If we restore all the degraded land, we can return the earth to paradise, making room for biodiversity and feeding the worlds population (with lowered animal protein consumption). star wars fanfiction terran alliance; when a girl says i'll keep that in mind; hillsborough disaster who was to blame; how to get into stanford with a low gpa kiss the ground fact checking - cnatrainingnyc.com This website uses third party cookies to improve your experience with your consent. Many of them are based on anecdotal evidence and experience. So what we are talking about here is how to better use the land dedicated to animal agriculture (83 percent of all agricultural land) that is responsible for 80 percent of food-related greenhouse gas emissions yet provides only 18 percent of our total calories. Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates. 2020 | Maturity Rating: TV-G | 1h 24m | Nature & Ecology Documentaries. The lazy author of this review makes the same mistaken claim. There are many things you can do, all varying in difficulty. Specifically, regenerative agriculture is a holistic land management practice that . The basic premise of Kiss the Ground is that the destruction of soil is contributing to the severity and intensity of climate change. Many farms are barely making a profit and are heavily subsidised by tax payers, if they can be taught to grow food this way, they may see a rise in profits and governments can cease the massive subsidies and use these funds elsewhere! Heres the big picture: a wide-screen projection of the surface of the Earth. But efforts have been made to restore the soils since 1994. Kiss the Ground Film | Official Website That sounds catastrophic. Did you know that we can save the world with soil? Its especially interesting to me as I am working towards a biology degree and hope to become a soil scientist. Regenerate America is an unprecedented coalition of farmers, businesses, nonprofits, and individuals from every corner of our country and all political stripes, convened by the national soil health 501 (c)3 nonprofit organization, Kiss the Ground. As an employee of the Natural Resources Conservation Service, he travels around the country educating farmers on more sustainable farming practices. And so, with these words, Harrelson immediately draws us into "Kiss the Ground," a documentary focusing on growing our food in a way that builds and protects our precious soil and also draws back into the ground the carbon dioxide that is causing climate change. If we can only get everyone on board! Tying the message of Kiss the Ground to voting for policymakers who will systemically change the way the country incentivizes regenerative agriculture and reversing climate change would have been an obvious and easy leap to make. There is a large focus on America, but the issues here in the UK (and the rest of the world) are similar, so it is applicable to all. Heres what he said: From the beginning stages of pre-production for the movie, Ray and Gabe were proposed because of their profound passion and dedication to soil health and their amazing ability to share it with others. Thanks for a well-referenced and easily readable article this seems like a great resource to send to people. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. He did several versions of this movie. Regenerative agriculture combines 4 practices. BookstoreBook submissionsNewsNewsletter signupRecipesGardening, Our storyGet involvedJobs/FellowshipPartnersContact usPrivacy Shipping & return policy. I do feel bad for the farmers trapped in the cycle though. There seems to be an incredibly fine line between grazing just enough and overgrazing, which speaks to potentially whycrediblepeer-reviewed science has to date, failed to produce results that come close to what Alan Savory claims. 'Kiss the Ground' Review: Celeb-Studded Doc on Fixing - IndieWire Its not a bad thing per se. We knew the film would really embody the spirit of the regenerative agriculture movement if Ray and Gabe were in it., And from the first days that Kiss the Ground the organization started, the work and research of Kris Nichols were fundamental to grasping why rebuilding soil was not only possible but the biggest solution to the climate, water, and food crises. The sort of solution you might suspect is at the top of all climate scientists lists. Fund charities that are helping people to compost their poo in toilets in the third world. Josh Tickell, the director of the movie, was associated with Kiss the Ground and was making a film on organic farming when I met him. After looking at all of the available evidence on holistic grazing, and claims made by the likes of Savory, the report concludes that grass-fed livestock are not a climate solution. No, Zelenskyy Did Not Say US Will Have To Send Their Young To Fight For Ganretts white paper doesnt even mention soil microbiology. Farmers need to make profits but we need to be transparent here and lay down all solutions on the table to have an open discussion. Farmers need to learn how to regenerate and take care of the soil. Our current farming methods are simply not sustainable. Tilling loosens the soil, disturbing microorganisms that live within it, drying it out so. Biodiverse cover crops to feed the soil biology and protect the