Author: Tristan Jones3

Tristan hails from the Piedmont region of Virginia where his parents raise lamb, eggs, produce, and poultry. He graduated from Oberlin College in 2007 with a B.A. in English and Sociology; he graduated from Columbia’s M.A. Climate and Society program in 2010. His interests range from local food systems to issues space, identity, environmental justice, development and modernity, art and design, and indigenous political critique. Outside of academia and the EI, Tristan works with the Lower East Side Ecology Center, has organized a low-income CSA in the LES, and has previously been involved in labor organizing and community gardening/market projects. In his spare time, Tristan enjoys riding and repairing bicycles, reading, playing folk instruments, local and artisanal foods, brewing beer and pickling, imagining, and voraciously consuming any new musical sound. Visit website »

Food Miles, Fair Miles

It’s not often that when we purchase food from a bodega or grocery store that we consider where it came from. Is my apple from New York, Washington, or China? Were my tomatoes grown in Florida, California, or Mexico? Whose hands planted and picked them? Why did this planter choose this variety? Wherever our food…
The Long and Winding Road to Copenhagen

A lot of hopes have been placed on the Fifteenth Conference of Parties (COP-15) which began earlier this week in Copenhagen. Convened on December 7, the conference has been considered by many our best hope at keeping global temperature from rising to what many researchers consider potentially dangerous levels. The gathering of delegates from throughout…
Agriculture and its Discontents: Greenhouse Gas Emissions

In 1943, Norman Borlaug began his research into new varieties of wheat that could feed the burgeoning population of Mexico. Invited by the Mexican government and funded largely by international philanthropic organizations, Borlaug’s research began what we now refer to as the Green Revolution. Over the next 13 years, Mexico became agriculturally self-sufficient, and in…
Shifting Perceptions on Global Warming

Last week the Pew Center released a new poll regarding the “Changing Opinions About Global Warming.” The polls are certainly telling, if not alarming: in April 2008 71% of Americans believed there was solid evidence that the earth was warming. That’s down to 57% this month. Perhaps more importantly, the percentage of those people who…
Assessing Global Metrics for Agriculture

On October 1, I attended a symposium entitled “Going Beyond Rhetoric: Metrics for Assessing Global Agriculture,” hosted by the Earth Institute and convened at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. Fifteen stories in the air, we were surrounded by miles of urban landscape — Queens to the east, Manhattan to the west, and no…
Food Security Under Climate Change

In 2008 the world faced one of its most severe food crises in recent history. Around the world riots broke out in otherwise food-secure nations — places like Egypt, Russia, Mexico, and Brazil. The world’s governments responded — a major U.N. conference was held in Geneva. What they discussed there was the fundamental issue of…
China, Japan, U.S. Star at U.N. Climate Change Summit

The U.N. Summit on Climate Change is underway today in NYC with nearly 100 heads of state in attendance to address carbon emissions and climate change. Several leaders — including the president of the Maldives and the prime minister of Japan — offered impassioned pleas to take action and make strong commitments to reducing carbon…

Food Miles, Fair Miles

It’s not often that when we purchase food from a bodega or grocery store that we consider where it came from. Is my apple from New York, Washington, or China? Were my tomatoes grown in Florida, California, or Mexico? Whose hands planted and picked them? Why did this planter choose this variety? Wherever our food…
The Long and Winding Road to Copenhagen

A lot of hopes have been placed on the Fifteenth Conference of Parties (COP-15) which began earlier this week in Copenhagen. Convened on December 7, the conference has been considered by many our best hope at keeping global temperature from rising to what many researchers consider potentially dangerous levels. The gathering of delegates from throughout…
Agriculture and its Discontents: Greenhouse Gas Emissions

In 1943, Norman Borlaug began his research into new varieties of wheat that could feed the burgeoning population of Mexico. Invited by the Mexican government and funded largely by international philanthropic organizations, Borlaug’s research began what we now refer to as the Green Revolution. Over the next 13 years, Mexico became agriculturally self-sufficient, and in…
Shifting Perceptions on Global Warming

Last week the Pew Center released a new poll regarding the “Changing Opinions About Global Warming.” The polls are certainly telling, if not alarming: in April 2008 71% of Americans believed there was solid evidence that the earth was warming. That’s down to 57% this month. Perhaps more importantly, the percentage of those people who…
Assessing Global Metrics for Agriculture

On October 1, I attended a symposium entitled “Going Beyond Rhetoric: Metrics for Assessing Global Agriculture,” hosted by the Earth Institute and convened at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. Fifteen stories in the air, we were surrounded by miles of urban landscape — Queens to the east, Manhattan to the west, and no…
Food Security Under Climate Change

In 2008 the world faced one of its most severe food crises in recent history. Around the world riots broke out in otherwise food-secure nations — places like Egypt, Russia, Mexico, and Brazil. The world’s governments responded — a major U.N. conference was held in Geneva. What they discussed there was the fundamental issue of…
China, Japan, U.S. Star at U.N. Climate Change Summit

The U.N. Summit on Climate Change is underway today in NYC with nearly 100 heads of state in attendance to address carbon emissions and climate change. Several leaders — including the president of the Maldives and the prime minister of Japan — offered impassioned pleas to take action and make strong commitments to reducing carbon…