The End of Food? | WBUR and NPR - On Point with Tom Ashbrook

TODAY IS FRIDAY, JULY 3, 2009

Wednesday, May 28, 2008 at 10:00 AM EDT

The End of Food?

In 2004, author Paul Roberts came out with his book “The End of Oil,” and we’ve all seen oil’s path since then.

Now Roberts is out with a kind of follow-up: “The End of Food.” It could make a person want to hoard tuna.

Not that oil or food are literally vanishing anytime soon. But Roberts argues that when it comes to cheap, abundant food supplies — to supermarket shelves piled high with affordable, attractive groceries — we’ve been living in a golden age. And that age is about to end.

This hour, On Point: The end of food as we’ve known it.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Paul Roberts, author of “The End of Food,” and a contributor to Harper’s, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, he gained international acclaim for his 2004 book, “The End of Oil.”

Keith Agoda, founder and president of Sky Vegetables, an organization of “urban farming enthusiasts.” The company builds and runs commercial and sustainable greenhouses on the rooftops of supermarkets in the United States.

Tags: books, food, supermarkets

Comments are closed.

Hour 2

Crooked Still
Friday, July 3, 2009

Tunes from old Appalachia with a new bluegrass twist. The hit folk band “Crooked Still” plays for us in our studio.

Comments [5]

Hour 1

Week in the News
Friday, July 3, 2009

A U.S. offensive in Afghanistan. Al Franken heads to the Senate. Mark Sanford keeps talking. And unemployment keeps rising. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

Comments [16]

Rick Bass and the Montana Wild
Thursday, July 2, 2009

Author Rick Bass walks us through the changing seasons of the Montana wilderness, in his new book, “The Wild Marsh.”

Comments [8]

Controlling the American Appetite
Thursday, July 2, 2009

Former FDA chief David Kessler took on Big Tobacco. Now he tells us how the food industry plays with our brain chemistry, and turns us into hyper-eaters.

Comments [72]

India, China and the Climate

The passage of the House climate bill – discussed in our first hour today – has been greeted with enthusiasm in many quarters. But in some ways, the real question is whether a global framework can be established in Copenhagen in December, when countries will negotiate a new international treaty to curb greenhouse gases. After all, America emits only [...]

More » | Comments [1]

Michael, Ed, and Farrah

The week-in-the-news roundtable always involves tough choices on sound clips – what to include, what to leave out. Amid all the pressing hard news, we often give a nod to a notable person who’s passed away. But this week brought, well, a ridiculous range of choices. So we gave a nod to them all in the roundtable today. And [...]

Planet Money, On Point — Your Questions!

On Wednesday night, June 24, On Point will tape a show before an audience in Boston with two stars of NPR’s “Planet Money,” Adam Davidson and David Kestenbaum. We need your online questions to put to them — about anything from the roots of the economic crisis to NPR’s coverage.
What’s your question about the [...]

More » | Comments [18]