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This Is What Would Happen If the Rest of the World Ate the Way America Does

by KristinRayner Posted on May 3, 2016

Mother Jones

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This story was originally published by Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Subscribe to the podcast and learn more at revealnews.org.

If the rest of the world ate like Americans, the planet would have run out of fresh water 15 years ago, according to the world’s largest food company.

In private, Nestle executives told US officials that the world is on a collision course with doom because Americans eat too much meat, and now, other countries are following suit, according to a secret US report titled “Tour D’Horizon with Nestle: Forget the Global Financial Crisis, the World Is Running Out of Fresh Water.”

Producing a pound of meat requires a tremendous amount of water because farmers use tons of crops such as corn and soy to feed each animal, which require tens of thousands of gallons of water to grow. It is far more efficient when people eat the corn or soy directly.

The planet is a on a “potentially catastrophic” course as billions of people in countries such as India and China begin eating more beef, chicken and pork like their counterparts in Western countries, according to the 2009 report released by WikiLeaks and first reported by Reveal at The Center for Investigative Reporting in a cache of water-related classified documents. The Chinese now eat about half as much meat as Americans, Australians and Europeans, a figure that continues to rapidly rise as more Chinese are lifted out of poverty and into the middle class.

And Nestle—which makes Gerber baby food, Nescafe, Hot Pockets, DiGiorno pizza, Lean Cuisine, Stouffer’s, Nestea, Dreyer’s and Haagen-Dazs ice cream—is deeply concerned.

Here are some of the takeaways, with key quotes from the secret report:

Global water shortages are just around the corner.

“Nestle thinks one-third of the world’s population will be affected by fresh water scarcity by 2025, with the situation only becoming more dire thereafter and potentially catastrophic by 2050.”

Major regions, including in the United States, are being drained of their underground aquifers.

“Problems with be severest in the Middle East, northern India, northern China, and the western United States.”

Excessive meat-eating is driving water depletion.

“Nestle starts by pointing out that a calorie of meat requires 10 times as much water to produce as a calorie of food crops. As the world’s growing middle classes eat more meat, the earth’s water resources will be dangerously squeezed.”

There’s plenty of water to feed everyone a diet that’s not so meatcentric.

“Nestle reckons that the earth’s maximum sustainable freshwater withdrawals are about 12,500 cubic kilometers per year. In 2008, global freshwater withdrawals reached 6,000 cubic kilometers, or almost half of the potentially available supply. This was sufficient to provide an average 2500 calories per day to the world’s 6.7 billion people, with little per capita meat consumption.”

The American diet is eating the world dry.

“The current US diet provides about 3600 calories per day with substantial meat consumption. If the whole world were to move to this standard, global fresh water resources would be exhausted at a population level of 6 billion, which the world reached in the year 2000.”

This is an even bigger problem now that other countries are eating like America and the global population’s set to grow by 2 billion by 2050.

“There is not nearly enough fresh water available to provide this standard to a global population expected to exceed 9 billion by mid-century.”

So what’s Nestle’s prediction for the future? Think “Mad Max”…

“It is clear that current developed country meat-based diets and patterns of water usage do not provide a blueprint for the planet’s future. Based on present trends, Nestle believes that the world will face a cereals shortfall of as much as 30 percent by 2025. (Nestle) stated it will take a combination of strategies to avert a crisis.”

Why is this the first time you’re hearing this from the world’s largest food company?

“Sensitive to its public image, Nestle has maintained a low profile in discussing solutions and tries not to preach…the firm scrupulously avoids confrontation and polemics, preferring to influence its audience discretely by example.”

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This Is What Would Happen If the Rest of the World Ate the Way America Does

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India’s worst drought in 50 years is shutting down farms, hospitals, and schools

by NikoleScrivener Posted on April 27, 2016

India’s worst drought in 50 years is shutting down farms, hospitals, and schools

By on Apr 27, 2016Share

India is suffering. In the midst of the worst drought it has seen in half a century, some 330 million people are currently affected, reports the government. The scarcity is so severe that schools, farms, and even hospitals cannot function — doctors don’t have enough water to wash their hands — and many people are leaving their homes in search of water.

To combat shortages, the government has started shipping water across the country via trains, but it’s not enough. In one of the most devastated states, 9 million farmers have little or no water for irrigation and at least 216 have committed suicide, reports the Guardian.

“The government says it is bringing water by train every day, but we are getting water once a week,” Haribhau Kamble, an unemployed laborer in the drought-struck district of Latur, told Reuters after waiting in line for three hours to fill up two pitchers. The situation for people like Kamble is expected to get worse as the summer temperatures rise and reservoirs dry up.

The current drought and other extreme weather events — including flooding that killed hundreds in South India last year — are linked to climate change. And while 190 countries met in Paris last year to come up with a plan to target climate change and its increasingly tragic effects, many critics argue that the accord failed to adequately address the needs of the developing nations like India, where over 20 percent of the population lives below the poverty line — that is, on less than $1.90 a day.

