at 2:00 p.m. on Discovery’s Planet Green. Click here to find your local channel.

Third, check out the games and activities in our Screening Toolkit.

Fourth, cook and eat together! Get everyone in the kitchen chopping, stirring, pouring and baking. Then sit down together for some fresh and yummy home-cooked food.

Think food justice is too tricky for kids? Think again. What’s On Your Plate? proves that not only can kids understand the issues, they can actually teach other kids about how they are what they eat.

The film follows two eleven-year-old multi-racial city kids as they explore their place in the food chain. Sadie and Safiyah take a close look at food systems in New York City and its surrounding areas. With the camera as their companion, the girl guides talk to each other, food activists, farmers, new friends, storekeepers, their families, and the viewer, in their quest to understand what’s on all of our plates.

According to Michael Pollan: “‘What’s On Your Plate?’ is exactly the film we need now.”

And Alice Waters says: “It was an amazing experience to hear kids talking about these issues. This movie can have a real impact on the way we think about what we’re eating.”

Visit the website for more information on the film and how you can get involved.

Can’t make the Family Cook-In! broadcast? No problem. The film will be showing throughout the week, with additional broadcasts on:

Saturday February 6th, 2010 at 10 pm

Thursday February 11th at 11 pm

Friday February 12th at 7 am

Friday February 12th at 3 pm

This thorough rebuttal of “Demystifying the Environmental Sustainability of Food Production” was originally posted on The Green Fork blog by Chris Hunt:

Something’s been bothering me since Thanksgiving, festering deep in the gut like an angry conglomeration of undigested yams and cranberry relish… The disturbance: junk science.  The offending bit of ivory tower mediocrity: Demystifying the Environmental Sustainability of Food Production, a paper by Jude Capper, Roger Cady and Dale Bauman published in the Proceedings of the Cornell Nutrition Conference 2009.  I didn’t want to respond… tried to ignore it… but ultimately, I couldn’t resist.

Off with the gloves (a note to the paper’s authors):

Jude Capper, Roger Cady and Dale Bauman: your paper demonstrates either a lamentable misunderstanding of the impacts of livestock production practices, or a willful effort to misrepresent the facts.  Or perhaps a little of both.

Hmmm… (a note to readers):

Surprise, surprise – Capper, Cady and Bauman are Big Time Big Dairy proponents; they’ve all been pushing rBGH for years – in fact, Cady is actually employed by Elanco Animal Health (the division of Eli Lilly to which Monsanto sold rBGH in 2008).  But I’m sure this had no impact on their analysis.

Junk Debunked

The thrust of the authors’ argument is that the “efficiency” of industrial ag enables factory farms to produce a given quantity of meat, eggs and/or dairy products with a smaller adverse environmental impact than less-efficient, traditional livestock farms.  As you’d expect, there are a number of Major Flaws in their analysis – read quick descriptions of each flaw below; find detailed assessments after the jump.

• Major Flaw #1: Grossly inadequate assessment of “environmental impact”

Greenhouse gas emissions aren’t the only environmental impact of factory farms.

Major Flaw #1a: Total manure production doesn’t necessarily reflect environmental impact

Not all manure is created equal.

PLEASE READ ON – THERE IS SO MUCH MORE!

Major Flaw #1b: Net feed, water, and land use doesn’t necessarily reflect environmental impact

Not all resources are created equal.  Efficiency can create new environmental problems.  Resource consumption stats should include resources destroyed by pollution.

• Major Flaw #2: Grossly inadequate assessment of “livestock”

Dairy cows and beef cattle aren’t the only animals raised on factory farms.

• Major Flaw #3: Dubious analysis of greenhouse gas emissions

It’s fine to use stats from papers you’ve already published – as long as your original analysis is airtight. Theirs was not.

• Major Flaw #4: Weak analysis of food miles

Just because food miles are an imperfect indication of transportation emissions doesn’t mean you should start buying eggs from the other side of the world.

The Details:

Warning: if junk science makes you violently ill, stop reading now.  But if you enjoy exploring the murky depths of misguided analysis, read the detailed critique below.

