00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.583
[gentle piano music]

00:00:09.013 --> 00:00:12.430
[music continues]

00:00:26.999 --> 00:00:30.416
[music continues]

00:00:45.024 --> 00:00:48.441
[music continues]

00:01:00.250 --> 00:01:05.250
[rain pattering]
[thunder peeling]

00:01:12.470 --> 00:01:14.490
[water rushing]

00:01:14.490 --> 00:01:16.740
- [John] When I started
this film about the causes

00:01:16.740 --> 00:01:19.380
and solutions to the climate crisis,

00:01:19.380 --> 00:01:21.960
I had no idea that I'd be spending

00:01:21.960 --> 00:01:24.367
so much time looking at water.

00:01:24.367 --> 00:01:27.130
[water trickling]

00:01:28.455 --> 00:01:31.038
[gentle piano music]

00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:48.457
[music continues]

00:01:55.243 --> 00:01:59.930
- Yes, it is water that governs 95%

00:01:59.930 --> 00:02:04.563
of the heat dynamics of
the blue planet, Earth.

00:02:04.563 --> 00:02:05.521
Water.

00:02:05.521 --> 00:02:09.510
- [John] Nor did I realize
the beauty in a pile of s**t.

00:02:09.510 --> 00:02:13.890
- That is the perfect poop,
the right consistency,

00:02:13.890 --> 00:02:16.257
the right height with a
little dollop in the middle.

00:02:16.257 --> 00:02:17.550
- [John] And of course we should add

00:02:17.550 --> 00:02:19.830
that this doesn't smell.

00:02:19.830 --> 00:02:21.390
- [Cynthia] At all.
- [John] Right.

00:02:21.390 --> 00:02:24.630
- [Cynthia] No, no, no,
that's just really a gift

00:02:24.630 --> 00:02:27.270
from the cow to the ecosystem

00:02:27.270 --> 00:02:30.311
that has been providing
her with nutrition.

00:02:31.208 --> 00:02:32.508
It's beautiful.

00:02:34.770 --> 00:02:35.850
- [John] I had believed,

00:02:35.850 --> 00:02:38.010
like most of my friends and colleagues,

00:02:38.010 --> 00:02:40.680
the popular idea that the climate crisis

00:02:40.680 --> 00:02:43.680
was caused almost entirely by the rise

00:02:43.680 --> 00:02:45.990
in carbon emissions in the atmosphere

00:02:45.990 --> 00:02:48.243
due to our excessive
burning of fossil fuels,

00:02:50.265 --> 00:02:53.550
and that the solution
was renewable energy.

00:02:53.550 --> 00:02:55.185
I'd even made a film about it.

00:02:55.185 --> 00:02:57.630
[wind whistling]

00:02:57.630 --> 00:03:02.310
I see now that I was only
looking at one of many parts

00:03:02.310 --> 00:03:07.310
and one of many solutions to
the complex climate crisis.

00:03:07.649 --> 00:03:10.530
I was eager to save the planet.

00:03:10.530 --> 00:03:12.150
- Save the planet.

00:03:12.150 --> 00:03:14.673
What, are these f**king people kidding me?

00:03:15.540 --> 00:03:16.800
Save the planet, we don't even know how

00:03:16.800 --> 00:03:18.690
to take care of ourselves yet.

00:03:18.690 --> 00:03:20.490
We haven't learned how
to care for one another.

00:03:20.490 --> 00:03:23.460
We're gonna save the f**king planet?

00:03:23.460 --> 00:03:25.539
I'm getting tired of that s**t.

00:03:25.539 --> 00:03:30.104
The planet is fine, the people are f**ked.

00:03:30.104 --> 00:03:31.080
Difference.

00:03:31.080 --> 00:03:32.820
- [John] Of course, he's right.

00:03:32.820 --> 00:03:36.820
It's not the planet that
needs saving, it's us.

00:03:36.820 --> 00:03:38.040
- [Narrator] This new insect destroyer

00:03:38.040 --> 00:03:39.810
contains a lot of DDT.

00:03:39.810 --> 00:03:41.820
It's DDT content  is even higher

00:03:41.820 --> 00:03:43.500
than government specifications.

00:03:43.500 --> 00:03:44.700
This diabolical weapon

00:03:44.700 --> 00:03:47.370
of modern science kills
billions of insects.

00:03:47.370 --> 00:03:49.320
Man, with this newly discovered force

00:03:49.320 --> 00:03:51.390
has at long last gained the upper hand

00:03:51.390 --> 00:03:52.863
in our age-old struggle.

00:03:54.330 --> 00:03:57.690
- [John] We humans in the
so-called civilized world

00:03:57.690 --> 00:04:01.080
have the insane habit of
destroying the very thing

00:04:01.080 --> 00:04:03.150
that keeps us alive and healthy,

00:04:03.150 --> 00:04:06.300
the very thing that regulates our climate,

00:04:06.300 --> 00:04:07.683
the system of life.

00:04:09.210 --> 00:04:10.170
In other words,

00:04:10.170 --> 00:04:13.199
the activities of all
the organisms on Earth.

00:04:13.199 --> 00:04:15.866
[gentle music]

00:04:20.760 --> 00:04:24.480
The good news is that there's
a growing movement of people

00:04:24.480 --> 00:04:28.593
who are solving the climate
crisis by regenerating life.

00:04:29.580 --> 00:04:32.220
They are actively working with nature

00:04:32.220 --> 00:04:36.300
to restore the forest,
fields, wetlands and oceans.

00:04:36.300 --> 00:04:38.700
- I mean, it's possible to
regenerate every ecosystem,

00:04:38.700 --> 00:04:39.570
in my view.

00:04:39.570 --> 00:04:41.280
- [John] To rebuild the soil.

00:04:41.280 --> 00:04:44.280
- If you want to solve the
problem of climate change,

00:04:44.280 --> 00:04:45.960
you don't need any technology.

00:04:45.960 --> 00:04:48.180
You just take care of the soil.

00:04:48.180 --> 00:04:49.740
- [John] To grow healthy food

00:04:49.740 --> 00:04:52.140
and to build healthy communities.

00:04:52.140 --> 00:04:53.907
- It's not a garden,
it's a community garden.

00:04:53.907 --> 00:04:56.940
And that word, "community"
garden, is very, very important.

00:04:56.940 --> 00:05:01.170
- It's in food we can bring justice,

00:05:01.170 --> 00:05:04.014
equality, and liberation for all.

00:05:04.014 --> 00:05:09.014
[bright piano music]
[birds chirping]

00:05:14.955 --> 00:05:18.372
[piano music continues]

00:05:23.160 --> 00:05:25.020
- [John] It was exciting
when I realized I had

00:05:25.020 --> 00:05:26.370
to go back to the basics

00:05:26.370 --> 00:05:29.643
and piece together a new
understanding of climate change.

00:05:32.310 --> 00:05:34.320
Ecologist Stephan Harding pointed out

00:05:34.320 --> 00:05:36.390
that while people have
been destroying nature

00:05:36.390 --> 00:05:38.430
for most of human history,

00:05:38.430 --> 00:05:42.060
things took a turn for the
worse in the 17th century.

00:05:42.060 --> 00:05:44.460
- I mean, it's a very
complicated, long story.

00:05:44.460 --> 00:05:46.320
I think the the final rupture happened

00:05:46.320 --> 00:05:47.920
during the Scientific Revolution

00:05:48.810 --> 00:05:51.180
with our dear friend Descartes.

00:05:51.180 --> 00:05:52.380
He was the one who told us

00:05:52.380 --> 00:05:55.620
that we are fundamentally
disconnected from nature.

00:05:55.620 --> 00:05:56.940
And he told us the whole universe

00:05:56.940 --> 00:06:01.080
is nothing more than a vast
machine, soulless, dead,

00:06:01.080 --> 00:06:03.000
and therefore available

00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:06.540
for us to use as we wished
for our own purposes.

00:06:06.540 --> 00:06:09.570
- [John] This way of
thinking allows human beings

00:06:09.570 --> 00:06:13.620
to look at nature as
if they are outsiders,

00:06:13.620 --> 00:06:15.990
setting the stage for the exploitation

00:06:15.990 --> 00:06:17.793
of the land and the people.

00:06:21.199 --> 00:06:24.032
[loud explosions]

00:06:26.580 --> 00:06:30.510
The Scientific Revolution
also introduced a method

00:06:30.510 --> 00:06:33.120
of thinking called reductionism.

00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:36.360
The idea is that we can
understand something

00:06:36.360 --> 00:06:40.050
by breaking it down into
smaller and smaller parts.

00:06:40.050 --> 00:06:43.890
While reductionism is helpful
and it's used all the time,

00:06:43.890 --> 00:06:45.603
it can be very limiting.

00:06:46.530 --> 00:06:50.250
It is this way of thinking
that increasingly narrowed down

00:06:50.250 --> 00:06:52.710
the multidimensional climate crisis

00:06:52.710 --> 00:06:55.380
to first the Greenhouse Effect,

00:06:55.380 --> 00:06:58.590
then to one part of the Greenhouse Effect,

00:06:58.590 --> 00:07:00.330
the greenhouse gases,

00:07:00.330 --> 00:07:05.330
then to just one of the
greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide,

00:07:05.340 --> 00:07:09.450
and then to one of many
sources of carbon dioxide,

00:07:09.450 --> 00:07:11.310
the burning of fossil fuels.

00:07:11.310 --> 00:07:12.780
- [Narrator] Scientists now believe

00:07:12.780 --> 00:07:15.000
that increased quantities
of carbon dioxide

00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:16.560
in the atmosphere are leading

00:07:16.560 --> 00:07:18.900
to a significant warming of our planet,

00:07:18.900 --> 00:07:21.363
possibly within the next few years.

00:07:22.230 --> 00:07:24.210
- [John] Tragically, this narrative,

00:07:24.210 --> 00:07:27.150
because it includes only
a part of the problem,

00:07:27.150 --> 00:07:29.343
is missing many solutions.

00:07:30.243 --> 00:07:35.243
[gentle piano music]
[birds chirping]

00:07:38.460 --> 00:07:39.720
Having just made a film

00:07:39.720 --> 00:07:42.300
about the radical scientist Lynn Margulis

00:07:42.300 --> 00:07:44.730
and her symbiotic worldview,

00:07:44.730 --> 00:07:47.760
I knew that there was
another way of thinking,

00:07:47.760 --> 00:07:51.990
a holistic or ecological
approach that takes into account

00:07:51.990 --> 00:07:56.100
that everything is interconnected
and interdependent.

00:07:56.100 --> 00:07:59.963
In other words, everything
causes everything else.

00:07:59.963 --> 00:08:02.880
[traffic droning]

00:08:05.850 --> 00:08:08.670
The Gaia theory that
Lynn Margulis developed

00:08:08.670 --> 00:08:12.630
with Jim Lovelock proposes
that all of life on Earth

00:08:12.630 --> 00:08:17.223
is one big self-regulating
and self-sustaining system.

00:08:22.260 --> 00:08:24.690
Despite modern society's drive

00:08:24.690 --> 00:08:27.060
to separate itself from nature,

00:08:27.060 --> 00:08:30.152
we all remain a part of nature.

00:08:38.490 --> 00:08:41.610
- We are a part of a
great big entity, Gaia,

00:08:41.610 --> 00:08:44.040
that is regulating our planet.

00:08:44.040 --> 00:08:46.620
- There's an active
temperature regulating system,

00:08:46.620 --> 00:08:48.120
and when we look around

00:08:48.120 --> 00:08:51.750
we see that it is really
the sum of the organisms

00:08:51.750 --> 00:08:55.110
and their activities
that have the potential

00:08:55.110 --> 00:08:56.660
for regulating the temperature.

00:08:58.830 --> 00:09:00.750
- [John] Lynn Margulis also taught me

00:09:00.750 --> 00:09:04.020
that science is about asking questions,

00:09:04.020 --> 00:09:08.433
and knowing that often the best
answer is a better question.

00:09:10.410 --> 00:09:14.610
So how do the activities
of all the organisms

00:09:14.610 --> 00:09:17.253
on the planet regulate the temperature?

00:09:20.340 --> 00:09:24.060
My research began when I was
introduced to an organization

00:09:24.060 --> 00:09:27.213
called Biodiversity For a Livable Climate.

00:09:28.380 --> 00:09:30.840
- We wanted to change
the climate conversation

00:09:30.840 --> 00:09:34.560
to include the vast power of biology,

00:09:34.560 --> 00:09:39.560
which is widely
misunderstood and underrated.

00:09:40.680 --> 00:09:43.380
- [John] On their website,
I found a treasure trove

00:09:43.380 --> 00:09:46.920
of scientific papers,
articles, and videos.

00:09:46.920 --> 00:09:50.430
I read many authors who
were exploring alternative,

00:09:50.430 --> 00:09:54.300
sometimes radical narratives
about the environmental

00:09:54.300 --> 00:09:55.653
and climate crises.

00:09:59.400 --> 00:10:03.967
A book by Slovak engineer Michal
Kravcik and his colleagues,

00:10:03.967 --> 00:10:05.917
"Water for the Recovery of the Climate,

00:10:05.917 --> 00:10:09.963
"A New Water Paradigm,"
became my indispensable guide.

00:10:10.980 --> 00:10:14.700
Then a lecture by Australian
scientist Walter Jehne

00:10:14.700 --> 00:10:16.770
totally blew me away.

00:10:16.770 --> 00:10:20.010
- I'm really a soil
microbiologist from down under.

00:10:20.010 --> 00:10:22.983
Most of my time I spend just
quietly underground, you know,

00:10:22.983 --> 00:10:24.390
just doing work there.

00:10:24.390 --> 00:10:26.730
- [John] Walter travels
and teaches extensively,

00:10:26.730 --> 00:10:28.980
and I was able to spend two weeks with him

00:10:28.980 --> 00:10:30.630
in the mountains of Vermont,

00:10:30.630 --> 00:10:34.020
learning how water cools the planet.

00:10:34.020 --> 00:10:37.623
- The climate of the planet
is governed hydrologically.

00:10:38.490 --> 00:10:41.580
The vegetation of the
planet are the tools,

00:10:41.580 --> 00:10:43.743
the instruments that help drive that.

00:10:44.760 --> 00:10:49.170
And of course, we humans then
influence that vegetation.

00:10:49.170 --> 00:10:53.100
But the question is, how
do we do it practically?

00:10:53.100 --> 00:10:55.950
And of course, the answer is very simple.

00:10:55.950 --> 00:10:57.990
You're standing on it.

00:10:57.990 --> 00:11:01.710
You're standing on your
own power and agency

00:11:01.710 --> 00:11:04.380
because underneath us is soil.

00:11:04.380 --> 00:11:09.270
And if I go down and I basically
pick up a handful of soil,

00:11:09.270 --> 00:11:13.110
that soil is a sponge, and that's a sponge

00:11:13.110 --> 00:11:16.290
that can actually infiltrate the rain,

00:11:16.290 --> 00:11:19.320
retain that water in that soil,

00:11:19.320 --> 00:11:22.650
make it available for plants to grow

00:11:22.650 --> 00:11:26.223
and make it able to drive
that hydrological cycle.

00:11:27.420 --> 00:11:29.670
- [John] That's the story in a nutshell.

00:11:29.670 --> 00:11:31.095
But backtracking,

00:11:31.095 --> 00:11:34.053
the first question Walter
and I explored was,

00:11:34.053 --> 00:11:35.820
how come our beautiful planet

00:11:35.820 --> 00:11:40.080
has a temperature within a
range ideally suited for life?

00:11:40.080 --> 00:11:42.960
The conventional wisdom
was that it was just luck,

00:11:42.960 --> 00:11:44.433
the Goldilocks principle.

00:11:45.330 --> 00:11:49.173
- That planet you live on
is not like all the rest.

00:11:50.514 --> 00:11:52.953
You are blessed with just the right size,

00:11:53.880 --> 00:11:58.170
the right temperature,
the right atmosphere,

00:11:58.170 --> 00:12:00.150
the right composition,

00:12:00.150 --> 00:12:05.150
everything just right to produce
the biggest miracle of all.

00:12:05.238 --> 00:12:07.560
[baby crying]
- [John] However,

00:12:07.560 --> 00:12:09.240
in the mid 1800s,

00:12:09.240 --> 00:12:13.020
Joseph Fourier, a
physicist who studied heat,

00:12:13.020 --> 00:12:16.140
calculated that based on
its distance from the Sun,

00:12:16.140 --> 00:12:18.480
the Earth should be much colder.

00:12:18.480 --> 00:12:21.690
- Because if we were just
a rock in the solar system,

00:12:21.690 --> 00:12:26.690
an inert rock, we would be
33 degrees centigrade cooler.

00:12:27.720 --> 00:12:31.020
We would be frozen, all
the oceans would be frozen.

00:12:31.020 --> 00:12:33.180
There would be no life on land.

00:12:33.180 --> 00:12:38.180
We'd be a little bit like
Mars, which is a frozen planet.

00:12:38.250 --> 00:12:42.450
But Earth is warmer because life on Earth

00:12:42.450 --> 00:12:46.653
developed a greenhouse effect,
a greenhouse warming effect.

00:12:49.710 --> 00:12:51.840
- [John] The Greenhouse
Effect warms the planet

00:12:51.840 --> 00:12:54.270
because certain gases in the atmosphere,

00:12:54.270 --> 00:12:56.220
called greenhouse gases,

00:12:56.220 --> 00:12:59.640
let the incoming energy,
sunlight, through.

00:12:59.640 --> 00:13:01.260
Then as the land warms up,

00:13:01.260 --> 00:13:03.933
it re-radiates infrared heat upward.

00:13:08.940 --> 00:13:11.070
The greenhouse gases absorb some,

00:13:11.070 --> 00:13:13.863
but not all of that re-radiated heat.

00:13:14.940 --> 00:13:17.674
Imagine a greenhouse gas molecule.

00:13:17.674 --> 00:13:18.840
It absorbs heat,

00:13:18.840 --> 00:13:21.543
and then sends it back
out in all directions.

00:13:22.410 --> 00:13:25.890
Because they send some of that
heat back down to the earth,

00:13:25.890 --> 00:13:28.470
collectively the greenhouse gas molecules

00:13:28.470 --> 00:13:29.853
warm the atmosphere.

00:13:32.340 --> 00:13:35.370
- [Walter] And it's that
re-radiated infrared heat

00:13:35.370 --> 00:13:38.910
which is absorbed by
greenhouse gas molecules,

00:13:38.910 --> 00:13:42.390
largely water vapor, but also CO2,

00:13:42.390 --> 00:13:46.170
and that, in a sense, creates
a natural greenhouse effect.

00:13:46.170 --> 00:13:47.700
- [John] It came as a surprise to me

00:13:47.700 --> 00:13:50.670
when Walter explained that water vapor

00:13:50.670 --> 00:13:54.243
is the most abundant greenhouse
gas in the atmosphere.

00:13:55.710 --> 00:13:58.260
- The water vapor's greenhouse effect

00:13:58.260 --> 00:14:01.530
is about 80% of the gas
effect compared to the CO2,

00:14:01.530 --> 00:14:05.123
which is about 11% and about, you know,

00:14:05.123 --> 00:14:09.780
9% is the methane and nitrous
oxide, CFCs and others.

00:14:09.780 --> 00:14:12.420
- [John] But then the real shocker came.

00:14:12.420 --> 00:14:15.510
- Irrespective of how
many molecules in the air,

00:14:15.510 --> 00:14:18.450
the thing that determines
the Greenhouse Effect

00:14:18.450 --> 00:14:22.440
is the amount of re-radiation
coming from the earth.

00:14:22.440 --> 00:14:26.100
Because we have bared this soil,

00:14:26.100 --> 00:14:29.910
this soil will heat up much, much more so

00:14:29.910 --> 00:14:33.510
than the soil protected
with green vegetation

00:14:33.510 --> 00:14:35.280
that is still moist.

00:14:35.280 --> 00:14:37.170
- [John] I'm gonna measure the bare soil

00:14:37.170 --> 00:14:39.063
of this plowed field.

00:14:40.500 --> 00:14:45.390
So that's 133, all right?

00:14:45.390 --> 00:14:47.940
This infrared thermometer
measures the heat

00:14:47.940 --> 00:14:51.093
or infrared radiation
coming off the surface.

00:14:52.770 --> 00:14:56.587
So now I'm gonna go
over here to the grass.

00:15:00.969 --> 00:15:02.035
88.

00:15:03.630 --> 00:15:06.420
That's 45 degrees Fahrenheit difference

00:15:06.420 --> 00:15:09.450
between the bare soil and
the grass-covered soil

00:15:09.450 --> 00:15:10.833
in the same sunlight.

00:15:12.600 --> 00:15:16.800
- And absolutely, the
more we clear the land,

00:15:16.800 --> 00:15:19.860
physics dictates that it will have

00:15:19.860 --> 00:15:22.530
to re-radiate all that energy back,

00:15:22.530 --> 00:15:24.897
and that is a driver of
the Greenhouse Effect.

00:15:24.897 --> 00:15:28.920
and that is what we
have grossly disturbed.

00:15:28.920 --> 00:15:33.333
We have created five billion hectares

00:15:33.333 --> 00:15:36.741
of manmade desert and wasteland

00:15:36.741 --> 00:15:40.620
on this land surface
of 14 billion hectares.

00:15:40.620 --> 00:15:45.620
40% of the land area is now absorbing heat

00:15:45.840 --> 00:15:50.583
because it's bare, it's dry,
and re-radiating massively.

00:15:56.460 --> 00:16:00.090
But by keeping surfaces cool and moist

00:16:00.090 --> 00:16:02.340
and at a lower temperature,

00:16:02.340 --> 00:16:06.540
we can effectively turn
the Greenhouse Effect

00:16:06.540 --> 00:16:09.123
from "high" down to "simmer."

00:16:09.960 --> 00:16:12.840
We can do that within days

00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:16.686
simply by keeping
landscapes cool and moist.

00:16:16.686 --> 00:16:19.519
[birds chirping]

00:16:23.850 --> 00:16:25.140
- [John] Then Walter explained to me

00:16:25.140 --> 00:16:28.860
that the Earth has both
warming and cooling processes.

00:16:28.860 --> 00:16:31.260
- Good morning, here we are in Vermont.

00:16:31.260 --> 00:16:34.110
It's August, and we've got up very early

00:16:34.110 --> 00:16:35.970
before the sun's come out

00:16:35.970 --> 00:16:39.150
to look at these beautiful misty miasmas

00:16:39.150 --> 00:16:41.700
that are rising from the vegetation.

00:16:41.700 --> 00:16:46.140
As soon as there's light, the
plants open their stomata.

00:16:46.140 --> 00:16:49.320
These are these little
pores in their leaves.

00:16:49.320 --> 00:16:52.740
And basically then they
start releasing water,

00:16:52.740 --> 00:16:56.430
water that they've accumulated
over the night from the soil,

00:16:56.430 --> 00:17:00.840
and the water vapor they
release very quickly condenses

00:17:00.840 --> 00:17:04.500
and forms these misty haze microdroplets

00:17:04.500 --> 00:17:06.300
that we're seeing in the air.

00:17:06.300 --> 00:17:09.390
- [John] These microdroplets
are liquid water.

00:17:09.390 --> 00:17:12.060
When the sun comes out and warms the mist,

00:17:12.060 --> 00:17:15.360
these microdroplets
evaporate into water vapor,

00:17:15.360 --> 00:17:17.700
which is a gas, so we don't see it.

00:17:17.700 --> 00:17:21.240
- And that water vapor
again warms the atmosphere

00:17:21.240 --> 00:17:24.723
because it becomes a
primary greenhouse gas.

00:17:26.280 --> 00:17:30.210
So there's this dual warming
effect that has evolved,

00:17:30.210 --> 00:17:33.963
very much related to the level
of water in the atmosphere.

00:17:35.040 --> 00:17:38.970
But of course, if that was the
only process that was there,

00:17:38.970 --> 00:17:42.960
we would warm the planet, warm
the planet, warm the planet.

00:17:42.960 --> 00:17:45.870
And that's exactly
what's happened on Venus,

00:17:45.870 --> 00:17:50.460
because it's gone into a
super Greenhouse Effect

00:17:50.460 --> 00:17:53.310
and progressively it's got warmer, warmer.

