Just.Stop.Demand We wouldn’t drive a vehicle off a cliff, especially if it was our only home, we would take our foot off the gas and apply the brakes. It’s a no-brainer, we STOP now or die. The Colorado River is at an all time low, Americans are facing unprecedented water shortages in many states. Water shortages are affecting billions in countries all over the world; According to Oxfam 90% of water sources in Africa have dried up leaving 80% without adequate access to water, someone dies there every 48 seconds. This is the inescapable result of the climate extremes we have brought upon ourselves. After serious analysis, the Potsdam Institute declared that the hydrological cycle is broken. We increasingly suck the system dry, and it cannot cope. We cannot live without water, we cannot grow food without it either. We cannot control the rain, the ONLY thing we have control over is DEMAND. So when it seems that ‘feeding the world’ with highly fossil fuel intensive artificial fertilizers is extracting too high a price, not just in terms of cost to the consumer, but in terms of crop failures, health costs, nutrient loss from our food, of diversity loss, water scarcity, polluting our air and rivers, dead zones at sea, deforestation, soil degradation and desertification; if our Governments won’t protect us, if corporate greed seems hell-bent on our mutual destruction, if our health systems won’t acknowledge that the way our food is grown is causing the majority of inflammatory conditions that we suffer from, reducing our immunity to infectious diseases and at the same time creating them or insist on our behalf that ALL food is nutrient dense and uncontaminated by agrichemicals… What can we do? We can STOP burdening our health systems and our own immune systems by not eating that intensively farmed food that undermines not only our own health but the health of every ecosystem worldwide. We can STOP buying into the food systems that exploit natural resources, consumers and farmers alike, creating billions of tonnes of unnecessary food and plastic waste; we can STOP buying highly packaged and processed Supermarket produce and support our local sustainable farmers directly instead, buy into an organic box scheme or create community DEMAND for Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). We must DEMAND healthy food; the sustainable alternatives that restore diversity and health to all the systems we rely upon for Life on Earth; a 1% increase in organic matter in soils increases moisture retention by 25,000 gallons per acre. A 1.6% increase in organic matter globally will bring ppm CO2 in the atmosphere down by a quarter, reversing climate change. We must DEMAND a sustainable, resilient food system that ensures food security; - that ALL our food is healthy and nutrient dense. - that ALL our food is grown in ways that sequester carbon, and retain water. - that ALL our food is free from biocides ensuring that the wildlife on the planet doesn’t have to suffer these either. We can directly STOP toxins entering our water systems by not using the toxins that ultimately end up down the drain; PFAS/Teflon in water-proofs, in food packaging, our cooking implements, on razor blades. ‘Dangerous to aquatic life with long lasting effects’ in our laundry and dish-washing products. Organophosphates that are banned in farming, but allowed in flea treatments for pets that get washed or swim. Medication that we urinate out, only needed because of the inflammatory and toxic food that we eat. We can directly reduce DEMAND for water by not washing the living daylights out of our clothes, our skins, our cars and our surroundings. We can dramatically reduce DEMAND for potable water by not wasting it to flush toilets and so directly STOP sewage from contaminating rivers or floodwater. We can DEMAND a return to Night Porters to collect this ‘waste’ and return the nutrients to the land to replace the highly fossil fuel intensive artificial fertilizers that blight the health of plants and all those that eat them attracting planet altering quantities of biocides then medicines just to keep them and us alive. We can DEMAND sustainable food and bio fuels, and STOP the insanity of using fossil fuels or energy to grow anything when nature will do this for us, sequestering carbon, restoring diversity and ecosystems into the bargain. We can DEMAND a JUST banking system and affordable, accessible loans based on need, not profit or ability to repay, so that we can become more resilient ourselves. We can DEMAND affordable, accessible public transport and car share schemes so that individual car ownership can reach the only logical/sustainable conclusion and become a thing of the past. And last but not least, because many of these measures may require more of our own resources than we can afford to spare, we need to DEMAND a JUST Universal Basic Income, that is index linked to protect all of us as the systems that surround us and services we rely upon come under more and more pressure. Cheryl Hillier, singer/songwriter, health & climate campaigner, regen smallholder & Biochar Woman hillsonthehill@hotmail.co.uk
Fab, totally agree, but still fails to acknowledge the part that HOW we grow our food plays... Shockingly, health data regarding foods rarely specifies how it is grown. Food is food right? And yet micronutrients and omega three are crucial to health, but intensively farmed food lacks nutrition. So we've been blaming UPF's and missing that the cheap staple foods they contain are grown in the unhealthiest way.
We still seem to struggle with the "myth" that farming is solely about producing food. We cannot make progress in achieving more sustainable land use until we recognise and accept the truth. A very large proportion of agricultural land (and the crops that it produces) is devoted to the production of alcohol - beer, wine, whisky, gin, vodka etc. Without honesty and truth about the way we use our natural resources, we will continue to get strategies and policies that are just greenwash.
An easy to read example of a rigorous study regards CARBON FOOTPRINT EVALUATION OF REGENERATIVE GRAZING: blog.whiteoakpastures.com/hubfs/WOP-LCA-Quantis-2019.pdf and here blog.whiteoakpastures.com/blog/carbon-negative-grassfed-beefMany sectors contribute much more damage and energy use than our farm sector. Imperative that it is understood that dairy and meat can be net zero and support biodiversity. Industrial meat substitues and other plant foods requiring manufacturing processes is a sleight of hand.
