Christopher X J. Jensen
Professor, Pratt Institute

Without sustainability in our diets, we won’t be sustainable

Posted 07 Oct 2015 / 0

NPR Morning Edition “New Dietary Guidelines Will Not Include Sustainability Goal” Man, this is a bummer. If our dietary guidelines are simply aimed at maximizing our bodily health but not the long-term health of our civilization and the planet upon which we depend, what’s the point of these guidelines? I love how the meat industry Read More

A Minor Post, Biodiversity Loss, Climate Change, Food, Freshwater Ecosystems, Habitat Destruction, Habitat Fragmentation, Marine Ecosystems, Pollution, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Terrestrial, Vegetarianism

Concentrated factory farming of livestock massively alters the phosphorus cycle

Posted 25 Jan 2014 / 0

NPR Morning Edition “How Mass-Produced Meat Turned Phosphorus Into Pollution” This short feature provides a clear example of how human agricultural practices massively modify nutrient cycles, decoupling what used to be inseparable: where animal feed is grown and where animals are raised. This separation means that we no longer have closed-loop agricultural systems. I would suggest Read More

A Minor Post, Closed Loop Systems, Composting, Economics, Ecosystem Ecology, Eutrophication, Food, Pollution, Ponds & Lakes, Public Policy, Radio & Podcasts, Rivers & Streams, Soil Ecology, Sustainable Agriculture, Vegetarianism

Freakonomics takes the quantitative knife to how we produce and consume food

Posted 25 Nov 2012 / 0

Freakonomics Radio “You Eat What You Are” This piece delivers a much needed kick in the self-righteous pants to the locavore movement. It systematically disassembles the assumptions of the local food movement, ending by discussing the minimal quantitative ecological benefits of using the “I only eat local” rule. It pulls apart belief from reality, and Read More

A Minor Post, Anthropogenic Change, Belief, Carrying Capacity, Climate Change, Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Evolution, Ecological Footprinting, Economics, Ethics, Food, Greenwashing, Hunger, Hypothesis Testing, Life Cycle Analysis, Philosophy, Population Growth, Public Policy, Quantitative Analysis, Radio & Podcasts, Resource Consumption, Subsistence, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture, Vegetarianism

Mark Bittman on the ecological imperative of eating less meat

Posted 31 Jul 2012 / 0

Marketplace “Worried about climate change? Eat less meat.“

A Minor Post, Climate Change, Vegetarianism

HOME, a documentary about the impacted Biosphere

Posted 18 Sep 2011 / 0

I just watched the video Home, a production of Yann Arthus-Bertrand and his Good Planet Foundation. Composed solely of high-quality panoramic images intensified by a soaring new-age soundtrack, the film provides viewers with a fairly comprehensive overview of the earth’s ecosystems and the challenges to the future health of these ecosystems posed by human industry. Read More

Anthropogenic Change, Biodiversity Loss, Biomes, Bogs & Wetlands, Carrying Capacity, Climate Change, Ecology, Ecology Education, Economics, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Justice, Ethics, Extinction, Film, Television, & Video, Food, Freshwater Ecosystems, Hunger, Mangrove Forests, Marine Ecosystems, Pollution, Population Pressure, Public Policy, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, System Stability, Taiga (Boreal Forest), Temperate Forest, Terrestrial, Tropical Forest, Tundra, Vegetarianism, Water Supply

Vegans and the Quest for Sanity

Posted 14 Aug 2010 / 3

In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article entitled “Vegans and the Quest for Purity”, Harold Fromm attempts to paint veganism as an inconsistent, unnecessary, and downright annoying movement. As a long-time vegan and trained ecologist, I feel the need to respond to some of his strange claims. I became a vegetarian in 1989 and Read More

Ecology, Sustainability, Vegetarianism

Changing and not changing the way we use our agricultural land

Posted 03 Jun 2009 / 0

A few years ago when I was still a graduate student in Stony Brook University’s Department of Ecology and Evolution, a group of us formed a reading group with the ambitious moniker “Social Policy and Global Progress”. Our ambitions in forming the group were clear: we wanted to ground our understanding of ecology and evolution Read More

A Major Post, Climate Change, Ecology, Food, Hunger, Public Policy, Sustainability, Vegetarianism