“What we needed out of Paris was a deal that put the poorest people first.” Harjeet Singh, global lead on climate change for ActionAid, told the Guardian last year. “What we have been presented with doesn’t go far enough to improve the fragile existence of millions around the world.”

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India’s worst drought in 50 years is shutting down farms, hospitals, and schools

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Could a Typo Help Save the Planet?

by HubertElzy2 Posted on April 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

The United States and China are leading a push to bring the Paris climate accord into force much faster than even the most optimistic projections—aided by a typographical glitch in the text of the agreement.

More than 150 governments, including 40 heads of state, are expected at a symbolic signing ceremony for the agreement at the United Nations on April 22, which is Earth Day.

It’s the largest one-day signing of any international agreement, according to the UN.

But leaders will really be looking to see which countries go beyond mere ceremony and legally join the agreement, which would bind them to the promises made in Paris last December to keep warming below the agreed target of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

So far, the US, China, Canada and a host of other countries have promised to join this year—boosting the hopes of bringing the Paris deal into force before the initial target date of 2020—possibly as early as 2016 or 2017, according to officials and analysts.

That is well before the timeline originally envisaged at Paris. Environment ministers attending the World Bank spring meetings this week said the faster pace indicated serious commitment to dealing with the global challenge.

The accelerated timeline would have one obvious advantage for Barack Obama. The standard withdrawal clause on any such agreement would force a future Republican president to wait four years before quitting Paris, according to legal experts.

An earlier start date could also turbo-charge the agreement, providing momentum for deeper emissions cuts.

It could also help efforts to attain the more ambitious goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C (2 degrees F)—which would give a better chance of survival to small islands and other countries on the front lines of climate change.

Christiana Figueres, who heads the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, has said global emissions need to peak by 2020 to have any chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees C. There has already been about 1 degree C (1.8 degrees F) of warming above pre-industrial levels.

“Early entry into force—we are very committed to making that happen,” Catherine McKenna, Canada’s environment and climate change minister, told a panel at the World Bank last week. “We can’t just now rest on our laurels and have a nice signing on Earth Day, and then we all go home.”

She told the Guardian Canada was committed to signing the agreement this year.

The push to bring the climate agreement into force quickly is in sharp contrast to the earlier international efforts to fight climate change through the Kyoto Protocol, which did not take effect for four years.

Eliza Northrop, an analyst at the World Resources Institute, said there was growing momentum behind an early approval of the agreement.

“It’s likely it could come into effect in 2017. It could even happen this year,” she said.

Governments at the Paris climate meeting had initially set the start date of the agreement in 2020—with intense discussion over whether that start date should be at the start or end of the year, according to diplomats.

The 2020 date remained in the negotiating drafts almost until the very end, the diplomats said. But unaccountably the final draft prepared by France left out the entire clause. By that point, after a few late-night negotiating sessions, a number of countries did not notice the omission.

The agreement, the first time all countries agreed to emissions cuts and other actions to fight climate change, aims to limit warming to below 2 degrees C and move towards a zero-carbon economy by the end of the century.

But it’s a tall order. The agreement needs to be approved by 55 countries accounting for at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions to come into force.

The US and China committed to join the agreement this year—but that still leaves a gap of more than 15 percent of global emissions.

A number of countries, including India and Japan, require their parliaments to approve the Paris agreement—a process which could take time.

The European Union will need agreement from its 28 member states before it can join the agreement—which makes it highly unlikely to be in a position to join early on.

“The assumption is that you have to do this without the EU to get to that 55 percent hurdle, if you want to see that in the next year or so,” said Alden Meyer, strategy director for the Union of Concerned Scientists.

That will force governments to cobble together a coalition of smaller countries if they hope to reach the 55 percent emissions threshold.

Possible contenders include India, Mexico, the Philippines, and Australia.

So far, about 10 countries have said they would join the agreement this year.

On Wednesday, Román Macaya, Costa Rica’s ambassador to Washington, said his country would join the agreement in 2016. Palau, Switzerland, Fiji, and the Marshall Islands have also said they will approve the agreement this year.

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Could a Typo Help Save the Planet?

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Cutting Food Waste Would Help Fight Climate Change

by EdgardoMcCombie Posted on April 12, 2016

I suspect it’s pretty much consensus opinion that the amount of food we waste, while people go hungry, is obscene. What’s less well recognized, however, is that cutting food waste isn’t just a way to fight hunger. It could also help us reduce the negative impacts of climate change.

A new study from Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research suggests thatup to 14% of farming-related emissions could be slashed if we made a concerted effort to tackle food waste. That’s a pretty astounding number. And what’s particularly interestingand obvious once you think about itis that the food waste problem isn’t just about how much we waste, but what we waste too. Jrgen Kropp, co-author and deputy chair of PIK research domain Climate Impacts and Vulnerabilities, explains more in a press release:

As many emerging economies like China or India are projected to rapidly increase their food waste as a consequence of changing lifestyle, increasing welfare and dietary habits towards a larger share of animal-based products, this could over proportionally increase greenhouse-gas emissions associated with food waste at the same time undermining efforts for an ambitious climate protection.

