Events

Brighter Green's Mia MacDonald will be on a panel of speakers discussing the role of animal agriculture in climate change ("Agriculture Solutions to Support Food Security, Sustainability and Animal Welfare"), echoing the side event of the same name held earlier in the conference. More information can be found here. To learn more about the Civil Society Space at COP 17, click here.

Brighter Green's Mia MacDonald will be one of five speakers discussing the role of animal agriculture in climate change as part of an official side event at COP 17. Please see the flier for further details and other speaker information.

Mia MacDonald will be speaking about food, the economy, and the environment. Other topics at the conference include: the moral status of animals; Ubuntu and animals; culture, cultural ceremonies and animals; animal experimentation; and terrorism and animal activism. For more information, visit here: http://www.unisa.ac.za/Default.asp?Cmd=ViewContent&ContentID=26827.

Brighter Green will be exhibiting and presenting at the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 7th Session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties (CMP7) to the Kyoto Protocol. For more information, visit: http://www.cop17-cmp7durban.com/

Join Brighter Green at Farm Sanctuary's first-ever National Conference to End Factory Farming: for Health, Environment, and Farm Animals, bringing together experts from the environmental, public health, and animal welfare movements, including Brighter Green's Executive Director, Mia MacDonald. This conference will be unique in its exclusive focus on factory farming and the problems surrounding it, and aims to reach a broad audience of professionals and advocates from the animal protection, health, and environmental movements to collaborate on these issues.

The conference program boasts over 30 speakers from a wide range of backgrounds, including authoritative presenters such as Executive Director of Food and Water Watch Wenonah Hauter, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine director of government affairs Elizabeth Kucinich and leading researcher in the field of diet and disease and author of The China Study Dr. T. Colin Campbell.

The conference program features a Thursday night welcome reception, plenary speakers and panel discussions on Friday and Saturday, and a Friday banquet dinner. Panels will cover a wide range of factory farming related topics, including climate change, public health risks, the emotional lives of farm animals, and a look at the economics of factory farming. There will also be Q&A sessions and exhibit tables showcasing healthy, sustainable, cruelty-free products and organizations.

With factory farms causing damage to animals, our health, and the environment every day, and with the 2012 Farm Bill coming up for a re-authorization vote, now is a more urgent time than ever for anti-factory farming advocates from across the board to come together. Please join us at the National Conference to End Factory Farming to discuss the issues and learn how to take personal, public, and policy action to make factory farming a thing of the past!

To register for the event, or get more information, click here.

The evening commemorates the 10th anniversary of the Small Planet Fund and the 40th anniversary of Diet for a Small Planet.

The event is free and open to the public, but registration is highly encouraged as space is limited. To register, click here.

What to Eat, the Farm Sanctuary produced short film that addresses the environmental impacts of our food choices, is screening at Green Screens, Monday. What to Eat, voiced by Jason Schwartzman, and created with the participation of Brighter Green and others, will air prior to the feature film, Planeat, a new documentary that chronicles the linkages between diet and disease.

Martin Rowe of Brighter Green will be one of three panelists asking the question, Do We Really Have to Go Vegan?" at American University's Earth Week discussions, hosted by the Philosophy and Religion Department.

Come celebrate the paperback release of Brighter Green colleague Anna Lappé's book Diet for a Hot Planet. Brighter Green's Executive Director Mia MacDonald will be moderating a panel discussion on the climate impact of our food choices, with participants including NYC Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito, Anim Steel of the Real Food Challenge, and Angelines Moncha Alba Lamb of Slow Food USA.

Free and open to the public, but space is limited. Please RSVP here.

Brighter Green Executive Director Mia MacDonald is speaking at the Beijing 2011: Summit Forum on Science and Technology for a Carbon Neutral Society, taking place on Tuesday March 29.

Mia MacDonald will join a number of international speakers in a day-long discussion of low carbon research and development, specifically for China. Her presentation, "Climate Change, Food Security and Animal Agriculture: Issues and Options for China and the World," is inspired by the theme of this year's conference, "Low Carbon for a Better Future."

The event is organized by the STS Research Center of CASS, co-organized with the Advisory Office of Shanghai Municipal Government, Beijing Institute of Technology and sponsored by Suerte International Ltd.

