We thought you would enjoy these films.  Knowledge is power when it comes to our personal health and sustainability.  Get smart and improve our environment at the same time.

If you're craving good films on the food system, Food Tank has put together a list of documentaries and films to inspire, educate, and give viewers some food for thought. Each film explores a different topic in food and agriculture, some with a dash of social equality or a splash of health awareness. Whether you're a social activist, small farmer, or sustainability advocate, or you just enjoy food, we're sure you'll find a food film to further inform and interest you in all things food.

Here are 19 films to satisfy your food films appetite:

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American Meat: “American Meat” walks viewers through the evolution of animal agriculture and highlights alternative animal husbandry systems that protect the environment and animal welfare. The film features farmer and advocate Joel Salatin, who uses sustainable land management methods, such as rotational grazing, and emphasizes the importance of supporting one’s local foodshed. The film also highlights stories from other farmers nationwide who are raising cows, pigs, and chickens in environmentally sustainable and humane ways.

Dive! The Film: In “Dive! The Film,” Director Jeremy Seifert and his friends highlight food waste in America by dumpster diving in various grocery stores around Los Angeles. Every American wastes around 20 pounds of food every month, costing U.S. consumers an estimated US$165 billion each year, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. The narrators evidence these facts by finding massive amounts of edible food in the dumpsters and confront store managers on their food donation policies. This multi-award winning documentary not only reveals the wasteful practices of grocery stores but also urges individual consumers to change their habits by offering advice and practical home solutions to reduce household waste.

The Empire of Scents: The inventive documentary “Empire of Scents” highlights the power of our sense of smell—how it affects, directs, and triggers our emotional lives. Director Kim Nguyen, nominated at the 2013 Oscars for “War Witch,” takes viewers on a visually impressive journey across five countries that inspires viewers to question how much they really know about one of the most basic human senses.

Farmageddon: “Farmageddon” takes an alarming look into excessive government oversight of American food producers. Director Kristin Canty reveals stories of government harassment and outsized force against small, independent farms that were coerced into stopping production. Canty, a mother of four, tells the story of her struggle to find the foods of her choice, such as raw milk, from the producers she wanted. In an interview about her film, Canty says, “I hope that we can come to realize that America’s farms, farmers, and homesteaders deserve a place here, and should not be under attack by our own government.”

Food Chains: “Food Chains,” produced by actress Eva Longoria and Fast Food Nation author Eric Schlosser, reveals the plight of farmworkers, the foundation of our food industry. Filmmakers follow a group of Florida tomato pickers in their quest for a more dignified work life through the Fair Food Program. The program brings growers and retailers together to improve farmworker working conditions. “The goal is to address human rights and labor rights that exist in the fields. The creation of the program comes directly from the participation of the workers in the program and the ideas of our community. That’s what we call worker-led social responsibility,” says farmworker and organizer Gerardo Chavez.

Food, Inc.: In “Food, Inc.,” filmmaker Robert Kenner details how the growth of industrial farming and the political power of major food companies have put human health, the independent farmer, farmworkers, and our environment at risk. The film is widely recognized as one of the most influential documentaries ever made and was nominated for Best Documentary in the 2009 Academy Awards. Despite its dire overview of the current food system, “Food, Inc.” inspires viewers to do their part in changing the food system. “You have to understand that we farmers...we're gonna deliver to the marketplace what the marketplace demands…People have got to start demanding good, wholesome food of us, and we'll deliver; I promise you,” says Troy Roush, an Indianan farmer featured in the film.

FRESH: “FRESH,” released in 2009, celebrates farmers, researchers, and activists who are reinventing the food system by developing innovative methods to grow food sustainably. By using unconventional farming practices, these agricultural pioneers hope to address food contamination, environmental pollution, natural resource depletion, and the growing obesity problem. Profiled characters include Will Allen, who converted acres of industrial wasteland into productive farmland in Milwaukee, and David Ball, who started a cooperative of local farmers in Kansas City to provide an alternative to the traditional supermarket.

