The World on Your Plate: Food, Equity, and Sustainability^

^Sustainable Food Systems Track course

Instructor: Mia MacDonald
Course number: ENVB 0408 N

Fulfills requirement: Food Systems (FS) OR Environmental Policy, Management,
                                        and Finance (EPMF)
Day: Wednesday
Dates: November 13, 20, December 4, 11, 18 (Module 3, 5 sessions)
Time: 6:10 – 8:10 PM

Course Description

This course will provide an overview of the multiple and varied intersections among environmental, social, and ethical factors involved in global food production and consumption. The broad challenges and opportunities of sustainability, climate resilience, and biodiversity protection require a multifaceted approach, which deviates significantly from current, unsustainable models that focus on single factors like yield. A focus of the course will be animal agriculture. The course is about public policy—its development as well as implementation. It will, however, also explore the roles of public understanding and collective and individual action in changing practices.

About the Instructor

Mia MacDonald is the Executive Director and founder of Brighter Green, a public policy action tank based in New York that works at the intersection of issues related to the environment, animals, and global development. She conceives and manages Brighter Green’s research and program implementation, including in the area of food policy and equity. She is a public policy analyst and writer who has during her career worked as a non-profit program manager and consultant to a range of international non-governmental organizations–including the Ford Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund, the Green Belt Movement, the Sierra Club, and several United Nations agencies, among others. She has published many articles in popular and environmental media, authored a number of policy papers and reports, and contributed to four books, including Nobel Peace Laureate Wangari Maathai’s best-selling autobiography, Unbowed. She has taught in the human rights program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and the environmental studies department at New York University. She is a member of the board of directors of the Green Belt Movement International – North America, the Culture & Animals Foundation, and the Africa Network for Animal Welfare. She received a master’s degree in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, a BA with honors from Columbia University, and also studied English literature and language at Oxford University.