Food

Food Matters - Transforming Agriculture to Protect the Planet

Agriculture was glaringly missing from the COP negotiations. But it is crucial to restoring soils, biodiversity and the sequestration of carbon. Transitioning the energy system will only work if we also transition the food system. #PaulBehrens and #HelenHarwatt agree that the most powerful step we can take is to stop using precious land, water and resources to feed cattle. Paul points out that farm subsidies, now going to support animal agriculture, could be used to pay farmers and ranchers to transition to biodiverse organic farming, growing food directly for people instead.

The inefficient and destructive system of monocultures, which primarily provides feed for the meat industry, creates an ecological debt by depleting soils, and polluting ecosystems. The beef industry alone produces emissions equivalent to the entire country of India.

Industrial fishing is equally damaging. Marine pastures are vital to the health of the oceans, but they are being lost as predator fish are killed off, disturbing the ecological balance. Helen Harwatt explains that coastal vegetation sequesters carbon 40 times faster than the rainforest.

Another critical step is to control food waste as climate change threatens breadbaskets around the world. If we are to avoid mass starvation, we need to transition to a resilient and inclusive system that can provide essential nutrients for all the people.

Animal Agriculture is Killing the Planet

When we destroy wildlife habitat to make room for industrial animal operations on land and sea, we destroy critical Earth systems that sequester carbon. We have lost ¾ of the wildlife on this planet, and replaced them with billions of cows, pigs, chickens, and fish that we kill and eat.
The Earth is a self-healing mechanism, but it can’t heal unless we change our diet.

Reducing fossil fuels is essential, but that alone is not going to save us. We must also sequester the carbon already in the atmosphere. Oceans comprise 70% of our planet. Only if we stop industrial fishing, can marine life survive and sequester that carbon. Only if we shut down industrial animal operations for which we have cut forests, destroyed soil, poisoned waterways with animal waste and pesticides, and brought on epidemics, can we hope to salvage the forests and other habitats that are our critical carbon sinks.

No technology can match the power of the Earth to reverse climate catastrophe. #SaileshRao, #GlenMerzer, J.Morris Hicks and Dale Walkonen explain why the most important step we can take to save our planet is to adopt a healthy vegetarian diet.

Hemp

#Hemp is an incredibly versatile plant. Peter Miles tells us that we can make paper from fast growing hemp, instead of cutting trees, replace concrete, a major source of greenhouse gases, and make biodegradable plastics and textiles to help solve the serious problem of toxic microfibers and particles in the oceans, which poison the fish, and the people who eat them. Hemp can be eaten and is a good source of protein.
The hemp plant itself can restore depleted and even radioactive soils. Both the plant and the concrete sequester carbon. What’s not to like?

In Zimbabwe, without vested interests interfering, Peter’s company, eHemp.House, aims to help the country develop a decarbonized industrial base with hemp pellet fuel and local biodiesel for farm machinery. He hopes to spread to other African countries where hemp grows readily and can help bolster sustainable and better #lifestyles.

Foods for a Future, Conquering Disease with Plant Based Diet

We need #biodiversity, not only in the environment, but also in our diet. Dr. T. Colin Campbell first introduced what he called a “plant-based diet” to prevent disease in the 1980’s. He is joined in this discussion by oncologist Dr. Barry Boyd, whose own clinical experience led him to conclude that, by adopting this diet, patients would have far better outcomes.

Both doctors advocate whole foods rather than the reductionist practice of separating out single nutrients in pills or shots because nutrients need to work synergistically, as in an ecosystem, to be effective. In fact, high doses of beta carotene or B12 can actually increase the progression of cancers and other diseases.

They also note that farms have been replaced by industrial operations whose pesticides have penetrated the environment and can be found in our bodies. This is why organic food is so important. And, if we stopped growing feed for animals to produce meat and dairy, the bulk of these chemicals would no longer be used.

For a deeper dive into the science behind a plant-based diet, and to learn more about #nutrition, you can read Dr. Campbell's latest book, The Future of Nutrition, or enroll in the program Dr. Campbell mentions in this video.
https://nutritionstudies.org/courses/...

An Inconvenient Apocalypse

The dream of endless bounty is over. We must save as much of Nature as is still possible and end the wealth-concentrating system that is destroying it. Wes Jackson, in his no-nonsense fashion, explains how our ecological collapse began with #agriculture, when we started to remove carbon from the soil to grow crops, then from the forests to build ships, and finally from the deep ground to build civilizations.