It’s not explicitly laid out in the summary of the study, and I have yet to read the study in detail, but my assumption is that the focus on animal product-related food waste is three-fold. First, as is fairly well known by now,meat and dairy have a much higher climate impactthan most plant-based foods. Second, meat and dairy spoil faster than rice and beans. And thirdly, eating spoiled meat and dairy has a much graver consequence than snacking on a shriveled carrot.

The study itself does not get into how we go about cutting food waste. But given that agriculture accounts for as much as 20% of global emissions, a 14% cut to waste that’s morally obscene anyway should be a no-brainer in terms of societal priorities.

Fortunately, fighting food waste is beginning to getat least a fraction of the legislative attention that it deserves.

Written by Sami Grover. Reposted with permission from TreeHugger.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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Cutting Food Waste Would Help Fight Climate Change

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Will the Planet Survive the Next 24 Hours?

by DenaeTina858 Posted on December 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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The next 24 hours could make or break humanity’s chances of staving off the worst impacts of climate change.

Negotiations in Paris for an international agreement to limit and adapt to global warming are in their final moments, after diplomats pulled their second consecutive all-nighter to crash through a few critical remaining questions in the 28-page document. The most recent draft, released Thursday evening, resolved one of the most important questions on the table: an agreement to at least attempt to limit long-term global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, a crucial half degree less warming than had been on the table before. For climate activists and diplomats from the world’s most vulnerable countries, that was a huge win.

Now, the question is whether the agreement will actually have the necessary tools to achieve that target. Many of the critical pieces needed to make the deal as strong as possible—most importantly, increased funding for climate adaptation in developing countries and a plan to ramp up greenhouse gas reductions over time—are still on the table. That’s a good thing. But there’s no way to know how many of them will survive the night.

“We’re in a good position. The sunlight is really in front of us,” said Li Shuo, a campaigner with Greenpeace in China. Still, he added, “we have tremendous risk that this very could be watered down tomorrow.”

The most important issue under debate right now is the “ratchet mechanism,” which would require countries to boost their climate ambitions incrementally over time. It’s an essential component for actually meeting the 1.5 degrees C target (or even the less ambitious 2 degrees C target), because the promises countries have made so far add up to about 2.7 degrees C—a level of warming that could ultimately prove catastrophic around the world. At the moment, the text requires countries to report their greenhouse gas emissions every five years. But it is still vague about how countries that lag behind could be penalized, how countries could be required to increase their efforts over time, and how exactly their reporting could be internationally fact-checked. Secretary of State John Kerry has been ambiguous on this point; he said on Wednesday that in the agreement, “there’s no punishment, no penalty, but there has to be oversight.”

Crucially, negotiators have also not agreed on when those reviews need to start happening. The view of most experts here is that in order to stay within the 1.5 degrees C target, the reviews should start as soon as possible—certainly before 2020. That way, there’s time to correct course before it’s too late. But the Chinese delegation has resisted that timeline. Last night President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke on the phone, according to Chinese state television; what exactly they discussed was unclear, but the call raised some eyebrows here about a possible wedge emerging between the two countries.

Some tension at this stage is to be expected, said David Waskow, director of the international climate initiative at the World Resources Institute.

“What’s happening here is the world is trying to craft a new way of collaborating,” he said. “We’re seeing the growing pains of that process.”

China and the United States were among the first countries to take a strong bilateral stand in advance of the Paris talks, when they released a joint plan to fight climate change last November. Many people I’ve spoken to here have said that this early partnership was one of the biggest reasons to be optimistic about these talks, since disagreements between the two countries has been a key reason that past climate summits have collapsed. So if that mood is changing, it could really improve the final deal in Paris.

China has yet to sign onto the “High Ambition Coalition,” a negotiating bloc that includes the United States, European Union, and dozens of developing countries. That coalition has emerged in the past few days to fight for what it portrays as the strongest possible agreement. I’ve heard concern from many activists here that the coalition is really just a way for the United States to seem like it’s on the right side of history, without actually taking very ambitious steps, while simultaneously painting China and India as the villains. (Eric Holthaus at Climate Desk partner Slate did a good job breaking down that dynamic.)

“Everyone is trying to hide behind the political smog,” Shuo said.

Meanwhile, the United States seems to be obstinately resisting language in the agreement that would make more money available for developing countries to expand their clean energy sectors, and for a compensation fund for the most climate-impacted countries. And negotiators are still squabbling over how exactly to determine which countries should be obliged to do what.

So now, it’s a waiting game. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my days at this summit, it’s to not even bother looking at the official procedural schedule. Anything can happen anytime because most of the action is taking place behind closed doors. That will continue through Friday night; the next draft of the agreement is due Saturday at 9 a.m. Paris time. At that point, it’s more or less up to the French officials leading the summit to decide whether to force an up-or-down vote or to let diplomats pull their red pens out again.

At the very least, it’s pretty safe to say that the chances of the talks totally collapsing are slim to none. Instead, it’s a question of whether the deal will actually be as ambitious as leaders such as Kerry have repeatedly said they want it to be, or whether it will be something more milquetoast. Either way, no one expects this agreement to actually solve climate change. But this is the most optimistic activists and diplomats have been in the 20-year history of these talks.