00:17:53.310 --> 00:17:56.940
But on Earth, another process has evolved,

00:17:56.940 --> 00:17:59.010
and basically it's a process

00:17:59.010 --> 00:18:03.010
by which this water can
be removed from the air,

00:18:03.870 --> 00:18:06.870
and nature does that
exquisitely efficiently

00:18:06.870 --> 00:18:08.613
by producing clouds.

00:18:09.600 --> 00:18:11.760
And then those clouds reflect a lot

00:18:11.760 --> 00:18:15.030
of the incident solar
radiation back out to space,

00:18:15.030 --> 00:18:16.916
and that cools the planet below.

00:18:16.916 --> 00:18:21.390
[gentle piano music]

00:18:21.390 --> 00:18:25.080
- [John] Clouds, those
massive bodies of water,

00:18:25.080 --> 00:18:28.020
have a tremendous effect
on the Earth's climate,

00:18:28.020 --> 00:18:31.143
and it's hard to untangle
the warming from the cooling.

00:18:32.040 --> 00:18:34.410
At any one time, more than half the Earth

00:18:34.410 --> 00:18:36.174
is covered in clouds.

00:18:38.474 --> 00:18:41.507
[piano music continues]

00:18:48.720 --> 00:18:51.510
Most of us don't think very
much about the atmosphere

00:18:51.510 --> 00:18:54.420
because, well, we don't see it.

00:18:54.420 --> 00:18:57.600
Go to any reputable source
and you'll find pie charts

00:18:57.600 --> 00:19:02.600
that show that our atmosphere
is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen,

00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:05.583
and the remaining 1% are trace gases.

00:19:06.420 --> 00:19:11.420
Of these, carbon dioxide
represents about four 100ths of 1%.

00:19:13.170 --> 00:19:15.690
But don't let that very
small amount fool you.

00:19:15.690 --> 00:19:18.600
There's always enough
carbon dioxide in the air

00:19:18.600 --> 00:19:20.310
to supply carbon atoms,

00:19:20.310 --> 00:19:24.093
the building blocks of life,
to all the world's plants.

00:19:27.810 --> 00:19:31.200
The atmosphere is a very busy place.

00:19:31.200 --> 00:19:32.790
In addition to gases,

00:19:32.790 --> 00:19:36.630
the atmosphere is teeming
with soot and dust, bacteria,

00:19:36.630 --> 00:19:38.760
fungal spores and viruses,

00:19:38.760 --> 00:19:42.120
and all kinds of chemicals
produced by plants,

00:19:42.120 --> 00:19:43.833
animals, and other organisms.

00:19:44.700 --> 00:19:48.030
These are called aerosols,
and as we'll soon learn,

00:19:48.030 --> 00:19:51.960
these tiny airborne particles
play a tremendous role

00:19:51.960 --> 00:19:52.793
in the climate.

00:19:56.310 --> 00:19:59.640
When you smell the garlic
coming from your friend's lunch,

00:19:59.640 --> 00:20:02.640
that means a garlic aerosol has traveled

00:20:02.640 --> 00:20:04.920
from his mouth to your nose.

00:20:04.920 --> 00:20:06.824
- [Announcer] Certs
regular and sugar free,

00:20:06.824 --> 00:20:09.060
for breath that's face-to-face fresh.

00:20:09.060 --> 00:20:11.760
- [John] One day I found myself
studying these pie charts

00:20:11.760 --> 00:20:14.250
and asked, where's water vapor?

00:20:14.250 --> 00:20:15.273
That's a gas.

00:20:17.909 --> 00:20:19.530
[gentle piano music]
[water trickling]

00:20:19.530 --> 00:20:22.230
It turns out that water
is just too variable

00:20:22.230 --> 00:20:24.180
to fit into pie charts.

00:20:24.180 --> 00:20:26.550
Water is the original shapeshifter.

00:20:26.550 --> 00:20:30.420
It exists in our daily lives
as solid, liquid and gas.

00:20:30.420 --> 00:20:32.100
All three are in this shot,

00:20:32.100 --> 00:20:34.898
but you can't see the water vapor gas.

00:20:34.898 --> 00:20:39.150
[music continues]
[water trickling]

00:20:39.150 --> 00:20:42.690
The amount of water vapor
in the atmosphere varies

00:20:42.690 --> 00:20:46.493
from less than 1% to about 4%.

00:20:47.340 --> 00:20:50.220
And if you include liquid water and ice,

00:20:50.220 --> 00:20:51.840
there's more water in the air

00:20:51.840 --> 00:20:55.970
than in all the world's
rivers, 10 times more.

00:20:55.970 --> 00:21:00.970
[music continues]
[birds chirping]

00:21:03.917 --> 00:21:06.210
And the amazing thing that
gives water the ability

00:21:06.210 --> 00:21:08.703
to cool the planet is evaporation.

00:21:09.600 --> 00:21:12.540
When water evaporates from liquid to vapor

00:21:12.540 --> 00:21:14.190
rising up in the air,

00:21:14.190 --> 00:21:19.190
it requires 590 calories of
energy for each gram of water.

00:21:20.623 --> 00:21:23.160
The water vapor takes
that heat energy upward,

00:21:23.160 --> 00:21:24.726
cooling the area below.

00:21:24.726 --> 00:21:29.726
[music continues]
[dog barking]

00:21:29.850 --> 00:21:33.090
Of course, a lot of this
stuff is just common sense.

00:21:33.090 --> 00:21:34.890
We know that on a hot sunny day

00:21:34.890 --> 00:21:37.121
it's good to go into the shade,

00:21:37.121 --> 00:21:38.223
and how great it feels

00:21:38.223 --> 00:21:40.980
when the rain comes to cool things off.

00:21:40.980 --> 00:21:41.825
[upbeat music]

00:21:41.825 --> 00:21:46.825
♪ Come on with the rain,
I've a smile on my face ♪

00:21:47.940 --> 00:21:49.080
- [John] We each participate

00:21:49.080 --> 00:21:51.250
in the hydrological cycle every day,

00:21:52.530 --> 00:21:54.810
and cool ourselves by sweating.

00:21:54.810 --> 00:21:57.480
- For that sweat to evaporate, again,

00:21:57.480 --> 00:22:00.750
needs 590 calories of heat energy,

00:22:00.750 --> 00:22:02.430
which cools your body down,

00:22:02.430 --> 00:22:06.360
your surface body down that 590 calories.

00:22:06.360 --> 00:22:09.510
- [John] Just add to that
picture that plants sweat too.

00:22:09.510 --> 00:22:11.760
Plants cool the area around themselves

00:22:11.760 --> 00:22:14.460
by evaporating water off their leaves.

00:22:14.460 --> 00:22:16.113
It's called transpiration.

00:22:17.539 --> 00:22:19.050
- What a plant's doing with its leaves,

00:22:19.050 --> 00:22:20.730
it's got little holes in its leaves,

00:22:20.730 --> 00:22:23.010
it opens them up to take in CO2.

00:22:23.010 --> 00:22:25.620
For every molecule of CO2 it takes in,

00:22:25.620 --> 00:22:28.830
it loses hundreds of molecules
of water going the other way.

00:22:28.830 --> 00:22:31.950
That's water that's been
sucked out of the ground,

00:22:31.950 --> 00:22:34.890
through the roots, up the
trunk, and out the leaves.

00:22:34.890 --> 00:22:37.560
Now, every molecule of water,

00:22:37.560 --> 00:22:40.923
when it evaporates, is absorbing heat.

00:22:42.188 --> 00:22:45.990
So it's basically pumping
heat out of the ground layer,

00:22:45.990 --> 00:22:48.030
the soil and the vegetation,

00:22:48.030 --> 00:22:49.800
and pumping it into water molecules

00:22:49.800 --> 00:22:50.911
that are carrying that heat.

00:22:50.911 --> 00:22:53.520
When that water vapor
then gets high enough

00:22:53.520 --> 00:22:56.040
that it condenses and falls as rain,

00:22:56.040 --> 00:22:57.390
then it releases heat.

00:22:57.390 --> 00:22:59.130
But that's up higher.

00:22:59.130 --> 00:23:00.960
- [John] What Tom Goreau is describing

00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:03.218
is called the small water cycle,

00:23:03.218 --> 00:23:05.959
in which water, sucked up from the soil,

00:23:05.959 --> 00:23:08.100
is transpired by trees

00:23:08.100 --> 00:23:11.998
and comes down as rain
over the same environment.

00:23:11.998 --> 00:23:16.998
[rain pattering]
[thunder pealing]

00:23:19.080 --> 00:23:22.920
So this rain outside my
studio may contain water

00:23:22.920 --> 00:23:26.340
that was recently evaporated
from this very area,

00:23:26.340 --> 00:23:28.353
the Hudson Valley of New York State.

00:23:29.430 --> 00:23:31.233
It's a local water cycle.

00:23:33.330 --> 00:23:35.910
But what's even more
astounding is that trees

00:23:35.910 --> 00:23:39.480
and other organisms release
many of the aerosols,

00:23:39.480 --> 00:23:42.090
those tiny airborne particles

00:23:42.090 --> 00:23:44.940
that are necessary for mists and rain

00:23:44.940 --> 00:23:46.773
to exist in the first place.

00:23:47.790 --> 00:23:51.810
- The aerosols, these are
actually organic molecules

00:23:51.810 --> 00:23:53.490
produced by the plant.

00:23:53.490 --> 00:23:56.670
They're often a lot of
the fragrances and aromas

00:23:56.670 --> 00:23:59.130
and smells that we get from the plant.

00:23:59.130 --> 00:24:03.443
And they're actually acting
as nuclei, micronuclei,

00:24:03.443 --> 00:24:07.590
to actually coalesce
water vapor around them

00:24:07.590 --> 00:24:09.603
to make these haze microdroplets.

00:24:12.630 --> 00:24:17.630
To form clouds, nature
has evolved another group

00:24:18.360 --> 00:24:21.600
of precipitation nuclei,

00:24:21.600 --> 00:24:25.320
and these are largely biological nuclei

00:24:25.320 --> 00:24:30.320
that coalesce about a million
of these haze microdroplets

00:24:30.360 --> 00:24:32.043
to make a cloud droplet.

00:24:33.390 --> 00:24:37.680
So nature has actually
balanced the hydrology,

00:24:37.680 --> 00:24:40.170
the heat dynamics of the atmosphere,

00:24:40.170 --> 00:24:45.170
through these two balancing,
opposing biological processes,

00:24:46.020 --> 00:24:49.650
the formation of the aerosol micronuclei,

00:24:49.650 --> 00:24:53.730
which create the hazes to warm
the planet, and the formation

00:24:53.730 --> 00:24:58.730
of these larger hydroscopic
precipitation nuclei

00:24:59.040 --> 00:25:00.900
that form the clouds

00:25:00.900 --> 00:25:03.393
and actually then later on form the rain.

00:25:06.300 --> 00:25:08.820
- [John] And rain cools the Earth.

00:25:08.820 --> 00:25:13.522
So not only do trees need
rain, rain needs trees.

00:25:13.522 --> 00:25:16.439
[rain pattering]

00:25:17.280 --> 00:25:20.163
- Water, that's what
I'm getting at, water.

00:25:21.930 --> 00:25:24.993
Mandrake, water is the source of all life.

00:25:26.970 --> 00:25:30.060
Seven tenths of this
Earth's surface is water.

00:25:30.060 --> 00:25:33.540
- [John] The oceans are a
gigantic part of the biosphere

00:25:33.540 --> 00:25:35.883
and have a tremendous
effect on the climate.

00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:40.230
This whale poop, captured by ABC News,

00:25:40.230 --> 00:25:42.960
supplies nutrients for phytoplankton,

00:25:42.960 --> 00:25:46.743
which produce aerosols
that seed clouds and rain.

00:25:47.730 --> 00:25:50.013
So rain needs poop.

00:25:53.610 --> 00:25:58.610
The oceans contain 97% of
the water on our planet.

00:25:58.800 --> 00:26:01.860
Of the remaining 3%, which is fresh water,

00:26:01.860 --> 00:26:04.920
2% is in icebergs and glaciers,

00:26:04.920 --> 00:26:09.390
which leaves only 1% for all
of our fresh water needs.

00:26:09.390 --> 00:26:12.660
That's not a lot of
fresh water to go around.

00:26:12.660 --> 00:26:14.970
Luckily, there are natural processes

00:26:14.970 --> 00:26:17.223
that bring fresh water to the land.

00:26:18.630 --> 00:26:22.110
One such process that I knew nothing about

00:26:22.110 --> 00:26:24.540
is called the biotic pump.

00:26:24.540 --> 00:26:29.540
- Mm, the biotic pump is a
mechanism by which large forests

00:26:29.910 --> 00:26:33.870
can transport atmospheric moisture inland,

00:26:33.870 --> 00:26:36.360
and we have rains and we have rivers

00:26:36.360 --> 00:26:39.270
and life thrives on land.

00:26:39.270 --> 00:26:43.867
If we destroy forests, then
we don't have this flow,

00:26:44.877 --> 00:26:49.440
and the flow can be reversed
and the land becomes a desert.

00:26:49.440 --> 00:26:52.470
- [John] Theoretical
physicist Anastassia Makarieva

00:26:52.470 --> 00:26:55.872
developed this important
idea with her colleague,

00:26:55.872 --> 00:26:57.942
the late Victor Gorshkov.

00:26:57.942 --> 00:27:00.090
[water trickling]

00:27:00.090 --> 00:27:04.590
As water is pulled from
the soil, travels up trees,

00:27:04.590 --> 00:27:08.640
is transpired through leaves
into the air above the forest

00:27:08.640 --> 00:27:12.420
and then condenses into mists and clouds,

00:27:12.420 --> 00:27:15.810
it creates a low pressure
zone in its wake,

00:27:15.810 --> 00:27:20.280
and that literally sucks
humid air in from the ocean.

00:27:20.280 --> 00:27:23.310
A series of such biotic pump cycles

00:27:23.310 --> 00:27:27.241
can transport water inland
for thousands of miles.

00:27:27.241 --> 00:27:30.158
[rain pattering]

00:27:31.637 --> 00:27:33.840
[water trickling]

00:27:33.840 --> 00:27:37.440
Eventually, much of this water
joins the large water cycle

00:27:37.440 --> 00:27:40.863
as it travels through streams
and rivers back to the oceans.

00:27:44.220 --> 00:27:47.130
The large water cycle is
another way fresh water

00:27:47.130 --> 00:27:49.170
is brought to the land.

00:27:49.170 --> 00:27:52.620
As water evaporates off
the oceans, forms clouds

00:27:52.620 --> 00:27:54.210
and then travels inland,

00:27:54.210 --> 00:27:57.030
it dumps that fresh water onto the land.

00:27:57.030 --> 00:27:58.800
- [Reporter] ...community has evacuated.

00:27:58.800 --> 00:28:02.213
If they're still here, they
better have a safe place to be.

00:28:03.330 --> 00:28:05.580
- [John] When we see these big storms,

00:28:05.580 --> 00:28:08.400
that's the system.
- Trying to cool.

00:28:08.400 --> 00:28:10.321
- [John] Trying to cool.
- Yeah.

00:28:10.321 --> 00:28:12.570
- [John] And it does, it works.

00:28:12.570 --> 00:28:14.220
- The people, there's been arguments

00:28:14.220 --> 00:28:16.800
about whether the amount
of water that came up

00:28:16.800 --> 00:28:20.130
and landed on Texas and
Louisiana during Harvey,

00:28:20.130 --> 00:28:24.060
was it 30 trillion gallons or
was it 33 trillion gallons?

00:28:24.060 --> 00:28:27.570
And so it's some big
number in the trillions,

00:28:27.570 --> 00:28:32.280
and 30 trillion gallons,
when it condenses,

00:28:32.280 --> 00:28:37.140
releases the energy of thousands

00:28:37.140 --> 00:28:38.733
of Mount St. Helens events.

00:28:41.430 --> 00:28:44.480
This is a huge amount of
energy trying to get away,

00:28:44.480 --> 00:28:47.430
and I always thought it
was converted into wind,

00:28:47.430 --> 00:28:50.250
but it turns out like maybe 1%
of it just turned into wind.

00:28:50.250 --> 00:28:54.270
The rest of it is energy
trying to radiate away,

00:28:54.270 --> 00:28:57.960
trying to get this extra
energy out into space.

00:28:57.960 --> 00:28:59.940
So these storms are
getting bigger and bigger.

00:28:59.940 --> 00:29:02.910
- [John] That's one of those
big ironies I ran up against.

00:29:02.910 --> 00:29:04.743
Hurricanes cool the planet.

00:29:07.350 --> 00:29:08.760
- So we're gonna see bigger storms

00:29:08.760 --> 00:29:11.223
as long as the oceans
keep holding the heat.

00:29:12.390 --> 00:29:16.485
The problem is, it's gonna take awhile.

00:29:16.485 --> 00:29:18.960
[ominous instrumental music]

00:29:18.960 --> 00:29:21.330
- [John] Believe it or not,
there's an opportunity here.

00:29:21.330 --> 00:29:25.080
- The opportunity is the
oceans are warmer now,

00:29:25.080 --> 00:29:26.610
they're putting up more moisture.

00:29:26.610 --> 00:29:28.800
There's gonna be huge storms,
there's gonna be more rain.

00:29:28.800 --> 00:29:32.340
Let's keep the rain on the
continents as fresh water longer

00:29:32.340 --> 00:29:33.720
and use it to grow things,

00:29:33.720 --> 00:29:35.531
and then maybe we'll have a chance.

00:29:35.531 --> 00:29:38.364
[water trickling]

00:29:39.240 --> 00:29:41.130
And I'm afraid our
engineering plan oftentimes

00:29:41.130 --> 00:29:42.493
is to send all that good fresh water

00:29:42.493 --> 00:29:44.790
back to the ocean too fast.

00:29:44.790 --> 00:29:47.160
We got into this thing in
America where we thought,

00:29:47.160 --> 00:29:49.860
let's run all the water down to the dams

00:29:49.860 --> 00:29:51.589
and then we'll irrigate [laughs].

00:29:53.280 --> 00:29:55.920
But when the water comes
down, we have to hold it.

00:29:55.920 --> 00:29:57.450
The beaver plan was to hold the water

00:29:57.450 --> 00:29:59.040
on the continent as long as possible.

00:29:59.040 --> 00:30:00.590
Keep that fresh water upstream.

00:30:01.770 --> 00:30:02.910
- [John] Beavers are nature's

00:30:02.910 --> 00:30:05.223
supreme hydrological engineers.

00:30:07.680 --> 00:30:09.060
- [Jim] We had tens of millions

00:30:09.060 --> 00:30:11.370
of beaver making ponds everywhere.

00:30:11.370 --> 00:30:13.320
They trapped out the beaver
before the biologists

00:30:13.320 --> 00:30:14.760
could even study the process.

00:30:14.760 --> 00:30:16.905
And that's when the land
started to desiccate.

00:30:16.905 --> 00:30:20.205
[water trickling]
[birds chirping]

00:30:24.570 --> 00:30:26.160
- Climate change is upon us.

00:30:26.160 --> 00:30:28.620
It's actually impacting now.

00:30:28.620 --> 00:30:30.990
It's intensifying now,

00:30:30.990 --> 00:30:33.390
particularly in these hydrological

00:30:33.390 --> 00:30:36.300
or water-related processes,

00:30:36.300 --> 00:30:41.130
hurricanes, floods, storms, droughts,

00:30:41.130 --> 00:30:44.040
the whole aridification of vast regions,

00:30:44.040 --> 00:30:46.950
and with aridification, wildfires.

00:30:46.950 --> 00:30:49.230
And so we've gotta step
back behind that to say,

00:30:49.230 --> 00:30:51.540
well, why these extremes?

00:30:51.540 --> 00:30:54.998
And what we've in a sense
lost, critically lost,

00:30:54.998 --> 00:30:58.680
is the actual buffering and regulation

00:30:58.680 --> 00:31:01.620
that used to exist in the climate.

00:31:01.620 --> 00:31:05.160
Okay, so what buffered and
regulated these extremes

00:31:05.160 --> 00:31:07.230
and gave us predictability?

00:31:07.230 --> 00:31:10.140
- One piece is that
idea of the soil sponge

00:31:10.140 --> 00:31:12.180
being the basic infrastructure for life,

00:31:12.180 --> 00:31:16.200
and it's because of its
structure and function.

00:31:16.200 --> 00:31:17.970
- [John] If you look closely at soil,

00:31:17.970 --> 00:31:21.475
it consists of lots of little particles,

00:31:21.475 --> 00:31:24.000
and between them, lots of air spaces.

00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:26.160
Each little bit of dirt is enclosed

00:31:26.160 --> 00:31:28.830
in a sticky substance called glomalin,

00:31:28.830 --> 00:31:31.563
which is a protein produced by fungi.

00:31:34.140 --> 00:31:35.610
When the rain comes,

00:31:35.610 --> 00:31:39.309
the water is held in
this soil carbon sponge.

00:31:39.309 --> 00:31:42.226
[rain pattering]

00:31:45.120 --> 00:31:48.180
- So it's filtering the
water, it's absorbing rain,

00:31:48.180 --> 00:31:50.643
it's reducing flooding,
it's reducing drought.

00:31:52.440 --> 00:31:55.440
- [John] We've had extreme
floods in the Midwest this year.

00:31:55.440 --> 00:31:58.440
- [Walter] Yes.
- [John] Tell us about those.

00:31:58.440 --> 00:32:00.150
- We've had extreme floods

00:32:00.150 --> 00:32:03.660
because we've had these
extreme variation in rainfall.

00:32:03.660 --> 00:32:06.630
But on top of that and compounding that

00:32:06.630 --> 00:32:11.430
is we have effectively
concreted our catchments.

00:32:11.430 --> 00:32:14.820
We have hardened, destroyed
the soil structures

00:32:14.820 --> 00:32:16.320
in those catchments,

00:32:16.320 --> 00:32:20.328
and so those soils now are able to hold

00:32:20.328 --> 00:32:25.020
perhaps 20% of the water
that they did 100 years ago.

00:32:25.020 --> 00:32:27.390
- So this will bring
up a winter wheat crop,

00:32:27.390 --> 00:32:32.390
but you can see here how
powdery this soil is.

00:32:32.970 --> 00:32:35.910
There is absolutely zero biology in this,

00:32:35.910 --> 00:32:37.290
and it's very difficult, you know,

00:32:37.290 --> 00:32:39.450
to even hold it in your hands.

00:32:39.450 --> 00:32:42.000
- [John] When I visited
Andhra Pradesh, India,

00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:44.490
I was shown a comparison
between living soil

00:32:44.490 --> 00:32:45.840
that holds water...

00:32:45.840 --> 00:32:48.060
- [Bhairava] Humus is
forming, you can feel it.

00:32:48.060 --> 00:32:50.220
- [John] It's very moist, beautiful.

00:32:50.220 --> 00:32:51.390
...and dead soil.

00:32:51.390 --> 00:32:52.643
- [Bhairava] If you observe here,

00:32:52.643 --> 00:32:54.870
this is the white layer.

00:32:54.870 --> 00:32:59.870
What the chemicals nitrogen,
DAP, urea, phosphorous, potash.

00:32:59.880 --> 00:33:00.713
- [Commenter] Ammonium phosphate.

00:33:00.713 --> 00:33:04.080
- Yes, ammonium, we have
single super phosphate.

00:33:04.080 --> 00:33:05.490
Even if you pour the water,

00:33:05.490 --> 00:33:07.110
it will not infiltrate into the soil

00:33:07.110 --> 00:33:10.020
because it has formed a
layer, a chemical layer,

00:33:10.020 --> 00:33:12.690
which acts as a cement,
so it will not infiltrate.

00:33:12.690 --> 00:33:13.680
- 'Cause all the water

00:33:13.680 --> 00:33:17.370
that should have been in
those in-soil reservoirs

00:33:17.370 --> 00:33:19.710
has rushed off in a flood peak

00:33:19.710 --> 00:33:23.343
and we're almost by
dictate back to drought.

