Unsustainable | Provocations

Humanity’s grip on the planet eases… In The Guardian Article “‘It’s positively alpine!’: Disbelief in big cities as air pollution falls’, a series of then and now pictures are presented, contrasting major urban areas before and during the COVID-19 driven lockdowns. I think the article’s title sums it nicely. The only question is, why would we want to go back to the “before?” If humanity is as clever as claims to be, we will find a way to embrace the new and sustain ourselves.

Image: New Delihi’s India Gate war memorial on 17 October 2019 and on 8 April 2020. Photograph: Anushree Fadnavis/Adnan Abidi/Reuters

A less than abstract lesson from Frankenfood: why humanity is screwed. Rather than recognizing that we’re screwing up the planet, we’d rather invent a fake food to pretend that we’re not. This point is made abundantly clear in this excerpt from a recent news story about engineered coffee:

“As we got deeper into the process, we learned more about the threats to the coffee world as a whole — threats to the environment from deforestation, global warming and [a devastating fungus called] rust, and we were even more committed to making a consistently great coffee that was also better for the environment,” Stopforth says.
The future of coffee is uncertain. The amount of land suitable for growing coffee is expected to shrink by an estimated 50% by 2050, according to a report by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture.
NPR, The Salt (July 8, 2019) – A Bitter End For Regular Joe? Scientists Engineer A Smooth, Beanless Coffee

Provocations

Challenging the Established Paradigm

Tag Archives: Unsustainable

Eventorum – Why go Back?

Eventorum – Frankenfood