The act of putting into your mouth what the earth has grown is perhaps your most direct interaction with the earth.

In the late 1960s, there were alarming predictions that worldwide famine was around the corner. I wondered if humans had already lost the race, overrun the Earth's capacity. I let one question lead to the next, and unearthed information that would forever change my life: Not only is there enough food in the world to feed every man, woman, and child on Earth, there is enough to make us all chubby.

I think back to when I was growing up in Fort Worth, Texas, in the 1950s, during the [John] McCarthy era, with two parents who founded a Unitarian Church. We lived in a little frame house, and my bedroom was just down the hall from the kitchen. My favorite memories of childhood are of the smell of coffee wafting into my bedroom as my parents and their friends talked about the big, important things - about racism and about how to move our country to live its values.

Imagine sitting down to an eight ounce steak, and then, imagine the room filled wit 45 to 50 people with empty bowls...For the feed cost of your steak, each of their bowls could be filled with a cup pf cooked cereal grains.

Each of us carries within us a worldview, a set of assumptions about how the world works - what some call a paradigm - that forms the very questions we allow ourselves to ask, and determines our view of future possibilities.

Science is showing us that we are even more connected to each other than we ever realized.

Engagement is the good life. What could be more exciting than getting involved in something that you care about and joining with others and seeing something change? What could be more thrilling?