Helene York to speak at CITRIS

• September 22, 2008: 4:00pm - 5:00pm
• Location: 290 Hearst Memorial Mining Building, the Maria & Dado Banatao Conference Room, UC Berkeley

“Food and Climate Change: Myths v. Facts”

The food system’s contribution of greenhouse gases has long been ignored in the United States and where it has discussed it has become a matter of mythology. Constituting as much as one-third of GHGe, it should not be ignored if we are to achieve ambitious reduction targets, but we also need to gain an appreciation of the true sources, and appropriate mitigation efforts, rather than rely on ideology and folklore.

 

As always, these talks are free, open to the public and broadcast live online at mms://media.citris.berkeley.edu/webcast, and questions can be sent via Yahoo IM to username: citrisevents. Sponsored by Infineon Technologies.

 

Helene York is director of the Bon Appétit Management Company Foundation, whose mission is to educate consumers and chefs about how their food choices affect the global environment and to catalyze supply chain changes. She is a national expert on the food system’s contribution to climate change and the architect of Bon Appétit‘s Low Carbon Diet program, which seeks to reduce emissions associated with food service operations by 25% over five years. In the first year, the company beat its own targets of reducing purchases of the most ‘high-carbon foods’ by more than 10%. The foundation developed an online calculator at www.eatlowcarbon.org that allows users to calculate the global warming potential of different food choices, the only publicly available tool that offers consumers the ability to compare options based on lifecycle assessment of environmental impacts from food production, transportation and processing. Ms. York is also a longtime sustainable seafood champion and a strong proponent of adding transportation mode to considering whether a seafood species should be considered sustainable.