Take the Pledge to Tread Lightly

©The Guardian

The Guardian has a great challenge going called Tread Lightly

This week readers are pledging to install water-saving devices. We all know water is one of those things we take for granted. It supposed to be a huge issue this summer in Bejing. I've also read recently that Spain is in a severe drought and having to import fresh water by container ship to certain regions. We all remember the images in Georgia last summer:

©AP

Tread Lightly has some great ideas that you can actually do. They're easy and can make quite a difference- one of my recent favorites was about not filling the tea kettle to full when making tea - they also actually measures the results of folks signing up to take the pledge. And speaking of water and treading lightly, remember if it's yellow let it mellow....

Where's the pasture-raised Pork?

My favorite chapter of Michael Pollan's "The Omnivores Dilema" is the one he spends working at Joel Salatin's Polyface farm in Virginia. I'd been reading Salatin's occasional column for years in the tiny periodical called Stockman GrassFarmer (my friend Jon has a small farm in Warren, Maine and is a devout disciple of Salatin) and I knew about Salatin's lack of success selling eggs to Whole Foods
so I was shocked to learn that The Washington Post was reporting that the restaurant chain Chipotle had pledged to buy 100% of it's pork from Polyface. Polyface, famous in sustainable food circles for its rotational grazing system is by comparison a small operation and calls itself beyond organic as Salatin refuses to ship it's products - Salatin wouldn't even agree to fedx a steak to Pollan for his book. How could Polyface raise enough pastured-pork for all of Chipotle's (the post reported that Chipotle's buys 5 million pounds of pork annually?) How could Salatin supply pork across the entire US?

My shock turned to relief when I read further that Chipotle's was only pledging to buy 100% of its pork for it Charlottesville locations. Joel hadn't sold out. Phew....

Jacob Holdt wins Detsche Borse Photography Prize

I'd never heard of the work of Jacob Holdt until he was awarded this years Deutsche Borse prize in photography. Now he's one of my heros. His use of photography and video to fight oppression, racism, and poverty certainly warrants award.

further notes: If you haven't heard of him, he is a self-described Danish vagabond who spent 5 years with little or no money hitch-hiking across America. Spend a few minutes with this powerful video above of Jacob with a leader of the KKK. It was made for Danish tv but most of it is in English.

click the image above to watch the video