Galactic Green Cred: The Environmentalism of Star Wars

Not to make sweeping generalizations, but it’s probably safe to say that if you’re reading this blog you’re more than just a little familiar with Star Wars (and by Star Wars we mean the first three Lucas made). Maybe you can quote the movies at will. Maybe you still have your Return of the Jedi bedsheets. Maybe you read the fan fiction (hell, maybe you write the fan fiction). But, if you, like us, are nerdy little fanboys at heart, well, buckle up, because you’re about to love George Lucas’ space opera even more. It turns out that there’s actually a fair bit o’ green to be found in Star Wars.

1. Clean Energy For The Droids?

We see C-3PO and R2-D2 shut down occasionally, but we never do see them do anything to power themselves. Solar? Really big batteries that last through the film? The Mr. Fusion from Back To The Future? We don’t know. But we don’t see them suck in anything remotely resembling a fossil fuel, nor do we see them plug in. [Read more]

Opportunists See Dollar Signs as Food Prices Spur Rainforest Destruction

What do you know, chaos and suffering is causing some folks in the position of power to take advantage of the situation. Will wonders never cease?

As people are starting to get worried about the future of our food sources, farmers in Brazil are getting excited about the prospect of making money by cutting down trees in the rainforest, burning the land and making way for pasture and crops.

Envirolink has it:

“At the very edge of the agricultural frontier, it’s very dynamic and that’s why you get statistics for deforestation that swing wildly from one year to the next,” said Roberto Cavalcanti of Conservation International.

“A small shift in food prices can have a big impact on whether it’s economical or not to move into the forest.”

The governor of Mato Grosso, one of Brazil’s biggest farming states, last week advocated more deforestation as a solution to the sharp rises in staples such as rice that are threatening to push millions of people into hunger.

“There is no way to produce more food without occupying more land and taking down more trees,” Blairo Maggi, also Brazil’s largest soybean producer and widely known as the “King of Soy”, told the Folha news agency.

This seems like a really stupid move… at the first sign of a food crisis, we start moving in on the rainforests, which we’ve been trying to protect for decades? Isn’t there a better way, people? I’m no expert, but in the times of climate change and worries over the future of the entire planet, cutting down trees in the rainforest appears to be a very bad idea.

Link [Envirolink]

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Earl Butz, The Man Who Killed the Family Farm, Has Died

Plenty brings news that the Man Blamed for the Downfall of the Family Farm has Died. Former Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz was the man who told small farmers “Get big or get out”, who pushed policy changes that encouraged major consolidation in agriculture and who more or less killed the family farm during the Nixon Administration.

Here’s a quick snip, head over to Plenty and read the whole piece.

He encouraged large farms to buy chemicals in bulk and skim down labor costs. Tying subsidies to yields rather than acreage, loosening regulations, and beating back trade rules increased output by American farms and lowered food prices. Butz certainly accomplished his goal. But at what cost?

The president of the National Farmers Organization at the time of the Eisenhower administration told the Senate agricultural committee that Butz “is widely known among farmers for his callous lack of concern about their welfare.” More to the point, he was also a paid board member and stockholder of three agribusiness giants (International Minerals and Chemicals, Stokely-Van Camp, and Ralston Purina). A 2003 article in Believer magazine called “Children of the Corn Syrup” points out that Butz might have been fond of saying “Get the government out of the ag business,” but what he actually did was just the opposite: putting agribusiness in the government. Today, critics of big ag, from Michael Pollan to the filmmakers of King Corn, blame Butz for the demise of the American family farm.

Not to kick a man when he’s down (in the ground), but Mr. Butz sounds like he was a real Class-A Corporate Jerkass.

Link [Plenty]