My work

How Corporations from the American South Remade Our Economy and the Planet

An authoritative and eye-opening history that examines how Monsanto came to have outsized influence over our food system.

The brawl over chemicals in farm country is threatening some of what we eat.

Digging deep into the history of phosphate mining, this article engages contemporary debates about the environmental sustainability of using Roundup to produce our food by focusing on the front end rather than the back end of the product's life cycle. Though many people may not know it, the critical raw material Monsanto uses to make Roundup an effective herbicide is elemental phosphorus, which comes from a processing plant in southeast Idaho that remains an operating Superfund site to this day.

In this article from CBC News, Bart Elmore talks about how more needs to be done about plastic waste across every level, from businesses to governments to consumers. Consumers, in particular, he says, need to loudly express their disapproval of the current system.

Bart Elmore speaks about how the solution to the current plastic waste problem lies in the history of one of the biggest enterprises in the world: the Coca-Cola Company.  

Plastic in the oceans. Plastic on the beaches, berms, and ditches that line the roadways. A lot of that plastic has been used just once. In fact, geologists estimate that the entire earth could be covered with discarded single-use plastic such as straws, cups, plates, and bags. And that plastic isn’t going away. In response, some cities want to ban single-use plastics. On All Sides, we take a look at the shift away from plastic and toward zero waste.

Bart Elmore talks about the human health threats posed by Monsanto’s Roundup, a herbicide sprayed on food crops throughout the country.