00:33:24.960 --> 00:33:29.940
As we aridify our climates, by design,

00:33:29.940 --> 00:33:34.725
we create the probability
of fires under dry periods.

00:33:34.725 --> 00:33:37.392
[solemn instrumental music]

00:33:38.670 --> 00:33:43.670
Fires need fuel, and it can
only burn when it's dry.

00:33:44.850 --> 00:33:47.970
If the soil is wet, the
grassland is wet, green,

00:33:47.970 --> 00:33:49.051
it doesn't burn.

00:33:50.301 --> 00:33:53.801
[music continues]

00:33:55.633 --> 00:33:57.390
- [John] I was introduced to Linda Gibbs,

00:33:57.390 --> 00:34:01.290
who watched her house in
Malibu burn on television news

00:34:01.290 --> 00:34:05.603
during the Woolsey fire
on November 8th, 2018.

00:34:07.980 --> 00:34:12.333
Then, a few days later, her
son managed to visit the ruins.

00:34:15.540 --> 00:34:18.330
- [Linda's Son] Major's
house, Brennen's house,

00:34:18.330 --> 00:34:21.173
the other house.

00:34:21.173 --> 00:34:24.215
Active fire from stoves, from gas lines.

00:34:28.950 --> 00:34:31.563
The f**kin' studio, are you kidding me!

00:34:35.400 --> 00:34:37.020
- [John] Their studio was spared

00:34:37.020 --> 00:34:40.680
because it was surrounded by
Linda's well-nurtured garden,

00:34:40.680 --> 00:34:42.753
with soil that held the water.

00:34:44.280 --> 00:34:49.280
- Keeping the sponge, we
retain more water in the soil.

00:34:49.380 --> 00:34:53.040
We have more water for trees to take up

00:34:53.040 --> 00:34:58.040
to stay moist for longer so
they're not vulnerable to fire,

00:34:59.010 --> 00:35:04.010
but also we provide
more water for the fungi

00:35:04.230 --> 00:35:06.150
that exist in these forests

00:35:06.150 --> 00:35:11.150
that are the natural agent
for breaking down dead fuel.

00:35:12.707 --> 00:35:15.457
[insects chirping]

00:35:22.590 --> 00:35:26.040
- [John] Fires aren't just
the result of global warming.

00:35:26.040 --> 00:35:29.070
They are a significant
cause of the problem.

00:35:29.070 --> 00:35:30.210
Remember in Vermont,

00:35:30.210 --> 00:35:34.680
we saw those beautiful humid
hazes that warm the air?

00:35:34.680 --> 00:35:36.153
Here's an ugly version.

00:35:37.710 --> 00:35:42.710
- [Walter] Every year we burn
400 million hectares of forest

00:35:43.372 --> 00:35:47.917
and over two billion hectares
of grassland, and those fires

00:35:47.917 --> 00:35:51.326
are putting up carbon
particulates into the air,

00:35:51.326 --> 00:35:54.090
and they serve as aerosols.

00:35:54.090 --> 00:35:59.090
Every year, we burn eight
billion tons of fossil fuels

00:36:00.300 --> 00:36:04.133
in our industrial ecology,
so the aerosol load

00:36:05.190 --> 00:36:08.400
that we have put into the
atmosphere is immense.

00:36:08.400 --> 00:36:10.410
And of course, the humid haze

00:36:10.410 --> 00:36:12.540
that results from that is immense.

00:36:12.540 --> 00:36:16.020
From Cairo to Beijing,

00:36:16.020 --> 00:36:20.340
we now have the Asian toxic brown haze

00:36:20.340 --> 00:36:22.413
that's basically persisting,

00:36:23.670 --> 00:36:25.650
aridifying the country underneath

00:36:25.650 --> 00:36:29.010
and causing people
immense health problems,

00:36:29.010 --> 00:36:31.353
emphysema and other crises.

00:36:40.890 --> 00:36:44.100
- [John] To reduce these
hazes, the burning of forests,

00:36:44.100 --> 00:36:48.235
crop residues, waste, and
in particular fossil fuels,

00:36:48.235 --> 00:36:50.095
must be reduced.

00:36:51.240 --> 00:36:52.860
So as you watch this film

00:36:52.860 --> 00:36:55.290
and learn the many ecological solutions

00:36:55.290 --> 00:36:56.940
to the climate crisis,

00:36:56.940 --> 00:36:59.670
don't for a moment think
that excessive burning

00:36:59.670 --> 00:37:03.270
of fossil fuels isn't a
big part of the problem.

00:37:03.270 --> 00:37:06.020
[water bubbling]

00:37:09.390 --> 00:37:12.270
To confuse myself even
further about water,

00:37:12.270 --> 00:37:13.950
I talked with Gerald Pollack,

00:37:13.950 --> 00:37:16.860
who explores water at the molecular level

00:37:16.860 --> 00:37:21.360
and has identified what he
calls a fourth phase of water.

00:37:21.360 --> 00:37:26.100
- The water gets transformed
from the ordinary H2O molecules

00:37:26.100 --> 00:37:28.740
into something that's actually ordered,

00:37:28.740 --> 00:37:30.690
and that's what we call fourth phase.

00:37:30.690 --> 00:37:32.940
- [John] We see this fourth phase

00:37:32.940 --> 00:37:34.844
as the surface of this pond

00:37:36.420 --> 00:37:38.673
or the shell of these drops.

00:37:40.470 --> 00:37:45.270
The fourth phase is a
lattice of H3O2 molecules

00:37:45.270 --> 00:37:48.183
which have excluded the hydrogen ions.

00:37:50.400 --> 00:37:53.580
My conversation with Gerald
Pollack got me thinking

00:37:53.580 --> 00:37:56.343
about how little we know about water.

00:37:57.240 --> 00:38:00.810
- Scientists have had a proclivity

00:38:00.810 --> 00:38:04.050
to stay away from the subject of water.

00:38:04.050 --> 00:38:06.238
And the reason is that there have been

00:38:06.238 --> 00:38:09.682
some scientific debacles
that have taken place

00:38:09.682 --> 00:38:14.218
over the past 50 or so, 60 years,

00:38:14.218 --> 00:38:18.150
that have been most embarrassing
to famous scientists.

00:38:18.150 --> 00:38:21.480
Two of them practically
lost their careers.

00:38:21.480 --> 00:38:23.760
- [John] So Gerald Pollack
knows he is heading

00:38:23.760 --> 00:38:25.535
into dangerous water.

00:38:26.643 --> 00:38:27.760
But he knows, too,

00:38:27.760 --> 00:38:31.530
that despite the tremendous
pressure to conform in science,

00:38:31.530 --> 00:38:33.990
the only real scientific
breakthroughs come

00:38:33.990 --> 00:38:36.561
when one breaks through peer pressure.

00:38:36.561 --> 00:38:38.368
[wood splintering]
[water splashing]

00:38:38.368 --> 00:38:40.145
- Once you realize that the water can have

00:38:40.145 --> 00:38:41.970
an ordered state and a disordered state,

00:38:41.970 --> 00:38:44.340
and with vastly different
physical properties,

00:38:44.340 --> 00:38:45.780
so many things become possible

00:38:45.780 --> 00:38:48.870
because if you never consider it,

00:38:48.870 --> 00:38:52.200
you may miss a critical point.

00:38:52.200 --> 00:38:55.470
I see bankrupt ideas
that people just cling to

00:38:55.470 --> 00:39:00.000
because it's the tradition
to cling to them.

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:02.880
Very few scientists are, shall we say,

00:39:02.880 --> 00:39:06.120
crazy enough to challenge the
establishment point of view,

00:39:06.120 --> 00:39:08.988
and when you don't challenge
the establishment point of view

00:39:08.988 --> 00:39:10.179
you don't get revolutions.

00:39:10.179 --> 00:39:11.403
And we need them.

00:39:11.403 --> 00:39:13.595
[crows cawing]

00:39:13.595 --> 00:39:15.361
How come the cloud stays up?

00:39:16.590 --> 00:39:18.740
Right? You never thought about that.

00:39:20.610 --> 00:39:23.730
- [John] So this is blowing
my mind a little bit,

00:39:23.730 --> 00:39:25.618
but that's good.

00:39:25.618 --> 00:39:28.651
- Only a little bit,
that's not good [laughs].

00:39:31.714 --> 00:39:34.297
[gentle piano music]

00:39:40.058 --> 00:39:42.900
[music continues]

00:39:47.160 --> 00:39:48.300
- [John] So how come the Earth

00:39:48.300 --> 00:39:51.183
has a temperature
beautifully suited for life?

00:39:52.230 --> 00:39:55.590
It's because life, the vast biodiversity

00:39:55.590 --> 00:39:59.040
that exists on the planet,
cycles shapeshifting

00:39:59.040 --> 00:40:02.700
and energy-transporting water
through the soil and trees,

00:40:02.700 --> 00:40:07.290
through the atmosphere and back
again, warming and cooling,

00:40:07.290 --> 00:40:11.373
creating its own moist,
temperature-controlled space.

00:40:12.360 --> 00:40:15.420
Earth wouldn't have a
temperature suited for life

00:40:15.420 --> 00:40:18.035
if it didn't have life cycling water.

00:40:18.943 --> 00:40:22.651
[music continues]

00:40:27.044 --> 00:40:29.877
[birds chirping]

00:40:37.198 --> 00:40:40.650
- The water and living
landscapes narrative,

00:40:40.650 --> 00:40:44.730
the soil health narrative, is invaluable.

00:40:44.730 --> 00:40:48.810
So being able to build a
movement that is bipartisan

00:40:48.810 --> 00:40:50.310
in which people who are disagreeing

00:40:50.310 --> 00:40:52.770
about lots of other things can say,

00:40:52.770 --> 00:40:57.770
"I want a landscape
that helps my community

00:40:58.620 --> 00:41:02.370
"and communities around
the world have clean water,

00:41:02.370 --> 00:41:07.370
"reduce flooding, be resilient
to drought, have enough food,

00:41:08.040 --> 00:41:11.340
"have fewer conflicts over land and water,

00:41:11.340 --> 00:41:15.723
"have the beauty of diversity,
diverse life," all of that,

00:41:17.220 --> 00:41:18.920
who can disagree with that, right?

00:41:20.442 --> 00:41:25.442
[gentle piano music]
[birds chirping]

00:41:31.643 --> 00:41:35.143
[music continues]

00:41:42.136 --> 00:41:45.528
[dramatic piano music]

00:41:57.600 --> 00:42:00.450
- The challenge in climate change

00:42:00.450 --> 00:42:05.450
is to rebuild the buffering,
is to rebuild the resilience

00:42:05.460 --> 00:42:09.450
and capacity of biosystems
to sustain themselves.

00:42:09.450 --> 00:42:10.920
- [John] It was Walter's challenge

00:42:10.920 --> 00:42:13.560
that got me thinking
about the next question.

00:42:13.560 --> 00:42:15.993
How does life sustain itself?

00:42:16.830 --> 00:42:19.080
- Life is a process.

00:42:19.080 --> 00:42:21.750
It is the self-making process,

00:42:21.750 --> 00:42:24.720
where components from the
environment are taken in

00:42:24.720 --> 00:42:28.080
and moved around and changed
chemically to do what?

00:42:28.080 --> 00:42:28.913
To make more.

00:42:28.913 --> 00:42:29.746
Why?

00:42:29.746 --> 00:42:30.588
To make more.

00:42:30.588 --> 00:42:31.421
Why?

00:42:31.421 --> 00:42:32.312
To make more.

00:42:32.312 --> 00:42:36.895
Life is always expanding,
always making more of itself.

00:42:38.370 --> 00:42:40.020
- [John] Life sustains itself

00:42:40.020 --> 00:42:44.370
by continuously remaking
itself and all its parts.

00:42:44.370 --> 00:42:48.979
It does this by cycling through
itself matter and energy.

00:42:48.979 --> 00:42:51.646
[gentle instrumental music]

00:42:54.570 --> 00:42:57.960
I think of this as my 67-year-old hand,

00:42:57.960 --> 00:43:01.050
but this is not the same
skin I had a month ago.

00:43:01.050 --> 00:43:02.430
And the bones in my hand

00:43:02.430 --> 00:43:05.313
aren't the same ones I
had, say, 10 years ago.

00:43:06.270 --> 00:43:09.510
Which is to say, my
structure remains the same

00:43:09.510 --> 00:43:12.003
while the energy and
matter flow through me.

00:43:12.960 --> 00:43:14.850
So where do the energy and matter

00:43:14.850 --> 00:43:17.700
that flow through living
systems come from,

00:43:17.700 --> 00:43:19.552
and where do they go?

00:43:19.552 --> 00:43:22.410
[music continues]

00:43:23.820 --> 00:43:25.830
- Photosynthesis is this place

00:43:25.830 --> 00:43:28.486
where heaven and earth
come together, right?

00:43:29.328 --> 00:43:32.320
[music continues]

00:43:34.097 --> 00:43:39.097
- What life does is capture
and accumulate solar energy.

00:43:40.890 --> 00:43:45.000
And the way it does that
is through photosynthesis

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.890
and recycling of the energy

00:43:49.890 --> 00:43:53.010
that's captured through photosynthesis.

00:43:53.010 --> 00:43:57.003
And that's the energy that
fuels all the processes of life.

00:43:58.230 --> 00:44:00.180
- [Announcer] The energy
that Junior gets from milk

00:44:00.180 --> 00:44:03.505
was in a contented cow 24 hours ago.

00:44:03.505 --> 00:44:07.290
And 24 hours before that, the
same energy was in clover,

00:44:07.290 --> 00:44:09.000
which had absorbed it from sunlight

00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:11.580
that had come 93 million
miles in eight minutes

00:44:11.580 --> 00:44:13.485
from the surface of the Sun.

00:44:15.452 --> 00:44:18.035
[gentle instrumental music]

00:44:25.208 --> 00:44:28.058
[gentle music continues]

00:44:32.340 --> 00:44:34.574
- [John] It seems natural
to think that the matter

00:44:34.574 --> 00:44:37.619
that makes up this field
of barley and this tree

00:44:37.619 --> 00:44:40.170
comes from the soil, but no.

00:44:40.170 --> 00:44:41.220
- People look at trees

00:44:41.220 --> 00:44:43.290
and they think it comes out of the ground,

00:44:43.290 --> 00:44:44.850
that plants grow out of the ground.

00:44:44.850 --> 00:44:47.640
But if you ask where
the substance comes from

00:44:47.640 --> 00:44:49.710
you find out, where do they come from?

00:44:49.710 --> 00:44:51.840
"The trees come outta the air?"

00:44:51.840 --> 00:44:52.959
"They surely come outta the..."

00:44:52.959 --> 00:44:54.960
No, they come out of the air.

00:44:54.960 --> 00:44:58.080
The carbon dioxide in the
air goes into the tree

00:44:58.080 --> 00:45:00.490
and it changes it, kicking out the oxygen

00:45:01.860 --> 00:45:04.830
and pushing the oxygen
away from the carbon

00:45:04.830 --> 00:45:07.890
and leaving the carbon
substance with water.

00:45:07.890 --> 00:45:10.080
Water comes out of the ground, you see,

00:45:10.080 --> 00:45:11.400
only how did it get in there?

00:45:11.400 --> 00:45:12.660
It came out of the air, didn't it?

00:45:12.660 --> 00:45:14.483
It came down from the sky.

00:45:16.291 --> 00:45:19.982
[gentle instrumental music]

00:45:28.050 --> 00:45:30.090
- [John] Water and carbon dioxide

00:45:30.090 --> 00:45:32.403
are the two miracle molecules.

00:45:33.750 --> 00:45:37.347
Plants take water and carbon dioxide,

00:45:37.347 --> 00:45:41.213
and use energy from the sun to change them

00:45:41.213 --> 00:45:43.740
into sugars and oxygen.

00:45:43.740 --> 00:45:46.110
Glucose is a basic sugar that is used

00:45:46.110 --> 00:45:47.643
in this simplified equation.

00:45:48.600 --> 00:45:53.163
These sugars store solar
energy and become food.

00:45:56.370 --> 00:45:58.980
- The plant makes itself first,

00:45:58.980 --> 00:46:03.030
and then through the
infrastructure of its own body

00:46:03.030 --> 00:46:08.030
it sends those sugars down into
the soil to feed other life.

00:46:08.850 --> 00:46:11.550
And then it also feeds life above ground

00:46:11.550 --> 00:46:13.473
through its own self.

00:46:14.340 --> 00:46:17.173
[grass crunching]

00:46:19.770 --> 00:46:21.300
- [John] Sometimes you hear people say

00:46:21.300 --> 00:46:24.240
that plants are a good
solution to climate change

00:46:24.240 --> 00:46:28.230
because they draw down carbon
and sequester it in the soil.

00:46:28.230 --> 00:46:30.870
At first I was thrilled
to hear this narrative,

00:46:30.870 --> 00:46:33.900
but then I began to notice
that people thought this meant

00:46:33.900 --> 00:46:37.230
that plants take carbon
dioxide gas out of the air

00:46:37.230 --> 00:46:38.940
and send it down to their roots,

00:46:38.940 --> 00:46:41.043
forgetting all about photosynthesis.

00:46:41.970 --> 00:46:44.250
And putting this together
with the popular assumption

00:46:44.250 --> 00:46:47.040
that carbon dioxide is the bad guy,

00:46:47.040 --> 00:46:49.590
somebody came up with the ridiculous idea

00:46:49.590 --> 00:46:51.300
that to solve climate change,

00:46:51.300 --> 00:46:53.790
we need to build great big machines

00:46:53.790 --> 00:46:56.463
that suck carbon dioxide out of the air.

00:46:58.440 --> 00:47:02.130
- But here you see a full-scale
direct air capture plant.

00:47:02.130 --> 00:47:05.100
See, it consists of 12 individual modules

00:47:05.100 --> 00:47:07.937
capturing the CO2 out of the air.

00:47:07.937 --> 00:47:12.066
- [John] That's absurd.
[ominous music]

00:47:12.066 --> 00:47:15.083
[birds chirping]

00:47:15.083 --> 00:47:18.783
- The key piece is that
soil carbon is life,

00:47:18.783 --> 00:47:20.398
life and the results of life.

00:47:20.398 --> 00:47:21.450
"It's the living, the dead,

00:47:21.450 --> 00:47:23.553
"and the very dead," someone has said.

00:47:24.810 --> 00:47:27.570
- [John] The very dead are fossil fuels.

00:47:27.570 --> 00:47:28.770
Which brings me around

00:47:28.770 --> 00:47:32.070
to the second half of the
carbon cycle, combustion.

00:47:32.070 --> 00:47:33.960
The trunks of these trees are made

00:47:33.960 --> 00:47:36.120
from the carbohydrate cellulose,

00:47:36.120 --> 00:47:39.930
which consists of thousands
of glucose molecules.

00:47:39.930 --> 00:47:42.720
This tree stores a lot of energy.

00:47:42.720 --> 00:47:46.290
It is that energy which is
warming me up this morning.

00:47:46.290 --> 00:47:49.443
The heat is released through
the process of combustion.

00:47:50.580 --> 00:47:52.620
That smoke coming out of my chimney?

00:47:52.620 --> 00:47:54.570
Sure, it contains aerosols,

00:47:54.570 --> 00:47:57.240
but it's mostly water and carbon dioxide,

00:47:57.240 --> 00:48:00.420
the constituents from
which the log was made.

00:48:00.420 --> 00:48:03.480
The basic unbalanced
equation for combustion,

00:48:03.480 --> 00:48:06.240
again using glucose as our simple sugar,

00:48:06.240 --> 00:48:10.290
is glucose plus oxygen releases energy

00:48:10.290 --> 00:48:13.233
and delivers water and carbon dioxide.

00:48:15.240 --> 00:48:18.600
What's astounding is that
this process, combustion,

00:48:18.600 --> 00:48:23.190
is happening in our bodies as
we use the oxygen we inhale

00:48:23.190 --> 00:48:26.220
to burn our food and release energy,

00:48:26.220 --> 00:48:28.323
water and carbon dioxide.

00:48:29.160 --> 00:48:32.490
The carbon dioxide gas
that you or I exhale

00:48:32.490 --> 00:48:36.270
goes into the atmosphere and
may one day be used by a plant

00:48:36.270 --> 00:48:39.479
to make a vegetable that
ends up in a market in India.

00:48:39.479 --> 00:48:42.793
[crowd chattering]
[gentle piano music]

00:48:44.310 --> 00:48:46.733
Everything cycles.

00:48:50.880 --> 00:48:54.480
The two equations,
photosynthesis and combustion,

00:48:54.480 --> 00:48:56.358
are the opposites of one another.

00:48:57.658 --> 00:49:00.016
[music continues]

00:49:01.830 --> 00:49:06.180
This cycle of life helps us
conceptualize how carbon,

00:49:06.180 --> 00:49:10.440
hydrogen and oxygen are used and reused,

00:49:10.440 --> 00:49:13.357
while energy comes in and goes out.

00:49:26.280 --> 00:49:28.650
In order to walk, we use the energy

00:49:28.650 --> 00:49:30.390
that was stored in our food

00:49:30.390 --> 00:49:33.003
and then release it as
heat from our bodies.

00:49:35.280 --> 00:49:39.030
That heat eventually
makes it to outer space.

00:49:42.990 --> 00:49:45.900
Walter Jehne explained to
me that the entire planet

00:49:45.900 --> 00:49:47.520
has an energy balance.

00:49:47.520 --> 00:49:50.310
When things are working,
the same amount comes in

00:49:50.310 --> 00:49:52.356
as goes out.

00:49:52.356 --> 00:49:55.694
- Okay, we have a planet, we have a sun,

00:49:55.694 --> 00:50:00.398
and it's bringing in 342
watts per square meter

00:50:00.398 --> 00:50:03.973
of incident solar radiation on average,

00:50:03.973 --> 00:50:06.210
continually, into the Earth.

00:50:06.210 --> 00:50:08.970
And for the Earth to maintain
a stable temperature,

00:50:08.970 --> 00:50:11.940
it's obviously gotta
re-radiate or transmit

00:50:11.940 --> 00:50:15.887
or reflect 342 watts going back out.

00:50:15.887 --> 00:50:19.170
[birds chirping]

00:50:19.170 --> 00:50:22.230
- [John] Okay, I know I really
shouldn't confuse the issue,

00:50:22.230 --> 00:50:25.140
but one mind boggling part of this story

00:50:25.140 --> 00:50:27.630
is that the energy coming in as sunlight

00:50:27.630 --> 00:50:31.200
is not the same as the
energy going out as heat.

00:50:31.200 --> 00:50:33.720
The energy going out is less ordered.

00:50:33.720 --> 00:50:37.293
It has more entropy than the
energy that came from the sun.

00:50:38.550 --> 00:50:42.543
And that order, which is left
behind on Earth, is life.

00:50:44.610 --> 00:50:47.610
And this brings me back
to the climate crisis.

00:50:47.610 --> 00:50:51.300
Because humans have destroyed
so much life on Earth,

00:50:51.300 --> 00:50:55.470
so much cooling capacity,
the planet isn't transmitting

00:50:55.470 --> 00:50:59.250
as much energy back out
to space as it once did.

00:50:59.250 --> 00:51:04.250
- Instead of transmitting
342 watts per square meter,

00:51:04.260 --> 00:51:09.135
we are now transmitting
339 watts per square meter

00:51:09.135 --> 00:51:13.500
back to space, and retaining
an additional three.

00:51:13.500 --> 00:51:15.660
And it's that additional three watts

00:51:15.660 --> 00:51:19.770
that is warming the climate dangerously.

00:51:19.770 --> 00:51:21.300
But keep it in proportion.

00:51:21.300 --> 00:51:25.980
It's less than 1% of the
incident solar radiation,

00:51:25.980 --> 00:51:28.590
and nature had the tools

00:51:28.590 --> 00:51:31.167
to reestablish that natural heat balance

00:51:31.167 --> 00:51:33.995
and the global heat budget.

00:51:33.995 --> 00:51:37.200
[birds chirping]

00:51:37.200 --> 00:51:39.645
- [John] This deer and I
stood looking at each other

00:51:39.645 --> 00:51:41.370
for a long time.