As Tine Sundtoft, the Norwegian environment minister, told reporters this afternoon, “There’s no real danger that we will lock in low ambition for decades to come.”

Master image: Triff/Shutterstock

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Will the Planet Survive the Next 24 Hours?

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America Is the Biggest Problem at the Climate Talks

by CindiChristianso Posted on December 5, 2015

Mother Jones

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This story originally appeared in Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

From reading reports in the press—and hearing complaints from Republicans always looking for an excuse to do nothing about climate change—you might get the sense that developing countries are the impediment to reaching a strong climate agreement in Paris. Traditionally the subject of such handwringing was China, but as it has grown richer it has become more proactive about fighting climate change, so the new scapegoat is India.

On Monday, a New York Times headline declared that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “could make or break Obama’s climate legacy,” while a Wall Street Journal headline said that India is “a focus of the Paris climate talks.” The Times wrote, “Indian negotiators have publicly staked out an uncompromising position.”

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America Is the Biggest Problem at the Climate Talks

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5 Big Developments From the Beginning of the Paris Climate Summit

by Simone87Lg Posted on December 3, 2015

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After just a few days, billions of dollars have been committed to clean energy. Yann Caradec/Flickr On Tuesday, more than 100 heads of state departed from Paris, after kicking off two weeks of international negotiations intended to limit climate change. But even though the biggest names have left the building (actually a converted regional airport), the real action is just getting started. If history is any guide, diplomats will be holed up in a room negotiating minute textual details until—or well past—the last possible minute next Friday. Still, the last few days have seen a barrage of developments that aren’t necessarily tied to the core negotiating text. It started on Sunday with a joint commitment from dozens of nations and private corporations to vastly increase their spending on clean energy research and development. Here are a few more key developments, in no particular order: 1. New milestone for fossil fuel divestment: Some of the most prominent activist groups at the summit are focusing their attention on divestment—that is, getting high-profile individuals and institutions to pull their money out of fossil fuel companies. In September, that campaign reached a high-water mark, when a study commissioned by a coalition of environmental groups found that hundreds of institutions and thousands of individuals with assets totaling $2.6 trillion had pledged to divest from fossil fuels. Bear in mind, the actual amount of money being pulled out of fossil fuel companies is substantially smaller than that. But it’s nevertheless a pretty impressive number because of the growing movement it represents. On Wednesday, the same coalition updated that figure: It now tops $3.4 trillion. Again, it’s unclear how much of this is actually being divested. (It’s not always easy for a complex institution such as a university to know how much money, if any, it actually has invested in a given industry). But it’s striking that the total jumped nearly $1 trillion in just a couple of months. The African Development Bank promised to pour $12 billion into increasing access to electricity. 2. Big boost to clean energy in Africa: Sub-Saharan Africa has one of the world’s lowest rates of access to electricity; nearly two-thirds of people there live without power. That makes it hard to grow a business, hard for kids to study, and hard to store fresh food and medical supplies. As we’ve reported before, it also represents a huge opportunity for renewable energy. Small-scale wind and solar projects, while not up to the task of fully supplying the continent’s electricity needs, can often be deployed more rapidly than big fossil-fuel-fired power plants. On Tuesday, the African Development Bank announced that it would pour $12 billion into energy projects over the next five years and seek to attract up to $50 billion in parallel private-sector funding. The project has two goals: to vastly expand basic energy access, and to do so cleanly, by boosting the continent’s renewable energy capacity tenfold. This is just the latest sign that the clean energy industry is likely to be one of the biggest winners from the Paris climate talks. 3. China is playing ball: President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping set the joint climate action ball rolling more than a year ago, when they announced a sweeping plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions and pool resources on clean energy. Since then, China and the United States—the world’s No. 1 and No. 2 carbon polluters, respectively—have stayed close on their climate agendas. That trend appears to be continuing in Paris, a rare point of diplomatic accord in an otherwise testy relationship. China has said it could agree to reevaluating its climate goals every five years, a protocol that the United States, the European Union, and other leading emitters are pushing strongly to include in the final agreement. On Wednesday, Chinese officials back in Beijing also announced deep new targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. India has also rolled out a new $30 million plan to invest in clean energy, although that country remains opposed to the five-year review standard. Russia, meanwhile, doesn’t appear interested in doing much at all. Tensions between the United States, China, India, Russia, Canada, Brazil, and other heavyweights—not to mention small island nations and other highly vulnerable players—are likely to become more apparent as the talks progress into finer minutiae. 4. Who’s going to pay for all this? One of the most contentious issues in Paris is climate finance, a term that refers broadly to cash ponied up by wealthy, high-polluting nations such as the United States to help poorer countries adapt to climate change impacts and reduce their carbon emissions. In 2009, at the last major climate summit, developed countries agreed to raise $100 billion in climate finance per year by 2020. That goal is about halfway met, according to the World Resources Institute. On Tuesday, Obama announced an additional $30 million from the United States for climate adaptation in the most vulnerable countries, on top of a $3 billion promise the United States made to the UN Green Climate Fund last year. But it’s unclear how the Paris agreement will ensure that this fundraising continues. Delegates will have to hash out what sorts of commitments can or should be legally binding, how to count the money, how to spend it, and other important considerations. Jake Schmidt, an international programs director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said many developing countries are pushing to include language in the agreement that would require the total level of finance to be gradually ramped up over time. “I don’t think anyone is envisioning there will be a new [specific] number, but rather asking that $100 billion is a floor to the finance that will be mobilized over time,” he said. The same is true of countries’ various greenhouse gas reduction targets, he said: A big question at the talks is how these commitments can be enforced and strengthened past the next decade or two. “We’re leaving Paris with a sense that it could be 10 or 15 years before we return to these targets,” he said. “If we don’t have another moment to reevaluate these, then we have a problem.” 5. Cities are playing a big role: National governments aren’t the only players in Paris. Cities and states are also offering their own commitments. One of the most prominent voices at the summit so far has been that of California Gov. Jerry Brown (D), who is pushing a group of 60 states and cities around the world to sign on to a sub-national climate agreement. Meanwhile, on Tuesday a group of 21 mayors committed to dedicating 10 percent of their municipal budgets to climate “resilience,” which includes steps like making infrastructure more weatherproof and restricting energy consumption by buildings. They include the mayors of Paris, New Orleans, Oakland, Rio de Janeiro, and other global cities.

