Sustainable Agriculture & Food Policy

General Mills has publicly committed to sourcing deforestation-free palm oil. This represents a major turnaround from just a month ago, when the company performed poorly in the Union of Concerned Scientists scorecard of palm oil sourcing commitments by 30 top companies. Sharon Smith, campaign manager with UCS's Tropical Forest & Climate Initiative, said: "Despite failing to make the grade on the scorecard, it seems General Mills is turning a new leaf.

According to NMSU rangeland expert Derek Bailey, overgrazing and 20th century fire-suppression strategies have laid the groundwork for some of today's "catastrophic" wildfires. In some areas, the grasses that fueled normal and periodic low-intensity surface fires in the past have been replaced by densely packed trees and brush that fuel the raging prairie and forest fires seen in recent years, including record-setting 2011 fires in the Southwest.

Even as the researchers have been trying to unravel the tangled effects of pesticides and other chemicals on children’s development, they’ve been devising practical ways to help the study’s participants reduce their risk of exposure—a rare example of community engagement by academic scientists. In a place that’s often sharply polarized between those who own the fields and those who work in them, CHAMACOS researchers have insisted on involving all sides.

A revolutionary University of Colorado Boulder toilet fueled by the sun that is being developed to help some of the 2.5 billion people around the world lacking safe and sustainable sanitation will be unveiled in India this month.

Surya Karki ’16 recently returned from London after attending the ceremony for the 2013 Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneur Awards, where he met His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. Karki was one of seven finalists for the award.

The Spring is open for dinner on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights from 5 to 9 p.m., and is open all day Saturday from 8 a.m. and closing at 9 p.m. Spokeswoman Laura Bozzi said the restaurant will eventually be open daily for lunch.

Editor's Note: This article originially appeared on the UC Davis Center for Environmental Policy and Behavior's blog.

Different patterns of urban development may have widely varying long-term effects on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To investigate such effects, we used UPlan geographic information system–based software to model three 2050 urban-growth scenarios for Yolo County, a predominantly agricultural area near Sacramento, Califor- nia. Two scenarios correspond to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s A2 and B1 storylines.