00:51:41.370 --> 00:51:43.245
The matter that makes up this deer

00:51:43.245 --> 00:51:45.330
comes from the plants it eats.

00:51:45.330 --> 00:51:48.990
Like us, the deer also
needs mineral nutrients.

00:51:48.990 --> 00:51:51.780
It gets these from the plants as well.

00:51:51.780 --> 00:51:55.680
The plants got them from
the soil microorganisms.

00:51:55.680 --> 00:52:00.390
- 30% of the food manufactured by a plant

00:52:00.390 --> 00:52:02.283
is being exuded into the soil.

00:52:03.210 --> 00:52:06.570
And that is food for the soil microbes,

00:52:06.570 --> 00:52:10.800
the bacteria, the fungi,
the nematodes, protozoa,

00:52:10.800 --> 00:52:14.043
arthropods, all the way
up to the earthworms.

00:52:15.240 --> 00:52:19.180
And in exchange, they
are providing the plant

00:52:20.040 --> 00:52:22.440
all the nutrients that a plant requires

00:52:22.440 --> 00:52:24.180
in a bioavailable form.

00:52:24.180 --> 00:52:29.180
So there's nitrogen, potassium,
phosphorous, sulfur, boron.

00:52:30.150 --> 00:52:32.913
So this is coming to us
through a biological route.

00:52:34.170 --> 00:52:36.900
- [Cynthia] That's the kind
of biology we wanna see.

00:52:36.900 --> 00:52:40.239
Lots of worms, lots of worms.

00:52:40.239 --> 00:52:42.180
And as they consume nutrients,

00:52:42.180 --> 00:52:44.340
what comes out the other
end in worm castings

00:52:44.340 --> 00:52:46.923
is actually more
bioavailable to the plants.

00:52:47.880 --> 00:52:50.610
Phosphorus, for example, is
seven times more bioavailable

00:52:50.610 --> 00:52:53.763
to the plant after its
been through an earthworm.

00:52:55.200 --> 00:52:58.560
- [John] Originally, these
nutrients, except nitrogen,

00:52:58.560 --> 00:53:01.563
came from the weathering
and breakdown of rocks.

00:53:02.400 --> 00:53:05.550
Nitrogen is essential for all organisms,

00:53:05.550 --> 00:53:09.600
but even though it makes
up over 75% of the air,

00:53:09.600 --> 00:53:13.043
only certain bacteria can
get it out of the air.

00:53:13.043 --> 00:53:16.740
- This is red clover, it's a legume,

00:53:16.740 --> 00:53:18.420
and the legumes have a symbiosis

00:53:18.420 --> 00:53:21.840
with bacteria in their roots,
which we're gonna see now.

00:53:21.840 --> 00:53:24.483
And if you look here now,
we take some out.

00:53:29.580 --> 00:53:32.130
See these little nodules on the roots?

00:53:32.130 --> 00:53:34.500
These little round things right here?

00:53:34.500 --> 00:53:35.970
That's the rhizobia bacteria.

00:53:35.970 --> 00:53:38.040
See these little round nodules?

00:53:38.040 --> 00:53:38.873
- [John] Oh, yeah.

00:53:38.873 --> 00:53:41.220
- [Steffen] So that's
the rhizobia bacteria,

00:53:41.220 --> 00:53:44.640
they live in symbiosis with these legumes.

00:53:44.640 --> 00:53:48.600
And those bacteria can get
nitrogen out of the air,

00:53:48.600 --> 00:53:49.593
into the soil.

00:53:51.540 --> 00:53:52.948
- [John] Once in the soil,

00:53:52.948 --> 00:53:55.260
nitrogen and the other essential elements

00:53:55.260 --> 00:53:59.610
enter living systems and
are cycled and recycled.

00:53:59.610 --> 00:54:01.230
So when the deer poops,

00:54:01.230 --> 00:54:04.293
the nutrients are
recycled back to the soil.

00:54:06.360 --> 00:54:09.450
Here's a beautiful moment I
stumbled across in the woods,

00:54:09.450 --> 00:54:12.720
fungal hyphae decomposing
and extracting nutrients

00:54:12.720 --> 00:54:14.518
from a pile of deer poop.

00:54:14.518 --> 00:54:17.351
[birds chirping]

00:54:19.560 --> 00:54:22.590
- You figure, a cow is
putting out 50 pounds

00:54:22.590 --> 00:54:25.110
of nutrients every day.

00:54:25.110 --> 00:54:25.980
A buffalo would put out

00:54:25.980 --> 00:54:27.840
maybe 100 pounds of nutrients every day.

00:54:27.840 --> 00:54:31.710
We had 60 million of 'em
roaming around the west,

00:54:31.710 --> 00:54:33.510
and then we had zero.

00:54:33.510 --> 00:54:35.220
Why did the land start to die?

00:54:35.220 --> 00:54:37.500
We didn't have all that poop.

00:54:37.500 --> 00:54:38.880
Dung beetles would follow the herds.

00:54:38.880 --> 00:54:41.370
There'd be probably a
thousand dung beetles

00:54:41.370 --> 00:54:44.457
for every clop of buffalo [laughs].

00:54:45.360 --> 00:54:49.260
Dung beetles would bury
all that stuff within days.

00:54:49.260 --> 00:54:51.060
Because they were rolling
it into tiny balls,

00:54:51.060 --> 00:54:54.000
it was drying out so the
flies couldn't use it,

00:54:54.000 --> 00:54:55.980
and they would bury it two or
three feet into the ground,

00:54:55.980 --> 00:55:00.213
and the fungi go crazy and
the regrowth is just amazing.

00:55:01.710 --> 00:55:02.760
- [John] Here's a timelapse

00:55:02.760 --> 00:55:05.492
of Pilobolus fungi spore capsules

00:55:05.492 --> 00:55:07.765
growing on a pile of horse poop.

00:55:09.632 --> 00:55:13.032
[gentle instrumental music]

00:55:24.480 --> 00:55:28.170
- Well, it's actually
quite exquisite because

00:55:28.170 --> 00:55:29.633
trees can produce leaves

00:55:29.633 --> 00:55:32.490
without much loss to them whatsoever.

00:55:32.490 --> 00:55:34.140
I mean, it's no issue.

00:55:34.140 --> 00:55:36.540
But if they have insects eating the leaves

00:55:36.540 --> 00:55:39.540
and turning those leaves into dung,

00:55:39.540 --> 00:55:43.170
it's raining nutrients
down onto the forest floor

00:55:43.170 --> 00:55:45.630
that accelerates the
breakdown of the litter,

00:55:45.630 --> 00:55:47.460
helping to cycle the nutrients

00:55:47.460 --> 00:55:49.950
that would otherwise be
locked up in the litter.

00:55:49.950 --> 00:55:51.826
- [John] These leaves have
been eaten by insects.

00:55:51.826 --> 00:55:52.892
- Insects.

00:55:52.892 --> 00:55:55.620
- [John] And this is
beneficial to the tree.

00:55:55.620 --> 00:55:58.380
- This is exquisitely essential

00:55:58.380 --> 00:56:00.990
to the ecology and health of this thing.

00:56:00.990 --> 00:56:05.520
The forest is almost
intelligently farming insects

00:56:05.520 --> 00:56:08.580
to drive its own nutrient dynamics.

00:56:08.580 --> 00:56:12.540
- So the point is that the waste of one

00:56:12.540 --> 00:56:13.950
is the food of the other,

00:56:13.950 --> 00:56:16.110
and that's how the ecosystem goes around.

00:56:16.110 --> 00:56:17.880
- Yeah, nice and warm.

00:56:17.880 --> 00:56:20.269
- [John] This is a pile
of composted cow dung.

00:56:20.269 --> 00:56:22.260
- Put your hand here and
you feel some real warmth.

00:56:22.260 --> 00:56:24.120
Oh yeah, you can feel some heat.

00:56:24.120 --> 00:56:25.230
- [John] Oh my God.
- [Steffen] Yeah.

00:56:25.230 --> 00:56:26.550
- [John] So what's going on in there?

00:56:26.550 --> 00:56:29.010
- You know, bacteria
stabilizing the material,

00:56:29.010 --> 00:56:31.383
nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium.

00:56:34.110 --> 00:56:37.530
Yeah, it's a miracle that
from that clover field we saw,

00:56:37.530 --> 00:56:41.040
through the belly of a cow, through this,

00:56:41.040 --> 00:56:41.873
back out onto the land,

00:56:41.873 --> 00:56:44.471
and then it becomes a real virtuous cycle.

00:56:45.960 --> 00:56:47.850
And we really don't feed the crops ever,

00:56:47.850 --> 00:56:50.040
we always feed the soil.

00:56:50.040 --> 00:56:52.918
And then the soil allows
the crops to thrive.

00:56:52.918 --> 00:56:55.751
[birds chirping]

00:56:59.850 --> 00:57:02.730
- [John] A sophisticated
and ecologically sound use

00:57:02.730 --> 00:57:06.240
of animal dung and urine was
Zero Budget Natural Farming

00:57:06.240 --> 00:57:07.713
in Andhra Pradesh, India.

00:57:09.780 --> 00:57:14.010
These farmers are making
balls out of dung, urine,

00:57:14.010 --> 00:57:15.603
pea flower and sugar.

00:57:16.950 --> 00:57:18.173
My wife Sheila asked

00:57:18.173 --> 00:57:20.460
asked if they were
worried about their hands.

00:57:20.460 --> 00:57:24.541
The farmers laughed and said
it was good for their skin.

00:57:24.541 --> 00:57:27.178
- [Commenter] This one is jaggery, sugar.

00:57:27.178 --> 00:57:28.011
- [John] Sugar.

00:57:28.011 --> 00:57:29.760
- [Commenter] And this one is pulse flour.

00:57:29.760 --> 00:57:31.860
- [John] This is the pulse, or pea flour,

00:57:31.860 --> 00:57:33.453
that supplies nitrogen.

00:57:36.360 --> 00:57:40.080
- And most important is a handful of soil.

00:57:40.997 --> 00:57:42.780
Uncontaminated soil.

00:57:42.780 --> 00:57:45.330
- [John] The balls are
allowed to dry and ferment,

00:57:45.330 --> 00:57:47.883
and then they are crushed
and put on the fields.

00:57:50.460 --> 00:57:51.960
The seeds are also coated

00:57:51.960 --> 00:57:54.429
with a similar dung and urine mixture.

00:57:54.429 --> 00:57:57.512
[indistinct chatter]

00:58:02.712 --> 00:58:05.040
As I was filming this, it
suddenly occurred to me

00:58:05.040 --> 00:58:09.360
that birds and mammals
naturally inoculate seeds.

00:58:09.360 --> 00:58:10.803
This is bear poop.

00:58:13.860 --> 00:58:17.880
- [Vijay] And then we put
three inches of mulch.

00:58:17.880 --> 00:58:20.070
- [John] These ecological
farming practices

00:58:20.070 --> 00:58:23.730
are so effective that
Vijay Kumar and his team

00:58:23.730 --> 00:58:27.647
had been able to grow
crops in a drought year.

00:58:33.367 --> 00:58:35.109
- [Sheila] At time of sowing
there was no rainfall?

00:58:35.109 --> 00:58:36.000
- No rainfall.

00:58:36.000 --> 00:58:37.833
- What was the source of water?

00:58:38.790 --> 00:58:41.369
But then we discussed with Walter.

00:58:41.369 --> 00:58:44.644
We were really lucky to
get in touch with him,

00:58:44.644 --> 00:58:46.202
and he was very excited.

00:58:46.202 --> 00:58:49.590
His analysis is that
germination had happened

00:58:49.590 --> 00:58:53.523
because of the bioinoculum,
the biostimulant.

00:58:54.960 --> 00:58:57.333
When it oxidizes, it is releasing water.

00:58:58.290 --> 00:58:59.256
It's not too much water,

00:58:59.256 --> 00:59:02.790
but it is enough to enable
germination to happen.

00:59:02.790 --> 00:59:06.120
The microclimate created
by the transpiration

00:59:06.120 --> 00:59:08.970
from the leaves, that cooling effect

00:59:08.970 --> 00:59:11.673
is actually collecting
moisture in the air.

00:59:15.720 --> 00:59:18.150
- [John] These farmers are
solving the climate crisis

00:59:18.150 --> 00:59:21.390
and feeding their community
using the natural processes

00:59:21.390 --> 00:59:23.796
of dung, urine and soil.

00:59:23.796 --> 00:59:28.796
[sack rustling]
[indistinct chatter]

00:59:31.710 --> 00:59:34.200
After Sheila and I said
goodbye to the farmers,

00:59:34.200 --> 00:59:36.660
we went home and I began to study the soil

00:59:36.660 --> 00:59:38.400
around my studio in New York.

00:59:40.083 --> 00:59:43.516
[gentle instrumental music]

00:59:51.221 --> 00:59:54.546
[music continues]
[birds chirping]

00:59:56.700 --> 01:00:00.480
I used to think that the
mushroom was the whole organism,

01:00:00.480 --> 01:00:03.150
but the mushroom is the fruiting body,

01:00:03.150 --> 01:00:04.563
like an apple on a tree.

01:00:05.640 --> 01:00:08.643
The bulk of the fungi is underground.

01:00:10.200 --> 01:00:11.820
The fungi is a network

01:00:11.820 --> 01:00:15.450
of extremely small tubes called hyphae.

01:00:15.450 --> 01:00:17.883
Collectively, they form mycelium.

01:00:18.990 --> 01:00:21.240
It's hard to get your head around it,

01:00:21.240 --> 01:00:24.873
but this network of tubes is the organism.

01:00:28.440 --> 01:00:31.526
The fungal hyphae form
a symbiosis with plants

01:00:31.526 --> 01:00:33.150
called mycorrhizae,

01:00:33.150 --> 01:00:36.210
and this symbiotic network provides water

01:00:36.210 --> 01:00:38.463
and nutrients to the plants.

01:00:41.670 --> 01:00:46.230
- They act as this incredible
highway that shares nutrients

01:00:46.230 --> 01:00:48.720
and minerals and messages
between the plants

01:00:48.720 --> 01:00:50.100
through that underground network.

01:00:50.100 --> 01:00:51.903
We're kind of obsessed with fungus.

01:00:52.920 --> 01:00:54.300
So in addition to the fungi

01:00:54.300 --> 01:00:56.820
that are coming out of
the forest into our field,

01:00:56.820 --> 01:01:00.960
we are intentionally inoculating
some edible mushroom spawn

01:01:00.960 --> 01:01:02.381
into the woodchip beds.

01:01:03.498 --> 01:01:06.481
[music continues]
[indistinct chatter]

01:01:07.980 --> 01:01:11.001
- [John] Here's a timelapse
of mycelium growing.

01:01:12.968 --> 01:01:16.385
[music continues]

01:01:23.460 --> 01:01:26.340
Healthy soil is teeming with life.

01:01:26.340 --> 01:01:28.140
In order to see this life,

01:01:28.140 --> 01:01:31.200
I visited my friend
Rubén Duro in Barcelona

01:01:31.200 --> 01:01:34.860
and asked him to give me a tour
of the critters in the soil,

01:01:34.860 --> 01:01:37.173
getting smaller and smaller as we go.

01:01:38.070 --> 01:01:40.636
Some you can see with the naked eye.

01:01:42.219 --> 01:01:45.536
[music continues]

01:01:55.980 --> 01:01:59.660
The next level smaller
requires an optical microscope.

01:02:01.227 --> 01:02:04.644
[music continues]

01:02:17.023 --> 01:02:20.440
[music continues]

01:02:35.006 --> 01:02:38.423
[music continues]

01:02:50.940 --> 01:02:52.440
To look smaller still,

01:02:52.440 --> 01:02:55.593
Rubén used oil immersion
microscope techniques.

01:02:57.228 --> 01:03:01.028
[Rubén speaking in Spanish]

01:03:09.900 --> 01:03:13.233
- [John] Here are bacteria
surrounding a tiny bit of soil.

01:03:15.090 --> 01:03:19.040
And then Rubén showed me bacteria
colonizing fungal hyphae.

01:03:19.973 --> 01:03:22.540
[music continues]

01:03:23.490 --> 01:03:26.700
Bacteria, along with
fungi and other microbes,

01:03:26.700 --> 01:03:30.041
work together to decompose and recycle.

01:03:31.133 --> 01:03:33.525
[music continues]

01:03:35.520 --> 01:03:39.663
- These communities are
recycling everything.

01:03:40.800 --> 01:03:43.803
- [John] Lynn Margulis is
looking at colonies of bacteria.

01:03:45.360 --> 01:03:47.790
- You never throw anything out.

01:03:47.790 --> 01:03:48.900
It goes around.

01:03:48.900 --> 01:03:51.510
Garbage doesn't go out, like, out.

01:03:51.510 --> 01:03:53.160
It goes around and around.

01:03:53.160 --> 01:03:55.380
So these bacteria have solved that issue.

01:03:55.380 --> 01:03:57.240
People haven't solved it at all.

01:03:57.240 --> 01:04:00.600
People are in the growing
stage and the ruining stage.

01:04:00.600 --> 01:04:03.270
People are ruining their environment.

01:04:03.270 --> 01:04:06.540
These bacteria are producing
an environment that's livable.

01:04:06.540 --> 01:04:08.690
So I think we have lots
to learn from them.

01:04:11.250 --> 01:04:14.403
- Soil has life, and soil
is the source of life.

01:04:15.270 --> 01:04:17.370
You only need to take care of the soil.

01:04:17.370 --> 01:04:19.110
The soil take care of your food,

01:04:19.110 --> 01:04:21.390
your trees, your houses, your clothes.

01:04:21.390 --> 01:04:24.330
If you want to solve the
problem of climate change,

01:04:24.330 --> 01:04:27.870
you don't need any technology,
you don't need anything else.

01:04:27.870 --> 01:04:29.463
You just take care of the soil.

01:04:32.456 --> 01:04:35.739
[wistful string music]

01:04:47.760 --> 01:04:49.920
- [John] These hills on the Pacific Coast

01:04:49.920 --> 01:04:52.170
were once covered in forests

01:04:52.170 --> 01:04:55.110
and home to the coast Miwok people.

01:04:55.110 --> 01:04:58.362
The trees were used to
build San Francisco.

01:04:59.695 --> 01:05:03.112
[music continues]

01:05:16.002 --> 01:05:19.419
[music continues]

01:05:34.049 --> 01:05:37.466
[music continues]

01:05:52.034 --> 01:05:55.451
[music continues]

01:05:58.050 --> 01:06:02.340
This boreal forest, filmed
by Greenpeace many years ago,

01:06:02.340 --> 01:06:06.060
was an essential part of the
global climate control system.

01:06:06.060 --> 01:06:10.197
- [Walter] We had forests
over most of the land surface

01:06:10.197 --> 01:06:13.989
releasing water, forming
these hydrological cycles

01:06:13.989 --> 01:06:15.420
and cooling.

01:06:15.420 --> 01:06:17.160
And it's these cycles

01:06:17.160 --> 01:06:20.520
that we've actually
disturbed significantly

01:06:20.520 --> 01:06:22.440
through our land management.

01:06:22.440 --> 01:06:26.460
Whereas there were eight billion
hectares of primary forest,

01:06:26.460 --> 01:06:29.820
we've cleared 6.3 billion
hectares of those.

01:06:29.820 --> 01:06:33.990
- [John] So that's 78% of
the Earth's original forests

01:06:33.990 --> 01:06:35.313
that we have destroyed.

01:06:36.630 --> 01:06:39.240
- Some has regenerated as in New England,

01:06:39.240 --> 01:06:42.060
but we have fundamentally changed

01:06:42.060 --> 01:06:44.910
those hydrological dynamics of the planet.

01:06:44.910 --> 01:06:47.700
And that has contributed significantly

01:06:47.700 --> 01:06:52.354
to the changes in its temperature
and its rainfall patterns.

01:06:53.762 --> 01:06:56.512
[ominous instrumental tones]

01:06:58.920 --> 01:07:01.350
- [John] In Britain, Stephan
Harding introduced me

01:07:01.350 --> 01:07:04.533
to this 2,000-year-old yew tree.

01:07:05.970 --> 01:07:07.683
- It was probably planted here,

01:07:08.910 --> 01:07:11.550
but it's possible that it was
part of the original forest.

01:07:11.550 --> 01:07:15.180
It's conceivable it was
part of the original forest.

01:07:15.180 --> 01:07:17.580
And it's conceivable
that it was considered

01:07:17.580 --> 01:07:20.910
to be a very sacred tree.

01:07:20.910 --> 01:07:23.640
Britain is one of the great
deforestation headquarters

01:07:23.640 --> 01:07:24.570
on the planet.

01:07:24.570 --> 01:07:27.753
When I go on the train, you
know, between here and London,

01:07:29.580 --> 01:07:31.680
I find it very hard not to cry.

01:07:31.680 --> 01:07:33.840
When you think what was here before,

01:07:33.840 --> 01:07:37.290
it was mostly oak forest
with meadows here and there

01:07:37.290 --> 01:07:41.190
full of huge, wild cattle called aurochs.

01:07:41.190 --> 01:07:44.790
There were wolves, there were
bears, there were lynxes,

01:07:44.790 --> 01:07:48.300
there were beavers, I
mean, there were eagles.

01:07:48.300 --> 01:07:51.780
The richness and diversity and sacredness

01:07:51.780 --> 01:07:55.830
of the forest that was
here was just mindblowing.

01:07:55.830 --> 01:07:59.010
And gradually, gradually,
gradually over thousands of years,

01:07:59.010 --> 01:08:01.950
that forest was cut down bit by bit,

01:08:01.950 --> 01:08:03.397
and every generation thought,

01:08:03.397 --> 01:08:05.640
"Oh, what we've got now is normal."

01:08:05.640 --> 01:08:08.250
It's called shifting baseline syndrome.

01:08:08.250 --> 01:08:11.250
Every generation degrades
the environment a little bit

01:08:11.250 --> 01:08:12.240
and they think it's normal,

01:08:12.240 --> 01:08:14.070
and the next generation
degrades it a bit more

01:08:14.070 --> 01:08:15.357
and then they think it's normal,

01:08:15.357 --> 01:08:19.495
and you end up with this
kind of absolute disaster.

01:08:20.637 --> 01:08:23.387
[ominous instrumental tones]

01:08:25.080 --> 01:08:28.800
And of course we've exported
this way of dealing with nature

01:08:28.800 --> 01:08:29.760
to the rest of the world.

01:08:29.760 --> 01:08:32.130
Not just the British but
all the Northern Europeans

01:08:32.130 --> 01:08:36.030
who colonized different parts
of the world have exported

01:08:36.030 --> 01:08:39.000
that sort of nature-hating mentality

01:08:39.000 --> 01:08:40.300
to the rest of the planet.

01:08:41.550 --> 01:08:43.980
- [John] When I asked
about the forests of India,

01:08:43.980 --> 01:08:46.440
a former British colony, of course,

01:08:46.440 --> 01:08:49.923
Vijay Kumar told a similar
tale of exploitation.

01:08:51.480 --> 01:08:55.233
- More than 600 years ago,
it was a very good forest.

01:08:56.370 --> 01:08:58.320
- [John] Was most of this
area that we drove through

01:08:58.320 --> 01:08:59.250
to get here?
- [Vijay] Yeah.

01:08:59.250 --> 01:09:00.390
- [John] Was that mostly forest?

01:09:00.390 --> 01:09:04.050
- [Vijay] Yes, this was a very
green area, plenty of water.

01:09:04.050 --> 01:09:07.770
Historically they write about,
you know, a lot of elephants

01:09:07.770 --> 01:09:09.933
and a lot of wildlife in this area.

01:09:10.950 --> 01:09:15.270
So it is the gradual deforestation,

01:09:15.270 --> 01:09:19.860
the, you know, clearing
of forest for crops

01:09:21.360 --> 01:09:24.300
and, you know, commercial deforestation.

01:09:24.300 --> 01:09:27.273
- [John] Was most of
India forest at one time?

01:09:28.110 --> 01:09:30.160
- Whole world.
- [John] The whole world.

01:09:31.836 --> 01:09:35.528
[gentle piano music]
[birds chirping]

01:09:49.007 --> 01:09:54.007
[music continues]
[birds chirping]

01:10:07.230 --> 01:10:10.920
In Rome, I filmed this
beautiful cedar tree,

01:10:10.920 --> 01:10:13.383
one of the legendary Cedars of Lebanon.