soils. Check out this map for farms local to you Regenerative Farm Map Regeneration International. In many ways, this stands to do more harm than good. Ray: I met the Kiss the Ground group in 2015. We started ploughing/tilling because it was easier for us to upscale. As a last comment, it was brought into the discussion that we shouldnt believe Savory because his decision led to the death of thousands of elephants. Im Alexa, the Founder and Editor of Novel Hand. Without them we will starve. While I was attending the COP21 conference in Paris in 2015, I was again contacted by Josh Tickell and participated in a follow-up interview regarding the 4per1000 Initiative. I am very optimistic. Copyright 2021 Understanding Ag, LLC | Website by RVT Solutions. Ultimately, a covered planet is a healthy planet Earth needs to be covered in plants. And as we all know, this creates a slippery slope. I enjoyed Woody Harrelson as a narrator; he felt genuine. The documentary tiptoed around this, failing to make it explicitly clear that the food on our plate has to change, while seemingly wanting us to believe that holistic grazing on its own can reverse climate change. But I also experienced the same misleadingparadigms from the conservative groups like Farm Bureau and other commodities groups. Since chemical agriculture ramped up in the 70s, we have lost 1/3 of the worlds topsoil. A prime example of this is their claim that there is only 60 years of farming left. Many would argue soil degradation is the most critical environmental threat to humans". There is one hyperlink in error. Hi! Their mob grazing action and the impact of their hooves is important. A soil without organic matter becomes dirt, a mix of rock materials and cannot support life. Monocropping further exacerbates the issue, as the same crop is grown year on year, for miles in the case of US farms, microbial diversity cannot increase. Above all, its great to see this conversation growing from what has very much been a fringe movement to now entering the mainstream. So its incredibly facile. kisstheground. Tilling and chemical agricultural methods have disrupted this cycle and increased the rate of carbon release. For me, its a plant-exclusive diet and for you it might be eating plant-based before dinner often the perfect place for people to start. And Norborgs paper rehashed papers by Briske and Holechek that looked at short duration rotational grazing systems rather than holistically planned grazing systems [HPG] known in the peer reviewed scientific literature as adaptive multi-paddock or AMP managed grazing systems. Whats glaringly clear from Hawkens report is that when it comes to our food and greenhouse gas emissions, thetwo areas we can make the biggest impactare reducing food waste (number one solution)and moving to a plant-rich diet (number three solution). Ryland Engelhart is a philanthropist. Half are experts working in their respective fields, and the rest are celebrity activists for whom regenerative agriculture and climate change is more or less a cause. While, there were very subtle hints that people would have only caught if paying very close attention, it was not made overtly clear by the documentary that the proposed solutions means transitioning the world to plant-rich diets. While Morgan Freemans voice might have been a better match for shots of billowing fields of grain, perhaps Harrelsons raspy tone is an appropriate fit for the seriousness of the climate crisis. This isnt the only literature review that has found a lack of science to support Savorys claims about holistic grazing with another detailedreviewof the literature out of Sweden by Maria Nordborg, coming to the same conclusion. . As Hannah Ritchie, Phd (Geosciences) puts it: Whether you buy it from the farmer next door or from far away, it is not the location that makes the carbon footprint of your dinner large, but the fact that it is beef.. Gabe: I was assured by Josh that the information I presented would not be taken out of context and he agreed to run edits by me first. The movie is preaching to the choir here, which I think is why I found it disappointing that the filmmakers felt the need to wrap perfectly good explanations of the mechanisms of carbon sequestration and climate change in more evocative but nebulous language like "heal the planet" or "save the soil. The evidence in favor of regenerative agriculture is irrefutable. Check out their simple yet profound Soil Story: Do you or your families and friends have a special watch party planned when it streams onNetflix? Animals grazing is a part of the carbon cycle, and part of every healthy ecosystem in wild. Hotter soils during the day create hot rising air, which pushes any of these clouds away, and is how deserts are formed and grow. The filmmakers were able to discuss organic and regenerative agriculture, livestock production and veganism, and climate change in a manner that made no individuals or groups either heroes or villains but rather made the soil the hero which is the appropriate focus in my opinion. One thing with ruminant livestock is that when they are use as solar powered mobile composters in brittle environments, their manure, urine and saliva act as inoculates that increase soil microbiology. This is actually seen using satellites which monitor