PIttsburgh Mayor, other leaders join in Resilience Pledge PITTSBURGH, PA –Mayor William Peduto is committing at least 10% of the city’s operating and capital budget spending to flood control, street and facility improvements, and other projects that will improve the City’s resilience against challenges it will face in future years. Signing the pledge will secure $5 million in technical and financial resources for Pittsburgh over the next five years from The Rockefeller Foundation/100 Resilient Cities, which held a resilience summit with Mayor Peduto and other leaders from around the world this week. The funding will be in addition to the funding Rockefeller has already committed to Pittsburgh as one of the 67 cities chosen so far for membership in the the 100 Resilient Cities Initiative. Pittsburgh earned membership the Resilient Cities Network in December 2014. The City will seek similar spending earmarks by its authorities. Signing the pledge will not involve spending additional money.
Saving Basmati and Other Endangered Grains If you think you’re buying basmati rice, think again. “Most of the rice sold as basmati in the United States is not the traditional variety,” said Caryl Levine, co-owner of Lotus Foods, which recently announced a plan to import organic, heirloom basmati to promote rice biodiversity. “Americans get hybrids, like U.S. Dehradun is the capital city of Uttarakhand, an Indian state in the foothills of the Himalayas. “Agribusiness only makes a few varieties of rice available, but much more is out there,” said Lotus co-owner Ken Lee. Dehradooni farmers are generating surpluses to sell because they are using System of Rice Intensification (SRI) practices, which involve simple methods and organic matter to conserve the use of water and seedlings. Lotus is now introducing Dehradun basmati in bulk to the natural foods and foodservice trade. Lotus learned about SRI a decade ago from Olivia Vent at Cornell University’s SRI Rice project, which offers technical assistance to farmers.
Alleviating Food Recall Madness: Key Methods to Boost Food Safety Measures By Darryl Lewis Every year, nearly 1 in 6 Americans suffer a food-borne illness of some kind. Of those afflicted with a food-borne illness, 128,000 will become hospitalized and 3,000 will die. To combat these numbers and make food safer for Americans, the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was created by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in January 2011. The goal of the legislation was to create the framework for a preventative system rather than a reactionary system that tries to mitigate the problem as quickly and affordably as possible. Under this legislation, the FDA has the power to force food companies to issue recalls for a variety of reasons, including known contamination with a pathogen like salmonella and E. coli. Another area that FSMA addresses that hasn’t previously been proposed in food safety legislation is the role of foreign suppliers in supply chains. Adhere to the Foreign Supplier Verification Program Image credit: Pixabay/kpgolfpro
Why Food Waste is an Urgent Global Problem You’ve probably already heard the stats: 35 million tons of food goes to the landfill every year in the United States. It’s a staggering amount when you figure that food comprised more than 20 percent of our entire yearly waste stream in 2013. Put another way: On average, every family in the nation loses $1,600 to $2,000 each year to food that is purchased but not eaten. For the business sector, that economic impact is even more staggering, says Mathy Stanislaus, assistant administrator to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response. “The business sector throws away about $161 billion of food,” Stanislaus told TriplePundit. These losses pose a huge economic burden on our communities, but they also present significant social challenges. Roughly 18 percent of the gasses generated in the U.S. come from public and private landfills. And that inadequacy of distribution and access ties back to the EPA’s efforts to stem food waste here in the U.S.
Seattle Is Not Being Changed by Amazon but by Financial Institutions Amazon's new headquarters in downtown Seattle. Charles Mudede Much of the blame—maybe too much—on the rising costs of living in Seattle has been placed on Amazon and tech workers. But the source of the major housing issues Seattle faces will eventually prove not to be in the sectors of production (Boeing) or distribution (Amazon) but in finance. During the '90s, Seattle also experienced a burst of economic growth related to the tech sector and factory production. What many average Americans have a hard time realizing in the age of austerity is that the scarcity of capital is not real but imposed. Now, as standard Americans, we believe that there are lots of business and entrepreneurial possibilities all of over the place, even in our garages. This is a problem not only for greedy rentiers (people who live off of investments) but also pension funds, which can only fulfill their promises if the return on capital is at 8 percent. What's the solution? The language could not be any clearer.
Arsenic found in many US red wines A new University of Washington study that tested 65 wines from America’s top four wine-producing states — California, Washington, New York and Oregon — found all but one have arsenic levels that exceed what’s allowed in drinking water. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allows drinking water to contain no more than 10 parts per billion of arsenic. The wine samples ranged from 10 to 76 parts per billion, with an average of 24 parts per billion. But a companion study concluded that the likely health risks from that naturally-occurring toxic element depend on how many other foods and beverages known to be high in arsenic, such as apple juice, rice, or cereal bars, an individual person eats. The two studies from UW electrical engineering professor Denise Wilson appear on the cover of the October issue of the Journal of Environmental Health. “But consumers need to look at their diets as a whole. Continue reading at the University of Washington. Red wine image via Shutterstock.
Aircraft may be lessening their carbon footprint, but what about airports? Today’s passenger aircraft are becoming ever more efficient, driven by regulations like the EU’s emissions trading scheme and airlines looking to squeeze profit out of every drop of fuel saved. Yet on the ground, airports operate in a different class. New findings from a European Union-funded research project show that commercial airports use as much energy as a small city, and up to one-fifth of that may be wasted. Aircraft operating within the EU, along with energy and industrial sectors, fall under the Emissions Trading System that aims to cut emissions. While an EU law (Regulation 598) on regulating airport noise is due to take effect in a year, there is no similar EU legislation on emissions, and some political leaders want to change that. Sergi Alegre Calero, the vice-mayor of El Prat de Llobregat, home to Barcelona’s airport, is one of them. Calero is president of the Airport Regions Conference (ARC), which represents European municipalities close to international airfields.
Indonesia's Wildfires Are as Bad as Some of the Planet's Worst Air Polluters They’ve burned for weeks, producing toxic smoke that has blanketed much of Southeast Asia and caused air quality to plummet. But just how bad is the pollution generated by the wildfires raging across Indonesia? Between Sept. 1 and Oct. 14, the fires—which are allegedly being intentionally set by businesses looking to make a buck producing palm oil—may have produced more air pollution than Germany does in a calendar year. RELATED: Now Palm Oil Is Killing the Frogs Although Germany has one of the worst air pollution problems in Europe, try this on for size: The pollution generated from the fires is also greater than the single-day emissions of the second-largest producer of greenhouse gases on the planet, the United States. That’s the startling finding of a team of researchers led by Guido van der Werf, a scientist at VU University Amsterdam in the Netherlands. RELATED: Interactive Map Lets You See the Air Quality of 1,000 Places Around the World
Cities Are Banning Cars in Favor of Cyclists and Pedestrians to Fight Choking Pollution It’s no secret that traffic contributes to poor air quality in urban centers, but it’s now clear that even just one car-free day, such as Los Angeles’ CicLAvia event, can significantly improve the quality of what you’re breathing. Hosted by the nonprofit of the same name in partnership with Los Angeles County Metro and the mayor’s office, a CicLAvia is a one-day event in which streets in a neighborhood of Los Angeles are closed to traffic and opened for cyclists and pedestrians. The last CicLAvia to take place in Downtown Los Angeles was in October 2014; it cut particulate pollution in half compared with normal traffic days, according to a study from UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health that was published on Monday in the journal Environmental Pollution. There was even a 12 percent drop in pollution in surrounding communities and streets that were still open to vehicles, researchers found. As the trend catches on, more cities are experimenting with going car-free.