The Future of Food: “The Future of Food” was written and directed by Deborah Koons Garcia and focuses on the social, economic, and environmental impacts of the proliferation of genetically engineered foods. Viewers see the issue from the perspective of small farmers, who are held legally responsible when genetically engineered, patented seeds spread into their fields. The documentary also criticizes the imbalance of power between international food companies and local farmers and the ecological harm of industrial agriculture practices, such as monoculture farming. The New York Times calls the firm a "sober, far-reaching polemic against genetically modified foods.” Since the release of the film in 2004, the GMO-labeling debate has intensified, making this film even more relevant for viewers today.

The Garden: This 2009 Oscar-nominated documentary tells the story of South Central Farm—a 14-acre community garden in South Central Los Angeles that had been gardened for more than a decade by primarily immigrant, Latino families. The land was entrusted to the community as part of a healing effort after the 1992 Rodney King Riots. However, when the land was sold back to its original owner in 2003 by the city, the farmers were forced off the land. The Garden highlights how the farmers, along with their civil rights attorney and other activists, fought hard against the complex Los Angeles politics to keep their garden—critical to their way of life—and protect their community.

The Gleaners & I: French documentary director Agnès Varda’s 2000 film gives viewers a glimpse into the lives of gleaners. Varda interviews people who scavenge for food in the fields and orchards of the French countryside as well as those who search for leftover items from urban markets and dumpsters. “The Gleaners & I” encourages viewers to re-evaluate the culture of consumption, especially towards food, all while marveling at the resourcefulness of the gleaners.

Good Things Await: Director Phie Ambo’s “Good Things Await” follows Danish farmer Niels Stokholm through his battle against government bureaucrats to keep his farm, Thorshøjgaard, and preserve the Danish Red dairy cattle. Stokholm practices biodynamic farming, which is an ecological, ethical, and sustainable approach to farming and supplies some of the country’s most well-known restaurants. Unfortunately, agricultural authorities unversed in biodynamic principles threaten the very survival of Thorshøjgaard and its unique way of farming.

How to Feed the World?: This 10-minute film was created for a Bon Appétit exhibition in Paris. It describes how developed countries can address food insecurity by investing in international development and consuming more foods with lower environmental impact. Created for children ages 9 to 14, “How to Feed the World?” explores food justice, dietary insufficiencies, the economic consequences of food aid, and the idea of a new type of agriculture for feeding more people with less environmental harm.

In Defense of Food: Based on Michael Pollan’s best-selling book, “In Defense of Food” delves into Pollan’s advice to "eat food. not too much. mostly plants.” Pollan coins the term nutritionism to describe Americans’ adherence to dietary fads and critiques the American food industry’s emphasis on specific nutrients rather than whole foods. According to Pollan, “as eaters we feel whipsawed by the changes in the nutritional advice we’re getting.”

Just Eat It: In the 2014 documentary “Just Eat it,” couple Jenny Rustemeyer and Grant Baldwin pledge to eat only food that would otherwise be thrown away for a period of six months—an effort to better understand the depth of the food waste problem. The amount of food the couple finds is shocking and encourages viewers to rethink their food behavior, especially around issues such as expiration dates and the aesthetics of produce. In an interview with National Public Radio, Rustemeyer says, “There’s a lot that we as individuals can do. It's not like other environmental and social issues, where it's a systemic problem that we don't play a part in.”

A Place at the Table: “A Place at the Table” is a moving documentary chronicling the challenges of the food insecure in America. The stories highlight the economic and social implications of hunger in a country where nearly 50 million people suffer from food insecurity. The film, produced by Magnolia Pictures, takes us into the lives of a single mother trying to provide for her kids, a fifth grader who depends on her neighbors to feed her, and a second grader whose health issues are exacerbated by her poor diet.