01:10:15.090 --> 01:10:18.150
These trees were coveted
for building ships.

01:10:18.150 --> 01:10:22.263
Rumor has it that Noah built
his ark from Cedars of Lebanon.

01:10:23.520 --> 01:10:27.540
Here's one of the last remaining
groves of these cedars.

01:10:27.540 --> 01:10:29.190
Called the Cedars of God,

01:10:29.190 --> 01:10:31.983
it stands in Lebanon at this red dot.

01:10:32.880 --> 01:10:36.690
This vast area, including
the Sahara Desert,

01:10:36.690 --> 01:10:38.910
was once green with savannas,

01:10:38.910 --> 01:10:41.880
woodlands and forest ecosystems.

01:10:41.880 --> 01:10:44.580
There were rivers and lakes and wetlands.

01:10:44.580 --> 01:10:45.930
Getting back to the Sahara.

01:10:45.930 --> 01:10:48.300
- Well, okay, the Sahara's a hard case,

01:10:48.300 --> 01:10:52.560
because it was this
exquisite savanna woodland

01:10:52.560 --> 01:10:55.260
up to about 7,000 years ago.

01:10:55.260 --> 01:10:59.670
We massively overgrazed
it, massively aridified it,

01:10:59.670 --> 01:11:01.530
massively burnt it.

01:11:01.530 --> 01:11:05.160
So, flip back to mineral desert,

01:11:05.160 --> 01:11:06.510
life was extinguished.

01:11:06.510 --> 01:11:08.970
No water, no life.

01:11:08.970 --> 01:11:11.610
- [John] It's hard to
imagine the Sahara Desert

01:11:11.610 --> 01:11:13.503
being anything but a desert.

01:11:14.520 --> 01:11:16.863
Talk about shifting baseline syndrome.

01:11:17.700 --> 01:11:20.310
But prehistoric art does supply evidence

01:11:20.310 --> 01:11:23.073
that it was once a populated, green area.

01:11:25.860 --> 01:11:27.780
Was this desert totally created

01:11:27.780 --> 01:11:30.300
by people's overuse of the land?

01:11:30.300 --> 01:11:32.484
Is this what California will look like?

01:11:33.867 --> 01:11:36.534
[ominous instrumental tones]

01:11:43.860 --> 01:11:45.990
We often hear of large-scale efforts

01:11:45.990 --> 01:11:48.540
to plant trees in the desert,

01:11:48.540 --> 01:11:52.170
but a bunch of trees is
not a forest ecosystem.

01:11:52.170 --> 01:11:55.860
And, generally, most of these trees die.

01:11:55.860 --> 01:11:57.540
- [Tony] It's estimated that in Niger,

01:11:57.540 --> 01:11:59.310
60 million trees were planted

01:11:59.310 --> 01:12:01.560
from nurseries over a 20 year period,

01:12:01.560 --> 01:12:04.680
with less than 20% survival rate.

01:12:04.680 --> 01:12:07.950
- [John] There are ecological
approaches to reforestation.

01:12:07.950 --> 01:12:10.620
One method was developed by Tony Rinaudo,

01:12:10.620 --> 01:12:14.310
who came in 1980 to the
Niger Republic of West Africa

01:12:14.310 --> 01:12:16.620
to assist the farmers.

01:12:16.620 --> 01:12:19.025
He soon discovered that
most of the farmland

01:12:19.025 --> 01:12:20.940
was desertified.

01:12:20.940 --> 01:12:23.940
- And we planted many species of trees

01:12:23.940 --> 01:12:27.450
and we used the best
techniques that were known.

01:12:27.450 --> 01:12:30.390
It was a total failure, the trees died.

01:12:30.390 --> 01:12:33.030
- [John] And then Tony
had a eureka moment.

01:12:33.030 --> 01:12:34.980
- But I was blind,

01:12:34.980 --> 01:12:39.060
because I had not seen what
was there all the time.

01:12:39.060 --> 01:12:42.630
It looks like desert, but
there's trees everywhere.

01:12:42.630 --> 01:12:44.760
They're underground.

01:12:44.760 --> 01:12:47.520
And if we give it the opportunity,

01:12:47.520 --> 01:12:50.010
it will grow back very, very quickly.

01:12:50.010 --> 01:12:55.010
It all starts with simply
pruning these apparent bushes

01:12:55.140 --> 01:12:57.688
that have been there all along [laughs].

01:12:58.622 --> 01:13:01.290
[upbeat percussive music]

01:13:01.290 --> 01:13:04.050
In terms of changing landscapes

01:13:04.050 --> 01:13:07.860
and reversing desertification
and land degradation,

01:13:07.860 --> 01:13:11.523
this can be done on a large
scale very, very quickly.

01:13:13.428 --> 01:13:16.428
[gentle piano music]

01:13:22.680 --> 01:13:25.530
- [John] Tony Rinaudo and the
communities he worked with

01:13:25.530 --> 01:13:28.050
showed that forests can be rebuilt

01:13:28.050 --> 01:13:30.090
from the life that is left,

01:13:30.090 --> 01:13:33.834
because life is constantly
remaking itself.

01:13:35.351 --> 01:13:38.768
[music continues]

01:13:41.700 --> 01:13:44.437
As I talked to people
about repairing the damage

01:13:44.437 --> 01:13:47.310
humans have done to natural systems,

01:13:47.310 --> 01:13:49.500
the conversations inevitably turned

01:13:49.500 --> 01:13:51.633
to the power of biodiversity.

01:13:55.710 --> 01:13:57.930
- The more biodiverse an ecosystem is,

01:13:57.930 --> 01:14:00.420
the better it is at
regulating the climate,

01:14:00.420 --> 01:14:03.390
and those ecological interactions
between all the species

01:14:03.390 --> 01:14:07.560
give the whole ecosystem a
very high level of resilience.

01:14:07.560 --> 01:14:08.790
- So it's really an issue

01:14:08.790 --> 01:14:13.350
of getting our boot off
Mother Nature's throat

01:14:13.350 --> 01:14:16.440
and letting her actually regenerate.

01:14:16.440 --> 01:14:19.050
It's helping her restore

01:14:19.050 --> 01:14:21.960
these natural regenerative processes.

01:14:21.960 --> 01:14:25.110
- The basic principles are
to maximize the recycling

01:14:25.110 --> 01:14:28.290
of water, energy, carbon and nitrogen

01:14:28.290 --> 01:14:30.150
and the other trace elements plants need

01:14:30.150 --> 01:14:32.270
without letting it
flush out of the system.

01:14:32.270 --> 01:14:35.070
[gentle piano music]

01:14:35.070 --> 01:14:37.530
- [John] Tom Goreau and
others have developed methods

01:14:37.530 --> 01:14:40.770
for restoring different
types of ecosystems.

01:14:40.770 --> 01:14:43.920
He's even developed ways
to regenerate coral reefs

01:14:43.920 --> 01:14:45.045
in the ocean.

01:14:46.453 --> 01:14:49.953
[music continues]

01:14:55.554 --> 01:14:58.830
- In the ocean, every major
ecosystem is in collapse.

01:14:58.830 --> 01:15:00.780
So if we don't regenerate

01:15:00.780 --> 01:15:02.940
the net effects of their metabolism,

01:15:02.940 --> 01:15:05.070
we're not going to be able
to regulate Earth's climate

01:15:05.070 --> 01:15:06.093
at a safe level.

01:15:07.265 --> 01:15:09.877
I mean, it is possible to
regenerate every ecosystem,

01:15:09.877 --> 01:15:10.710
in my view.

01:15:10.710 --> 01:15:13.590
What's needed, though, is
pressure on our political

01:15:13.590 --> 01:15:15.990
and economic institutions
to make them realize

01:15:15.990 --> 01:15:18.870
that this is an existential
necessity, not a luxury,

01:15:18.870 --> 01:15:20.820
not something that can
be put off and delayed,

01:15:20.820 --> 01:15:22.710
because for every day of delay

01:15:22.710 --> 01:15:24.300
it's going to be more difficult,

01:15:24.300 --> 01:15:26.820
more expensive and more incomplete.

01:15:26.820 --> 01:15:29.160
And this is going to be the task, frankly,

01:15:29.160 --> 01:15:31.323
of the next several centuries,

01:15:31.323 --> 01:15:33.406
to undo the damage we've done.

01:15:35.190 --> 01:15:38.113
- [John] In 1999, the
Chinese government undertook

01:15:38.113 --> 01:15:41.070
one of the largest
regeneration efforts ever,

01:15:41.070 --> 01:15:44.820
to rebuild the Loess
Plateau in Central China.

01:15:44.820 --> 01:15:47.790
Considered the cradle
of Chinese civilization,

01:15:47.790 --> 01:15:51.450
this once lush land had been desertified

01:15:51.450 --> 01:15:54.086
through centuries of agricultural misuse.

01:15:55.428 --> 01:15:58.928
[gentle piano music]

01:16:01.260 --> 01:16:03.840
John Liu, who made this
film about the project,

01:16:03.840 --> 01:16:06.210
was so impressed by its success

01:16:06.210 --> 01:16:08.580
that he and others have
started an organization

01:16:08.580 --> 01:16:10.653
of Eco Restoration Camps.

01:16:12.942 --> 01:16:17.199
- Use what we know works

01:16:17.199 --> 01:16:19.732
to regenerate life on Earth.

01:16:20.965 --> 01:16:24.540
[music continues]

01:16:27.354 --> 01:16:29.304
[birds chirping]

01:16:31.170 --> 01:16:33.780
- [John] Today, the old
growth forest ecosystems

01:16:33.780 --> 01:16:37.560
that once covered much of
the Earth are being plundered

01:16:37.560 --> 01:16:40.589
by what I like to call the Profit Monster.

01:16:41.672 --> 01:16:44.422
[ominous instrumental music]

01:16:46.440 --> 01:16:49.980
The baton of colonialism and
exploitation has been passed

01:16:49.980 --> 01:16:53.010
from national empires
to giant corporations

01:16:53.010 --> 01:16:55.470
who are given free reign
by local governments

01:16:55.470 --> 01:16:57.060
and international treaties

01:16:57.060 --> 01:17:00.540
to extract wealth from
the land and the people.

01:17:00.540 --> 01:17:02.760
The world's forests are being cut down

01:17:02.760 --> 01:17:04.887
for lumber and wood pellets,

01:17:04.887 --> 01:17:06.778
for palm oil for industrial food,

01:17:06.778 --> 01:17:08.580
and to make way for gas pipelines,

01:17:08.580 --> 01:17:12.030
hydroelectric dams, mines
for minerals for batteries,

01:17:12.030 --> 01:17:15.090
for computers, for electric
cars and cell phones.

01:17:15.090 --> 01:17:18.300
The list goes on and on and on.

01:17:18.300 --> 01:17:20.130
And as we all know,

01:17:20.130 --> 01:17:23.700
the Profit Monster has
created the Consumer Monster,

01:17:23.700 --> 01:17:26.910
with an and endless
appetite for more and more.

01:17:26.910 --> 01:17:28.645
- [Reporter] ...the table
to escape the crowd.

01:17:28.645 --> 01:17:30.995
[crowd screaming]

01:17:33.755 --> 01:17:38.755
[chainsaw rumbling]
[tree trunk splintering]

01:17:42.720 --> 01:17:45.510
- [John] And all these
lands, all these forests,

01:17:45.510 --> 01:17:50.160
are today and have been for
centuries homes to many people.

01:17:50.160 --> 01:17:52.178
- I got involved in the ecology movement

01:17:52.178 --> 01:17:54.850
beginning with Chipko,
where women of my region

01:17:56.340 --> 01:17:58.200
said, "We are not going
to let you cut the forests

01:17:58.200 --> 01:18:00.600
"because these trees protect us.

01:18:00.600 --> 01:18:03.663
"They are our mothers,
these forests are sacred."

01:18:04.601 --> 01:18:08.580
The commitment of
indigenous people in spite

01:18:08.580 --> 01:18:13.580
of centuries of extermination
to bring their philosophies

01:18:14.340 --> 01:18:17.400
and world views to the
healing of the Earth,

01:18:17.400 --> 01:18:19.900
I think is another very,
very important phenomena.

01:18:23.150 --> 01:18:27.400
[Berta speaking in Spanish]

01:18:55.365 --> 01:18:58.034
[audience applauding]

01:18:58.034 --> 01:18:59.160
- [John] Berta Cáceres won

01:18:59.160 --> 01:19:03.030
the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize

01:19:03.030 --> 01:19:05.340
because she organized a coalition

01:19:05.340 --> 01:19:09.720
of Lenca people of Honduras
to stop the corrupt oligarchy

01:19:09.720 --> 01:19:12.390
and their economic and military partners

01:19:12.390 --> 01:19:16.083
from building a hydroelectric
dam on their sacred river.

01:19:21.060 --> 01:19:26.060
On March 2nd, 2016, Berta
Cáceres was murdered in her home

01:19:27.090 --> 01:19:31.560
by a squad led by US
military-trained mercenaries

01:19:31.560 --> 01:19:35.610
and organized by West Point
graduate David Castillo,

01:19:35.610 --> 01:19:38.566
who was president of the
company building the dam.

01:19:39.641 --> 01:19:42.991
[women singing sorrowfully in Spanish]

01:19:44.658 --> 01:19:47.602
[Laura speaking in Spanish]

01:19:48.510 --> 01:19:51.120
- [John] Her family and the
organization she started,

01:19:51.120 --> 01:19:54.840
COPINH, and their lawyers,
got seven of the hitmen

01:19:54.840 --> 01:19:59.550
and David Castillo himself
sentenced to long prison terms,

01:19:59.550 --> 01:20:03.843
and are going after the European
banks that funded Castillo.

01:20:04.747 --> 01:20:07.822
[Berta speaking in Spanish]

01:20:10.099 --> 01:20:13.266
[audience applauding]

01:20:15.173 --> 01:20:16.560
[water rushing]

01:20:16.560 --> 01:20:19.200
- [John] The more I learned
about how the system of life,

01:20:19.200 --> 01:20:22.050
the biosphere, regulates our climate,

01:20:22.050 --> 01:20:25.380
and the more I learned about
how rapacious capitalism

01:20:25.380 --> 01:20:28.890
has destroyed the biosphere,
causing the climate crisis,

01:20:28.890 --> 01:20:30.510
the more puzzled I became

01:20:30.510 --> 01:20:34.890
about why my good friend carbon
dioxide gets all the blame

01:20:34.890 --> 01:20:36.753
for causing the crisis.

01:20:38.700 --> 01:20:41.480
The focus on CO2 seems to have started

01:20:41.480 --> 01:20:43.470
with Svante Arrhenius.

01:20:43.470 --> 01:20:48.450
- Svante Arrhenius, in 1896,
did massive calculations

01:20:48.450 --> 01:20:51.810
to work out, well, if we had a doubling

01:20:51.810 --> 01:20:56.810
of the Greenhouse Effect
under the name of CO2,

01:20:57.090 --> 01:20:59.280
he included water vapor
in his calculations,

01:20:59.280 --> 01:21:01.620
he couldn't separate the two gases,

01:21:01.620 --> 01:21:03.213
what would be the temperature?

01:21:04.290 --> 01:21:06.690
- [John] During the second
half of the 20th century,

01:21:06.690 --> 01:21:09.750
Manabe and Wetherald and
many other scientists

01:21:09.750 --> 01:21:13.740
used computers to create
sophisticated mathematical models

01:21:13.740 --> 01:21:15.753
to ask the same question.

01:21:17.010 --> 01:21:20.670
All these models indicated
that doubling CO2

01:21:20.670 --> 01:21:22.470
would correlate with an increase

01:21:22.470 --> 01:21:24.330
of average global temperature

01:21:24.330 --> 01:21:27.840
of between two and five degrees Celsius.

01:21:27.840 --> 01:21:30.090
Manabe and Wetherald knew that water vapor

01:21:30.090 --> 01:21:32.460
was a dominant greenhouse gas,

01:21:32.460 --> 01:21:34.890
but they also knew that
water in the atmosphere

01:21:34.890 --> 01:21:37.440
is extremely complex.

01:21:37.440 --> 01:21:39.630
- So it was basically impossible

01:21:39.630 --> 01:21:41.613
to model mathematically, right?

01:21:42.630 --> 01:21:43.560
And they had to say, look,

01:21:43.560 --> 01:21:48.120
"We've gotta integrate water
vapor into our calculations,

01:21:48.120 --> 01:21:52.680
"but if we assume it is a
secondary feedback process

01:21:52.680 --> 01:21:56.326
"to the increase in CO2
and its warming effect,

01:21:56.326 --> 01:21:59.220
"then we can say, look,
it's just a secondary factor

01:21:59.220 --> 01:22:01.590
"to the dominant one, which is CO2."

01:22:01.590 --> 01:22:04.530
- [John] Making water
vapor a secondary factor

01:22:04.530 --> 01:22:06.887
may be necessary in order to construct

01:22:06.887 --> 01:22:09.750
these highly reductionistic models.

01:22:09.750 --> 01:22:13.920
The problem is, it doesn't
work that way in reality.

01:22:13.920 --> 01:22:17.790
Models are just that, models.

01:22:17.790 --> 01:22:20.880
Manabe and Wetherald well
understood the danger

01:22:20.880 --> 01:22:24.030
of confusing the model with the reality,

01:22:24.030 --> 01:22:27.090
but the models were taken as reality

01:22:27.090 --> 01:22:29.190
and they correctly predicted

01:22:29.190 --> 01:22:32.670
that a global warming crisis was looming.

01:22:32.670 --> 01:22:34.860
Scientific research dollars poured

01:22:34.860 --> 01:22:38.373
into the study of carbon
dioxide and climate.

01:22:39.390 --> 01:22:42.090
- But at that stage there was
a small group that said, look,

01:22:42.090 --> 01:22:44.610
"We're never gonna sell this politically.

01:22:44.610 --> 01:22:48.300
"It's just too complex and we'd
just lose everybody," right?

01:22:48.300 --> 01:22:49.755
"And that we've gotta now have

01:22:49.755 --> 01:22:54.210
"a global marketing
communications exercise

01:22:54.210 --> 01:22:57.510
"to get the public on
this clear, simple line,

01:22:57.510 --> 01:23:02.510
"CO2 increase, global warming,
response, reduce emissions."

01:23:02.790 --> 01:23:05.580
- [John] So the greenhouse
gas carbon dioxide

01:23:05.580 --> 01:23:07.260
became the fall guy,

01:23:07.260 --> 01:23:10.530
and cutting carbon emissions
by cutting fossil fuels

01:23:10.530 --> 01:23:14.970
became the silver bullet
solution that politicians love.

01:23:14.970 --> 01:23:17.460
In the process, the biosphere,

01:23:17.460 --> 01:23:20.100
that system that regulates the climate,

01:23:20.100 --> 01:23:22.893
got almost totally left
out of the conversation.

01:23:24.300 --> 01:23:27.907
The influential Charney
Report says on page one,

01:23:27.907 --> 01:23:30.727
"We have not examined
the role of the biosphere

01:23:30.727 --> 01:23:33.093
"in the carbon cycle."

01:23:33.093 --> 01:23:35.760
[somber brass horn tones]

01:23:38.610 --> 01:23:42.180
In 2006, Al Gore's film
"An Inconvenient Truth"

01:23:42.180 --> 01:23:45.150
took the crisis and the CO2 narrative

01:23:45.150 --> 01:23:48.003
to the public in a compelling
and convincing way.

01:23:48.900 --> 01:23:51.060
- Now, as I said, they can
also measure temperature.

01:23:51.060 --> 01:23:55.260
Here's what the temperature
has been on our Earth.

01:23:55.260 --> 01:23:58.650
- [John] Here he points out
that the graph through the years

01:23:58.650 --> 01:24:02.160
of the amount of carbon
dioxide in the air, in red,

01:24:02.160 --> 01:24:05.237
and the graph of the
average temperature on Earth

01:24:05.237 --> 01:24:08.577
mirror each other in an astounding way.

01:24:08.577 --> 01:24:12.300
- And the relationship is
actually very complicated.

01:24:12.300 --> 01:24:14.430
But there is one relationship

01:24:14.430 --> 01:24:16.590
that is far more powerful
than all the others.

01:24:16.590 --> 01:24:17.735
And it is this:

01:24:17.735 --> 01:24:19.860
When there is more carbon dioxide,

01:24:19.860 --> 01:24:22.560
the temperature gets warmer.

01:24:22.560 --> 01:24:24.823
- It's amazing, humans, we basically said,

01:24:24.823 --> 01:24:28.530
"Yep, CO2 going up,
therefor that's the cause."

01:24:28.530 --> 01:24:30.840
But really, if you think logically,

01:24:30.840 --> 01:24:33.810
the CO2 increase is a symptom.

01:24:33.810 --> 01:24:37.950
Okay, so we have a symptom
of a disturbed balance

01:24:37.950 --> 01:24:41.970
between how much our
emissions are going up

01:24:41.970 --> 01:24:46.020
and how much the natural
drawdown of green on this planet,

01:24:46.020 --> 01:24:48.000
which takes CO2 from the air,

01:24:48.000 --> 01:24:51.510
turns it into sugars through
plant photosynthesis,

01:24:51.510 --> 01:24:54.573
how much that drawdown can operate.

01:24:55.740 --> 01:24:57.510
Okay, so we got to be very careful.

01:24:57.510 --> 01:25:00.960
This is not the cause, this
is a signal, a symptom.

01:25:00.960 --> 01:25:02.940
- [John] So the warming is also a symptom.

01:25:02.940 --> 01:25:05.760
- The warming is also a
symptom of this imbalance.

01:25:05.760 --> 01:25:08.490
- [John] So these two
graphs match each other

01:25:08.490 --> 01:25:12.210
because they both track
symptoms of the same problem,

01:25:12.210 --> 01:25:14.850
the destruction of the biosphere.

01:25:14.850 --> 01:25:17.940
Yes, fossil fuels are
a part of this problem,

01:25:17.940 --> 01:25:21.930
and the mining and burning of
fossil fuels must be reduced.

01:25:21.930 --> 01:25:25.860
But the climate crisis is not
the same as the energy crisis.

01:25:25.860 --> 01:25:29.310
And no matter how much we
stop burning fossil fuels,

01:25:29.310 --> 01:25:31.980
no matter how much
carbon emissions are cut,

01:25:31.980 --> 01:25:35.070
that is not going to
solve the climate crisis

01:25:35.070 --> 01:25:38.550
unless global leaders
address the underlying causes

01:25:38.550 --> 01:25:40.043
of the crisis.

01:25:40.043 --> 01:25:43.260
Stop destroying and then
rebuild the ecosystems

01:25:43.260 --> 01:25:45.060
that govern the Earth's temperature.

01:25:46.170 --> 01:25:48.993
Cover the land to reduce
the Greenhouse Effect.

01:25:50.740 --> 01:25:53.015
Rebuild the soil.

01:25:53.983 --> 01:25:56.730
Keep the water upstream,

01:25:56.730 --> 01:25:57.960
and learn from people

01:25:57.960 --> 01:26:00.963
who have been living close
to nature for centuries.

01:26:01.860 --> 01:26:03.603
There's so much we can do.

01:26:04.620 --> 01:26:06.960
And yet, as I edit this film,

01:26:06.960 --> 01:26:09.480
the 26th meeting of the
Conference of the Parties

01:26:09.480 --> 01:26:10.980
of the United Nations Framework

01:26:10.980 --> 01:26:12.870
for Combating Climate Change,

01:26:12.870 --> 01:26:16.050
abbreviated, thankfully, to COP26,

01:26:16.050 --> 01:26:19.170
remains almost singularly focused

01:26:19.170 --> 01:26:21.090
on cutting carbon emissions.

01:26:21.090 --> 01:26:23.670
- There's still no
agreement on how countries

01:26:23.670 --> 01:26:25.530
will limit greenhouse gas emissions.

01:26:25.530 --> 01:26:29.970
- [John] And the climate crisis
is getting worse and worse.

