Articles by Tom Philpott
Tom Philpott was previously Grist's food writer. He now writes for Mother Jones.
All Articles
-
Antibiotic-resistant bacteria thrives in CAFO pork, and Wall Street gobbles up Big Meat shares
In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat industry. Back in December, Michael Pollan wrote a important article about the antibiotic resistant bacteria MSRA, which Pollan decsribed like this: … the very scary antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria that is now killing more Americans each year than AIDS — 100,000 infections […]
-
To survive, producers wanly import feedstock and export fuel
At this point, serious greens still promoting biofuels are in a tight corner. Global grain stocks are at all-time lows and prices at all-time highs. That means heavy incentives to clear new land to plant crops — in precious rainforest regions in South America and Southeast Asia that sustain indigenous peoples and store titanic amounts […]
-
As the feds bail out Wall Street, here’s a food-related fix for Main Street
“The current financial crisis in the U.S. is likely to be judged in retrospect as the most wrenching since the end of the Second World War.” — Former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, Financial Times, March 17, 2008 Breakfast of economic champions? Photo: iStockphoto Drawing on past-life experience as a financial reporter, I have been […]
-
As coal prices rise, U.S. coal exports boom
Environmentalists have helped scuttle more than 50 coal-fired power plants in the U.S. in the past year. That’s fantastic. But the movement to stop coal won’t help the climate unless it can globalize; for the climate, coal burned in China traps just as much warmth as coal burned in Texas. Nor will stopping more U.S. […]