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The Financial Times above-the-fold headline today screams India considers ban on trading in food futures.

It reports, “India’s finance minister said on Monday he was considering a blanket ban on trading in food futures, underlying growing concerns in Asia over the role of hedge funds and financial market traders in the recent surge in commodities prices. If India imposes a ban, it would come only five years after the country introduced such futures trading as part of a broader push to develop India as a leading financial centre.”

Last week National Public Radio ran a special report on the food crisis and many of the experts interviewed agreed on Wall Street’s role in the increased prices of food worldwide. Bidding up the prices of futures is one thing, but farmers don’t sell futures–they sell real products in the here and now. They don’t get the benefit of those price increases. Rather, they are mired in a market full of price controls. It would make sense, of course, for them to hedge their prices in case of supply issues: Sell at market prices but at the same time buy futures, and get the benefit of price upswings to re-invest in their farms. But they can’t. It’s too expensive for farmers to hedge these days. Besides, the market is so volatile that a downswing in prices on the futures markets means a wipe out of capital in the bank accounts today and no crops for tomorrow.

Elevators are the businesses getting most squeezed. They buy raw products from farmers and distribute them.

As The New York Times explains, “Since 1959, grain producers have been able to hedge the price of their wheat, corn and soybean crops on the Chicago Board of Trade through the use of futures contracts, which are agreements to buy or sell a specific amount of a commodity for a fixed price on some future date.

More recently, the exchange has offered another tool: options on those futures contracts, which allow option holders to carry out the futures trade, but do not require that they do so. Trading in options is not as effective a hedge, farmers say, but it does not require them to put up as much cash as required to trade futures. These tools have long provided a way to lock in the price of a crop as it is planted, eliminating the risk that prices will drop before it is harvested. With these hedging tools, grain elevators could afford to buy crops from farmers in advance, sometimes a year or more before the harvest. But that was yesterday. It simply is not working that way today. Futures, for example, are less reliable. They work as a hedge only if they fall due at a price that roughly matches prices in the cash market, where the grain is actually sold. Increasingly — for disputed reasons — grain futures are expiring at prices well above the cash-market price.”

The disputed reasons The New York Times is alluding to are professional investors. The rise in index funds and commodities traders and vehicles is putting the price of food—survival for many people around the world—into the hands of investors and speculators.

India is on to something, and the rest of the world should follow suit and consider tighter controls for commodities trading.

The Pope’s recent visit to New York got me thinking about the role of religion in helping to preserve the planet, or as evangelical adherents put it: Creation Care.

The world’s major religious leaders are rallying around the green movement, and for the first time in history unifying the world’s major religions around one cause: environmental protection. The National Religious Partnership for the Environment is the entity they are most using to spread the word of the green God. The NRPE is comprised of representatives from the Catholic Church, various Protestant and Evangelical denominations, as well as the Jewish faith. It says, “When people from across the religious spectrum cry out with one voice against environmental injustice and the abuse of creation, the world takes notice. When hands reach across religious divides to mend and tend a frayed and fragile portion of the earth, they may accomplish together what none could do alone.” Indeed, when you consider the mass of followers these religions represent, a unified call to action is powerful stuff.

Reverend Richard Cizik who represents a big chunk of the Evangelical Christian constituents—30 million—tells me in a brief conversation via his cell phone as he races around Washington, DC lobbying politicians for better global warming policies why he and other adherents are so concerned about the environment: “It’s about caring for Creation, what God gave us. We need to take that responsibility seriously.” He then goes on to quote historians, philosophers and, of course, The Bible, about the importance of environmental consciousness and caring. “In Genesis, we are told to care for the Earth. The Earth is not ours to abuse. It is God’s Creation. He gave us the responsibility to care for it for Him,” Cizik says.

To be sure, many Muslims are also environmentally mindful. They cite the Quran and the Islamic belief that the Earth is a sanctuary that should be cared for. Think what you will about any religion or even Creation itself, but you have to admit that there is a certain morality in caring for the planet. It’s something we can all feel good about and actually do something about. We can all do little things that help preservation.

The religious green movement is a good thing for the future of the planet – and maybe even beyond.

Image: BBC

I’m excited to be joining Discover and contributing to its wonderful array of writings. Casual, friendly, concise, and sprinkled with some images is the way in which I’m approaching this space. I hope you’ll enjoy visiting often. This blog will be filled with dispatches to match its title—notes, observations, factoids, stories, and insights—from the most environmentally tenuous and significant places on Earth. These are places I have been and will travel to chronicling the effect we have on the planet and vice versa—its effect on us.

Make no mistake: This is a celebration of the Earth and what we can do in our everyday lives to preserve it, selfishly, for the time being and times to come.

The crafted text exacted from many of these writings will appear as my new book: You Are Here: The Surprising Link Between What We Do and What That Does to the Planet being published this September by HarperOne.

From all over the world—in places such as the Arctic Circle, the jungles of Borneo, Inner Mongolia, and the middle of the Pacific Ocean—posts will serve to provoke discussion. The idea is to put forth a snippet of a gargantuan tale and let you take over by simply pondering, or by further comment or action. My mission is to implant thoughts, images, data, and notions in your head. Once in awhile, I might even make you laugh.

The thesis of my book You Are Here is how we are all intricately connected to the natural resources of the planet, literally from our living rooms and kitchens and driveways to the forests, jungles, deserts, and seas. While investigating this thesis I’ve come across the most fascinating awakenings to things in our everyday lives, and how they are levers to health and welfare thousands of miles away. Often the hidden effect of what we do comes back to us like a severe boomerang blow. This is the wake up call I’m inciting.

These posts may trail my travels to exotic places, but the adventure won’t be lost.

In fact, with your help it is just about to begin.