the CO2 levels. I thought it would be just another news release or another interview. To move the conversation forward with the urgency this topic deserves, filmmakers have to use the emotion they elicit to generate willpower and give the public the conceptual framework they need to act, not just to feel. I dont know a single holistic management practitioner that advocates cutting down forests to grow more cattle. In fact, the documentary claims that greenhouse gases are sequestered (stored/drawn down) in grazing herds, due to the generation of healthy soils, but released in feed lots where the animals are not a part of the natural cycle. A major strategy deployed in the documentary is offering two distinct choices for where consumers should source their food: conventional chemical-filled monocrops, or lush open fields of regenerative agriculture. I promise not to sell your information, and if you don't like what I send, you can easily unsubscribe at any point. It does include grazing planning and management, but also many other things. As prices go up, pending one spends the same budget they had previously set aside for meat, their consumption naturally falls. But crop subsidies from the federal government complicate the economics of agriculture. Every version got better, and the last version was the best one. Kiss the Ground review and summary | EAT THINK EXPLORE The rest of our topsoils are projected to be lost within 60 years. But the agreement is that all of the richest grasslands in the world have large grazing animals. Savorys claims dont stand up when you put them under the microscope. Hopefully, this movie will help open many more. In March and April, he says, farmers are tilling. Did you have any reservations about appearing in it? Using compelling graphics and visuals, along with striking NASA and NOAA footage, the film artfully illustrates how, by drawing down atmospheric carbon, soil is . Despite all of this, my fear is that many will be left with a complete misunderstanding of where environmental science truly lies. In fact, in theDrawdown Report,when you factor in the land that would be freed up if the entire world shifted to a plant-rich diet, this becomes the single biggest lever that each of us can pull to lower our individual environmental footprint. 209 South Oak Ridge Drive Ryland co-founded Kiss the Ground in his living room with a friend ten years ago. With no plants to transpire and create the water vapour which condenses to rain, local rainfall also fails, turning the area to desert. Neither does the author. I wanted the filmmakers to first understandto let the soil speak and to let nature teach us. Nature strives for balance, and has a system for reversing the carbon released into the atmosphere using the growth of plants and their relationship with soil microbes. Ganrett also doesnt have a clue how tropospheric hydroxyl oxidation works. Water and carbon escape into the atmosphere in enormous plumes blanketing the entire northern hemisphereshown onscreen as ominous swirls of red. It carries pleasant stuff. No spam, we promise just our best articles. Kiss the Ground features successful composting programs in San Francisco, Detroit, and Haiti. My greatest hope is for me to continue to do this and any chances I have to do so, I will take. We told him that you need to leave the audience with hope, which I believe he did. In turn, this means shifting to more plant-based diets. Industrial agriculture (left) causes desertification through tilling and synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. Gabe: I agreed to become involved because when Josh explained to me that the purpose of the documentary was to highlight how farming organically could improve our planet, I knew I needed to help bring his understanding of soil health and ecosystem function to a higher level. Kiss the Ground | Successful Farming Kiss the Groundgave the microphone to Ranchers Alan Savory and Gabe Brown, but we didnt hear about any legitimate science testing out whether the claims they were making truly hold up? Ray: Not at the moment, but if Steven Spielberg calls, I WILL answer. But as crops grow month by month, drawing down atmospheric carbon, the red is gradually replaced by greens and then by blues, until the map is recognizable once again as the pale blue dot we call home. Thank you for this article! Either way, shifting the typical diet in such a way is a certain win for humanity and all life on Earth, and thus something that not only should have been made clearer in Kiss the ground, but something that everyone reading should strongly consider. Kiss the Ground: Documentary Review - United Church of Christ Suppose you don't have enough time to read, then watch the KISS the GROUND MOVIE (streaming on Netflix) hosted by Woody Harrelson and directed by Joshua Tickell and Rebecca Harrell Tickell. Kiss the Ground. In other words, a 73 percent reduction in beef available per person in the U.S. For holistic grazing, that figure would be even higher because it requires far more land per cow and thus produces significantly less beef than the traditional more intensive grazing systems. Stardom is a complicated thing, but at least all that money and power are being put to good use. Nature Communications, 6, 6995. doi:10.1038/ncomms7995 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms7995, Wang, T., Teague, W., Park, S., & Bevers, S. (2015). 