01:26:29.970 --> 01:26:32.700
Ironically, the push for green energy

01:26:32.700 --> 01:26:35.400
has only accelerated
the extractive economy

01:26:35.400 --> 01:26:37.470
and the environmental, social

01:26:37.470 --> 01:26:39.543
and climate problems that follow.

01:26:42.330 --> 01:26:45.960
Most alarmingly, the parties
are developing complex

01:26:45.960 --> 01:26:50.370
and confusing schemes to
monetize and trade carbon,

01:26:50.370 --> 01:26:53.643
giving the Profit Monster
a golden opportunity.

01:26:54.990 --> 01:26:59.250
In the UK, wood pellets are
classified as renewable energy,

01:26:59.250 --> 01:27:01.080
so energy company Drax

01:27:01.080 --> 01:27:04.530
can cut down trees from
boreal forests in Canada,

01:27:04.530 --> 01:27:07.980
convert them into wood
pellets, ship them to England

01:27:07.980 --> 01:27:11.280
and burn them in this
repurposed coal plant,

01:27:11.280 --> 01:27:13.590
all the while earning carbon credits

01:27:13.590 --> 01:27:15.720
which they can sell to other companies

01:27:15.720 --> 01:27:17.373
so they too can pollute.

01:27:18.210 --> 01:27:19.623
Talk about crazy.

01:27:20.730 --> 01:27:25.730
Brazil Biofuels can claim
palm oil as a sustainable fuel

01:27:26.160 --> 01:27:29.250
while at the same time
driving deforestation

01:27:29.250 --> 01:27:32.103
and the destruction of
indigenous communities.

01:27:35.100 --> 01:27:37.833
- So if we make a backtrack,

01:27:38.958 --> 01:27:42.333
racism, sexism,

01:27:43.680 --> 01:27:45.600
the destruction of the Earth

01:27:45.600 --> 01:27:49.054
are all born of an agriculture model

01:27:51.282 --> 01:27:54.150
that required slavery.

01:27:54.150 --> 01:27:56.670
It is what gave rise to the extermination

01:27:56.670 --> 01:27:58.920
of the indigenous people
and their land grab,

01:28:01.860 --> 01:28:04.110
and all of that violence.

01:28:04.110 --> 01:28:06.520
It is what gave rise to the idea

01:28:07.530 --> 01:28:11.073
that developing land means destroying it.

01:28:12.960 --> 01:28:16.710
It gave rise to the idea

01:28:16.710 --> 01:28:21.161
that centralization of control

01:28:21.161 --> 01:28:24.210
over resources and markets

01:28:24.210 --> 01:28:26.673
is the model of economic development.

01:28:29.040 --> 01:28:33.720
And that today has accumulated
with the fast-forward

01:28:33.720 --> 01:28:37.050
of that system with fossil fuels.

01:28:37.050 --> 01:28:41.193
Fossil fuels did not create
the wealth in England.

01:28:42.300 --> 01:28:44.742
Technology did not create
the wealth in England.

01:28:44.742 --> 01:28:46.380
Colonialism did.

01:28:46.380 --> 01:28:50.260
And they then used coal
and the steam engine

01:28:51.900 --> 01:28:55.953
and the combustion engine to
accelerate that colonization.

01:28:58.560 --> 01:29:01.500
So the alternative to all of this,

01:29:01.500 --> 01:29:04.830
reversing these destructive
500 years of colonialism

01:29:04.830 --> 01:29:07.606
and 200 years of the fossil fuel age

01:29:07.606 --> 01:29:11.700
means a fossil fuel-free,
poison-free agriculture,

01:29:11.700 --> 01:29:13.950
because that is what is
causing the destruction,

01:29:13.950 --> 01:29:16.920
whether it be climate change
or degradation of our food

01:29:16.920 --> 01:29:18.120
and degradation of the soil

01:29:18.120 --> 01:29:20.130
and the disappearance of our water,

01:29:20.130 --> 01:29:25.130
and the sexism and the racism,
and the civilizing mission

01:29:25.410 --> 01:29:27.510
of wanting to conquer other cultures

01:29:27.510 --> 01:29:29.310
and calling that conquest,

01:29:29.310 --> 01:29:31.593
somehow the liberation of the barbarian.

01:29:32.970 --> 01:29:37.230
It's in food we can bring justice,

01:29:37.230 --> 01:29:39.333
equality and liberation for all.

01:29:40.887 --> 01:29:43.470
[gentle piano music]

01:29:57.503 --> 01:30:00.253
[dramatic piano music]

01:30:14.399 --> 01:30:17.010
- [John] As I traveled and
talked to scientists, activists,

01:30:17.010 --> 01:30:20.220
and farmers, it became increasingly clear

01:30:20.220 --> 01:30:21.690
that one big solution

01:30:21.690 --> 01:30:25.023
to the climate crisis is
ecological agriculture.

01:30:26.160 --> 01:30:28.020
And this made me wonder,

01:30:28.020 --> 01:30:30.300
how did it come about that the soil

01:30:30.300 --> 01:30:34.923
in most of the world's big
industrial farms is lifeless?

01:30:36.960 --> 01:30:41.520
I remember loving the smell
of a freshly plowed field.

01:30:41.520 --> 01:30:44.433
Now I know it's the smell of death.

01:30:46.230 --> 01:30:49.380
- And then came the instrument

01:30:49.380 --> 01:30:51.780
that has probably destroyed more options

01:30:51.780 --> 01:30:54.600
for future generations than the sword.

01:30:54.600 --> 01:30:55.713
It's called the plow.

01:30:57.139 --> 01:31:01.050
[wind whistling]

01:31:01.050 --> 01:31:02.790
- [John] The irony of plowing

01:31:02.790 --> 01:31:05.130
came as another big surprise to me.

01:31:05.130 --> 01:31:07.710
Plowing kills the life in the soil,

01:31:07.710 --> 01:31:10.023
and dead soil doesn't hold water.

01:31:12.780 --> 01:31:15.720
- That story goes back 10,000 years.

01:31:15.720 --> 01:31:17.190
That's what I call "the fall."

01:31:17.190 --> 01:31:18.630
The beginning of agriculture

01:31:18.630 --> 01:31:21.450
is the equivalent of the Biblical fall.

01:31:21.450 --> 01:31:23.550
- [John] I met Wes Jackson in Kansas

01:31:23.550 --> 01:31:26.700
to learn about the Dust Bowl of the 1930s,

01:31:26.700 --> 01:31:30.573
the classic example of a
manmade climate disaster.

01:31:32.580 --> 01:31:36.120
Prairies like these around
Wes Jackson's Land Institute

01:31:36.120 --> 01:31:38.040
once covered the Great Plains

01:31:38.040 --> 01:31:40.410
in the middle of the United States.

01:31:40.410 --> 01:31:43.350
These were some of the
world's most fertile soils,

01:31:43.350 --> 01:31:47.610
deep rooted perennials,
millions of buffalo, a rich,

01:31:47.610 --> 01:31:50.820
diverse ecosystem that
maintained the fertility

01:31:50.820 --> 01:31:53.673
of the living soil through
countless droughts.

01:31:55.080 --> 01:31:59.250
The land supported indigenous
people for thousands of years.

01:31:59.250 --> 01:32:01.140
Then the US government,

01:32:01.140 --> 01:32:03.990
in its strategy to
colonize the Great Plains

01:32:03.990 --> 01:32:07.380
with white Europeans, stole and then sold

01:32:07.380 --> 01:32:10.165
and gave away the Native Americans' land.

01:32:12.182 --> 01:32:15.498
[upbeat symphonic music]

01:32:21.985 --> 01:32:26.985
[gunshots]
[bugle call]

01:32:32.530 --> 01:32:35.280
[wind whistling]

01:32:36.390 --> 01:32:38.430
Then came the plow.

01:32:38.430 --> 01:32:42.570
In 1837, John Deere developed a metal plow

01:32:42.570 --> 01:32:44.820
that allowed the so-called "sod busters"

01:32:44.820 --> 01:32:48.690
to destroy a thick layer
of rich living soil

01:32:48.690 --> 01:32:50.607
that was centuries old.

01:32:54.240 --> 01:32:57.663
At first, these fertile
lands gave abundant harvest.

01:32:59.970 --> 01:33:02.940
During World War I, soldiers needed wheat

01:33:02.940 --> 01:33:05.520
and this area supplied much of it.

01:33:05.520 --> 01:33:07.290
Wheat prices soared.

01:33:07.290 --> 01:33:10.173
It was a Profit Monster's dream come true.

01:33:12.420 --> 01:33:16.500
The land was plowed and plowed and plowed.

01:33:16.500 --> 01:33:18.750
Life in the soil was killed.

01:33:18.750 --> 01:33:20.910
It eroded and turned to dust.

01:33:20.910 --> 01:33:25.474
Then the inevitable drought
came and the dust began to blow.

01:33:26.466 --> 01:33:29.049
[wind howling]

01:33:30.330 --> 01:33:32.850
On May 11th, 1934,

01:33:32.850 --> 01:33:35.730
the dust from the Great
Plains blew all the way

01:33:35.730 --> 01:33:37.980
to Washington, DC.

01:33:37.980 --> 01:33:41.310
It wasn't a coincidence
that that was the very day

01:33:41.310 --> 01:33:45.450
that Hugh Bennett, director of
the new Soil Erosion Service,

01:33:45.450 --> 01:33:48.870
had strategically chosen
to testify before Congress

01:33:48.870 --> 01:33:50.730
about the need for funding

01:33:50.730 --> 01:33:54.300
to save farming by saving the soil.

01:33:54.300 --> 01:33:56.820
Just under a year later,
the federal government,

01:33:56.820 --> 01:33:58.560
through the Department of Agriculture,

01:33:58.560 --> 01:34:02.280
initiated a program for
the maintenance of soil.

01:34:02.280 --> 01:34:05.310
This was part of the first
version of what has become known

01:34:05.310 --> 01:34:07.773
as the Farm Bill in the United States.

01:34:09.060 --> 01:34:12.120
- Under Roosevelt, good soil scientists

01:34:12.120 --> 01:34:15.570
and tremendous esprit de corps.

01:34:15.570 --> 01:34:17.820
- [John] President Franklin
Roosevelt wrote a letter

01:34:17.820 --> 01:34:21.607
to all the state agriculture
departments, in which he said,

01:34:21.607 --> 01:34:25.647
"A nation that destroys
its soil destroys itself."

01:34:26.640 --> 01:34:28.470
- It's clean and sweet smelling.

01:34:28.470 --> 01:34:31.680
I reckon, Molly, nobody'd be
alive if it wasn't for soil.

01:34:31.680 --> 01:34:34.470
- Yes, but you need water to live by too.

01:34:34.470 --> 01:34:36.990
- [John] Things were
looking up for farmers.

01:34:36.990 --> 01:34:38.730
I was amazed and encouraged

01:34:38.730 --> 01:34:42.787
to read the 1938 US Department
of Agriculture yearbook,

01:34:42.787 --> 01:34:44.730
"Soils and Men."

01:34:44.730 --> 01:34:49.020
It gives a thorough understanding
of soil biology, bacteria,

01:34:49.020 --> 01:34:53.460
microbial populations,
mycorrhizael fungi, cover crops,

01:34:53.460 --> 01:34:55.683
and the problem with soil erosion.

01:34:57.120 --> 01:34:58.470
With this knowledge base,

01:34:58.470 --> 01:35:01.140
the first government
subsidies for farmers,

01:35:01.140 --> 01:35:03.570
given through the
Agricultural Adjustment Act,

01:35:03.570 --> 01:35:06.060
revitalized farming in the Midwest

01:35:06.060 --> 01:35:08.100
so that during World War II,

01:35:08.100 --> 01:35:11.610
when family farms were called
upon to feed the Allies,

01:35:11.610 --> 01:35:13.824
they were ready and able.

01:35:13.824 --> 01:35:17.460
[distorted explosions]

01:35:17.460 --> 01:35:19.260
But after World War II,

01:35:19.260 --> 01:35:22.650
the military-industrial
complex took over farming

01:35:22.650 --> 01:35:24.112
in the United States.

01:35:24.112 --> 01:35:26.340
[plane engine droning]

01:35:26.340 --> 01:35:28.332
The stage for the chemical industry's

01:35:28.332 --> 01:35:32.760
takeover of agriculture had
been set in the early 1900s

01:35:32.760 --> 01:35:34.620
with the development of a way

01:35:34.620 --> 01:35:39.060
to convert nitrogen gas under
high pressure into ammonia.

01:35:39.060 --> 01:35:41.220
This led to nitrogen fertilizers,

01:35:41.220 --> 01:35:44.133
explosives, and poison gases.

01:35:47.310 --> 01:35:51.030
Having developed powerful
chemicals including pesticides

01:35:51.030 --> 01:35:54.810
during two world wars, the
major chemical companies,

01:35:54.810 --> 01:35:58.980
IG Farben, DuPont, Dow, BASF and others,

01:35:58.980 --> 01:36:02.223
were ready to market these
chemicals to the farmers.

01:36:03.150 --> 01:36:04.290
And John Deere,

01:36:04.290 --> 01:36:07.440
having developed its
technology for war machinery,

01:36:07.440 --> 01:36:10.920
introduced bigger and bigger machines.

01:36:10.920 --> 01:36:12.840
- [Narrator] The right
amount of tractor power

01:36:12.840 --> 01:36:15.270
is the answer to increasing the profit

01:36:15.270 --> 01:36:17.760
in a large farming operation.

01:36:17.760 --> 01:36:18.593
- [John] But of course,

01:36:18.593 --> 01:36:21.630
those increased profits went to John Deere

01:36:21.630 --> 01:36:23.793
while the farmers went into debt.

01:36:26.006 --> 01:36:28.756
[dissonant piano tones]

01:36:31.860 --> 01:36:35.100
- Farmers today are
driven by an Ag program

01:36:35.100 --> 01:36:37.710
that you are all funding
with your tax dollars

01:36:37.710 --> 01:36:41.340
to degrade the soil and destroy
nutrient density in food

01:36:41.340 --> 01:36:44.490
so industry can make
profit, plain and simple.

01:36:44.490 --> 01:36:45.840
- This is Stand Up for Soil,

01:36:45.840 --> 01:36:48.750
and we are talking about the
importance of soil health,

01:36:48.750 --> 01:36:52.230
its connection to human
health and our environment,

01:36:52.230 --> 01:36:57.120
and what we can do to try to change that

01:36:57.120 --> 01:36:59.250
and just to work at communities

01:36:59.250 --> 01:37:02.403
and give us hope again as farmers.

01:37:03.270 --> 01:37:04.860
- [John] In Kansas, I was invited

01:37:04.860 --> 01:37:08.610
to the Jako Farm's Stand
Up for Soil picnic.

01:37:08.610 --> 01:37:10.950
There I found a community
of people working

01:37:10.950 --> 01:37:15.450
to reestablish the connections
between good soil, good food,

01:37:15.450 --> 01:37:16.830
and good health.

01:37:16.830 --> 01:37:19.200
- But now when you look at
the jars here in the front

01:37:19.200 --> 01:37:20.940
and then when you look
at the ones in the back,

01:37:20.940 --> 01:37:24.507
you can see the difference
between infiltration and runoff.

01:37:24.507 --> 01:37:26.130
- [John] And I kept thinking,

01:37:26.130 --> 01:37:28.203
how were these connections lost?

01:37:29.130 --> 01:37:32.010
- And a lot of this really
started with the 1970s Farm Bill,

01:37:32.010 --> 01:37:35.130
with Earl Butz and the farm
"fencerow to fencerow."

01:37:35.130 --> 01:37:36.510
You know, "We've gotta feed the world."

01:37:36.510 --> 01:37:39.077
- [Narrator] In 1973, President Nixon's

01:37:39.077 --> 01:37:42.180
Secretary of Agriculture
Earl Butz responded

01:37:42.180 --> 01:37:44.310
by calling upon American farmers

01:37:44.310 --> 01:37:46.740
to plant fencerow to fencerow,

01:37:46.740 --> 01:37:50.430
and he told them to get big or get out.

01:37:50.430 --> 01:37:53.670
- [John] Agriculture was put
in the hands of big business

01:37:53.670 --> 01:37:55.800
through the mass production
of commodity crops,

01:37:55.800 --> 01:37:59.981
wheat, soy, corn, chickens, pigs and cows.

01:38:01.764 --> 01:38:04.514
[ominous plucked tones]

01:38:07.050 --> 01:38:10.170
Through the Farm Bill,
government subsidies now began

01:38:10.170 --> 01:38:13.558
to feed an industrial
food production system

01:38:13.558 --> 01:38:15.780
designed for corporations to make a profit

01:38:15.780 --> 01:38:18.090
and build the gross domestic product

01:38:18.090 --> 01:38:22.560
at the expense of the soil,
the animals, good food,

01:38:22.560 --> 01:38:25.830
public health, and the farmer communities.

01:38:25.830 --> 01:38:27.690
- We were then told in agriculture

01:38:27.690 --> 01:38:30.090
that we need to become specialists.

01:38:30.090 --> 01:38:31.500
We gotta get really good at one thing,

01:38:31.500 --> 01:38:34.200
that diversity wasn't such a good thing.

01:38:34.200 --> 01:38:35.730
We need to start growing a couple crops

01:38:35.730 --> 01:38:36.780
and get really good at it.

01:38:36.780 --> 01:38:38.823
And it just snowballed from there.

01:38:39.690 --> 01:38:42.870
As we became more streamlined
and the diversity went out,

01:38:42.870 --> 01:38:46.500
the pests increased, weeds, insects.

01:38:46.500 --> 01:38:48.720
We're now not just using
nitrogen and phosphorus

01:38:48.720 --> 01:38:49.770
and a few chemicals.

01:38:49.770 --> 01:38:51.960
We're using fungicides, insecticides,

01:38:51.960 --> 01:38:54.480
seed treatments, sulfur.

01:38:54.480 --> 01:38:56.190
We're putting down
anything you can put down.

01:38:56.190 --> 01:38:57.990
We're spending money left and right.

01:39:01.920 --> 01:39:03.330
- The way the system is designed,

01:39:03.330 --> 01:39:06.210
the farmer can only get
the loan from the bank

01:39:06.210 --> 01:39:08.730
to buy the seed and buy the fertilizer

01:39:08.730 --> 01:39:11.308
if they use the chemical system.

01:39:11.308 --> 01:39:12.192
- If they're in the commodity system.

01:39:12.192 --> 01:39:13.530
- If they're in the commodity system,

01:39:13.530 --> 01:39:15.390
if they're using the chemical fertilizer,

01:39:15.390 --> 01:39:16.350
then they can get the loan,

01:39:16.350 --> 01:39:17.880
then they can pay for their tractor,

01:39:17.880 --> 01:39:19.380
then they can pay their mortgage.

01:39:19.380 --> 01:39:20.813
To some degree, they're trapped.

01:39:20.813 --> 01:39:22.460
- I cannot explain to you folks,

01:39:22.460 --> 01:39:24.658
as consumers who are not farmers,

01:39:24.658 --> 01:39:27.630
the peer pressure that farmers are under.

01:39:27.630 --> 01:39:29.310
They are wonderful people.

01:39:29.310 --> 01:39:33.150
They have been caught in a
fight that's not about them,

01:39:33.150 --> 01:39:34.470
and they have been pushed to the limit.

01:39:34.470 --> 01:39:36.930
They are killing
themselves from depression.

01:39:36.930 --> 01:39:39.030
Kansas is losing 25-year-olds faster

01:39:39.030 --> 01:39:40.680
than any state in the nation.

01:39:40.680 --> 01:39:43.500
Kansas is 90% agriculture ground

01:39:43.500 --> 01:39:45.573
and we import 90% of our food.

01:39:47.310 --> 01:39:48.510
- [John] That's impossible.

01:39:48.510 --> 01:39:49.890
- You would think, wouldn't you?

01:39:49.890 --> 01:39:51.940
And Iowa's numbers aren't much different.

01:39:52.980 --> 01:39:54.450
- [John] And that's because
it's all commodities?

01:39:54.450 --> 01:39:56.060
- [Gail] It's all commodities.

01:39:56.060 --> 01:39:58.918
But we're growing almost
no food here for ourselves.

01:39:58.918 --> 01:40:01.668
[truck engine droning]

01:40:03.000 --> 01:40:05.190
- If you look at where a lot
of those commodity crops go,

01:40:05.190 --> 01:40:07.350
I mean, they go towards ethanol,

01:40:07.350 --> 01:40:08.970
they go towards animal feed,

01:40:08.970 --> 01:40:11.520
mostly of animals in
confinement operations,

01:40:11.520 --> 01:40:14.670
and they go towards things
like high fructose corn syrup

01:40:14.670 --> 01:40:17.100
and even batteries,
and, you know, whatever.

01:40:17.100 --> 01:40:18.360
- [John] In the US today,

01:40:18.360 --> 01:40:22.710
government Farm Bill subsidies
go to giant corporations.

01:40:22.710 --> 01:40:26.430
This makes industrial
junk food less expensive

01:40:26.430 --> 01:40:27.769
than real food.

01:40:29.152 --> 01:40:31.577
[somber instrumental music]

01:40:33.210 --> 01:40:34.713
But it gets even worse.

01:40:37.140 --> 01:40:39.000
- I guess I just, at that point I become

01:40:39.000 --> 01:40:40.980
to question my industry enough

01:40:40.980 --> 01:40:42.900
that I started looking into it myself

01:40:42.900 --> 01:40:44.310
instead of asking my agronomist

01:40:44.310 --> 01:40:45.960
or somebody selling the product.

01:40:45.960 --> 01:40:48.240
I started doing my own research

01:40:48.240 --> 01:40:50.730
and I run acrost a guy
named Dr. Don Huber,

01:40:50.730 --> 01:40:52.710
and he was with Purdue University

01:40:52.710 --> 01:40:54.810
and he had done a lot of the research both

01:40:54.810 --> 01:40:57.363
for the government and
through the university.

01:40:58.710 --> 01:41:03.150
And...he had so much negative information

01:41:03.150 --> 01:41:05.880
that I just kept thinking,
this can't be true.

01:41:05.880 --> 01:41:07.110
- [John] Negative information about?

01:41:07.110 --> 01:41:09.600
- About glyphosate and what it
was doing to the environment,

01:41:09.600 --> 01:41:12.000
what it was doing to humans,
what it was doing to animals.

01:41:12.000 --> 01:41:15.060
And one night, it was about 11 o'clock

01:41:15.060 --> 01:41:16.410
and I'm watching the video,

01:41:16.410 --> 01:41:19.923
and I finally catch it that
glyphosate is an antibiotic.

01:41:20.790 --> 01:41:24.690
- Monsanto Corporation patented glyphosate

01:41:24.690 --> 01:41:29.070
as an antibiotic in the soil,
so it kills soil microbes.

01:41:29.070 --> 01:41:31.830
- [Announcer] Roundup,
kills weeds to the roots.

01:41:31.830 --> 01:41:33.570
- In addition to that, they thought, well,

01:41:33.570 --> 01:41:36.120
"What if we could just
genetically engineer our crops

01:41:36.120 --> 01:41:38.970
"and our seeds so that we could spray

01:41:38.970 --> 01:41:42.870
"as much herbicide as possible
but the plants wouldn't die?"

01:41:42.870 --> 01:41:44.970
- [Announcer] ...with no
harm to nearby plants.

01:41:44.970 --> 01:41:46.830
- That's how glyphosate got to be

01:41:46.830 --> 01:41:50.160
the most widely sprayed
chemical in modern history.

01:41:50.160 --> 01:41:51.090
It's pretty crazy.

01:41:51.090 --> 01:41:54.030
- And as a farmer who's
talking about soil life

01:41:54.030 --> 01:41:56.610
and soil health, the
microbes are everything.

01:41:56.610 --> 01:41:59.800
And I'm spraying an antibiotic on my soil?

01:42:00.690 --> 01:42:02.760
And if the soil is tied to human health

01:42:02.760 --> 01:42:06.210
and it's all about the microbiome
in the gut or the soil?

01:42:06.210 --> 01:42:07.980
I just, I almost threw up.

01:42:07.980 --> 01:42:09.270
I was so devastated.

01:42:09.270 --> 01:42:11.763
I literally cried.

