Episode 12 – Andrew Kimbrell
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Andrew Kimbrell is an internationally recognized public interest attorney, public speaker, and author. He is the founder and Executive Director of Center for Food Safety. He also is Director of the San Francisco based Center for Technology Assessment, co-founder of Foundation Earth, and President of the Board of Humane Farm Animal Care (that administers the Certified Humane label).
As an attorney, Kimbrell has successfully challenged federal agencies in several historic court cases. He initiated the court challenge that resulted in a U.S. Supreme Court victory forcing, for the first time, EPA regulation of greenhouse gases and their impact on climate change. He also pioneered the legal strategy that led to the Supreme Court ruling that DNA is not patentable due to being a "product of nature." Through his leadership at CFS, Kimbrell has been at the forefront of legal challenges to genetically engineered crops and lawsuits forcing FDA to adopt new food safety regulations. His legal work has also helped maintain the integrity of organic standards.
As an author and public speaker Kimbrell has been a leading proponent of regenerative forms of agriculture and organic policies. He is the editor of the nationally renowned book Fatal Harvest, The Tragedy of Industrial Agriculture and the author of Your Right to Know: Genetic Engineering and the Secret Changes in Your Food. Kimbrell's articles and editorials have appeared in The New York Times, Harpers, USA Today, and numerous other print and new media publications such as The Huffington Post.
He has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress and has been a featured speaker at dozens of colleges and universities around the country and other public forums including Google Author Talks, Slow Food Nation, Bioneers and Ecofarm. He is featured in several documentaries including "The Future of Food," "FRESH," and a critique of genetic engineering, "Life Running out of Control."
Kimbrell is also a noted expert on a wide range of technology and economic issues. His works in this area include his international best-selling book "The Human Body Shop: the Engineering and Marketing of Life" and the printed versions of his influential E.F. Schumacher lectures, "Cold Evil: Technology and Modern Ethics" and "Salmon Economics."
In addition to his legal degree Kimbrell also has a graduate degree in Psychology and has often written in the field including his book, "The Masculine Mystique." Besides his public interest work, Kimbrell's passions include his love of piano (stemming from his earlier career as a concert pianist), poetry, baseball, and wilderness fly fishing.
Kimbrell's many accolades include a spot on the Utne Reader list of the world's leading 100 visionaries, and The Guardian recognizing him in 2008 as one of the 50 people "most likely to save the planet."
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When we tend to our inner gardens, we are better able to transform the outer world. Inner work is something our last guest of the season believes we must prioritize in order to be effective activists.
We end the first season in conversation with Andrew Kimbrell, Center for Food Safety’s Executive Director. Andrew and Ashley discuss his heroic journey from pianist to lawyer, the impact of his mentors, his path to the Supreme Court, the need to transition environmental law to criminal law, how a war against nature will always be a war against ourselves, and what keeps him hopeful.
This episode also goes deep, covering the intrinsic value of music, why activists must fall in love, what it means to shift the collective consciousness, and so much more.
