Food Sovereignty – lessons from Russia. Between 1966 and 1990, 80 million Soviet farmers urbanized stalling grain production and putting pressure on the government to use revenue from oil and natural gas production to buy grain from abroad. When fossil fuel production did not expand in such a way that provided increased profits for purchasing food the Soviets had to borrow foreign money to buy bread… All of this has interesting implications for the US regarding our own food sovereignty as the rising cost of food means more people are priced out of a healthy diet. — The Oil Drum

Tibet – the Earth’s “third pole”. After Antarctica and the Arctic, the Tibetan plateau and the Himalayas hold more ice than anyplace on earth. And, as the journal Nature reports, the plateau is undergoing rapid warming that has caused 82 percent of its glaciers to retreat in the past 50 years and its permafrost to begin to melt. — Yale Environment 360

Wealth doesn’t dictate environmental concerns. It has been a long-held assumption that poor nations will not support efforts to protect the environment since their citizens are too preoccupied with meeting basic needs, such as food and housing. However, a new study in The Sociological Quarterly reveals that citizens of poorer nations are just as concerned about environmental quality as their counterparts in rich nations. — Science Daily

Bill Gates commits to cleaner air. Microsoft founder Bill Gates has stepped away from working full time at Microsoft to work on his charity, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The latest campaign to receive funding is anti-smoking. Gates and Michael Bloomberg have pledged $375 million to help global efforts to stop smoking. — Greenpacks