Must Read

The City that Ended Hunger

Francis Moore Lappé, author of Diet for a Small Planet, found a "city that ended hunger" in central Brazil.  How'd they do it? By recruiting local farmers.  Belo Horizonte has, in a short decade, "cut its infant death rate—widely used as evidence of hunger—by more than half, and today these initiatives benefit almost 40 percent of the city’s 2.5 million population. One six-month period in 1999 saw infant malnutrition in a sample group reduced by 50 percent. And between 1993 and 2002 Belo Horizonte was the only locality in which consumption of fruits and vegetables went up."  [Yes Magazine]

Should Read

Public Transit Paradox

Ridership on public transportation nationwide has been increasing dramatically - and is now at its highest level in the past 52 years, but transit systems are struggling to keep up.  Adds Kaid Benfield: "Another sad irony is that, just as the federal stimulus is pumping (needed) money for new transit start-ups, it is doing nothing to bolster existing operation and maintenance costs.  The result is an epidemic of transit service cutbacks across the country."  Now all the service cuts and fare increases have been mapped by Transportation for America.  (Click through for the interactive versions.)  [Switchboard]

First Veggies

The First Family will be planting a a vegetable garden at the White House.  "We want to use it as a point of education," said Mrs. Obama, "to talk about health and how delicious it is to eat fresh food, and how you can take that food and make it part of a healthy diet."  [ABC News: The Note]

Disturbing Climate Reads

"Scientists have known for a long time that a rise in temperature in the oceans could cause the South Pole to start melting," but the threat to the massive Antarctic ice sheet has generally been dismissed as a far off and very unlikely catastrophe.  However, "two studies published in the journal Nature have found new evidence of the Antarctic ice sheets collapsing in relatively short periods of time in the past."  A five degree Celcius increase in global temperatures "could cause sea levels to rise by up to seven metres within one to three thousands years wiping out wildlife, flooding low lying islands and coastal areas and even changing weather patterns by releasing so much fresh water into the sea."  [Telegraph]

U.S. Defense experts are recognizing climate change as a top security issue.  “The topic is clearly on the radar of senior members of the intelligence community,” says Sherri Goodman of the Center for a New American Security, a Pentagon-funded think tank.  A CNA report stated that "climate change can act as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world … and this presents significant national security challenges for the United States.” [Christian Science Monitor]