The Singhampton Project: This 60-minute documentary follows German-Canadian farm-to-table chefs Michael and Nobuyo Stadtländer and a French landscape artist as they create seven gardens in which they grow, cook, and serve seven-course meals for hundreds of people every night for 20 nights. The chefs use traditional growing methods and irrigate only by hand. Director Jonathon Staav says of Stadtländer, “He’s just this connection to our past where the things he does aren’t that different from what our grandmothers did when they emigrated here. They had a vegetable garden, and in the summer, that’s where produce came from,” in a Hollywood Reporter article.

Somm: This 2013 documentary, directed by Jason Wise, gives viewers a fascinating look into the secretive world of the Court of Master Sommeliers. Four candidates prepare to take the Master Sommelier Exam, a test so difficult that fewer than 200 candidates have attained Master level since its inception nearly 40 years ago. A follow-up documentary, “Somm: Into the Bottle,” was released at the Napa Valley Film Festival in 2015.

Unbroken Ground: According to the 2016 film “Unbroken Ground,” climate change and food systems are inextricably linked. This 25-minute documentary, produced by Patagonia Provisions, tells the story of leaders across the country using sustainable farming techniques that restore our natural environment, including regenerative agriculture, regenerative grazing, diversified crop development, and restorative fishing. “Unbroken Ground” is now touring the country, with showings and panel discussions from New York to Hawaii.

We Feed the World: In the 2005 documentary “We Feed the World,” Austrian filmmaker Erwin Wagenhofer travels to find out where exactly his food comes from. Wagenhofer takes viewers to France, Spain, Romania, Switzerland, and Brazil while presenting the ironies of the world’s food systems. For example, Latin America produces much of Austria’s livestock feed, while a quarter of their own population starves. The film features interviews with Jean Ziegler, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, and Peter Brabeck, Chairman and CEO of Nestle International. “We Feed the World” illustrates the effects of globalization and industrial food production on the world’s food systems and highlights the global repercussions of hunger.  

Food Tank would like to give a big shout out to the Toronto International Film Festival, which has featured some of the films mentioned above.

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Sincerely,

Danielle Nierenberg
President, Food Tank
foodtank.com

The Winds

As the economics get better on renewables, and they improving daily, the political opposition will quietly blow away.  We don't see anything to stop the clean energy revolution.

The Winds Are Changing for Renewable Energy

by Ronald Brownstein

In the policy arena, the distance is widening between blue and red states over whether to promote, or resist, the shift away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy sources like solar and wind. But the economics of generating electricity from alternative sources are growing more attractive for states across the political divide. The pivotal, and unresolved, question is whether the political divergence or economic convergence will more heavily shape the next stages of the fractious debate over climate change and the nation’s energy mix.

Starting with Iowa in 1983, 29 states have required utilities to generate a fixed share of their power from renewable sources. Initially, these renewable portfolio standards found favor in states throughout the political spectrum.

But as on almost every other major domestic issue, red and blue states are now separating. In recent years, West Virginia, Kansas, and Ohio each repealed or suspended renewable-power requirements. Four other states with Republican-controlled legislatures (and in three cases, with Republican governors) chose not to extend earlier renewable requirements when utilities met the initial state goals in 2015.

Even more emphatically, 26 states, almost all of them Republican-led, sued to block federal Environmental Protection Agency regulations requiring states to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases tied to global warming. Those EPA rules, under President Obama’s “Clean Power Plan,” would have encouraged utilities to shift more of their power generation from coal toward lower-carbon alternatives, including both natural gas and renewables. In February, the Supreme Court blocked the EPA from developing the plan while the courts consider the states’ lawsuit.


