JASON J. CZARNEZKI

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I’ve returned from the Cooking for Solutions event at Monterey Bay Aquarium. By all accounts our eco-label panel was a success. As far as which celebrity chefs I actually met (defined as had a real face to face conversation with them, besides when they were just serving me food), here’s the list: Carla Hall (of Top Chef fame), Peter Pahk (Kingsmill Resort), Nathan Lyon (host of Growing A Greener World on PBS), Cindy Pawlcyn (Mustards Grill), Regina Charboneau (Inn at Twin Oaks), Anthony Lamas (Seviche) and of course of Vermont’s very own Eric Warnstedt of Hen of the Wood in Waterbury. In addition to the great food being presented, it was great to meet so many members of the media interested in sustainable food issues. And finally, Monterey Bay Aquarium really put on a first class event.

NYT: Vermont’s Single-Payer Health
http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=792581&f=19

I just went to a conversation and screening by Isabella Rossellini. She gave a great conversation about food and raising awareness about wildlife. Her short films called “Green Porno” are fantastic…click on the tab Green Porno-All, and watch away.  “Bon Appetit – Shrimp” is quite funny.

Sitting here listening to the Deputy Secretary of USDA, I’m struck by how lucky I am to have the Vermont lifestyle when it comes to food. We have a garden, my kids understand cooking and healthy food (and think school lunch needs improvement), we can get (at least in the summer) all our produce and dairy locally, and we know our farmer.

The next talk is by Ted Turner, who is sitting behind me.

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Email dispatch from Monterey Bay Aquarium:
Just finished my panel on food Eco-labels where I questioned the notion of "sustainable seafood" and discussed the relationship between industrial organic food and environmental labeling for food.
Watched a lectured by Anna Lapped and the author of Four Fish, Paul Greenberg, and have chatted with media folks from NPR, major newspapers and top chefs.
The day’s highlight was that someone came up to me and said: "It’s nice to meet an academic who actually knows what he’s talking about."

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I write this post in route to the Cooking for Solutions Event at Monterey Bay Aquarium, where I’m on a panel titled “Eco-labels: The road to sustainability?” The panel will be moderated by Beth Daley of the Boston Globe, and my fellow panelists include Wendy Gordon, Editorial Director, NRDC Smarter Living; Dr. Jon Johnson, Co-director, The Sustainability Consortium; and Dr. Urvashi Rangan, Director, Technical Policy, Consumers Union. I’m excited to talk about food eco-labeling in light of the publication of my recent article on the subject, and since I was just in Sweden researching organic and eco-labeling efforts.

The event in Monterey also has an exciting assortment of participants and topics, to list a few below, as well as a number of celebrity chefs attending:

· Anna Lappé: Sustainable food advocate and author of “Diet for a Hot Planet: The Climate Crisis at the End of Your Fork and What You Can Do About It.”

· Paul Greenberg, Author of “Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food.”

· A conversation with Ted Turner, Chairman and CEO, Turner Enterprises, Inc

· A conversation with Maria Rodale and Myra Goodman, Chairman and CEO, Rodale Inc. and author of “Organic Manifesto,” and Co-founder, Earthbound Farm and author of “The Earthbound Cook”

It should be an interesting and engaging event designed to increase awareness of sustainable food issues. Most of the attendees are members of the media.

I must acknowledge that a drawback to such great events, and my new appointment as Faculty Director of the U.S.-China Partnership for Environmental Law, is an increased carbon footprint due to increased airline travel (in addition to missing my family). But despite the many comments from others that I should not even bother trying to limit by carbon footprint now, I’m still trying to be judicious when deciding to fly (or drive), especially when telecommuting will work. I do think that little efforts matter in the aggregate (as I’ve argued in my book) since they play a role in shaping social and cultural norms, and improving the environment, especially in the face of climate change— environmental change is a long-term product that will require the shifting of societal and economic norms over time. So, while my carbon footprint wants to move from X to 2X, I will strive to make it 1.5X. The only benefit of flying is getting tons of work done; today I read my student’s paper on water permitting in China, writing a paper about the challenges of biodiversity legislation in China (which I’m co-authoring with a Chinese colleague, a fantastic experience so far which really helps cultural understanding and establishing environmental law in the developing world), and have been able to stay connected with my new Droid Incredible 2 phone (which I highly recommend as its syncing with Google is amazing).

Via Politico: “Tommy Thompson, the Republican former Wisconsin governor and George W. Bush’s first HHS secretary, has told friends he plans to run for the open Senate seat in Wisconsin. Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) said Friday that he won’t seek a fifth term in 2012. Thompson’s announcement gives Republicans a popular former two-term governor of state to seriously challenge for this toss-up seat.”

Paul Ryan isn’t going to run for US Senate in WI.

I’m not surprised Trump isn’t running for President, and I’m also not surprised Huckabee isn’t running because he’s making more money than ever before working a Fox.

I still believe Huntsman’s simply positioning himself for 2016, and I’m still waiting for Palin or Bachmann to join the fray.

This is going to be fun political theater.