Now we need to power down as we face irreversible changes - inconvenient, to say the least.
Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen envision a transition - to fewer and less - to life without dense energy, with less destructive systems of agriculture. They chart a collective, realistic path for humanity - not only to survive, but also to emerge on the other side with a renewed appreciation of the larger living world, recognizing that the rediscovery of Nature, and of human connection is the greatest renaissance of all.

Their book, An Inconvenient #Apocalypse, Environmental Collapse, #Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity will be published by The University of Notre Dame Press in the fall of 2022 and will be available both in paper and in digital format.

Couch To Carbon Zero, Overcoming EcoAnxiety

Empowering people to take action against #ClimateChange, Sonia Lakshman and Aimee Higgins tackle thorny issues from overfishing to #EWaste. Their ingenious 5 minute videos lay out steps everyone can take. Couch to Carbon Zero, based in the UK, pulls no punches, calling out #Greenwashing and fake labeling, finding the companies that do a better job of recycling, banking, growing food, etc.

What to do with the 50 million tons of used gadgets? Why is fish farming not a solution? How is fashion environmentally unfashionable? Why transition to a #PlantBasedDiet?
Find out in the Ten Day Sprint for Busy People at
https://www.couchtocarbonzero.org/

Europe Ablaze

Both the Jet Stream and the Gulf Stream are slowing down, bringing Saharan air into Europe. Unprecedented heat waves engulf the UK, Europe and the US. #PeterWadhams, renowned polar scientist, tells us that both poles are warming at the same time, and that the #BlueOceanEvent, an ice-free Arctic, may occur as early as this summer.

Meanwhile, internet bots are ramping up their efforts to deny the reality of #ClimateChange, while much of the media trivialize deadly heat waves with beach images.

Heat and lack of water are hitting the precise latitudes where we grow crops. That, combined with the war in Ukraine, and the overuse of water and land for animal agriculture mean #FoodShortages are a real and present danger. In view of all this happening in the global north, will COP27 finally take action?

Dr. Wadhams is joined by other members of the Facing Future team, Climate scientist, Bruce Phillips, and hosts, Raya Salter and Dale Walkonen.

The Carbon Underground, Making a Deal with Nature

At its root, the #ClimateCrisis demands that we nurture healthy soil filled with living organisms. #Biodiversity is essential. The monocultures and chemical inputs of industrial agriculture, the majority of which is grown to feed cattle, has created a climate disaster. Larry Kopald founded The Carbon Underground to foster #RegenerativeFarming methods, designed to restore the soil and to pull CO2 out of the air and back into the earth, because no technology can match the capacity of the planet itself to sequester the billions of tons of carbon we’ve put in the air.

https://thecarbonunderground.org/

Plastic is Fossil Fuel

PLASTIC is a material so ubiquitous that we might call our age the Plasticine. This unfortunately durable form of fossil fuel breaks down into #microparticles that infiltrate and poison our water, our soils, and our bodies. Wildlife mistake plastic for food, babies chew on toys laden with chemicals. Some of it gets burned, polluting the air. Only 9% percent of it gets recycled.
Plastic overwhelmingly impacts low income communities around the world. The less we make, the less we use, the better for everyone, especially for fence line communities who suffer from the toxic effects of its production and disposal.

Dianna Cohen, co-founder and CEO of #PlasticPollutionCoalition, shows us how to get plastic out of our lives. From packaging to toothpaste, there are alternatives.

We can make a dent in the problem by refusing single use plastic. We can carry our own bags, cups and containers. We can wash and reuse glass containers and buy plastic-free produce from farmers’ and other markets. We can buy from companies who use #BiodegradablePackaging.

A Conversation With God - The Creator Ain't Happy

Three trillion trees are missing, and the Creator is not happy to learn what’s happened to the forests and the oceans. Three quarters of the wild animals are gone. What’s the cause of all this devastation is it coal? oil? Or is the major driver of habitat destruction in fact an agri-culture based on providing the milk and meat of a few species - that use over 43 percent of the land, and an aqua- culture that kills trillions of fish and other ocean species for a measly 15% of it's diet?

Glen Merzer, author of Food is Climate, presents the case to the ultimate authority. Posing as a hapless UN official, he reveals the frailities of human nature and its curious culture of destruction.

Is it possible that humans will realize that a diet based in the vegetable kingdom will keep them healthier and bring back #Biodiversity, restoring the oceans and the land?

#ClimateChange must be mitigated by the same human species that caused it, and curtailing #AnimalAgriculture is at the center of the solution.