Blue states are hurtling in the opposite direction. Eighteen states (all of them carried twice by Obama) legally intervened last year to support the EPA regulation. Almost all of those states have also indicated they will continue planning to implement the EPA rule despite the court stay. Late last year, California and New York each established landmark requirements for their utilities to generate fully half of their power from renewable sources by 2030. Oregon joined them this year with a 50 percent renewables by 2042 mandate. Though smaller markets, Vermont (75 percent renewables by 2032) and Hawaii (100 percent by 2045) have set the bar even higher. Massachusetts may soon approve its own increase. “There is a strong trend toward strengthening renewable portfolio standards,” said Jocelyn Durkay, an energy specialist at the National Conference of State Legislatures. “But that’s not a universal trend.”


This political gulf is deep and durable. But the rapidly shifting economics of renewable energy may be transcending it. The price of electricity generated from solar and wind has steadily fallen, making it more cost-competitive with conventional fossil fuels. Falling cost has triggered a growth spurt for renewables. Solar and wind combined have accounted for at least half of the total new electrical generating capacity utilities have installed in three of the past four years; so far in 2016, those two sources represent virtually all of the newly installed capacity. Another milestone fell in March when, for the first time, renewable sources (excluding hydropower) accounted for 10 percent of all power generated in the U.S., according to federal statistics. Ten years ago, renewables accounted for less than 3 percent of all power generated.

Importantly, this surge in renewable energy has extended into red states. The 11 states with the most installed wind capacity include Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and North Dakota across the blustery Great Plains. And while California has installed nearly five times as much more solar capacity as any other state, such sun-splashed red and purple places as Texas, Arizona, and North Carolina also rank in the top 10 today, with Florida and Utah projected to join them by 2021.


When economics and state policy reinforce each other, the result can be, well, electric. California is the prime example. For decades, it has led the nation in establishing standards for increasing energy efficiency, utilizing renewable sources and reducing carbon emissions. Those policy signals have helped spur a dynamic clean-energy industry. “In California the bar is being set higher and then the venture capitalists and entrepreneurs work to achieve those new goals,” said F. Noel Perry, founder of Next 10, an independent San Francisco-based think-tank that recently released an annual survey of California’s clean-energy industry. That virtuous cycle has produced both environmental and economic breakthroughs: As Next 10 reported, California has reduced its carbon emissions per dollar of economic activity by nearly 40 percent since 1990 and simultaneously built a powerhouse green industry that has attracted two-thirds of all the nation’s clean-energy capital investment.

Red states aren’t likely to soon abandon their resistance to renewable mandates or federal initiatives to reduce carbon emissions. That’s partly for ideological reasons and also because many of them are either major fossil-fuel producers or rely on low-cost (but high-carbon) coal. Yet over time, the growing dynamism of solar and wind as economic engines in those same red states could compel a more balanced approach. “As the economics get better, as the business models prove themselves, as renewable energy industries become stronger and stronger in every state,” said Aliya Haq, who follows state climate and clean air policy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “I just think the politics have to follow that.”

Nobel winners slam Greenpeace on GMO crops campaign

Interesting look at bans on GMO crops.  We'll follow up on this story on the radio side.  Not the first time we've been told the world cannot be fed without advance GMO modifications.

Nobel winners slam Greenpeace on GMO crops campaign

 

Addressed to Greenpeace, the United Nations and global governments, the letter signed by Nobel laureates says the environmental group has "misrepresented the risks, benefits and impacts" of genetically altered food plants (AFP Photo/Peter Parks)

Paris (AFP) - About a third of living Nobel laureates -- 108 at last count -- have signed an open letter Thursday which attacks Greenpeace for campaigning against genetically modified crops, especially one called Golden Rice.

Addressed to the global environmental group, the United Nations and governments, the letter says Greenpeace has "misrepresented the risks, benefits and impacts" of genetically altered food plants.

"There has never been a single confirmed case of a negative health outcome for humans or animals from their consumption," wrote the top scientists.

The group included 41 Nobel medicine laureates among them James Watson, honoured in 1962 for co-discovering the basic structure of DNA.

The letter called on Greenpeace to "cease and desist" in its efforts to block GMO crops, and on governments to embrace "seeds improved through biotechnology."