01:42:12.720 --> 01:42:14.250
I didn't sleep for two days.

01:42:14.250 --> 01:42:16.530
I called my kids the next
morning and I apologized

01:42:16.530 --> 01:42:18.900
to both of them for what I'd done.

01:42:18.900 --> 01:42:21.723
And we quit using it that day.

01:42:23.490 --> 01:42:25.080
- Roundup is better.

01:42:25.080 --> 01:42:26.880
It goes through the plant to kill it.

01:42:26.880 --> 01:42:30.150
Tops and rhizomes, Roundup kills it.

01:42:30.150 --> 01:42:32.040
- Quit trying to kill
something all the time,

01:42:32.040 --> 01:42:34.620
and instead say, "What can I grow

01:42:34.620 --> 01:42:36.793
"that will take care of
this problem for me?"

01:42:37.935 --> 01:42:41.543
[gentle piano music]
[chicken clucking]

01:42:45.390 --> 01:42:49.749
- We have now, after,
we'll say three generations

01:42:49.749 --> 01:42:54.330
of chemical farming,
levels of chronic illness

01:42:54.330 --> 01:42:57.510
in the population that are skyrocketing.

01:42:57.510 --> 01:43:00.750
- On average, around a third of kids

01:43:00.750 --> 01:43:02.913
are on a chronic daily medication.

01:43:04.527 --> 01:43:07.920
And that is shocking to see that change.

01:43:07.920 --> 01:43:11.100
- I don't think you have a
healthcare system in America.

01:43:11.100 --> 01:43:15.960
You have a $2 trillion dollar
disease industry in America,

01:43:15.960 --> 01:43:20.433
fed by a $1 trillion dollar
industrial food system.

01:43:23.640 --> 01:43:27.930
- There's a big, big blind
spot right now around food,

01:43:27.930 --> 01:43:30.330
and that blind spot is in assuming

01:43:30.330 --> 01:43:34.140
that all milk is the same,
or all carrots are the same.

01:43:34.140 --> 01:43:37.830
You can create the volume of
carrot or the volume of beef

01:43:37.830 --> 01:43:41.280
or pork or wheat.

01:43:41.280 --> 01:43:46.280
But you don't get the
sophistication of nutrition.

01:43:47.310 --> 01:43:50.747
That only comes from a living ecosystem.

01:43:51.772 --> 01:43:54.522
[ominous string tones]

01:43:55.560 --> 01:43:59.040
- [John] Concentrated animal
feeding operations called CAFOs

01:43:59.040 --> 01:44:01.950
may make meat in the supermarket cheaper,

01:44:01.950 --> 01:44:04.050
but the animals aren't healthy,

01:44:04.050 --> 01:44:06.060
and some would say they are tortured.

01:44:06.060 --> 01:44:08.250
And the meat is far less nutritious

01:44:08.250 --> 01:44:10.470
and contains industrial chemicals

01:44:10.470 --> 01:44:12.843
that we'd all be far better off without.

01:44:14.610 --> 01:44:17.670
These factory farms
produce massive quantities

01:44:17.670 --> 01:44:19.860
of animal waste and pollution,

01:44:19.860 --> 01:44:23.643
including methane from the
breakdown of all that waste.

01:44:24.810 --> 01:44:26.940
Methane is a greenhouse gas.

01:44:26.940 --> 01:44:30.300
And when cows are raised
properly, the methane they produce

01:44:30.300 --> 01:44:32.943
becomes part of the natural carbon cycle.

01:44:35.550 --> 01:44:39.630
Methane is an important part
of all healthy ecosystems.

01:44:39.630 --> 01:44:42.840
Bacteria produce most of
the atmospheric methane

01:44:42.840 --> 01:44:45.270
when they recycle organic matter.

01:44:45.270 --> 01:44:48.630
And certain bacteria live on methane.

01:44:48.630 --> 01:44:51.390
So if you hear a rumor
that the methane produced

01:44:51.390 --> 01:44:54.300
when pasture-raised cows belch or fart

01:44:54.300 --> 01:44:56.850
is a significant cause of global warming,

01:44:56.850 --> 01:44:58.508
don't believe it for a moment.

01:45:02.460 --> 01:45:06.690
- A lot of consumers now
understand, or the city people

01:45:06.690 --> 01:45:08.490
know they can blame agriculture

01:45:08.490 --> 01:45:12.480
for a lot of the water quality
issues, the climate issues.

01:45:12.480 --> 01:45:14.190
I don't know if they totally understand

01:45:14.190 --> 01:45:17.250
that agriculture is also the answer.

01:45:17.250 --> 01:45:19.095
You know, agriculture
caused a lot of this.

01:45:19.095 --> 01:45:21.487
We can fix a lot of it,
and we can do it really fast.

01:45:22.478 --> 01:45:24.810
- [John] When you say fast
you mean decades, right?

01:45:24.810 --> 01:45:26.070
- Easily in decades, yeah.

01:45:26.070 --> 01:45:29.940
- [John] Right, and by soil quality?

01:45:29.940 --> 01:45:31.013
- By soil quality.

01:45:31.938 --> 01:45:34.605
[gentle instrumental music]

01:45:35.940 --> 01:45:38.010
- [John] But the Profit
Monster isn't concerned

01:45:38.010 --> 01:45:39.303
with soil quality.

01:45:40.710 --> 01:45:43.950
- 1965, India had a drought.

01:45:43.950 --> 01:45:46.890
India did not have starvation,
it did not have a famine.

01:45:46.890 --> 01:45:48.393
Food prices went up.

01:45:51.090 --> 01:45:53.430
And to regulate the price of grain,

01:45:53.430 --> 01:45:57.270
our Prime Minister of that
time, Lal Bahadur Shastri,

01:45:57.270 --> 01:46:00.093
asked the United States to send wheat.

01:46:01.170 --> 01:46:03.637
And the US said, "No,
we won't give you wheat.

01:46:03.637 --> 01:46:05.467
"You've got to change your agriculture.

01:46:05.467 --> 01:46:07.710
"Take chemicals, take the new seeds."

01:46:07.710 --> 01:46:09.579
And the Green Revolution was introduced.

01:46:09.579 --> 01:46:10.980
[sprightly flute music]

01:46:10.980 --> 01:46:13.716
- [Narrator] The Green
Revolution is a bloodless battle.

01:46:13.716 --> 01:46:14.790
It's the fight against famine

01:46:14.790 --> 01:46:17.583
and the fight for improved
agricultural production.

01:46:19.350 --> 01:46:21.390
- [John] If you were thinking
that the Green Revolution

01:46:21.390 --> 01:46:24.450
was a good thing, I'm
sorry to disappoint you.

01:46:24.450 --> 01:46:26.670
The Green Revolution is a global strategy

01:46:26.670 --> 01:46:29.700
by chemical companies and
philanthropic organizations

01:46:29.700 --> 01:46:33.000
to industrialize agriculture
through chemical technology,

01:46:33.000 --> 01:46:36.660
and profit by managing
the global food supply.

01:46:36.660 --> 01:46:40.080
Using the altruistic
desire to eradicate hunger,

01:46:40.080 --> 01:46:42.390
they successfully promoted the idea

01:46:42.390 --> 01:46:44.490
that the world needed new seeds

01:46:44.490 --> 01:46:46.833
and powerful chemical additives.

01:46:48.000 --> 01:46:52.770
Biologist Norman Borlaug won
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970

01:46:52.770 --> 01:46:56.430
for developing and promoting
new hybrid strains of wheat

01:46:56.430 --> 01:46:58.185
in order to feed the world.

01:47:00.330 --> 01:47:02.220
- [Norman] The world must decide

01:47:02.220 --> 01:47:04.320
that either we use agricultural chemicals

01:47:04.320 --> 01:47:07.411
and use them wisely,

01:47:07.411 --> 01:47:10.160
the right amounts, the
right kinds to produce

01:47:10.160 --> 01:47:12.910
the food we need, or we will all starve.

01:47:12.910 --> 01:47:15.577
[ominous instrumental music]

01:47:17.441 --> 01:47:20.108
[sprightly symphonic music]

01:47:21.660 --> 01:47:24.420
- So, pollinators are going,
the bees are going,

01:47:24.420 --> 01:47:26.220
the butterflies are going.

01:47:26.220 --> 01:47:30.400
And it's that larger extermination

01:47:31.380 --> 01:47:34.080
that is now becoming the wake-up call.

01:47:34.080 --> 01:47:37.590
Borlaug was given the
work of modifying plants

01:47:37.590 --> 01:47:39.150
to take up chemicals.

01:47:39.150 --> 01:47:41.005
The problem was that when you apply

01:47:41.005 --> 01:47:43.119
synthetic fertilizers to plants,

01:47:43.119 --> 01:47:45.480
there's an instant uptake of nutrients

01:47:45.480 --> 01:47:47.043
and a disproportionate growth.

01:47:47.880 --> 01:47:50.640
And so they created the dwarf varieties,

01:47:50.640 --> 01:47:52.200
and now you could pump the plants

01:47:52.200 --> 01:47:53.620
with huge amounts of chemicals.

01:47:53.620 --> 01:47:56.970
[chemical spray hissing]

01:47:56.970 --> 01:48:01.000
They used that one event of
a drought and the distress

01:48:01.860 --> 01:48:05.730
to push the Green Revolution,
just as much as today

01:48:05.730 --> 01:48:09.900
a hurricane and a disaster
is used to push GMO seeds

01:48:09.900 --> 01:48:10.890
in the relief.

01:48:10.890 --> 01:48:15.240
It's an established practice
of USAID, the US Embassy.

01:48:15.240 --> 01:48:17.550
World Bank was part of this.

01:48:17.550 --> 01:48:19.860
Rockefeller and Ford were part of it.

01:48:19.860 --> 01:48:24.030
And in '87, as a result of partly exposure

01:48:24.030 --> 01:48:26.430
to what the biotech industry was planning,

01:48:26.430 --> 01:48:31.430
the idea that bio-diversity,
life could be patented,

01:48:31.620 --> 01:48:34.650
it was intellectual property,
it could be a monopoly,

01:48:34.650 --> 01:48:37.680
I started Navdanya,
which means "Nine Seeds,"

01:48:37.680 --> 01:48:39.993
to save seeds in farmers' hands.

01:48:41.250 --> 01:48:44.010
And we've created 120 community seed banks

01:48:44.010 --> 01:48:46.140
because part of Navdanya's work

01:48:46.140 --> 01:48:48.750
is to reclaim seed as a commons

01:48:48.750 --> 01:48:52.050
and not allow it to be reduced
as intellectual property

01:48:52.050 --> 01:48:54.480
and private property and monopoly.

01:48:54.480 --> 01:48:57.420
- [Drona] Now I'll just
explain how a seed bank works.

01:48:57.420 --> 01:48:58.485
- [John] Okay.

01:48:58.485 --> 01:49:00.396
- [Drona] We don't charge
any money from the farmers.

01:49:00.396 --> 01:49:01.320
It's their seeds.

01:49:01.320 --> 01:49:03.090
But the catch here is, once they are done

01:49:03.090 --> 01:49:05.880
with their own yield, they
have to give the same amount

01:49:05.880 --> 01:49:10.590
of seed back to the seed bank,
adding 2% more on that,

01:49:10.590 --> 01:49:13.170
or they can give it to the new farmer.

01:49:13.170 --> 01:49:15.810
So that's how a seed
bank keeps on rolling.

01:49:15.810 --> 01:49:20.070
Right now, we have about
713 varieties of rice.

01:49:20.070 --> 01:49:22.740
The wheat field that you see out there,

01:49:22.740 --> 01:49:25.353
we have about nearly
222 varieties of wheat,

01:49:26.400 --> 01:49:29.010
145 different kind of vegetables.

01:49:29.010 --> 01:49:31.230
When you are harvesting seeds

01:49:31.230 --> 01:49:33.750
you have to make sure that
all the moisture is out.

01:49:33.750 --> 01:49:36.363
Now we are using clay pots, here.

01:49:38.010 --> 01:49:40.500
- [John] Navdanya's legal
team was instrumental

01:49:40.500 --> 01:49:42.510
in getting a law passed in India

01:49:42.510 --> 01:49:45.753
that prohibits corporations
from patenting seeds.

01:49:47.190 --> 01:49:50.250
- Our laws don't recognize seed

01:49:50.250 --> 01:49:51.930
as an invention of these companies.

01:49:51.930 --> 01:49:54.660
And I'm very grateful that we managed

01:49:54.660 --> 01:49:55.920
to put in place those laws.

01:49:55.920 --> 01:49:57.690
Monsanto's still challenging them.

01:49:57.690 --> 01:50:00.510
But in our patent law,
we have an Article 3J

01:50:00.510 --> 01:50:02.010
which says plants, animals and seeds

01:50:02.010 --> 01:50:03.900
are not human inventions.

01:50:03.900 --> 01:50:06.490
This clause is becoming
so important because

01:50:06.490 --> 01:50:10.170
Pepsi has sued Indian farmers
₹10 million rupees each

01:50:10.170 --> 01:50:12.180
for saving potato varieties.

01:50:12.180 --> 01:50:15.240
- ...accusing them of growing
a certain type of potato

01:50:15.240 --> 01:50:18.690
that it says is
exclusively for Lays chips.

01:50:18.690 --> 01:50:23.460
- But our law has a clause that
farmers' right to save, sow,

01:50:23.460 --> 01:50:27.900
grow, breed, sell seed,
can never be taken away.

01:50:27.900 --> 01:50:30.500
- ...as now Pepsi says
it will drop the lawsuit

01:50:30.500 --> 01:50:33.000
if the farmers that it's suing

01:50:33.000 --> 01:50:35.310
join its authorized cultivation program.

01:50:35.310 --> 01:50:37.170
- The genetic engineering path

01:50:37.170 --> 01:50:39.720
is not because there's something superior

01:50:39.720 --> 01:50:40.830
that they're offering.

01:50:40.830 --> 01:50:45.240
It's a failed technology,
but it was successful

01:50:45.240 --> 01:50:47.540
in establishing patents and monopoly.

01:50:49.080 --> 01:50:52.680
- [John] Today, Vandana Shiva
is taking on Bill Gates,

01:50:52.680 --> 01:50:55.863
who has become a master of
philanthropic imperialism.

01:50:56.790 --> 01:50:58.530
With the Rockefeller Foundation,

01:50:58.530 --> 01:51:00.330
he is spearheading AGRA,

01:51:00.330 --> 01:51:03.063
the Alliance for a Green
Revolution in Africa.

01:51:04.620 --> 01:51:08.070
According to a report from
Tufts University in 2020,

01:51:08.070 --> 01:51:11.460
"AGRA incentives drove land into GMO maize

01:51:11.460 --> 01:51:14.580
"and out of more nutritious
traditional crops,

01:51:14.580 --> 01:51:19.163
"eroding food security and
nutrition for poor farmers."

01:51:26.130 --> 01:51:28.890
And Gates is rapidly buying up farmland

01:51:28.890 --> 01:51:30.960
in the United States.

01:51:30.960 --> 01:51:33.540
The other day I read that
he is funding research

01:51:33.540 --> 01:51:36.300
into genetically modifying cows.

01:51:36.300 --> 01:51:39.510
- [Bill] They leak natural gas,

01:51:39.510 --> 01:51:41.730
both out the front and the back.

01:51:41.730 --> 01:51:43.790
- [John] I hope he doesn't
think he can make burpless

01:51:43.790 --> 01:51:45.693
or fartless cows.

01:51:46.950 --> 01:51:49.290
- Nobody knows how to get rid of that.

01:51:49.290 --> 01:51:51.810
- No knows how to get
cows to stop farting.

01:51:51.810 --> 01:51:53.820
- Exactly, or burping.

01:51:53.820 --> 01:51:56.580
- [John] I wish this was
just another fart joke,

01:51:56.580 --> 01:51:57.803
but it's not.

01:51:59.077 --> 01:52:01.827
[dissonant horn tones]

01:52:02.940 --> 01:52:04.950
Bill Gates' steadfast belief

01:52:04.950 --> 01:52:07.200
that the world's problems can be solved

01:52:07.200 --> 01:52:11.130
through the control of
life stems from the 1960s

01:52:11.130 --> 01:52:14.340
when it was popularly assumed
that advanced technology

01:52:14.340 --> 01:52:18.123
would improve on nature
and improve people's lives.

01:52:21.540 --> 01:52:23.820
- [Narrator] Farmers
need to produce more food

01:52:23.820 --> 01:52:27.750
more sustainably, from
the same amount of land.

01:52:27.750 --> 01:52:30.813
It's ultimately technology
that will make the difference.

01:52:31.800 --> 01:52:34.602
- [John] Today, the
technological takeover of farming

01:52:34.602 --> 01:52:37.157
heralds a new wave of soil destruction

01:52:37.157 --> 01:52:39.030
and farmer debt.

01:52:39.030 --> 01:52:42.573
- Even the farmers these
days don't touch the soil.

01:52:44.430 --> 01:52:47.130
They are not anymore farmers.

01:52:47.130 --> 01:52:49.680
They are just machine minders.

01:52:49.680 --> 01:52:51.750
- [Narrator] The tractor
is able to make its own way

01:52:51.750 --> 01:52:53.040
to the field.

01:52:53.040 --> 01:52:58.040
- So I want human and soil relationship

01:52:58.278 --> 01:53:00.390
to be restored.

01:53:00.390 --> 01:53:03.270
- [John] As I was researching
the first Green Revolution,

01:53:03.270 --> 01:53:07.680
I discovered this note of hope
from Norman Borlaug in 1970.

01:53:07.680 --> 01:53:09.612
- [Norman] There's hope
that we can produce

01:53:09.612 --> 01:53:12.926
adequate amounts of food for even this

01:53:12.926 --> 01:53:16.983
rapidly growing population
for the next 20 to 30 years.

01:53:17.910 --> 01:53:19.360
- [John] Wanna hear it again?

01:53:20.760 --> 01:53:22.786
- [Norman] There's hope
that we can produce

01:53:22.786 --> 01:53:26.272
adequate amounts of food for even this

01:53:26.272 --> 01:53:30.063
rapidly growing population
for the next 20 to 30 years.

01:53:31.230 --> 01:53:33.450
- [John] 30 years may be a long time

01:53:33.450 --> 01:53:35.940
for a corporate strategic plan,

01:53:35.940 --> 01:53:39.742
but, well, what about after the year 2000?

01:53:39.742 --> 01:53:41.025
Then what?

01:53:42.270 --> 01:53:44.130
While the population explosion

01:53:44.130 --> 01:53:46.860
is certainly the elephant in the room,

01:53:46.860 --> 01:53:50.190
one thing is sure:
to feed lots of people,

01:53:50.190 --> 01:53:53.163
it's better to work with
Nature than against her.

01:53:54.630 --> 01:53:57.570
Imagine, Dr. Borlaug, farming methods

01:53:57.570 --> 01:53:59.948
that can feed the world
with nutritious food

01:53:59.948 --> 01:54:03.693
for, well, forever,
and have been doing so.

01:54:06.117 --> 01:54:09.030
- And the reality on the
ground is that small holders,

01:54:09.030 --> 01:54:13.620
globally, "agro-ecology" is
a word they use for it now,

01:54:13.620 --> 01:54:15.720
but it's basically what indigenous peoples

01:54:15.720 --> 01:54:17.310
have been doing for a very long time,

01:54:17.310 --> 01:54:21.060
are producing a massive amount
of food, way more calories,

01:54:21.060 --> 01:54:22.650
much more sophistication,

01:54:22.650 --> 01:54:27.650
many more crops per acre than
the industrial model does.

01:54:27.690 --> 01:54:32.280
- FAO data is showing that
small farms produce more,

01:54:32.280 --> 01:54:33.720
and it is also showing

01:54:33.720 --> 01:54:37.950
that 75% of the food we
eat comes from small farms.

01:54:37.950 --> 01:54:39.570
- If we are going to feed the world,

01:54:39.570 --> 01:54:42.300
we need to start regenerating
our soil so that it's there

01:54:42.300 --> 01:54:45.041
in order to produce food
for the next generation.

01:54:46.341 --> 01:54:48.924
[gentle instrumental music]

01:54:50.880 --> 01:54:52.080
- [John] As I traveled and talked

01:54:52.080 --> 01:54:53.973
to ecologically minded farmers,

01:54:53.973 --> 01:54:56.730
I learned that while
their farming practices

01:54:56.730 --> 01:54:59.700
may be different,
they all share a handful

01:54:59.700 --> 01:55:01.367
of basic principles:

01:55:01.367 --> 01:55:03.210
Work with nature.

01:55:03.210 --> 01:55:06.000
Cover the land with cover crops or mulch.

01:55:06.000 --> 01:55:10.020
Some say it's important to
keep a living root in the soil.

01:55:10.020 --> 01:55:12.871
Encourage biodiversity.

01:55:12.871 --> 01:55:16.860
Keep animals and animal dung on the farm.

01:55:16.860 --> 01:55:19.803
And most importantly, do no harm.

01:55:21.360 --> 01:55:24.750
The goal is to eliminate
manmade chemical inputs

01:55:24.750 --> 01:55:26.820
and to develop ways to reduce

01:55:26.820 --> 01:55:28.773
and hopefully eliminate plowing.

01:55:29.970 --> 01:55:32.970
Not surprisingly, these basic principles

01:55:32.970 --> 01:55:36.840
are also a recipe for
solving the climate crisis.

01:55:36.840 --> 01:55:38.257
Think about that.

01:55:41.730 --> 01:55:44.670
- You go through nature,
there's never any exposed soil.

01:55:44.670 --> 01:55:46.470
So even in farming where we, you know,

01:55:46.470 --> 01:55:48.330
we mess with nature to some degree,

01:55:48.330 --> 01:55:50.430
hopefully in harmony with her,

01:55:50.430 --> 01:55:52.830
but you wanna keep your ground
covered as much as possible.

01:55:52.830 --> 01:55:56.010
- This soil has been under a regenerative,

01:55:56.010 --> 01:55:59.043
organic type system,
really for almost 15 years.

01:56:00.000 --> 01:56:02.220
And what that means is that, you know,

01:56:02.220 --> 01:56:03.810
it hasn't been tilled.

01:56:03.810 --> 01:56:06.870
The only way in which we
put new seed in the ground

01:56:06.870 --> 01:56:08.400
is with a no-till drill,

01:56:08.400 --> 01:56:10.560
and we also use a lot of compost.

01:56:10.560 --> 01:56:12.770
So we're putting a lot of
biomass back into the soil

01:56:12.770 --> 01:56:15.840
to kind of help feed the
livestock in the soil

01:56:15.840 --> 01:56:18.330
as well as the livestock on the soil.

01:56:18.330 --> 01:56:21.693
So the whole idea is to build diversity.

01:56:22.680 --> 01:56:24.780
And the more diversity that you have,

01:56:24.780 --> 01:56:26.670
the less pesticide that you need

01:56:26.670 --> 01:56:30.150
because you have that natural
biological resistance.

01:56:30.150 --> 01:56:32.970
- We've not put insecticide
on our livestock

01:56:32.970 --> 01:56:36.262
for eight or nine years now,

01:56:37.525 --> 01:56:39.960
and we don't have fly problems.

01:56:39.960 --> 01:56:41.670
- [John] So who gets the flies?

01:56:41.670 --> 01:56:43.833
- Chickens are part of our tools.

01:56:44.670 --> 01:56:46.200
Now that we're not putting insecticides,

01:56:46.200 --> 01:56:47.980
so the flies aren't sick,

01:56:47.980 --> 01:56:49.550
the cowbirds show up and eat the flies,

01:56:49.550 --> 01:56:51.075
which before they wouldn't.

01:56:51.075 --> 01:56:53.160
Dung beetles, now that
we don't put insecticide

01:56:53.160 --> 01:56:55.170
through the cows so that
the dung is infected,

01:56:55.170 --> 01:56:56.370
we now have dung beetles

01:56:56.370 --> 01:56:59.946
that help take care of the larvae.

01:56:59.946 --> 01:57:02.100
You know, if you give
Mother Nature a chance,

01:57:02.100 --> 01:57:03.543
she'll help you.