Join the New York Coalition for Healthy School Food and the United Federation of Teachers Humane Education Committee for a conference on plant based nutrition, weight loss, and the climate impacts of what we eat. Speakers to include Brighter Green's Executive Director, Mia MacDonald.

This event is open to teachers of grades pre-K to 12, and reservations are required. Tickets are $25/each.

If you're in Cancun for the Climate Conference, come join Brighter Green for a morning workshop and learn about animal agriculture and its effects on climate and food security. We will be drawing from our recently published case studies and videos, and looking at how the intensification of animal agriculture is playing out in India, Brazil, China, and Ethiopia.

Panelists will explore the relatively unexamined livestock-climate change-food security-equity connection through case examples from Brazil, China, Ethiopia, and India. What are the urgent challenges and opportunities as industrial agriculture seeks roots in more and more countries? Among the issues addressed through presentation and discussion: What and who are at risk? What about the climate and use of resources? The animals? What are policy options at national and global levels?

Nobel Peace Laureate, Wangari Maathai, invites you to share an evening with her as she discusses her new book, Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World, in New York City. Doors will open at 6pm. For more information, please visit the event website.

Senior Brighter Green Fellow, Martin Rowe, will be addressing the environmental impacts of animal agriculture at Boston's upcoming Vegetarian Food Festival. Martin will discuss how animal agriculture lies at the core of a host of issues, from deforestation in the Amazon, to desertification, to climate change, and how small changes to your daily diet can have large climate impacts.

Brighter Green attends the 2010 Africa Animal Welfare Action Conference, the theme of which is 'Tackling Animal Welfare in Africa for Development.' Mia MacDonald will discuss innovations in animal welfare and best practices in conservation in a panel alongside Dawn Moncrief, founding director of A Well-Fed World, and Anteneh Roba, from the International Fund for Africa. The panel will explore the adoption of industrial animal agriculture in Africa, looking at Ethiopia in particular, and outline the possibilities to create more humane, sustainable food production systems.

For a copy of Mia MacDonald's presentation at the conference, click here.

As oil continues to spill in the Gulf, come out to Coney Island this Saturday to add your voice to the growing anti-offshore drilling movement.

Brighter Green Executive Director Mia MacDonald will be discussing the environmental impacts of factory farming. The panel, organized by the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund and the Environmental Law Society, will also include Marisa Miller-Wolfson from Kind Green Planet and Dan Estrin from the Environmental Litigation Clinic.

Panel location: Tudor Room, Preston Hall, Pace Law School, 78 N. Broadway, White Plains, NY

Brighter Green intern Whitney Hoot will be attending the World People's Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The conference will bring together social organizations and indigenous representatives from around the world to draft a Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth. Read Whitney's blogs.

"What's for Dinner?" director Jian Yi will be presenting a collection of his works at the Apple Store in Sanlitun, Beijing. Among clips Jian Yi will screen are some scenes from Brighter Green's forthcoming documentary. Some of the characters featured in "What's for Dinner?," including Giant Beanstalk lead singer Xie Zheng and Yu Li, owner of Beijing's Vegan Hut restaurant, are expected to attend, too.

Brighter Green's short documentary, "What's for Dinner?," (running time: 26 minutes) will be screened at the Copenhagen Klimaforum, the "people's climate summit," on Wednesday, December 16th at 9 p.m., with a panel discussion to follow. Directed by award-winning Chinese independent filmmaker Jian Yi, working with an all-Chinese crew, "What's for Dinner?" chronicles China's widespread embrace of industrial livestock keeping, and looks at the environmental, health and animal welfare consequences of these actions.

Deforestation and forest degradation are among the major sources of greenhouse gas emissions (approximately 20%). At the same time, forests are vital to the global ecosystem as well as crucial for human well-being. How can the global community act now to preserve these vital ‘lungs of the world’? Panelists will spotlight forest projects for mitigation and adaptation using rights-based approaches.

The livestock sector is another key contributor to global warming which at local levels causes drought, desertification and warmer temperatures. Panelists will explore how the livestock sector can adjust, and what role it can play in successful mitigation and adaptation efforts, including for forest protection and reafforestation?