94 views, 12 likes, 2 loves, 3 comments, 1 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from Escuela Esmaca: Mitos y realidades sobre las algas Ms informacin sobre. Gabe: No, but only because I am on to the next project, bringing society together in supporting regenerative ag. Fact check: Crack formation video predates Turkey earthquake The film begins by examining . Ive listed these below in short, and then we will go through each together looking at the claims made and where the science lies: (These have also been covered in detail with Environmental Researcher Nicholas Carter (co-author of this article) in episode 104 and 111 on thePlant Proof podcast). Essentially, Hawken and his team have created a long list of approximately 100 solutions, which when implemented together, would be capable of drawing down more carbon than we are emitting by 2050. Ultimately, if high consuming individuals and countries want to do something positive for the climate, maintaining their current consumption levels but simply switching to grass-fed beef is not a solution. But here too Garnett doesnt understand the science. Do you ever think about where your food comes from. Commercial meat farming has one of the highest negative impacts. They are both such impactful leaders in this movement because they are called to bring these concepts to farmers and ranchers everywhere. Tilling, the process of pulling up the soil to plant seeds, is destructive to the soil. There was also no mention of tropical forest restoration which has significantly greater potential at pulling carbon out of the atmosphere compared to grazing cows on land no matter what practice is employed. worlds leading climate scientists have to say about diet? Having dedicated many years to researching and communicating the science behind an optimal diet for humans, I understand first hand how our health isinextricably tied to the planets(as detailed inmy upcoming book). The animals themselves arent the problem, where and how is the issue. When receiving subsidies for crops like corn and beans, farmers know that they will make a profit. Kris: There has never been a time when the potential to fundamentally change global agriculture, food quality, and economic viability for small and large farmers by regenerating the soil to restore and revitalize ecosystem services is as great is it is now. Soil is the solution and we have numerous options and opportunities to actualize this solution as consumers, farmers, ranchers, and environmentalists by focusing on the integration of biological processes. So sadly neither does the author of this review. Its avoidable if we take better care of our soils and pay more attention to where and how our foods are grown! This seems like pretty important information that was left off the table. Filmmakers Josh Tickell and Rebecca Tickell wound up spending seven years making their latest doc, "Kiss the Ground," and all along the way they worried that by the end of the process there . The first clue is when the documentary makes mention of the natural history of Bison roaming the United States. We are made of carbon (16%) and its the element that life is based upon! I promise its way easier to mail one ballot than to cut meat out of your diet or petition your city to collect compost! If we choose healthy foods, there is a reciprocation. Im not suggesting we should only be changing our diet but given it has greater potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions you would think it would have been given more emphasis than putting cows on pasture. Clearly this is something that needs our urgent attention and resolution! What the writers ignored is that it was SCIENCE that led to that preferred plan of action. Its a good vibe, like a 90-minute team-taught TED Talkindustrious, sensible, leaning into the future. Harvard research has shown that these chemicals can build up in breast fed babies this use of chemicals has to stop! It only takes a quick read of theDrawdown Reportto realize that this is absolutely unfounded its going to take an enormous amount of solutions to radically transform our energy and food systems to reverse climate change, and holistic grazing, while certainly better than intensive farming, is not the miracle carbon-sequestering practice that those watching are led to believe. Our mission is to awaken people to the possibilities of regeneration and inspire participation in this movement through media, communications, education, workshops, immersive programming, and advocacy. Chemical fertilisers mask the problem of degraded soils by providing the basics for plant growth, but also exacerbate the soil microorganism damage. Another issue with our modern methods is that we plough to remove existing plants, and then plant, or even leave the field bare over winter. And as the documentary states, shifting us from climate warming to climate cooling. Her main aim is to help people to start making some small (but significant) changes to the way they eat so they can enjoy all the benefits, like more energy, less sickness, reduced risks of future disease and less guilt - because we all need less stress and guilt in our lives! In COP21 in Paris, 2015.