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5 Big Developments From the Beginning of the Paris Climate Summit

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Worried About the Planet? These Condoms Are Your Ticket to Guilt-Free Sex

by AletheaClibborn Posted on November 29, 2015

Mother Jones

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Twenty years ago, when the eco-home products company Seventh Generation was in its heyday, co-founder and then-CEO Jeffrey Hollender trademarked the name Rainforest Rubbers, assuming that, as with cleaning and parenting products, people would be into sustainably-produced condoms. Nothing came of that idea, until Hollender’s millennial-aged and business-school-educated daughter, angered by how so few women her age wanted to buy condoms and frustrated by the dearth of sex products with natural ingredients, decided to get involved.

So decades after its conception, the father-daughter duo finally brought Hollender’s idea to fruition, dumping his name for something sleeker and creating a condom that’s sustainably produced, lacks the carcinogenic chemicals found in the standard brand, and is marketed specifically for women. Their Sustain Natural condoms brand, which has been on the market for just a year and a half, is one of a handful of eco- and body-friendly condom brands that have cropped up in recent years. The new wave of condoms include brands that take a more hipster, less macho tack to advertising, one that delivers condoms by bike and one that named their company after unicorns, for example.

Since founding Sustain, the Hollenders have gone beyond their flagship product, which boasts a long list of certifications and perks—they now also manufacture and sell “post-play wipes” and lube. And Jeffrey’s wife runs the companies charitable arm, which donates 10 percent of its condom and lube proceeds to women’s health care organizations such as Planned Parenthood.

Meika and her father, whom she calls “Jeffrey,” chatted with Mother Jones about latex allergies, lube, and what it’s like creating a condom company with your dad.

Mother Jones: What makes your condoms environmentally friendly?

Jeffrey: If you look at the life cycle of the condom, you start with the fact that they’re made from the sap of the rubber tree, like maple syrup is from a maple tree. We were lucky enough to find the world’s only fair trade certified rubber plantation. The plantation provides free education for 1,000 people in southern India. They built a hospital that provides 100 percent free medical care to employees and a discount to the whole community. And they provide free housing. It’s the only one certified by the Forest Stewardship Council, which means they’re managing the biological diversity on the plantation, the use of chemicals and pesticides. We took that through to the factory—changing the way the product is made. We reduced the protein content in the latex, which is what causes allergies. Most condoms are contaminated with a carcinogen called nitrosamine. We removed casein, which makes it ok for vegans to use. It’s the only non-GMO-certified condom in the United States. But the more important part of the story is that condoms help women plan the size of their families. When women plan the size of their families they have a better socioeconomic outcome. There’s a lot we can do without, but we need condoms. The world’s most sustainable, responsible, condoms.

MJ: How is the standard condom made?

Jeffrey: Mostly there’s children working on the plantation. If you look at the living conditions of most rubber capitals and their income relative to other people in those countries, they’re at the lower end of the spectrum. That’s invisible to most consumers. There’s been way more progress in the labor conditions of fair trade coffee, but condom production is a whole world that people have not shined a light on.

MJ: Why does Sustain focus on women’s condom use instead of men’s?

Meika: Our goal in the condom space is to get more young women to be using condoms, period. We have to get more women to use condoms over time which is going to take education.

Meika and Jeffrey Hollender Courtesy of Sustain Natural

Jeffrey: It’s scary how few women use condoms. The average woman who graduates from her first year in college, 25 percent will have an STD because they aren’t using condoms. In Sacramento today and New York until a year ago you could be arrested for carrying condoms. We’ve been supporting a group of women in Sacramento to help change that law. You shouldn’t be searching and arresting them because they carry a condom. It also sends a terrible message to young women about what it means when you do.

