Although food security has always been an issue faced around the world, climate change, conflict, and resource availability will further exacerbate existing access to reliable and nutritious food sources. Low food security will also impact human health and development and urgent solutions are needed at all levels that address food resources. Many of the topics covered by Highwire Earth feed into another topic – health and disease. From the impacts of air and water pollution on human health to the increased range of disease carrying insects due to climate change, diseases are an important topic. By highlighting the underlying causes of relevant diseases and their relation to other topics here at Highwire Earth, we hope to contextualize human health more in terms of the larger forces that shape our planet.
***
Project Plastic develops technology to combat marine microplastics
Project Plastic is the brainchild of two Princeton Architecture students, Nathaniel Banks and Yidian Liu, who sought an innovative solution to the problem of aquatic plastic pollution. Since their launch in 2021, they have accumulated various awards and commendations such as: People’s Choice Award at the Princeton Entrepreneurs’ Network Startup Pitch Competition, 1st place at…
Assessing the Utility of Food Certifications in Advancing Environmental Justice
Written by Shashank Anand, Hezekiah Grayer II, Anna Jacobson, and Harrison Watson Sustainability is the notion that we should consume with caution, as the Earth is a delicately balanced ecosystem with limited natural resources. Social justice generally aims to eliminate disparities and inequities between discrete demographics. These include inequalities between persons of different socioeconomic status,…
Sowing the Seeds of Environmental Justice in Trenton
Written by Laurel Mei-Singh Magnificent, a hairdresser who lives and works in downtown Trenton, New Jersey, is one of ten adults gathered together in a community space. Meanwhile, an equal number of children paint pots outside, fill them with soil, and plant seeds to grow. On the topic of the lead-contaminated water flowing from the…
Pulp Non-fiction
Written by Timothy Treuer A story (but careful, there’s a twist): In 1998, the Costa Rican Sala Cuarta (their highest judicial body) issued a ruling against a company that had dumped 12,000 tonnes of waste orange peels in one of the country’s flagship protected areas, Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG). The ruling came at the…
A World Without Hunger
Written by Matt Grobis Safe, nutritious, and sufficient food, all year, for all people: the United Nation’s second Sustainable Development Goal aims to transform the world’s agriculture and distribution of food by 2030. With 800 million people suffering from hunger – more than 10% of the world’s population – food and agriculture are key to…
A Precarious Puzzle of Expanding Deserts: How arid Asia has varied over time and the confusion over recent desertification
Written by Jane Baldwin Inner Mongolia (Nei MengGu in Mandarin Chinese) lies right at the border of the nation of Mongolia within mainland China (see Figure 1). Pictures of yurts, traditional pony races, Mongolian wrestlers, and most of all rolling grasslands attract many Chinese tourists to this region each year (see Figure 2). In summer…