Students Visit Iowa City for Vandana Shiva Lecture
Sustainable Living students from MIU visited Iowa City’s Englert Theatre to listen to a talk given by Vandana Shiva, entitled Eco-Feminism: Women in Defense of the Earth. Vandana is the University of Iowa’s chosen Distinguished Lecturer of 2015. As a world-renowned environmental advocate and activist, Vandana Shiva presented an incredibly coherent and moving speech about the effects of large corporations are destroying our natural ecological systems. The message she conveyed was about how a more loving, nurturing and holistic approach toward the environment is needed for it’s survival.
A very important issue that Vandana Shiva brought out during her lecture was about our food systems. “The current food system is not a food system for human beings. In fact, it is quite toxic. Moreover, what has become of our food is that is has become a source of super-profits. Food is really the supporter of life. Food is the currency of life.”
Speaking about how as a society we are depleting our soil and allowing pesticides and GMOs to run rampant, Vandana made what needs to happen abundantly clear. “Nature isn’t deficient, we create deficiency through subjugation. By making the soil deficient, we are making ourselves deficient in vital trace minerals. Whatever the issue is, the answer is in the soil. We must save our soil.”
During a Q&A at the end of the lecture, Vandana Shiva answered one student’s question about what was the most important thing that we can do to help the environment right now. “The most important thing is for gardening to become common knowledge, and to move it into policy wherever possible.”
Vandana Shiva was born in Dehradun, Uttarakhand and has written twenty books. Her most recent book, Making Peace with the Earth, demystifies myths that have been concocted by big corporations for the purpose of driving profits at the expense of the planet.
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