MJ: On the website you talk specifically about gay women and men. Will non-straight relationships be a focus of yours?

Jeffrey: We have not been as focused on the LGBT market as we should be, and we see a real opportunity. Particularly with lubricants, it’s a huge issue for gay men, and the health issues with lubricants are very significant for both sexes.

Meika: You don’t want to use anything that has parabens or glycerin. And you don’t want petroleum-based lube. What happens with the petroleum when it enters your body is it damages the cell tissue in that area and makes you more susceptible to contracting an STI. That combined with bacterial vaginosis, which can also be caused by petroleum or silicone-based lubricant, makes you 13 times more likely to contract an STI. So the health benefits were so obvious to us. And women in general are moving in a direction of wanting more natural condoms.

MJ: What kind of stereotypes do you two experience as a father-daughter condom company?

Meika: In the original round of investing, Jeffrey was raising money from friends, like upper class white men who thought the idea of starting a condom company with your daughter is a little uncomfortable. But we draw a line. People have been like, “Why don’t you do eco sex toys?” honestly that to me is something we wouldn’t want to do together. It’s a sensitive relationship and condoms is more of a public health category. If something does make us uncomfortable, most things don’t, but we do draw a line.

Jeffrey: There’s no child I know of who says, “When I grow up I want to be a condom salesman!” I say to Meika, “You have to be brave to do this.” People think it’s a weird thing for a father and daughter to be doing because it’ not something we talk about openly enough and that people have fears and secrets about. So from my perspective it’s a great way to shift those attitudes for us to be in business about it. No one should think twice about it.

MJ: How many people assume that sustainable condoms means they are biodegradable?

Meika: At least 60 percent.

Jeffrey: Nobody wants a biodegradable condom.

MJ: How will Sustain condoms increase the number of women buying condoms?

Meika: One is just through packaging, branding, and design. The condoms on the market were all extremely male oriented, and women felt like they had no brand loyalty because they weren’t targeted at them. So that was a low bar for us we just thought we could create something that’s more beautiful, that has more functional benefits and attributes, like the sustainability piece.

Jeffrey: Tactically, we’re helping to overturn these laws around women carrying around condoms is also foundational. It continues to reinforce these attitudes that are so dangerous. We haven’t met anyone that has the magic solution to changing these attitudes. We know there’s an absence of dialogue with families and pediatricians. There’s not one point you can focus on that will change this.

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Worried About the Planet? These Condoms Are Your Ticket to Guilt-Free Sex

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Don’t Feel Bad About the Guy(s) You Fucked Last Night

by DottyArent Posted on November 28, 2015

Mother Jones

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A few years ago, New York City-based stand-up comedian Corinne Fisher, 30, was going through a personal slump: She’d just been dumped unexpectedly by the man she thought she was going to marry, in a Panera Bread of all places. “I had what I would describe as a nervous breakdown,” she says. “I lost 20 pounds, my hair was falling out because I wasn’t eating properly.” She spent hours sobbing on the shoulder of her friend and fellow comic Krystyna Hutchinson, 27. But amid the moping, Fisher got an idea for a new project: She would take the High Fidelity approach and interview all of her ex-boyfriends and lovers to figure out what went wrong.

Hutchinson—who, like Fisher, is unabashedly horny and not shy about sharing her sexual escapades—was on board, but for a slightly different reason. She’d become frustrated by the “notion of shame around women who have a lot of sex and enjoy it.” So in December 2013, the duo, collectively known as Sorry About Last Night, launched Guys We Fucked: The Anti-Slut Shaming Podcast.

Every episode begins with an update on each woman’s sex life, but the podcast quickly evolved away from its focus on past paramours. There’s still plenty of chatter about threesomes and sex toys, but the show also takes on touchy topics like pedophilia, pimps, and sexual violence in frank conversations with comedians, actors, sex workers, and activists. Guests have included the likes of sex columnist Dan Savage, Daily Show creator Lizz Winstead, and female pornographer Stoya. Two years into its run, Guys We Fucked began to pick up speed, and it now boasts more than a half million listeners. In August, it became the top comedy podcast on iTunes for a stint. It’s still in the top 10—despite initially being blocked by Apple due to its profane title. I caught up with Fisher and Hutchinson to talk about Miley Cyrus, capitalism in the bedroom, and “no bullshit feminism.”

Mother Jones: What made you decide you were comfortable airing your sexual exploits and questions to hundreds of thousands of listeners?

Corinne Fisher: Nothing. Because we didn’t know that was going to happen. And now sometimes I’m like, “Damn.”

Krystyna Hutchinson: Corinne and I are really good friends and we’ve been working together for four or five years now, so our chemistry is really good. I say, “Okay, I’m just going to talk to Corinne”—and I can forget the fact that 100,000 people are about to hear me talk about my pussy.

MJ: Have you experienced any negative side effects of being so open about your sex lives?

CF: The negative side effects are very directly to my personal life. Being single and talking about being “a big old whore,” is not going to be the best sell for yourself for dating. But to play devil’s advocate, I don’t really want to date somebody who’s not comfortable with everything I’m saying.

