TEDC Earth Matters- Food for Thought

The Earth Day TEDC panel called Food for Thought discussed the relation of food and sustainability in areas such as urban planning, sustainable tourism, The New School’s cafeteria, and the Sustainable Cities most recent field trip. The first speaker discussed the importance of sustainable tourism and the partnering with locals to prepare the culture’s traditional cuisines for tourists to eat rather than eating food that was imported at an all inclusive resort. The second speaker headed up The New School’s cafeteria and worked to find local farms to produce our cafeteria’s food that met specific criteria. He stated currently global food consumption is responsible for 25-29% of greenhouse gas emissions. Following him, the third speaker discussed urban planning and how food planning could be seen as urban development. The panel ended with two women who were from the Sustainable Cities club who discussed their recent field trip to Boston. They highlighted the relation of women to our food system and how we played an important role. Overall, it was interesting to here about various areas of people’s work and how they played an important role in linking sustainability with food.