They noted that industrial agriculture presently contributes at least one-fourth of greenhouse gas emissions and has destroyed vital aspects of knowledge of local ecosystems and agricultural technologies which are necessary for making a transition to a post-industrial, fossil fuel-free food system.
The solution they propose is "ecological farming" - a systems-approach that is based on photosynthesis and which, therefore, has a potential to be fully renewable. These systems are local, sustainable, and diverse, especially biologically.
"Biodiversity is the basis of food security," wrote the authors. "It also increases resilience to climate change by returning more carbon to the soil, improving the soil's ability to withstand drought, floods, and erosion. Biodiversity is the only natural insurance for society's future adaptation and evolution."
These words resonated with me and I wanted to learn more - but not yet. That was in the future. Before wading into the workshops, lectures, press conferences, and networking awaiting us in Turin, we wanted to be tourists for a while - enjoying our moment in the Late High Fiesta sun. The place to start, of course, was Venice.
I had been to Europe once before, to England as a befuddled fifteen-year old. But that was an eon ago - long before any "adult" worry about carbon footprints and rising sea levels. Gen had been to Venice on one of those dizzying post-high school graduation adventures that blur Paris-Venice-Rome together in a jumble of hotels, photo stops, and rude behavior by the locals. She didn't recall much of the city, except its exotic feel, and was eager to see
It was a lovely fall day when we arrived at Marco Polo airport - bright, warm and with a vapory softness to the air that announced "You're not in arid New Mexico anymore!" We took a crowded water bus to St. Marks square where we disembarked and began to pick our way through the crowds and narrow streets toward our hotel (becoming lost almost immediately). Within minutes, my brain made another announcement: "You're not in Phoenix either!"
My mind could not compute what my eyes were seeing. In 1966, I emigrated to Phoenix, Arizona, from Philadelphia in a covered station wagon, arriving on my 6th birthday - at precisely the moment that High Fiesta took off. Phoenix would explode in the next two decades, growing from a dusty backwater burg to an air-conditioned megalopolis of mind-bending proportions. Today, it is one of the biggest cities in the U.S., covering an area larger than Los Angeles!
In other words, I grew up in sprawl. For the next twelve years, until I left home for college (and eventually moving to the City of Angels), I knew nothing but horizon-to-horizon, no-holds-bar suburban growth. I thought it was all perfectly normal too - the way things were meant to be, the next step in the long road called Progress. It was a logical conclusion - after all, I saw sprawl everywhere I traveled: Tucson, Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, Denver, Los Angeles. Land-gobbling development, with its acres of asphalt, steady hum of air conditioners, and endless merchandising, became my 'default' setting for the current stage of western civilization. Intellectually, I was aware that alternative
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