Major Flaw #1: Grossly inadequate assessment of “environmental impact”Throughout the paper, Capper et al. repeatedly assert that industrial livestock production has a smaller “environmental impact” than traditional livestock production.  Although the authors briefly state that certain industrial livestock sectors use fewer resources and generate less waste per unit of food (more on this later), the only environmental impact they chose to describe in any detail is the emission of greenhouse gasses (GHGs).

Newsflash:

Greenhouse gases aren’t the only pollutants generated by livestock production

Even the most cursory analysis of contemporary livestock production practices would quickly reveal that industrial operations emit a host of additional pollutants that degrade the environment and threaten human health.

A very brief, far-from-comprehensive list of pollutants emitted by industrial livestock operations:

Water pollutants such as nitrogen, phosphorus, antibiotics, hormones, heavy metals, salts, etc.; air pollutants such as hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, volatile organic compounds, particulates, etc.; pathogens such as E. coli, Campylobacter, Salmonella, etc.

It’s worth noting that many of these pollutants pose a more significant, less easily mitigated threat to the environment than GHG emissions.  In any case, the many environmental impacts of industrial livestock production are described extensively in the scientific literature; any expert in this field should be well-aware that GHG emissions are only a small component of livestock’s environmental footprint.

Major Flaw #1a:

Total manure production doesn’t necessarily reflect environmental impact

Although the paper’s assessment of environmental impact is based primarily upon GHG emissions, the authors do state (in passing) that industrial dairies generate less waste per unit of milk than traditional dairies.  The implicit assumption is that there’s a direct correlation between a livestock production system’s waste output (as measured by manure production), and the magnitude of its adverse environmental impact.  Here’s why this assumption is invalid:

Location matters

As legions of earnest freshmen learn in Environmental Studies 101, a potential pollutant’s location can affect the degree to which it impacts the environment.  For instance, when a cow on a traditional farm excretes manure in a field, the manure serves as fertilizer, providing nutrients for the pasture – no problem!  When a cow on a factory farm excretes manure, it’s collected in a manure lagoon with a tremendous volume of additional waste.  Since the quantity of manure exceeds the carrying capacity of surrounding land, it becomes a hazardous pollutant – Big Problem!

Manure storage/handling affects environmental impact

When waste is collected and stored in manure lagoons (the standard procedure on factory farms), the process of decomposition releases a chemical cocktail of hazardous air pollutants that impair human health and cause surrounding towns to smell like cesspools.  Oh yeah – the lagoons are also prone to leaks, overflows, and catastrophic collapses, which increases the capacity of factory farm manure to pollute soil and water.  Since traditional farms don’t use lagoons, their manure doesn’t generate these adverse environmental impacts.

Manure composition varies

All manure is not created equal; animal waste from factory farms contains pollutants that aren’t present in manure from sustainable farms (e.g., antibiotics and/or antibiotic-resistant bacteria, hormones, heavy metals, etc.).  Again, this means that a given volume of industrial manure has a greater potential environmental impact than the same volume of manure from a traditional farm.

Major Flaw #1b:

Net feed, water and land use doesn’t necessarily reflect environmental impact

Capper et al. suggest that compared to traditional dairies and beef cattle systems, industrial operations require fewer “resources” (defined narrowly as feed, water and land requirements in the case of dairy, and land use and energy requirements in the case of beef cattle) to produce a unit of milk or beef.

The implicit assumption is that there’s an inverse relationship between a production system’s feed, water, land and animal energy requirements and the system’s environmental impact (i.e., less resource use = smaller environmental impact).  Of course, in the real world, this isn’t always the case.  For instance:

The production of different types of animal feed has different environmental impacts; e.g., maintaining pasture for grass fed animals has minimal impact – but the production of feed crops for industrial livestock causes a wide range of problems (e.g., impact of pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, erosion, feed transportation, etc.).  Thus, while a factory farmed animal might consume fewer calories, the environmental impact of producing its industrial feed might be greater than the impact of producing a larger quantity of non-industrial feed (e.g., grass) for an animal on a traditional farm.

