A new cosmology * A new food system

Abstract

Our European ancestors came as a poor people to a seemingly empty land in North America, and we built our institutions with that perception. Now we’ve become a rich people in an increasingly poor land, one that’s filling up, and our institutions don’hold. We’ve patched them up, given them a lick and a promise, but they don’t hold. Dan Luten said almost those same words nearly four decades ago as the two of us crossed the Bay Bridge from San Francisco to Berkeley. I will go beyond citation of the source here to entertain a useful digression. Dan was a U.C. Berkeley professor. We were on the board of Friends of the Earth (FOE). The staff director of FOE was Rafe Pomerance, who, backed by the board, tried to spur some grassroots action which would lead to policy to reduce greenhouse gases. But it was clear FOE was failing in that and other environmental efforts, and thus the conversation with Dan.