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ENVIR 300

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES: SYNTHESIS AND APPLICATION


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TUESDAY, MAY 6
MONOCULTURE AND THE ORGANIC REACTION


Today we read and discuss part of a best-seller: Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. We want to use his vivid descriptions of corn monoculture in the American heartland to discuss a series of questions:
  • What is monoculture doing to our diet and to our health?
  • What is monoculture doing to our economy?
  • What is monoculture doing to our ecology?
Then we want to proceed to another closely related question that has come up since Pollan wrote his book: the revival of much of the midwestern corn monocultural economy due to the production of ethyl alcohol as a motor fuel, and its effects on the earth's climate.