MJ: What’s the best reaction you’ve gotten to the show so far?

CH: A couple credited us with them being able to conceive!

KF: The first email we got that blew my mind was from a girl in India who was raped by a member of her family, and then she started listening to the podcast. She said, “For the first time in my life I can look at myself as a sexual being.” We did one with Wendi Starling about the night she was raped. After that aired, we were inundated with emails from girls that experienced almost the exact same thing, with someone familiar. It really pushed home the message that this happens way too much. We’re opening up topics that not a lot of people are comfortable talking about. It’s exciting to know that at least it helps some people.

MJ: Why did you include “anti-slut-shaming” in the title?

KH: Just having a vagina made me want to include that in the title. There’s this shame around women who have a lot of sex and enjoy it. It’s one of the huge parts about being a woman that’s really frustrating. I really wanted to speak to that, and talk about our experiences with men who have been assholes, with men who have been great. Because that’s the one common denominator between all of my friends and me: We all have stories of a time that we were sexually harassed.

MJ: There are plenty of sex podcasts out there already. What was the void you hoped to fill?

CF: The one in my soul.

KH: One of the voids that we didn’t set out to fill but I feel like we are filling is no-bullshit feminism. We want to talk about the shitty stuff. We want to talk about what we’re bad at. We talk about how women are physically weaker than men. Some people don’t want to say that, but it’s true. Why can’t we just talk about it? And just scrape all the bullshit away. I respond to that type of feminism so much better. And I think it’s something that men can really get on board with, too.

MJ: Some people think sex motivates pretty much every decision we make, what we wear, who we talk to, everything we do all day. So why don’t women talk about it more?

KH: It all comes back to shame. The reason I don’t wear tops that show cleavage, because I have giant tits, is because one time in the eighth grade this girl accused me of sticking out my boobs to get boys to like me. These little tiny scarring things. I think you just get inside your head, and because no one else is talking about it, you stay inside your head and you think you’re alone in this kind of struggle to be open about your sexuality. That’s pretty much the core.

CF: There’s a lot more value on the sexuality of a woman than a man. If there’s too much sex on the market, the value of the item decreases. If you’re a woman who’s giving away your sexuality, even if you feel good about it, men look at you as something that has a lower value. I think we somehow got that into our heads that that is true. When really it’s just a mechanism of control.

MJ: So really your podcast is about trying to rethink capitalism?

CF: Kind of.

KH: Exactly.

MJ: A lot of your listeners are teens and college kids. Do you feel a sense of responsibility?

KH: We feel a huge sense of responsibility when someone young writes us. And we are very clear that we are not doctors. If we give you anything medical, it’s because we Googled it. The last thing we’d want to do is give anybody the wrong info, especially someone who’s impressionable.

MJ: You have a very lighthearted rapport about some pretty serious issues. Do listeners ever take offense?

CF: We always have to keep reminding the listeners: This is not a sex podcast. This is a comedy podcast where we talk about sex. Anyone who knows anything about comedians knows that we are very morbid people. We can find humor in pretty much anything.

MJ: Apple was censoring your podcast for a while. Did you ever figure out why?

KH: iTunes has third-party censors that kind of comb through everything to make sure nothing was missed. In our podcast the word “fucked” was not bleeped, because we were never told it had to be, and they just eliminated it from all search fields and charts. All the fans tweeting at iTunes podcast is actually what got Apple to call us personally to sort it out. And they were very cooperative and understanding and they apologized—so that was nice.

CF: But then they just bleeped out the word “titties.” I don’t understand that. There’s way worse words in our titles than “titties.” Apple is a notoriously conservative company, as are a ton of big companies. It’s not surprising—it’s just disappointing.

MJ: Is part of your strategy to lure people in talking about boobs and threesomes, and then subtly school them about safe sex and female empowerment?

CF: Would you want to listen to a podcast called “Sex Is Like Really Cool When We Consent?” or would you want to listen to a podcast called “Guys We Fucked”? I want to listen to “Guys We Fucked.” Those girls seem fun.

KH: So much of the sex talk is so clinical and boring and dull. I think what keeps people listening is that we are funny, and we do tackle some interesting topics.

CF: It was very specifically called “Guys We Fucked.” Yes, it’s crude, but the women hold the power in that title. Most times, a guy says, “Yeah, I fucked that girl.” No, no, no. This is guys we fucked. We did the fucking!

KH: It’s taking ownership of your sex life.

MJ: Journalist Rachel Hills had a book come out this year called The Sex Myth. She said, “We internalize this idea of sex as something that is constantly available and that everyone is doing, and if you’re not doing it, there’s something wrong with you.” Do you think our culture today is oversexualized?

CF: We can only speak to our own libidos. We just both coincidentally are hypersexual people. But we’ve had people on that are more vanilla, as we call them. There’s nothing wrong with that. We had a man well into his 30s who was a virgin, and there’s nothing wrong with that either. But yeah, of course we’re oversexed. We always talk about how we need crazier porn to get off, or a bigger vibrator. We’re an oversexualized society. But it’s also mind-blowing that in this oversexualized society, we’re also so ashamed of sex. We’re getting very mixed messages.