"Opposition based on emotion and dogma contradicted by data must be stopped."

The Nobel winners singled out Golden Rice as a genetically modified crop with huge potential to improve health and save lives in the developing world.

A patented strain developed in the 1990s, Golden Rice contains an artificially inserted gene which boosts the level of vitamin A-rich beta-carotene.

The World Health Organization estimates that a quarter of a billion people in developing nations suffer from vitamin A deficiency, causing up to two million preventable deaths per year and half-a-million cases of childhood blindness.

Golden Rice's developers say a single serving provides about 60 percent of daily vitamin A requirements. It is currently distributed royalty-free to indigent farmers on a humanitarian basis.

Greenpeace however hit back at the Nobel laureates.

"Accusations that anyone is blocking genetically engineered 'Golden' rice are false," Wilhelmina Pelegrina of Greenpeace Southeast Asia wrote in a statement.

Corporations are using the strain "to pave the way for global approval of other more profitable genetically engineered crops," she said.

Greenpeace's longstanding position is to oppose all patents on plants or animals, or their genes, and that "life is not an industrial commodity".

Previously, the environmental NGO has said Golden Rice was "environmentally irresponsible, poses risks to human health, and could compromise food, nutrition and financial security."

The NGO also maintains that genetically modified organisms should be held back "since there is not an adequate scientific understanding of their impact on the environment and human health."

High Hopes for Hydrogen-Powered Public Transit

Hydrogen continues to show up on the radar as a viable source of fuel for cars and trucks.  Here's the latest report from our main site.  Fuel cells, more common on the West Coast of the US, play an integral role here, as they do on the building side, as well. 

Sumitomo Corporation together with Sumitomo Corporation of Americas (collectively referred to as "SC Group") announced this week their Strategic Collaboration Agreement with US Hybrid to support their desire to grow its fuel cell production business through the expansion of fuel cell stack production capacity for commercial production. SC Group will play an integral role in the project by coordinating the discussions with OEM's through their extensive business network.

US Hybrid, together with their Fuel Cell division, US FuelCell, has more than 26 years of experience in fuel cell balance of plant components and vehicle development and deployment. US FuelCell develops and manufactures new technologies and transportation products.

"Fuel cell vehicles offer high energy efficiency, no tailpipe emissions, and full vehicle functionality, including the normal driving range, fast fueling and a potential path to sustainable transportation. We highly respect Japanese automakers as a leader in commercializing fuel cell passenger vehicles, and we consider our new freeze capable, fuel cell powertrains to be a game-changer for the equally important market segments of medium and heavy duty trucks for freight movement and buses for public transit," said Abas Goodarzi, President of US Hybrid. "We are very pleased to be working with Sumitomo, as a global strategic business development partner, in order to commercialize our fuel cell engine and integrated vehicle technologies that have proven reliability for both on-road and off-road transportation."

SC Group is equally excited to be initiating this partnership. "By bridging US Hybrid's excellent technology and Sumitomo's deep relationships with OEMs, we are excited to contribute to this project and realize the potential for using clean hydrogen energy in commercial transportation," said Duke Kato, Senior Vice President at Sumitomo Corporation of Americas. "We view this partnership as an investment into the way mass transportation performs in the future, mitigating the negative impact on the environment."

SC Group has studied Hydrogen as a future clean energy source, including how fuel cell technologies can be applied to cars. In Japan the development of fuel cell technology has already been incorporated into passenger cars like the Toyota Mirai and Honda Clarity.

Through this research, SC Group has recognized the need to develop this clean energy technology for greater infrastructure needs, specifically applying it to public transportation. Reaching this agreement with US Hybrid will be an important next step in developing this technology, whose fuel cell application to public transit had been evaluated as one of the closest to the commercialization through demonstration projects in California, Hawaii, Ohio and Michigan. US Hybrid also marketed the first freeze-capable integrated fuel cell engine for medium and heavy-duty vehicles at the Hannover Messe Hydrogen and Fuel Cells and Batteries Fair this past April.