• Reductions in animals’ feed requirements aren’t necessarily achieved without creating new environmental problems.  For instance, industrial chicken producers add arsenic to feed to boost growth rates – sure, this reduces the birds’ overall feed requirement, but the arsenic ultimately pollutes soil and water.  Similarly, industrial beef producers reduce feed requirements by injecting cattle with growth hormones – but the hormones eventually pollute the environment… and pretty soon we start finding hermaphroditic frogs.

• Industrial livestock operations pollute ground and surface waters.  Although the polluted water isn’t actually “consumed” by the animals, it’s rendered unusable (or at least much less usable) by the industrial production process.  But this reduction of usable water resources isn’t included in the authors’ analysis of water consumption.

Major Flaw #2: Grossly inadequate assessment of “livestock”

Although Capper et al. present the paper as an analysis of food animal production systems (and specifically mention chicken, poultry, eggs, and pork in the opening paragraph), they only devote significant attention to the GHG emissions of dairy and beef production; the paper includes no analysis of the impacts of producing pork, poultry or eggs.

Just so we’re all on the same page: the paper’s title is “Demystifying the Environmental Sustainability of Food Production” – but actually, it only addresses the environmental impact of livestock production… and by “environmental impact,” Capper et al. really mean greenhouse gas emissions… and by “livestock,” they mean only dairy cows and beef cattle.

Major Flaw #3: Dubious analysis of GHG emissions

The comparative analysis of GHG emissions mentioned above is derived from a few papers that Capper and the gang published before this one.  Not surprisingly, the earlier work contains substantial flaws.  There’s not enough space here to provide a thorough critique, but it’s worth noting two glaring problems:

• The authors overestimate the adverse environmental impact of current non-industrial livestock systems because their analysis is based on the efficiency and emissions of the US dairy system in 1944.  It’s unreasonable to assume that today’s pasture-based livestock production systems wouldn’t have improved as a result of advances in science, technology, communications, etc.

• The relative efficiency of industrial dairies results in large part from the use of rBGH, which adversely affects animal health, and is therefore banned in the European Union and Canada.  Improving dairy efficiency with rBGH is sort of like pumping human laborers full of steroids; sure, they’ll perform manual labor more efficiently, but they’ll also develop health problems and ‘roid rage.

Major Flaw #4: Weak analysis of food miles

At the end of the paper, Capper et al. slap on a somewhat incongruous section about food miles in which they note that the GHG emissions generated by the transportation of food cannot be accurately assessed by simply measuring the linear distance between the food’s point of origin and its point of consumption.  In other words, you can’t say that the transportation of one food emitted fewer GHGs than the transportation of another food just because the first food was produced closer to your home.

They’re absolutely right about this; GHG emissions generated during food transportation are affected not only by the distance from farm to fork, but also by the efficiency and carrying capacity of the vehicle (or vehicles) used for transportation.  So if you hop in your Sherman tank, drive to a farm and buy one carrot, the transportation GHG emissions per carrot are much higher than if you drive to the farm in a compact hybrid and buy 20 carrots.

Capper et al. make this point in order to suggest that industrial foods shipped long distances to the supermarket might actually generate fewer transportation GHG emissions than local foods purchased at the farm or farmers’ market.  The authors demonstrate this possibility by introducing a totally fictitious hypothetical scenario in which eggs are purchased from a grocery store, a farmers’ market and a farm.

In this example, the transportation fuel consumed per dozen eggs is smallest for the grocery store eggs – even though they’re shipped 802 miles.  This counterintuitive situation arises because the transportation of grocery store eggs is very efficient (they’re shipped in a truck that carries 280,800 eggs at once), while the transportation of eggs to the farmers’ market is much less efficient (eggs are shipped in a smaller, less fuel-efficient pickup truck) and the transportation of eggs purchased at the farm is even less efficient (a car is used to transport just 12 eggs at a time).

But before you start buying your eggs from the other side of the globe:

• The conditions described in this scenario were fabricated by the authors to demonstrate their point – but there’s no evidence to suggest that the scenario accurately reflects average conditions in the US.  Indeed, one can just as easily propose an alternate scenario in which local farmers’ market and/or farm eggs are the more fuel-efficient options.  For example, fuel use per dozen farmers’ market eggs would decrease dramatically if the distance between the farmers’ market and the home were reduced (in the paper’s scenario, the market is almost five times as far from the home as the grocery store – so farmers’ market eggs are transported farther in the inefficient car).