KH: I think what society is obsessed with is comparing themselves with everybody else. Everybody needs to relax. Stop comparing yourself to everybody. You walk down the street in New York and see billboards with beautiful women, and it’s like, yeah, they’re beautiful women. You don’t have to be that thin. You don’t have to be that beautiful. They’re nice to look at. The end.

MJ: If you could interview any celebrity or politician about his or her sex life, who would it be?

KH: Assumes a high-pitched Southern drawl. Beyoncé, because I love her. She is my Jesus. No, but really: Beyoncé.

CF: Miley Cyrus. She’s someone who’s made to look like an idiot. But if you really follow her online and listen to the things she says, she’s doing her own thing and being herself in the most basic way. Like yeah, you shaved your hair off and you sing in your backyard and you smoke weed and you’re sexual. Great! Do whatever the fuck you want. You’re an artist. That’s what you’re supposed to be doing.

KH: She deserves a lot more respect. Everyone loves to roll their eyes at her. The same way everyone loves to roll their eyes at Kim Kardashian. Who cares? She is not interrupting your life. It astounds me how people can hate certain celebrities so much. When, honestly, 99 times out of 100, it’s just because they hate something about themselves.

MJ: If you were moderating one of the debates, what would you ask the candidates?

KH: My question would be around the Planned Parenthood videos. Every single GOP candidate was really using propaganda at its finest. I was so frustrated that no one called them out to say, “No, Planned Parenthood is getting consent from the mother of that fetus to extract fetal cells to donate for research.” It’s so different. What’s happening is that all these idiots watching the debate, a lot of them are impressionable, and it’s kind of dangerous. They’re going to hop on this train of, “They’re selling baby parts for money? Fuck that.” And now everyone wants to defund Planned Parenthood.

CF: Mine would be—no bullshit, “Why do you want to be president?” But it’s just full of fake answers and bullshit. I like who I like, Hillary Clinton! I am not really holding out for a hero to help change the world. I’m going to change the world my fuckin’ self as much as I possibly can. I can’t be waiting around for other people to do it.

KH: Insert slow clap.

MJ: What inspires you about Hillary?

CF: I love a hard worker. She’s fucking put in the time. I don’t think there is in history someone who’s wanted and tried to be president more. Give her a shot. I think she’s really shown up and she’s going to give it her all.

MJ: Who are you hoping to talk to in future episodes of the podcast?

KH: People who have had something really dark happen to them and want to talk about it. Or sex workers. There are so many people whose jobs are related to sex that we’d love to talk to. And comedians we really admire who are comfortable talking openly about their sex life. Models. We have a dream list of guests. It’s very long.

MJ: So, you won’t be interviewing many people that you’ve slept with anymore?

CF: Honestly, I talk about sex so much now that I’ve become more conservative in my personal life. I’m not as into it anymore. That sounds terrible, but it’s like my job.

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Don’t Feel Bad About the Guy(s) You Fucked Last Night

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China Is Absolutely Destroying the US on Clean Energy

by NormanCombs79 Posted on November 24, 2015

Mother Jones

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When world leaders convene on Monday in Paris for two weeks of high-stakes climate negotiations, one of the top items on the agenda will be how developing nations should prepare for and help to slow global warming. Opponents to President Barack Obama’s climate agenda, such as GOP presidential contender Marco Rubio, like to argue that anything the United States does to curb greenhouse gas emissions will be pointless because countries like India and China aren’t doing the same.

But new data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows that this argument is just hot air: For the first time ever, over the last year the majority of global investment in clean energy projects was spent in developing countries. In fact, clean energy investment in China alone outpaced that in the United States, the United Kingdom, and France combined, BNEF found. Across 55 major non-OECD countries, including India, Brazil, China, and Kenya, clean energy investment reached $126 billion in 2014, a record high and 39 percent higher than 2013 levels.

The chart below shows how that level of investment is opening up a market for wind, solar, and other clean energy projects in non-OECD countries that is now larger than the market in the traditional strongholds of the United States and Europe. In other words, the very countries Rubio likes to malign as laggards are actually leading the charge.

BNEF

That trend is likely to continue for decades to come, BNEF found. Check out their projection for growth through 2040:

BNEF

These numbers add up to a big deal for the climate, because they show that countries in Africa and Southeast Asia that still lack reliable electricity for millions of people are solving that problem, and growing their economies, without relying on dirty fossil fuels. China, to be clear, is still the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, and it doesn’t plan to peak its emissions until 2030. But its early commitment to clean energy means it can continue its rapid rate of growth with far less pollution than it would produce otherwise.

The BNEF report is just the most recent good sign for the clean energy business. Big corporations in the United States are signing contracts for a record amount of clean energy for their data centers, warehouses, and other facilities. And the Paris talks are likely to send a jolt through the industry, as countries around the world redouble their commitments to get more of their power from renewable sources.

Stay tuned for more news on this front as the talks unfold over the coming weeks.

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China Is Absolutely Destroying the US on Clean Energy

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