- See more at: http://www.renewablenow.biz/sustainable-mass-tranit.html#sthash.c0I1Wd3l.dpuf

HOW DO WE ENERGIZE THE ECONOMY AND PUT THOUSANDS MORE AMERICANS TO WORK?

We thought you'd be interested in looking at this from Climate Realty:

Just look up.

This summer, the EPA proposed the details for a program known as the Clean Energy Incentive Program (CEIP), which encourages states to invest in clean energy and energy efficiency technologies as part of the final Clean Power Plan (CPP). With the CEIP, the EPA will give states one emissions rate credit (which counts towards the state’s CPP compliance) for electricity generated from wind, solar, and other renewable energy projects, and two emissions rate credits for solar projects and electricity saved from energy efficiency projects in low-income communities.

And while the CPP is currently pending judicial review, the EPA is nevertheless moving ahead with the CEIP and giving Americans an important opportunity toweigh in on its design.

The bottom line is that the CEIP encourages states to replace dirty fossil fuel energy with solar, wind, and energy efficiency. The program also helps grow a booming clean energy sector that already employs hundreds of thousands of Americans, creating even more dependable, sustainable jobs.

SAY YES TO CLEAN ENERGY

The benefits don’t end there. The CEIP also helps states use the energy they generate in smarter and more efficient ways, such as by promoting energy efficiency projects in low-income communities. And when we use less energy each day, we not only cut down on the dangerous emissions devastating the health of our communities and driving climate change, we save money too. 

What can you do to help? Right now, the EPA is asking Americans to give their perspectives on the program – so add your name today to tell the EPA that you support the CEIP.

Let’s invest in a future that works for all Americans. Add your name today and help accelerate the shift to clean, renewable energy right here in the US and our entire planet. 

Mapping coal's

This has become a controversial point in the current US political debate.  Do we save jobs in coal or shift them to renewables?

No one wants to see industries collapse and people get pushed out of work?  Yet, moving to clean energy makes sense on every level.  The big question becomes, what new jobs can fill the void in coal states?  How quickly can they come on?  Do they compensate well.

Over the last centuries old technology has been replaced by new.  Jobs have been lost and gained.  As renewables become more affordable and productive, coupled with efficiency gains, "cheap coal" is no longer the answer to our long-term energy needs.

We see the levelizaton of pricing among all forms of power being a great benefit to every citizen of every community.  Together we can rebuild local economies in former coal strongholds.  This is a shift, a historic one, not a loss.  The benefits to our world will be staggering.

Mapping coal's decline and the renewables' rise

  by Francesca Mccaffrey

CoalMap is an online tool that allows users explore the potential effects of various market factors on the cost-competitiveness of coal versus renewable energy. Here, the variable being tested is a carbon price, set to $50/ ton.

Even as coal-fired power plants across the U.S. are shutting down in response to new environmental regulations and policy mandates, defenders of the emissions-heavy fuel still have cost on their side. Coal, after all, is cheap—or so it seems. This perception makes it difficult for alternative, low-carbon energy sources like solar and wind to compete.

A new study from MIT researchers, however, shows that coal's economic edge may soon be far thinner than we think. In a working paper for the MIT Energy Initiative, graduate students Joel Jean, David C. Borrelli, and Tony Wu show how replacing current coal-fired power plants with wind and solar photovoltaic generation facilities could provide benefits for the environment and for bottom lines in the near future.

The online tool they've created to help illustrate this argument is CoalMap, a web application that compares the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE)—that is, the minimum electricity price a power plant must receive to break even on investment costs over its lifecycle—of existing U.S. coal-fired plants with the expected LCOE of potential new utility-scale solar and wind generation in the same locations. The tool draws on publicly available data sets from sources including the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Users view CoalMap as a map of the continental United States showing the locations of current coal plants, with markers indicating each plant's nameplate capacity and relative cost. As users apply different carbon prices, deployment subsidies, and rates of cost decline for solar and wind, they can observe the effects of these changes on the cost-competitiveness of renewable energy across the country.