• Industrial foods benefit from certain efficiencies afforded by the highly developed nature of Big Ag’s distribution networks.  (In the scenario above, for instance, grocery store eggs are transported in a fuel-efficient tractor trailer, while local eggs are schlepped to market in a pickup truck.)  But there’s no reason that local distribution networks can’t be rebuilt to improve transportation efficiency (e.g., local farmers could collaborate to collectively transport eggs to the market or store in a large, fuel-efficient truck).  In any case, efficient distribution networks for non-industrial foods won’t be reestablished if local farmers don’t have consumer support in the interim – purchasing locally produced foods is a good way to provide this support to ensure that local networks will be improved.

• Again, this analysis reflects the authors’ implicit contention that the emission of greenhouse gasses is the only significant environmental impact of agriculture.  In their example, 280,800 eggs are shipped from the farm to the grocery store in one shot; a facility capable of cranking out so many eggs at once is undoubtedly a factory farm – so GHG emissions would constitute only a sliver of the eggs’ environmental footprint.

This post comes from Kerry Trueman at the Green Fork blog:

Will 2010 be the year that real food triumphs over “edible foodlike substances?” I don’t want to get overly optimistic, but real food certainly had a good first week, at least on cable TV.

On Monday, Daily Show host Jon Stewart kicked off the new decade by inviting Michael Pollan on to discuss his latest book, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, a slender guide to healthy eating.

As Stewart noted, you can read it in an hour; it’s a pocket-sized distillation of his last book, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, which was itself an appetizer-sized portion of The Omnivore’s Dilemma. It reminds me of those Russian nesting dolls that open to reveal ever-tinier incarnations. Presumably, Penguin’s next plan is to publish the bumper sticker: “Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.”

Pollan shares my cautious optimism that we may be on the verge of seeing real changes in our food system. Is he basing this hope on the brisk sales of his books? Maybe, but Pollan also sees promise in that much ballyhooed-and-booed piece of legislation, the health care bill.

He predicted that health insurance reform could spell the end of “the disconnect between what you pay for a cheap fast food meal and the ultimate price of eating that way”:

Pollan: I think what’s about to happen, if we get this health care bill passed, and there are some kind of minimal rules, no more pre-existing conditions, they can’t throw you off the plan, they have to take you–suddenly, the health insurers will have an interest in your health that they don’t have now.

Stewart: That may be the worst sentence I’ve ever heard said! “Suddenly, the health insurers will have an interest in your health. Which, right now, they don’t.”

Pollan: Their business plan, now, is to keep you out of their business plan, if you’re likely to get chronic disease. And the Western diet creates a lot of chronic disease. Right now, the food industry creates patients for the health care industry; they have a very sympathetic relationship. But that might change. And, I think if that changes, you will see this very powerful industry getting on board with this growing national movement to reform the food system.

On Wednesday, Stewart’s Comedy Central Colleague Stephen Colbert struck a blow against a notoriously inedible food-like substance, Domino’s Pizza. Colbert declared Domino’s his “Alpha Dog of the Week,” in recognition of the “great new recipe” the pizza chain’s touting. Colbert played a clip from its “game-changing ad campaign,” featuring some damning assessments of Domino’s previous formula:

“Domino’s pizza crust is, to me, like cardboard.”

“Worst excuse for pizza I’ve ever had.”

“The sauce tastes like ketchup.”

“Totally devoid of flavor.”

Colbert: Folks, it takes alpha meatballs to stand up and say, “America, we suck”. But now, the company that brought you the Philly Cheesesteak Pizza, the Cali-Chicken-Bacon-Ranch Pizza, and the Oreo Pizza, has a radical new product: pizza that is pizza.

Cue another clip featuring the folks at Domino’s extolling the virtues of the new version:

“We changed everything: the crust, the sauce, the cheese, now it tastes better…we started working on the cheese…we’ve got shredded cheese, it’s tastier. When you smell it, it’s got an aroma to it…it’s cheese, it’s cheese!”