01:57:04.620 --> 01:57:07.143
- [John] Just as grazing
animals in the Great Plains

01:57:07.143 --> 01:57:10.899
helped build the rich
diverse soil that held water,

01:57:10.899 --> 01:57:12.720
farmers and environmentalists have learned

01:57:12.720 --> 01:57:15.330
to incorporate grazing animals

01:57:15.330 --> 01:57:18.060
into their agricultural practices.

01:57:18.060 --> 01:57:19.860
- So the way the grazing works is,

01:57:19.860 --> 01:57:24.690
tomorrow that fence will
be moved ahead 50, 60 feet.

01:57:24.690 --> 01:57:26.730
They get a fresh piece of grass,

01:57:26.730 --> 01:57:28.710
they intensely graze it down.

01:57:28.710 --> 01:57:30.420
That's why it's called rotational grazing.

01:57:30.420 --> 01:57:33.390
The cows will rotate through a pasture,

01:57:33.390 --> 01:57:36.450
then the pasture will rest
and then only come back

01:57:36.450 --> 01:57:38.760
when it's completely
regrown to a certain height,

01:57:38.760 --> 01:57:40.800
and then they'll do it again.

01:57:40.800 --> 01:57:44.040
You know, I sometimes say
in our modern agriculture

01:57:44.040 --> 01:57:47.070
probably one of its biggest crimes

01:57:47.070 --> 01:57:49.830
has been to take the animals
out of the landscape.

01:57:49.830 --> 01:57:52.890
It's caused so many bad side effects.

01:57:52.890 --> 01:57:56.880
Animal health has gone down,
the soil health has gone down.

01:57:56.880 --> 01:58:01.260
For me, this is like the
ultimate anti-stress view.

01:58:01.260 --> 01:58:06.260
This is absolutely a balancing,
relaxing thing to see that.

01:58:08.190 --> 01:58:12.330
- A lot of the work that
we do is helping farmers

01:58:12.330 --> 01:58:16.157
and consumers and policy makers

01:58:16.157 --> 01:58:18.870
embrace that change in thinking.

01:58:18.870 --> 01:58:22.050
I mean, if you look at this,
any almond grower would say,

01:58:22.050 --> 01:58:24.000
"Wow, they're doing a great job."

01:58:24.000 --> 01:58:27.030
And yes, it is a very
well-managed orchard,

01:58:27.030 --> 01:58:31.800
but when you look at this
from a regenerative lens,

01:58:31.800 --> 01:58:33.990
this is kind of a mess,

01:58:33.990 --> 01:58:38.490
because we have the "scorched
earth" appearance here.

01:58:38.490 --> 01:58:43.110
There's no biology being
added back into this soil.

01:58:43.110 --> 01:58:45.780
It's been sterilized, by and large,

01:58:45.780 --> 01:58:49.410
in order to make a nice
clean floor for harvest.

01:58:49.410 --> 01:58:52.530
So, yeah, it is beautiful,

01:58:52.530 --> 01:58:54.330
but we need to change our lens

01:58:54.330 --> 01:58:58.860
on what we perceive to be as beautiful.

01:58:58.860 --> 01:59:00.780
- [John] Today, there are many farmers

01:59:00.780 --> 01:59:02.580
who have changed their lens.

01:59:02.580 --> 01:59:05.160
- There's a real reframing
that needs to happen

01:59:05.160 --> 01:59:08.102
to feel a sense of belonging,
a sense of kinship,

01:59:08.102 --> 01:59:11.310
of agency and dignity
in relationship to land.

01:59:11.310 --> 01:59:13.080
- You have to radicalize the whole system

01:59:13.080 --> 01:59:15.540
to change it, it seems.

01:59:15.540 --> 01:59:18.030
- [John] There's a growing
ecological agriculture movement

01:59:18.030 --> 01:59:20.760
all over the world that supplies fresh,

01:59:20.760 --> 01:59:23.420
healthy food to millions of people.

01:59:23.420 --> 01:59:28.420
- We're here on Mohican land,
and we partner with this land

01:59:28.650 --> 01:59:32.040
to grow an abundance of food
and medicine for our community,

01:59:32.040 --> 01:59:32.880
and we do this

01:59:32.880 --> 01:59:36.210
by reclaiming our
Afro-Indigenous farming practices

01:59:36.210 --> 01:59:37.950
that actually regenerate the soil,

01:59:37.950 --> 01:59:42.060
that call biodiversity
back to these lands.

01:59:42.060 --> 01:59:45.570
- [John] In many ways, today's
small farm movement in the US

01:59:45.570 --> 01:59:48.240
can be traced back to Booker T. Whatley.

01:59:48.240 --> 01:59:49.980
He developed an economic model

01:59:49.980 --> 01:59:52.710
that emphasized that small farms

01:59:52.710 --> 01:59:56.220
are not little versions
of big industrial farms.

01:59:56.220 --> 01:59:59.970
The small farm's mission is
to grow a variety of healthy,

01:59:59.970 --> 02:00:03.600
tasty, and affordable food
for people in its community.

02:00:03.600 --> 02:00:07.470
- Now this is a vine-ripened tomato,

02:00:07.470 --> 02:00:10.380
the kind you don't get
in the supermarkets.

02:00:10.380 --> 02:00:12.090
- Whatley pioneered the idea

02:00:12.090 --> 02:00:15.150
of what's now called community
supported agriculture,

02:00:15.150 --> 02:00:18.150
CSA, in which customers buy a share

02:00:18.150 --> 02:00:21.183
of a farm's produce
directly from the farmer.

02:00:22.650 --> 02:00:24.499
- Delicious.

02:00:24.499 --> 02:00:28.620
- [John] Now there are
CSAs in many communities.

02:00:28.620 --> 02:00:30.930
- The regenerative ag farming community

02:00:30.930 --> 02:00:34.023
is really a very collaborative
learning community,

02:00:35.460 --> 02:00:37.983
'cause there's so much
experimentation going on

02:00:40.020 --> 02:00:41.940
and everyone's figuring stuff out

02:00:41.940 --> 02:00:44.793
and then trying to share
their understanding.

02:00:45.840 --> 02:00:49.380
- And here at Soul Fire we are one node

02:00:49.380 --> 02:00:51.600
in a vast, interconnected network.

02:00:51.600 --> 02:00:54.060
We are part of a growing movement

02:00:54.060 --> 02:00:56.100
of food and land sovereignty,

02:00:56.100 --> 02:01:00.630
and we work through a
variety of alliances,

02:01:00.630 --> 02:01:02.370
some that are regional,
some that are national,

02:01:02.370 --> 02:01:04.280
and even international, like Via Compesina

02:01:04.280 --> 02:01:07.024
is a global alliance of farmers.

02:01:08.332 --> 02:01:11.165
[birds chirping and cawing]

02:01:13.140 --> 02:01:14.550
This is the long haul work.

02:01:14.550 --> 02:01:17.730
Our north star is like seven
generations into the future

02:01:17.730 --> 02:01:19.020
in what we wanna leave

02:01:19.020 --> 02:01:20.970
for our children's children's children.

02:01:22.200 --> 02:01:23.070
- [John] In my quest,

02:01:23.070 --> 02:01:26.220
I discovered a few
agricultural solution sets

02:01:26.220 --> 02:01:29.823
to the climate crisis that
totally opened my mind.

02:01:31.500 --> 02:01:33.840
This poster is on the wall of the lab

02:01:33.840 --> 02:01:37.680
at Wes Jackson's Land Institute in Kansas.

02:01:37.680 --> 02:01:40.410
The plant on the right is a perennial.

02:01:40.410 --> 02:01:44.850
Unlike annuals on the left,
perennials have deep roots

02:01:44.850 --> 02:01:47.943
and don't need to be replanted every year.

02:01:50.400 --> 02:01:52.770
- So I took my students on a field trip

02:01:52.770 --> 02:01:54.540
to the Conza Prairie.

02:01:54.540 --> 02:01:57.120
And while I was there, I was thinking,

02:01:57.120 --> 02:02:02.120
no soil erosion beyond
natural replacement levels,

02:02:03.540 --> 02:02:07.220
no chemical contamination
of the land and water

02:02:07.220 --> 02:02:11.170
in this prairie,
never-been-plowed prairie.

02:02:12.690 --> 02:02:15.720
What's the difference
between the corn field,

02:02:15.720 --> 02:02:20.580
the wheat field, you know,
the soybean field and so on?

02:02:20.580 --> 02:02:23.880
What's the difference between
that and that prairie?

02:02:23.880 --> 02:02:28.880
Well, agriculture features,
specially grain agriculture,

02:02:29.190 --> 02:02:33.210
features annuals grown in monocultures.

02:02:33.210 --> 02:02:37.263
That prairie featured perennials
grown in polycultures.

02:02:39.090 --> 02:02:43.035
And I thought, why do we not have

02:02:43.035 --> 02:02:48.035
herbaceous, perennial,
seed-producing polycultures?

02:02:48.150 --> 02:02:49.743
That's what set me off.

02:02:51.270 --> 02:02:53.823
Why do we not develop perennial grains?

02:02:54.930 --> 02:02:56.820
- [John] The Land Institute's crops,

02:02:56.820 --> 02:03:00.600
like these nurseries of kernza
and intermediate wheatgrass,

02:03:00.600 --> 02:03:02.408
are successfully being developed

02:03:02.408 --> 02:03:05.008
to advance perennial
polyculture agriculture.

02:03:07.680 --> 02:03:11.970
Another amazing solution set
is Zero Budget Natural Farming

02:03:11.970 --> 02:03:14.400
that I learned about from Vijay Kumar.

02:03:14.400 --> 02:03:16.440
It constitutes a government-supported

02:03:16.440 --> 02:03:20.220
regenerative agriculture
movement that started in response

02:03:20.220 --> 02:03:23.250
to the devastation of
the Green Revolution.

02:03:23.250 --> 02:03:26.850
- And zero-budget actually
refers to the principle

02:03:26.850 --> 02:03:29.962
of this natural farming,
that there should be

02:03:29.962 --> 02:03:32.970
crop diversity, crops of short duration,

02:03:32.970 --> 02:03:35.790
intermediate duration, long duration.

02:03:35.790 --> 02:03:38.590
And the income from the
short duration crops

02:03:39.570 --> 02:03:41.290
should ensure that the main crop

02:03:42.270 --> 02:03:45.510
is grown without any
out-of-pocket cost for the farmer.

02:03:45.510 --> 02:03:49.500
These inputs required for agriculture

02:03:49.500 --> 02:03:52.623
are made by the farmers, on the farm,

02:03:53.760 --> 02:03:56.583
and very little needs to
be purchased from outside.

02:03:57.600 --> 02:04:01.233
And so we are ensuring livelihood
security for the farmer,

02:04:02.160 --> 02:04:05.733
but more important we are
revitalizing the soil,

02:04:06.780 --> 02:04:10.860
and we are ensuring that
the heat is not radiated.

02:04:10.860 --> 02:04:14.100
- [John] The underpinnings
of the entire ZBNF program

02:04:14.100 --> 02:04:16.083
are the women's self-help groups.

02:04:17.070 --> 02:04:20.490
- Because this is a
tremendous leap of faith,

02:04:20.490 --> 02:04:23.790
because for the last 50 years,
60 years, they have been told

02:04:23.790 --> 02:04:25.710
that if you don't use
chemical fertilizers,

02:04:25.710 --> 02:04:28.803
if you don't use pesticides,
you'll not get your crop.

02:04:29.700 --> 02:04:31.860
And here we are saying
you don't need all that.

02:04:31.860 --> 02:04:34.230
It's a total radical shift.

02:04:34.230 --> 02:04:36.030
- [John] My wife Sheila and I were invited

02:04:36.030 --> 02:04:37.320
to the home of the family

02:04:37.320 --> 02:04:40.800
whose ZBNF fields we had visited that day.

02:04:40.800 --> 02:04:45.550
They told us how bad the Green
Revolution chemicals were.

02:05:11.623 --> 02:05:12.750
- [John] They are happy
that their children

02:05:12.750 --> 02:05:14.310
can join them on the farms

02:05:14.310 --> 02:05:17.340
and don't have to migrate to
the city and get menial jobs.

02:05:17.340 --> 02:05:18.740
- Bye-bye.
- [Farmers] Bye.

02:05:21.420 --> 02:05:24.780
- [John] Which brings me around
to the Garden of Happiness,

02:05:24.780 --> 02:05:27.030
another profound solution set.

02:05:27.030 --> 02:05:28.653
It's in the Bronx of New York.

02:05:29.580 --> 02:05:31.980
- If you weren't happy when you came in,

02:05:31.980 --> 02:05:34.980
by the time you leave you
are going to be happy.

02:05:34.980 --> 02:05:36.530
That's the Garden of Happiness.

02:05:39.810 --> 02:05:43.380
There was a man in the empty lot one day.

02:05:43.380 --> 02:05:45.150
I was in the kitchen and I saw a man

02:05:45.150 --> 02:05:48.030
with a shovel and a pick,
his name was Jose Lugo.

02:05:48.030 --> 02:05:49.950
And I went out and I said,
"What are you doing?"

02:05:49.950 --> 02:05:51.300
He says, "I want to start a garden."

02:05:51.300 --> 02:05:52.920
And I say, "Can I help?"

02:05:52.920 --> 02:05:56.190
And just at that time we
were thinking about a garden,

02:05:56.190 --> 02:05:57.720
the New York Botanical Garden

02:05:57.720 --> 02:06:00.960
was just starting a Bronx Green-up Program

02:06:00.960 --> 02:06:03.300
of turning the empty lots
into community gardens.

02:06:03.300 --> 02:06:05.370
And so this was their first one.

02:06:05.370 --> 02:06:07.950
- [John] Talk about eco-restoration.

02:06:07.950 --> 02:06:12.780
- As those low-income
neighborhoods found their power

02:06:12.780 --> 02:06:15.630
to change something
that was ugly, despair,

02:06:15.630 --> 02:06:18.030
into something that was beautiful,

02:06:18.030 --> 02:06:19.410
all of a sudden people started

02:06:19.410 --> 02:06:22.290
to look at the community differently.

02:06:22.290 --> 02:06:25.650
It's like, "Oh, no longer an empty lot.

02:06:25.650 --> 02:06:26.790
"Oh, how beautiful.

02:06:26.790 --> 02:06:30.510
"There's trees, there's flowers,
there are people laughing,

02:06:30.510 --> 02:06:34.410
"they're barbecuing,
they're having a good time."

02:06:35.443 --> 02:06:39.127
All of a sudden it opened the
eyes of developers, hmmmmm.

02:06:39.127 --> 02:06:42.660
- [Man] Oh, they're taking the fireplace,

02:06:42.660 --> 02:06:45.810
the center of the garden,
the heart of the garden.

02:06:45.810 --> 02:06:50.127
- And so Giuliani, in 1998,

02:06:50.127 --> 02:06:51.630
decided in the middle of the night

02:06:51.630 --> 02:06:55.923
that he was going to bulldoze
10 community gardens.

02:06:56.970 --> 02:06:58.590
I think that was a turning point

02:06:58.590 --> 02:07:02.340
in the urban ag movement
here in New York City,

02:07:02.340 --> 02:07:07.340
because people found their
power in terms of organizing

02:07:07.890 --> 02:07:09.960
and coming together and protesting,

02:07:09.960 --> 02:07:11.804
marching on the steps of City Hall.

02:07:11.804 --> 02:07:13.050
It was fantastic.

02:07:13.050 --> 02:07:17.250
These gardens are part of
the framework of the city.

02:07:17.250 --> 02:07:20.610
So why not put a rooftop garden?

02:07:20.610 --> 02:07:23.583
Why not put a garden in the backyard?

02:07:25.320 --> 02:07:27.060
I was a physical therapist too.

02:07:27.060 --> 02:07:32.060
I started to see the
effects of the junk food,

02:07:32.520 --> 02:07:33.780
the processed food, the fast food,

02:07:33.780 --> 02:07:37.620
that were having on my patients
who had farming backgrounds.

02:07:37.620 --> 02:07:40.920
Type 2 diabetes, hypertension and stroke,

02:07:40.920 --> 02:07:44.370
end stage renal disease, all
these diet-related diseases.

02:07:44.370 --> 02:07:46.200
But then when I started
talking about the food,

02:07:46.200 --> 02:07:49.410
I said but yes, I grow
the best collard greens

02:07:49.410 --> 02:07:52.230
and tomatoes and eggplants.

02:07:52.230 --> 02:07:54.720
All of a sudden that started to come back,

02:07:54.720 --> 02:07:59.340
and then they realized how
important eating off the land was

02:07:59.340 --> 02:08:03.390
and how they've lost that,
how they lost that connection.

02:08:03.390 --> 02:08:07.620
And by losing that connection,
they're now sick.

02:08:07.620 --> 02:08:09.300
For the farmers market.

02:08:09.300 --> 02:08:11.250
We have our chickens, they're inside now.

02:08:11.250 --> 02:08:14.400
Since we grow it, why not offer that

02:08:14.400 --> 02:08:17.550
to the people in our
community and let them know

02:08:17.550 --> 02:08:20.190
that there are gardens,
they're growing food,

02:08:20.190 --> 02:08:22.530
and that it's fresh and it's local

02:08:22.530 --> 02:08:24.510
and it's culturally appropriate?

02:08:24.510 --> 02:08:28.650
I mean, that's what makes
community gardens so beautiful.

02:08:28.650 --> 02:08:30.420
And that's why if you think about,

02:08:30.420 --> 02:08:32.187
it's not a garden, it's
a community garden.

02:08:32.187 --> 02:08:35.253
And that word "community"
garden is very, very important.

02:08:39.480 --> 02:08:43.350
So I coined the term "food apartheid"

02:08:43.350 --> 02:08:48.350
because my lens on how I was
looking at the food system

02:08:48.360 --> 02:08:53.360
was based on race demographics
and income inequality.

02:08:54.540 --> 02:08:58.110
And if you look at that and if
you start talking about that

02:08:58.110 --> 02:09:03.110
in that conversation, you get
at the root of the problem

02:09:03.420 --> 02:09:06.510
where we all know, it's
not rocket science,

02:09:06.510 --> 02:09:10.603
is that the subsidized, cheap food

02:09:10.603 --> 02:09:14.532
goes into low-income neighborhoods

02:09:14.532 --> 02:09:16.890
both urban and rural,

02:09:16.890 --> 02:09:21.890
and the healthy, fresh,
designer organic food

02:09:22.350 --> 02:09:26.010
is mostly in white, wealthy neighborhoods.

02:09:26.010 --> 02:09:29.850
And then the bigger question
that needs to be asked,

02:09:29.850 --> 02:09:32.460
the biggest question
that needs to be asked

02:09:32.460 --> 02:09:35.180
in this food system is:

02:09:35.180 --> 02:09:38.720
We live in the greatest
country in the world,

02:09:38.720 --> 02:09:42.540
where we grow enough food,
and we waste enough food,

02:09:42.540 --> 02:09:44.515
but we have hunger and poverty.

02:09:46.192 --> 02:09:47.610
Why?

02:09:47.610 --> 02:09:49.540
Because people profit

02:09:50.640 --> 02:09:54.723
from people who are poor
and people who are sick.

02:09:59.753 --> 02:10:03.450
And so, if you look at
the food system controlled

02:10:03.450 --> 02:10:06.780
by a group of white men,
with power over,

02:10:06.780 --> 02:10:11.253
so what I say to them is
that you got three things.

02:10:12.510 --> 02:10:16.113
You got to either give up that power,

02:10:16.950 --> 02:10:18.475
hard to do.

02:10:18.475 --> 02:10:21.150
Share it, easy thing to do,

02:10:21.150 --> 02:10:24.780
Or the last thing: I'm gonna to take it.

02:10:24.780 --> 02:10:27.633
And that's gonna be the food revolution.

02:10:29.340 --> 02:10:32.842
To grow your own food gives you power.

02:10:34.002 --> 02:10:35.310
Gives you power.

02:10:35.310 --> 02:10:37.920
Owning land, power.

02:10:37.920 --> 02:10:41.430
And so now young people wanna farm,

02:10:41.430 --> 02:10:45.240
and wanna own land, and wanna
control their food system,

02:10:45.240 --> 02:10:48.450
wanna control what they eat and
what they put in their body,

02:10:48.450 --> 02:10:50.050
because now they know the truth.

02:10:51.120 --> 02:10:53.610
Yup, he gotta get his cabbage,

02:10:53.610 --> 02:10:57.303
because if he doesn't get it,
squirrels will get it.

02:10:59.160 --> 02:11:01.920
- [John] I often think about this image.

02:11:01.920 --> 02:11:05.973
It reminds me that civilizations
and species come and go.

02:11:05.973 --> 02:11:10.410
Life on Earth will prosper
long after we are gone.

02:11:10.410 --> 02:11:13.733
- The planet will shake us
off like a bad case of fleas,

02:11:15.420 --> 02:11:19.882
a surface nuisance.
[audience laughing]

02:11:21.040 --> 02:11:23.707
[gentle instrumental music]

02:11:24.773 --> 02:11:26.070
- [John] Through the making of this film,

02:11:26.070 --> 02:11:29.340
I have learned that the climate
of Earth is governed largely

02:11:29.340 --> 02:11:33.210
by the flow of water
through living ecosystems.

02:11:33.210 --> 02:11:36.630
But in a relentless quest
for wealth and dominion,

02:11:36.630 --> 02:11:39.270
humans have destroyed these ecosystems

02:11:39.270 --> 02:11:42.003
and left behind dry land.

02:11:46.706 --> 02:11:50.673
I have also learned that life
is a regenerative process.

02:11:51.831 --> 02:11:55.331
[music continues]

02:11:56.970 --> 02:12:00.120
All the courageous people
I talked with along the way

02:12:00.120 --> 02:12:03.690
are solving the climate
crisis by working with nature

02:12:03.690 --> 02:12:07.863
to restore ecosystems that
balance the cycle of life.

02:12:08.822 --> 02:12:12.093
They're growing and eating
healthy food from healthy soil.

02:12:14.820 --> 02:12:17.613
People can join this effort in many ways,

02:12:18.480 --> 02:12:22.050
but the climate problem is
severe and has reached the point

02:12:22.050 --> 02:12:25.053
where large-scale efforts are necessary.

02:12:26.670 --> 02:12:29.760
As I sat at the base of
my favorite oak tree,

02:12:29.760 --> 02:12:32.403
I began to dream of what could be.

02:12:35.850 --> 02:12:38.850
What if Western economists
finally realized

02:12:38.850 --> 02:12:42.070
that a living tree is more
valuable than a dead one,

02:12:43.320 --> 02:12:47.100
and people began to not only
save the forest ecosystems

02:12:47.100 --> 02:12:50.346
but to rebuild forests
from the edges outward?

02:12:50.346 --> 02:12:54.018
[music continues]
[water rushing]

02:12:55.110 --> 02:12:59.020
And what if all the Profit
Monsters flew to outer space

02:13:01.200 --> 02:13:02.500
and stayed there?

02:13:03.500 --> 02:13:04.333
- Phffft!

02:13:05.272 --> 02:13:06.330
- [John] And in this vision,

02:13:06.330 --> 02:13:10.980
the US government has stopped
subsidizing giant corporations

02:13:10.980 --> 02:13:13.500
and is instead using its Farm Bill

02:13:13.500 --> 02:13:17.830
to subsidize small ecological
farms and farmers' markets,

02:13:21.360 --> 02:13:25.394
and to help large farms shift
to regenerative methods.

02:13:26.436 --> 02:13:28.869
[music continues]

02:13:30.060 --> 02:13:32.100
And every school kid knows

02:13:32.100 --> 02:13:36.150
that the more we humans
nurture and protect the land,

02:13:36.150 --> 02:13:38.913
the more the land will
nurture and protect us.

02:13:41.880 --> 02:13:44.638
That's the key to regenerating life.

02:13:46.221 --> 02:13:49.638
[music continues]

02:14:18.261 --> 02:14:20.844
[wistful instrumental music]

02:14:54.050 --> 02:14:57.550
[music continues]

02:15:48.011 --> 02:15:51.792
[music continues]

02:15:51.792 --> 02:15:54.375
[gentle piano music]

02:16:27.052 --> 02:16:30.469
[music continues]