I have looked up to Anna Lappe and her mother Frances for many years. Frances is co-author, along with Joseph Collins and Cary Fowler, of "Food First", a book that got myself and so many others to think critically about food and agriculture and the myths of the green revolution. The book led to the formation of an organization of the same name (www.foodfirst.org), which has for many years provided cutting edge analysis on the causes of hunger.

A few years ago both teamed up to write a sequel book, titled "Hope's Edge". They traveled all over the world- Brazil, Kenya, France, India, Wisconsin- interviewing people for the book. Two of them later won the Nobel peace prize: Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh and Wangari Maathai of Kenya. Frances and Anna jointly run the Small Planet Institute (http://www.smallplanet.org/).

I exchanged a number of emails with Anna for over a year before I finally got to meet her in person briefly in Chicago in April 06, in the middle of series of anti-biotech teach-ins and protests aimed at the Biotechnology Industry Organization convention which was then taking place in town.

She has a new project linking food and agriculture to climate change, called Take a Bite out of Climate Change (http://www.takeabite.cc/).

You don’t need to be a climate scientist to be convinced that the climate crisis is real. All it takes, sometimes, is just looking out your window.

With quickly melting ice caps, Central Park daffodils blooming in January, and an estimated 150,000 climate-related fatalities every year, the gravity of the crisis is more apparent every day.

The fight against the climate crisis is certainly the biggest challenge our species has ever faced. How we address the crisis will determine our planetary fate.

While more of us get it–climate change is serious–we’re only at the beginning of the fight to determine what we should do about it.

Take a Bite plunges into the heart of the debate with a powerful message: If we are serious about the crisis, we’ve got to talk about food.

With nearly one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions coming from the food and agriculture sector, we at Take a Bite are here to help you learn about the connection between global warming and the food on your plate and what you can do about it.

Take a Bite provides you with up-to-date info and analysis as well as connects you with experts in the field and exciting actions to join.

At the Bite Blog, I’ll share stories from the road as I travel the globe for my third book,Eat the Sky.

Primers will help you understand the connection between the industrial food and the climate crisis and how sustainable agriculture can contribute to climate stability.

Our site also includes tips on climate-friendly diet choices.

Check out our site, tap into the resources, connect with us, and take action.

Together we can take a bite out of climate change.

Anna Lappé
author and co-founder of the
Small Planet Institute & Fund

* The Fine Print: Determining the precise level of emissions from food and agriculture is tough, but by one count as much as 31 percent of greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to food and agriculture, including emissions from land-use changes such as deforestation to make way for pasture-raising livestock or growing feed for livestock or biofuels. Note that this estimate does not include emissions from food transportation, waste, or manufacturing. Source: Data from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Third Assessment Report

What's the flower? You get extra points if you answered canola. In the United States, genetically modified canola was first planted in the mid-1990s. Today, three-quarters of our canola is genetically modified. Greenpeace researchers raised their eyebrows about this genetically modified variety after finding that Japanese imports of genetically modified canola had contaminated native crops there, transferring the modified crops' herbicide-resistant genes to the wild plants and giving rise to "super-weeds" that have required increasingly toxic chemicals to control.