Colbert: So, to recap, Domino’s old pizza cheese did not taste good, had no aroma, and was not cheese. And, because they are an alpha dog, folks, Domino’s is not apologizing. After all, we’re the human garbage cans who bought these trash discs by the millions.

Speaking of trash discs, the segment trashing Domino’s was followed by a visit from sea captain Charles Moore, discoverer of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. He described how our disposable culture’s turned the ocean into a “disgusting plastic cesspool.” And we’re inadvertently consuming this toxic plastic soup:

Moore: It’s a sponge for our pollutants, absorbing all the toxics floating around in the ocean and transmitting them up the food web back to us…

Colbert: Are you suggesting that we do without plastic gee-gaws and doo-dads and beer can holders?

Moore: Whatever happened to “A place for everything and everything in its place?” Or “Waste not, want not?”

Moore’s comment drew cheers from the audience; another sign of a possible sea change?

Lastly, if you missed Sunday’s much-anticipated Iron Chef America Super Chef Battle, the Food Network’s repeating it this Thursday at 8pm. It pits celebrity chefs Mario Batali and Emeril Lagasse against Bobby Flay and White House executive chef Cristeta Comerford, but the true star of the show was supposed to be the secret ingredient, which turned out to be fresh produce harvested from the White House kitchen garden.

It may not have been “The Culinary Event of the Decade,” as the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog declared. But it was cool, nonetheless, to see lovingly shot close-ups of vegetables, especially exotic ones such as watermelon radishes, lacinato kale, and kohlrabi.

“Maybe not two hours worth of cool,” as Kim Severson noted on the New York Times Diner’s Journal blog, referring to the show’s blatant padding, “but the show will serve as a cultural bookmark. See Mario’s naked calves there in the White House vegetable garden? The times, they are a changin’.”

As everyone knows by now, Batali and Lagasse lost out to Flay and Comerford, in large part because they disregarded the mandate to showcase the vegetables, whereas Flay put the veggies front and center on his plate.

I was disappointed that no one bothered to feature the under appreciated, misunderstood kohlrabi, which is my favorite (and perhaps the only) above-ground-vegetable-that-looks-like-a-root-vegetable. This omission was also noted and lamented by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

However, I have it on good authority that Batali and Lagasse did, in fact, employ the kohlrabi in one of their dishes, but it got lost on the editing floor. Perhaps they should demand a recount?

Serious about energy conservation? Consider hibernation; curling up into a ball and snoozing away the winter while surviving on surplus fat might just be the way to go. You’d wake up next spring feeling lighter and brighter, rested and ready for the new decade.

Then again, if the next ten years are going to be anything like the last ten, Rip Van Winkle might be a better model than a bear. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I can handle another decade of terrorist attacks, financial folly, endless wars, crumbling infrastructure, hurricanes, floods, fires, drought and reality TV-wannabes. Who wouldn’t want to crawl under a rock and sleep for a decade or two after all that?

The collapse of the climate talks in Copenhagen seemed like a fitting end to this frazzled, fizzled-out decade (was it “the oughts,” “the naughts,” “the oh-oh’s” or “the zeros?). Hey, we never liked this decade enough to even give it a nickname.

Whatever you want to call it, don’t feel bad if you’re glad to see it go. Now what, though?

Like it or not, this new century is going to be shaped largely by the choices we make in the next few years. The triple threat of a changing climate, dwindling resources and a growing population will create unprecedented challenges for every nation, large and small, rich and poor.

The disappointing outcome at Copenhagen – all the more disheartening given how low expectations were to begin with – launched a flurry of furious dispatches looking to lay the blame on Obama, or China, or the EU, or some combination thereof.

But amidst all the gloomy post-mortems, I found a few stray rays of hope. James Hansen, the NASA scientist who first testified to Congress about global warming in 1988, was so convinced that no meaningful accord would come from the talks in Copenhagen that he didn’t bother to attend. Instead, he addressed a packed house of eco-geeks, myself included, at a Secret Science Club gathering in Brooklyn.

The good news, Hansen told us, is that we still have time to avert the most catastrophic consequences of climate change. We just have to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by, say, 60 to 80 percent in the near future. Weaning the world off coal would go a long way towards achieving this goal.