The results might be surprising to those arguing for coal's inherent cheapness. If levelized costs continue to decline as solar and wind technology improves, both will catch up to coal in terms of cost-competitiveness in the coming decades. The effect is even more staggering if a carbon price is implemented. Indeed, as the authors write, "imposing a price on carbon would make new solar and wind facilities significantly more competitive with coal power, even without major cost reductions" due to technological improvement. In the event of both a carbon price and improvements in clean energy technology, the researchers say, nearly all aging coal-fired plants in the U.S. could be headed for retirement within the next two decades, displaced by cheap low-carbon energy generation, even without subsidies and in areas with poor solar and wind resource.

The idea for CoalMap was born at the 2015 MIT Clean Earth Hackathon, held by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the MIT Office of Sustainability. There, the team—made up of Wu and Jean, both of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Borrelli, an alumnus of the Department of Chemical Engineering; and Fanni Fan, an MIT Sloan School of Management MFin student—won in the energy category, rising to the Rocky Mountain Institute's challenge for hackathon participants to build a compelling map that could help regulators and policymakers take action against heavily polluting or uneconomic coal plants. "Everyone on our team was very interested in the scalability of renewable energy, especially solar, so we decided to take on the challenge," says Jean. According to Wu, the hackathon offered "a great opportunity to compare coal head-to-head with renewables."

The team subsequently met with researchers from the Rocky Mountain Institute and the Sierra Club to discuss potential avenues for using the map. The consensus, according to Jean: the map had potential as a climate change and energy outreach tool that "would be interesting to many people beyond MIT."

Jean and his fellow researchers hope to see CoalMap used by diverse groups—not just academics and activists, but stakeholders and policymakers as well. They want to put the information the map provides in the hands of the public, especially individuals particularly well placed to bring about actionable change on issues of energy and climate.

With its straightforward user interface, CoalMap raises awareness about the environmental and economic costs of continuing to run legacy coal plants in the U.S., while simultaneously underscoring the benefits of investing in clean energy generation. "It's incredible to see," Jean says, "how fast solar and wind costs have dropped and how soon they can become competitive with even the cheapest legacy coal if historical rates of cost decline are maintained."

Jean emphasizes that CoalMap uses just one metric—levelized cost of electricity in $/kWh—and that coal plants can run continuously, independent of time of day, while wind and solar are intermittent generation sources, making direct comparison between the technologies difficult. Even so, Jean says, CoalMap can help people visualize a low-carbon future, instilling in them "intuition about the importance of continuing to innovate in solar and wind and setting a price on carbon."

Climate Change Is Sending Africa's

More news on the food crises side.

Climate Change Is Sending Africa's Agriculture Crisis Into a Tailspin

By Tim McDonnell

Last December, the climate summit in Paris offered journalists an unprecedented opportunity to reframe the global warming story. Climate reporting used to rest on the tacit understanding that the problem is overwhelming and intractable. That no longer rings true. While we have a better understanding than ever of the potential calamity in store, we finally have a clear vision of a path forward—and momentum for actually getting there.

To that end, Paris was a turning point for me personally, too: It was the end of the beginning of my career as an environmental journalist. This week I'm leaving Mother Jones after five years covering climate and other green stories. Paris underscored that it's past time for me to look beyond the borders of the United States. That's why, this fall, I'm going to undertake a Fulbright-National Geographic Digital Storytelling Fellowship. For at least nine months, I'll move between Kenya, Uganda and Nigeria to document how climate change is affecting food security.