Regenerative Agriculture - Wildlife vs. Livestock

Three quarters of all farmland is devoted to #AnimalAgriculture. The destruction of #Habitat largely to graze and feed livestock has eliminated over 70% of the planet’s wildlife. Globally, 80 billion animals are killed each year for only 12% of the human diet. To keep the meat and dairy industries afloat, this slaughter is subsidized. At the same time, the topsoil is seriously degraded due to industrial farming of all kinds.

#RegenerativeFarming offers a better way to grow food, but it requires farm animals.
Instead, shouldn't we seize the opportunity to allow wildlife to return and flourish?

Eat Less Meat with Meatless Meat

Paul Shapiro, CEO of The Better Meat Co. and Author of Clean Meat, How Growing Meat WIthout Animals will Revolutionize Dinner and the World, explains how new processes can replace the environmental disaster that is animal agriculture.

If people eat less or no meat and fish, much of nature can be restored and the wild animals that have been replaced by the 90 billion “livestock” slaughtered for meat each year, can return. Ecosystems can again flourish. Everyone can do this!

Food Security through the Restoration of Ecosystems

Securing the global food system is critical to human survival. Agriculture has an enormous impact on all ecological functions of our planet. Through #CommonlandFoundation and #EcoRestoration Camps, John D. Liu and Willem Ferwerda spearhead movements to restore hydrological cycles, degraded soils and ecosystems at scale, creating new communities in the process.
Vegan activist, #Isaias Hernandez, advocates for more support and attention to young climate activists whose future rests on the resilience of nature and on transformative human action to bring about the restoration of nature.

Hosted and edited by Raya Salter

As mentioned in the program:
https://www.ecosystemrestorationcommu...
https://commonland.com/

Water Is Climate, Water is Love

Water is critical for life. It’s also the regulator of our climate. As floods and droughts plague the world, a new understanding of the dynamics of water and its cycles is urgently needed.
This is the message of the beautiful new film, WATER IS LOVE . Watch it and sign up for free access to the online summit, Aug, 1-4 , 2024
https://www.waterislovefilm.org/what-...

To bring back ecological integrity, and to grow food, #HydrologicalCycles must be restored, and rivers revitalized to nuture the land. By putting water at the center of restoration, and by teaching young people how to work with the land , communites can hope for a better future even as the climate crisis worsens. A post capitalist infrastructure is being created in autonomous bioregions like Tamera, where a change in consciousness is underway, reconnecting humans with the earth and with each other.

Introducing the film are Martin Winiecki, Co-writer of Water is Love and Leader of the Institute for Global Peacework at the #Tamera Peace, Research, and Education Center in Portugal and
Project Manager, and Co-Creator, Isabel Rosa Zabou.

Hosted by Dale Walkonen
Edited by Mike Coe
Thumbnail, Eric Dehais

Learn more about Tamera
https://www.tamera.org/

for more about the film
https://www.waterislovefilm.org/

animation segment
https://www.waterislovefilm.org/anima...

The Critical Balance :Land Use and Food Systems

To preserve the fabric of #Biodiversity, critical changes in how we manage and interact with complex land based systems are needed if we are to avoid triggering more climate tipping points.
Better food systems are needed to take into account the wide range of complex interactions that affect the biosphere. We must work with nature, rather than against it.
The Amazon region, a vital component of the living Earth system, is in danger of becoming savannah and has largely lost its ability to sequester carbon due to logging and agriculture, principally cattle raising, which damages the ecosystem.
The preservation of peatlands requires a delicate hydrological balance. If too wet, methane is emitted, but if drained, peat emits carbon dioxide. #Permafrost melt is a threat to these fragile ecosystems.

Recorded November 16, 2024 at COP 29 in Baku, Azerbaijan

The Phosphorus Conundrum

Issac Asimov described #Phosphorus as “Life’s bottleneck”. There is no life without it. Although it is a common element, only a finite percentage is available to us. Farms use huge amounts of phosphorus - much of which flows into waterways, creating toxic pea soup lakes, and dead zones. We’re wasting an essential mineral, and turning it into a serious problem.

As Isaac Asimov put it “Life can multiply until all the phosphorus has gone and then there is an inexorable halt which nothing can prevent’’

We have to find ways to preserve phosphorus where it’s needed, and to keep it from fostering algae blooms in the water. Instead of replenishing it in large quantities after every harvest, farms need to make use of microbes and certain crops that can keep it in the soil.

Phosphorus, which literally means light bearer, for its phosphorescent quality, gives life, but in the wrong place and in the wrong quantity it’s an environmental hazard.

Professors #StephenPorder of Brown University and Eric Roy of the University of Vermont explain their work on the phosphorous cycle.

For more about Life’ s essential elements , read Stephen’s book
Elemental: How five elements changed Earth's past and will shape our future