Come listen to Brighter Green Research Associate Justine Simon discuss the connections between meat consumption and climate change. While eating locally and organic are important in terms of reducing your climate 'foodprint,' cutting back on meat and dairy may well be the most significant way to reduce your climate and other environmental impacts, both locally and globally.

Come listen to Brighter Green Associate Stella Zhou at the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival Festival. Stella will be discussing the current lost connection between food and its origin. She will also address the missing role of farm animals in present-day public health discussions, and will examine the growing trend of factory farming in China. The two-day event (it starts October 31) brings together food producers, national nutrition experts, award-winning chefs, and animal activists.

Food and climate change: it’s an essential connection. Join Brighter Green and other members of New York City's FoodPrint Alliance as we take part in 350.org's International Day of Climate Action. Come to Columbia University and learn more about our individual and collective “foodprints” and how to reduce them, and get your hands dirty in the process. We’ll be planting seeds for winter greens, talking about NYC “foodprints” and a city council resolution to reduce them, and showing films that delve into the connections between what we eat and the global climate. You can take a bite out of climate change with every meal.

Join Brighter Green Executive Director Mia MacDonald, Farm Sanctuary National Advocacy Organizer Jasmin Singer, and Kind Green Planet’s Outreach Director Marisa Miller Wolfson for a presentation on the connection between animal agriculture and global warming. As part of Climate Week, being held in NYC in conjunction with the UN General Assembly and special session on climate change, this workshop talks about the contribution of meat and dairy production to rising greenhouse gas emissions, and the steps we need to take to reduce our “foodprint” and sustain our planet. Co-sponsored with NYU Earth Matters! and the Sierra Club NYC Group.

RSVP: Mollie at campaignintern1(at) farmsanctuary.org

Mia MacDonald will speak about the ecological impacts of industrial animal agriculture at Farm Sanctuary's annual New York shelter Country Hoe-Down. Hear from chefs, writers, activists and Farm Sanctuary staff, attend a barn dance, and visit hundreds of rescued farmed animals: pigs, goats, sheep, cows, chickens, roosters and more. Each is an individual, like Lucas, pictured here. More details and registration information for the two-day hoe-down are available here. Read Lucas' story here.

If you live in New York City, please call your City Council person on Tuesday, July 21st to urge his/her support for the FoodprintNYC Resolution. The resolution calls for New York City to create a more local, climate friendly and healthy food system. This resolution's the first of its kind in the U.S. Lend your voice to seeing it adopted in the Big (green) Apple.
Climate Change and Food - New Yorkers, Take Action!

Brighter Green is attending the Nobel Women's Initiative in Antigua, Guatemala, both in its own right and also as a representative for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Wangari Maathai, with whom Brighter Green has partnered. For more information, click here. Executive Director, Mia MacDonald has blogged about attending the event at the Open Democracy website. Click here to read her daily posts. Also see video and photos from the conference and read updates on the proceedings and other blogs.

Executive Director Mia MacDonald will be speaking on a panel entitled, "Eating Green: Food and Climate Change," at The Future of Food: Transatlantic Perspectives conference, co-sponsored by the European Union and Boston University. The conference is free and open to the public. For more information, click here.

Executive Director Mia MacDonald will be speaking at the Brooklyn Food Conference as part of a panel on food, agriculture and global warming. Here's more about the conference from the organizers: Food issues hit home for all of Brooklyn–from school lunches, the rise in diabetes, and escalating food costs to immigration, farmers markets and local food challenges and delights, food touches us all. Come join us for a day of workshops, food demos, and a kids’ food fair. Lunch and dinner will be available for purchase. Dance following dinner. The conference will be FREE for all participants. For more information, click here.

Lars Lindqvist, CEO of Basecamp, will speak about Basecamp's approach to responsible travel: tourism for people, planet, and profit. Brighter Green collaborated with the Basecamp ecolodge in Kenya's Maasai Mara on an experiential learning visit. Both President Barack Obama and Brighter Green's Executive Director, Mia MacDonald, have visited Basecamp Maasai Mara -- although not at the same time....

