Grist: Starting today, our favorite irreverent environmental magazine is offering a multi-part crash course on biofuels and whether they’re just fleeting flirtations in our long-term love affair with oil. The initial three pieces include Tom Philpott explaining in his usual concise, precise way how the world became dependent on fossil fuels in the first place; Maywa Montenegro’s excellent discussion on the differences between corn-based and cellusoic ethanol and biodiesel; and a funny timeline of biofuel use through time.
New York Times*: The Gray Lady opines on the organic-label-for-salmon debate.
San Francisco Chronicle: A review of Michelle Simon’s “Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back” (which we set down for a bit and alas have not picked up again yet). The reviewer, a UC Berkeley business/polisci professor, is skeptical of some of Simon’s claims and says that if Americans had more of an appetite for food-marketing regulation, we’d have more of it. We’re not so sure.
Toronto Star: An opinion piece by two academics argues that the raw-milk debate is misplaced — the freedom to risk your own health does not extend to risking that of your children’s. What do readers think?
Des Moines Register: An opinion piece taking to task an earlier one critical of Green Revolution ideas being exported to Africa is by Dean Kleckner. Kleckner is not identified as being the head of the pro-GMO group The Truth About Trade and Technology (check the charming countdown clock for the 1 billion-acre milestone for biotech crop planting) and the former American Farm Bureau chief who liked to demonize “envirocrats” at every turn, as documented in the 1994 Sierra food issue.
*Free registration required.
Food, Farming, & Food Politics events calendar
Humor:
