This past summer, I realized that the coffee companies of Toronto (and, no doubt, of the Western hemisphere), waste a tremendous amount. I noticed that my medical student colleagues buy at least two coffees per day from the hospital Tim Hortons, and each time, they use a new cup, new lid, new straw, etc. Imagine the waste that could be ...

Not everyone who wants to signify their individuality by consuming a disproportionate amount of the world’s resources can afford an SUV. For the rest of us, there is coffee.

There is no free lunch. Alternative energy advocates are realizing that there is a hidden cost to converting corn and other grain crops to biofuel. Well, there is more than one cost, but beyond the energy-input energy-output equation that has yet to be resolved to anyone’s satisfaction, there is the fact that we risk making food unaffordable to economically marginalized ...

by Colin Tudge, Tuesday July 31, 2007 – The Guardian

At a farm near my home in Oxfordshire, 50 sheep died in last week’s floods. Another farm, where the locals buy pick-your-own strawberries, asparagus and broad beans, has almost certainly lost its entire ...