Author, activist, Nobel Prize laureate and Brighter Green colleague Wangari Maathai discusses her new book, The Challenge for Africa (Pantheon, 2009), with Leonard Lopate of WNYC New York public radio. Maathai discusses her new book, The Challenge for Africa (Pantheon, 2009), with Leonard Lopate of WNYC New York public radio. Maathai offers a compelling look at the problems facing Africa and the promises of the future. She stresses the need for Africans to become self-sufficient, rather than relying foreign benefactors, and to pursue an identity rooted in their own ideals and solutions, instead of Western visions. This event is co-sponsored by The Department of Public Programs at The Cooper Union, The Institute for Sustainable Design at the Cooper Union, and MillionTreesNYC and is free and open to the public. For more information, call 212.353.4195, or visit Cooper Union.

In honor of International Women’s Day

The Public Health Student Group at Steinhardt,
NYC Sierra Club, Brighter Green & the Women’s Environment and Development Organization
Present:

“Half the Sky: Climate Change, Women, & Population”
An innovative panel discussion on the effects of global warming and its intersection with gender and population realities worldwide

Panelists:
Robert Engelman, Vice President for Programs, Worldwatch Institute &
Author of More: Population, Nature and What Women Want (Island Press, 2008)

June Zeitlin, former Executive Director, Women's Environment and 
Development Organization

Moderated By:
Dr. Sally Guttmacher, NYU Community Public Health Program Director
Mia MacDonald, NYC Sierra Club and Brighter Green

Urban parks are becoming our newest endangered species. The 20-year effort to secure a park in an 85-acre strip along 1.5 miles of Brooklyn’s East River waterfront is a prime example of how the seemingly good intention of creating “parks that pay for themselves” is leading to the actual demise of public parks,

The prospect of increasing commercialization of NYC parks, as well as efforts to mobilize public support for a genuine Brooklyn Bridge Park, will be discussed by Judi Francis, president of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Defense Fund, and Roy Sloane, who has led public outreach efforts as a board member of the BB Park Local Development Corp.
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Apart from $150 million committed by the city and state for construction, the Brooklyn Bridge Park will have to generate enough income to pay for ongoing operation and upkeep. The main source, under the approved plan, will be payments from owners of apartments in high-rise housing with 1,200 luxury units that private developers will be allowed to build within the park – a significant intrusion into its narrow swath of green space.

Come learn about the state of farming and the invasion of CAFOs (confined/concentrated animal feeding operations) aka factory farms in New York state. Learn how our food is grown and what's changing for the better, and not, and how to support local farmers. Speakers will include advocates, researchers and farmers. Tastings of locally produced food and wine. Co-sponsored by the Sierra Club National Sustainable Consumption Committee, the Food and Farm Committee of the Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter and local CSAs and community groups.

Brighter Green's Executive Director, Mia MacDonald, will speak at Portland VegFest 2008 on the theme "Your Burger or Your Car? Global Warming and Your Diet." We're looking forward to painting this (bright green) city even greener. To learn more about VegFest and to get a full list of all the great speakers and chefs who'll be there on May 9 and 10, click here.

Like many rural areas of the global South (or “developing world”), the effects of climate change are being felt in Maasai communities in Kenya. Droughts that used to be rare are becoming increasingly common. Rainfall patterns, once predictable, are now erratic. The changing climate is putting at risk the long-term viability of the herding livelihoods of the Maasai and other pastoralist societies. Green energy means lower greenhouse gas emissions and more trees left standing to combat desertification, reduce soil erosion, and offset CO2 in the atmosphere.

Solar and wind could provide heat for cooking and refrigeration to store vegetables and fruits in homes, and in health centers to store essential medicines and vaccines. Cell phones and laptops could be powered to facilitate the marketing of crafts and other locally produced goods, along with cross-cultural exchanges via the Web. This could lead to a new model of rural development, where young people don’t feel forced by lack of opportunity to leave for urban slums.

Francis ole Sakuda is the director and one of the founders of the Simba Maasai Outreach Organization (SIMOO) in Kenya. Daniel Salau Rogei is the program/financial officer for SIMOO. Both are local and international leaders in the areas of indigenous rights, livelihoods, community development, and environmental and cultural conservation. They are in NYC as part of a global delegation to the United Nations’ Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.