Obama on Pollan
Remember the Michael Pollan article offering suggestions on agriculture to the next President? I pulled out these bits (and more on greenhouse gases and ag), which I thought were particularly important.
After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy — 19 percent. And while the experts disagree about the exact amount, the way we feed ourselves contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than anything else we do — as much as 37 percent, according to one study.
Here’s Obama describing what he took away from that article.
I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollen about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it’s creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they’re contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs. That’s just one sector of the economy. You think about the same thing is true on transportation. The same thing is true on how we construct our buildings. The same is true across the board.
In find his take fascinating for several reasons. One, he read it. Two, he didn’t acknowledge that Pollan styled this article as a letter to the next President; Obama took advice intended for him, but he pitched it as a more general article (Would he have read it if Pollan had not addressed it to him, I wonder? Did Obama want to hide that addressing calling articles "letters" to the next President make it more likely he’ll read them?). Three, he read it closely enough to synthesize a great deal of the content of the article. And four, he synthesized the article into his more general understanding of the economy–applying the lessons from this one article more generally.
Klein should have asked whether Obama plans on having one meatless day at the White House each week.
If he goes meatless, I bet we’ll find out about it well after the fact and in a backhanded way, like we did with his buying food for that needy family in Colorado which his canvassers found, or paying that excess baggage charge for that lady travelling from Miami to Norway 20 or so years ago.
Heh. Joe had a typo. Called him Pollen.
Isn’t it refreshing to see a candidate who actually reads entire articles and relates them to the real world?
LOL. I didn’t notice that. It suggests Klein didn’t read the article, so he probably didn’t know to ask about meatless days.
This is really wonderful news. The whole corn/feedlot food economy is just blitheringly stupid. Pollan can get preachy, but his arguments on agrarian economics, crop rotation, soil and land use are all extremely persuasive. He was on a radio talkshow out here in the SF bay area earlier in the week, and I said to my wife: “I’m amazed that the wingnuts haven’t taken notice of Pollan yet and started pushing back hard. But what exactly would be the counter argument?” He’s obviously a serious threat to corporate food. I imagine the counterargument would center on “nannystate” or libertarian free market nonsense. Or maybe just: “what’s wrong with crappy hamburgers and cheetohs?”
pinson, this is more complex than it first appears.
Google ‘Huckabee + health’ or ‘Huckabee + fitness’ and you may be surprised. He’s evangelical, from the home state of Tyson’s chicken (McNuggets, anyone?) and he understands linkages between food, health, and economics.
Google ‘manure + biodigester’ and you’ll see that several regions in the US are now experimenting with — and implementing — how to turn vast quantities of cow sh*t into electricity. This in turn helps dairy farmers get more (much needed) revenue, while also recycling bioenergy — which can lead to other changes in what they can do on their farms.
A number of dairy families of my acquaintance are deeply religious evangelicals — they have very deep faith, and they distinguish between Mammon and the Bible quite easily.
Then Google ‘Crunchy Con + Dreher’ and read what Rod Dreher is writing about over at Beliefnet.com; he covers ag and he appears to be part of a burgeoning movement about food that really does cross cultural and political boundaries.
That’s the good news.
Glad to see this interest from Obama.
Can you imagine how McCain (let alone Palin) would do in an interview like that? Maybe he should play the interview during the half-hour he bought, to show how he thinks things through, and in contrast to his competitors, THAT he thinks things through!
It’s not just that he thinks things through, it’s the depth and breath of his thoughtfulness that is impressive and very much needed out of a leader right now.
Obama has had an interest in nutrition policy for a long time, tying our diets into the decline in our general health.
Maybe he didn’t actually read the letter but a staff summary position on it.
I heard Pollan interviewed recently about this letter and he said that he had been contacted by the Obama campaign and asked if he could do a 2 page paper on what he had written. He told them no, that Obama has staff for that and that if he could have reduced what he had to say he would have already done it.
I’ll look and see if I can remember exactly where I heard this…
Found it
http://www.npr.org/templates/s…..d=95896389
Monday on NPR Fresh Air
40 minute interview, he makes this comment at the last two minutes and does not say Obama campaign (my mistake) but says one of the campaigns transition teams
What was not mentioned is the oil required to create the plastic products such as shrinkwrap and ubiquitous shopping bags.Another agrarian issue is that of genetically modified seeds and the politicization of patented seed by Monsanto ,sold in 3rd World nations. This is a HUGE issue that has received little to NO press. The GM seeds only produce one harvest. Therefore,you must buy new seeds each year. They contain a gene that sterilizes future seeds. It also sterilzes the women who eat the crops,too. Possibly the most important read that NOBODY is talking about is the book by F.William Engdahl,entitled “Seeds of Destruction”. There is quite a bit of info on the web and on Amazon about this book. Scary AND true.
Pollen always makes me want a burger.
Only bmaz would think to post “that”….Are are too much!
… others of us quietly get busy heating up some meat ragú as we read …
But I’m all for rethinking agricultural and food distribution systems.
http://www.celsias.com/article…..-monsanto/
This site has very good articles listed under the video. The Open Letter to Hillary Clinton is a good one. Monsanto has been around so long that we forget where they first got started in their quest for the domination of the whole world’s food supply.