What’s Wrong With What We Eat (part 2)

In my previous post, I mentioned the bio-industry as one of the major players contributing to global warming. However, this is not the only problem with what we eat.

Many of the products we buy, especially those made in Asia, Africa and South America, are made by abusing the labour force used to grow & harvest the crops.  One of these crops is cocoa. Almost half of the world’s supply of cocoa is grown in Cote d’Ivoire, a country in Western Africa. It is estimated that 12.000 children are trafficked into forced labour on these cocoa-plantations, and that approximatlye 153.000 children are working in what is commonly know as the ‘worst forms of child labour’.

What’s Wrong With What We Eat (part 1)

I really love the TED video’s. If you’ve never heard of them, go there NOW! Tons of fantastic speakers from the top of their field. Talking about design, storytelling, the glories of nature, issues facing the world, faith, or just plain cool gadgets. New video’s are available every week.

But that’s not the reason I’m writing this blogpost. One of their video’s is called ‘What’s wrong with what we eat’. In it, Mark Britmann tells us about the bio-industry. About being healthy. But also about the way the bio-industry is killing our planet.

We Do Not Pay For What We Buy

Elsewhere on this blog I mention that a quest for higher profits causes large companies to squeeze out their suppliers. Now, I could spend 6 pages trying to explain that, but Annie Leonard has already done a fantastic job of it. Here’s a short YouTube video explaining how it works.

The Man takes The Lead

Generally, I’m not a big fan of right-wing political parties, but the following is a good idea by one. The VVD, one of Holland’s major right-wings parties, today suggested that the Dutch government should lead the way by making government employees drive electrical powered cars.

Everything that has a beginning has an end

I just came across this infographic, which shows how finite our natural resources actually are. Though many of us are aware of the fact that our natural resources are being used up rapidly, we often don’t realise how quickly we are using up all of our resources.

Going the Way of the Buffalo

Just a few hundred years ago, vast herds of American Buffalo roamed the Great Plains of the United States of America. These herds could contain up to a few million of these magnificent animals. By the 1880’s, there were only a few thousand left. Massive hunting throughout the 19th century had almost entirely decimated this once seemingly innumerable population.

Sadly, the world seems to be ‘going the way of the buffalo’.