Unlikely? Yes. Impossible? No. David Gershon, a climate change expert who specializes in strategies to encourage people to adopt a more low-impact way of life, individually and collectively, wrote about the steady progress he’s witnessed through his Cool Communities program on Huffington Post the other day:

…there are now over 350 Cool Communities in thirty-six states across America. Participants are achieving on average a 25 percent carbon footprint reduction and reaching out to fellow citizens to accomplish the same. A growing number of these campaigns have committed themselves to a three-year effort to mobilize up to 85 percent of their communities’ residents to reduce their footprint by at least 25 percent….

…The Cool Community movement is building Mount Everest base camps in communities across the nation for the long climb we must make to address climate change. It is also providing fire for the soul to inspire community leaders to reach for new visions of what is possible, with some committing to reduce their carbon footprint 80 percent by 2020. Nelson Mandela, an exemplar of taking on large, epic challenges, describes the journey this way, “It always seems impossible until it is done.” But the journey must begin somewhere with someone. That somewhere is our homes, neighborhoods, towns and cities. And that someone is us.

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, while acknowledging that the Climate Summit itself was a bust, came back from Copenhagen impressed by the great strides Denmark has made towards achieving a low-carbon economy. Friedman marveled at the ability of the Danish government to implement solutions that no American politician would dare to suggest:

How long are we Americans going to go on thinking that we can thrive in the 21st century when doing the optimal things — whether for energy, health care, education or the deficit — are “off the table?” These issues have been banished by an ad hoc coalition of lobbyists loaded with money, loud-mouth talk-show hosts who will flame anyone who crosses them, political consultants who warn that asking Americans to do anything hard – no matter how important – makes one unelectable and a citizenry that doesn’t even ask for optimal anymore because it believes that optimal is impossible.

The solutions are out there, just waiting for us to embrace them. As we get ready to say goodbye and good riddance to a difficult decade, now’s the time to chart the course of the next one. It doesn’t have to be the Terrible Teens. We’re all in this together, so let’s christen it the “We” decade, and get to work. The big picture is that we’ve got an awfully small window.

Here’s to a healthy, joy-filled, sustainable 2010!

For some tips to create a sustainable Thanksgiving, please read Take Part’s 10 Tips for a Sustainable Thanksgiving by Sara Newman:

Since I wrote last year about tips for a sustainable thanksgiving meal, much has transpired in the food movement. We now have a First Family that regularly toils in their backyard to grow and harvest organic produce. The hit documentary, Food, Inc. was released this past year and is now in the running for an Academy Award. I had the pleasure of working on the Social Action campaign for the film which has given me the privilege of learning much from amazing food activists who are working daily in fields, offices, schools and boardrooms daily to help to build a more just and sustainable food system.

Preparing a sustainable meal can be a selfish endeavor; I guarantee you that it will be more fun, tastier and make for a good conversation at your table. However, it’s also about our global community; you’ll help to prevent the emission of greenhouse gas emissions, the slaughter of animals living under inhumane conditions, meet local farmers and help to foster the establishment of a more equitable food system through your creation of the biggest American meal of the year.

1. Buy organic. Organic produce and products are so commonplace now that Coca-Cola and Doritos are practically getting pushed off shelves to make extra space for these hot items. Try to purchase from a small, local farmer, but if you can’t find one, then you can stock up on your Thanksgiving goods at any major retailer. By choosing organic foods, you are helping to prevent the usage of millions of pounds of poisonous pesticides and fertilizers and emission of greenhouse gas emissions. Best of all, organic foods taste better.

2. Save a turkey. Choose the most humane option that will significantly lighten your environmental impact by having a meat-free meal. You can make your centerpiece a hearty, fall-themed vegetarian dish or opt for a tofurkey. Either way, you’ll be saying no to our industrial food system, reducing your global warming contribution and saying yes to a healthy, happy meal. You can also make a turkey happy by adopting it. Yes, you read correctly, save a turkey from the chopping block and give it the gift of a happy home at Farm Sanctuary. For those of you who roll their eyes at my incredible suggestion in tip two of going meat-free on Thanksgiving. If you fall into that camp, I’d suggest you opt for a humanely-raised turkey.

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