 Agriculture in Africa is one of the most important yet under reported stories about climate change today. It's a fascinating intersection of science, politics, technology, culture, and all the other things that make climate such a rich vein of reporting. At that intersection, the scale of the challenge posed by global warming is matched only by the scale of opportunity to innovate and adapt. There are countless stories waiting to be told, featuring a brilliant and diverse cast of scientists, entrepreneurs, politicians, farmers, families, and more.

East Africa is already the hungriest place on Earth: One in every three people live without sufficient access to nutritious food, according to the United Nations. Crop yields in the region are the lowest on the planet. African farms have one-tenth the productivity of Western farms on average, and sub-Saharan Africa is the only placeon the planet where per capita food production is actually falling.

Now, climate change threatens to compound those problems by raising temperatures and disrupting the seasonal rains on which many farmers depend. Anindex produced by the University of Notre Dame ranks 180 of the world's countries based on their vulnerability to climate change impacts (No. 1, New Zealand, is the least vulnerable; the United State is ranked No. 11). The best-ranked mainland African country is South Africa, down at No. 84; Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda rank at No. 147, No. 154, and No. 160, respectively. In other words, these are among the places that will be hit hardest by climate change. More often than not, the agricultural sector will experience some of the worst impacts. Emerging research indicates that climate change could drive down yields of staples such as rice, wheat, and maize 20 percent by 2050. Worsening and widespread drought could shorten the growing season in some places by up to 40 percent.
 
A man walks near a carcass of a dead cow in Farado Kebele, one of the drought stricken Somali regions in Ethiopia, January 26. Tiksa Negeri/Reuters 
 
This isn't just a matter of putting food on the table. Agricultural productivity also lies at the root of broader economic development, since farming is Africa's No. 1 form of employment. So, even when hunger isn't an issue, per se, lost agricultural productivity can stymie rural communities' efforts to get the money they need for roads, schools, clinics, and other necessities. "We only produce enough to eat," lamented Amelia Tonito, a farmer I met recently in Mozambique. "We'd like to produce enough to eat and to sell." More food means more money in more pockets; the process of alleviating poverty starts on farms.

"We only produce enough to eat," lamented Amelia Tonito, a farmer I met recently in Mozambique. "We'd like to produce enough to eat and to sell."

The story goes beyond money. Hunger, increased water scarcity, and mass migrations sparked by natural-resource depletion can amplify the risk of conflict. Al-Shabaab in Kenya and Boko Haram in Nigeria have both drawn strength from drought-related hunger.

This is also a story about new applications for technology at the dawn of Africa's digital age. It's a story about gender—most African farmers are women—and the struggle to empower marginalized sectors of society. It's about globalization and the growth of corporate power, as large-scale land investors from Wall Street to Dubai to Shanghai see a potential windfall in turning East and West Africa into a global breadbasket. Such interventions could boost rural economies—or disenfranchise small-scale farmers and further degrade the landscape.

Of course, all the data points I've just mentioned are only that: cold, lifeless data. They work as an entry point for those of us who are thousands of miles away from Africa. But they don't tell a story, and they won't lead to action. They won't help Amelia Tonito improve her income. My hope is my coverage of this story will help provide the depth of understanding that is a prerequisite for holding public and corporate officials accountable, so that the aspirations of the Paris Agreement can start to come to fruition.

I've loved my time at Mother Jones and I'm truly at a loss to express my gratitude to my editors for the experiences they have afforded me. I've seen the devastating impacts of global warming, from the vanishing Louisiana coastline to thesmoldering wreckage of Breezy Point, Queens, after Hurricane Sandy. And I've seen the cost of our fossil fuel addiction, from the dystopian fracking fields of North Dakota to Germany's yawning open-pit coal mines. But I've also seen the fortitude of the young Arizonans who spent weeks sweating in the woods to protect their community from wildfires. And I've seen the compassion of a caretaker who, in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, stayed with her elderly patient on the top floor of a Lower East Side high-rise with no electricity or running water.

Encounters like these are what draw me to climate change as a beat. The story is just getting started.