I started the Cook for Good experiment as an economic investigation, but was delighted to find that cooking to save money naturally led to the Seven Lively Savings, including Save your Planet. This week's news really brought the urgency of that home. Read about that below the fold, plus get an update on the Food, Inc. foodraiser.
Paul Krugman wants us to avoid a recipe that you will never see on Cook for Good: Boiling the Frog. In it, he says:
[T]he consensus of the climate experts is utterly terrifying. At this point, the central forecast of leading climate models - not the worst-case scenario but the most likely outcome - is utter catastrophe, a rise in temperatures that will totally disrupt life as we know it, if we continue along our present path. How to head off that catastrophe should be the dominant policy issue of our time.
If that's not enough to make you cook a pot of beans, then read Dr. James Hansen, our leading expert on global warming, who writes that the G8 Failure Reflects U.S. Failure on Climate Change:
[I]t looks as if the delegates from other nations may have done what 219 U.S. House members who voted up Waxman-Markey last month did not: critically read the 1,400-page American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 and deduce that it's no more fit to rescue our climate than a V-2 rocket was to land a man on the moon.
Of course, keeping our planet from cooking itself to death will require international action and corporate changes. But every one of us can help buy some time for the behemoths to act. One way to do this is to eat local and low on the food chain. As Kathy Freston says, Vegetarian is the new Prius. Even eating Prius-style a few meals a week can help.
Food, Inc. Foodraiser this Saturday
Hope all of you in the area will come to the Cook for Good Foodraiser benefiting the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle on Saturday, July 18th at the Colony Theater in Raleigh. We're really cooking with gas now, with big sponsors (Coon Rock Farm and Whole Foods), speakers, book sales, and more. I'll share lessons learned next week. Can't attend but still want to contribute? Donate to the Food Shuttle online. Please pick "other amount" and end your donation with 18 cents, so they will know your gift is from a supporter of sustainable agriculture. Examples: $10.18, $25.18, $100.18. Why 18? It's the date of the Food, Inc. event.