Our Sunburnt Country 9781760988173, 1760988170

Table of contents :
Cover
About Our Sunburnt Country
Title page
Contents
Acknowledgement of Country
Dedication
Prologue
1 Family
2 Belonging
3 Life
4 Heartbreak
5 Boundaries
6 Involvement
7 Understanding
8 Loss
9 Future
10 Unfairness
11 Detachment
12 Politics
13 Narrative
14 Comfort
15 Benefits
16 Solutions
17 Justice
18 Collaboration
19 Diversity
20 Leadership
21 Courage
22 Accelerators
23 Home
24 Responsibility
25 Vision
26 Action
Resources
References
About Anika Molesworth
Copyright
Newsletter

Citation preview

About Our Sunburnt Country Anika Molesworth fell in love with her family’s farm, a sheep station near Broken Hill, at an early age. She formed a bond with the land as though it were a member of her family. When the Millennium Drought hit, though, bringing with it heatwaves and duststorms, the future she’d always imagined for herself began to seem impossible. As she learned more about the causes of – and the solutions to – the extreme weather that was killing her land and her livelihood, Anika became fired up and determined to speak out. Talking to farmers and food producers all around the world, she soon realised that there was a way forward that could be both practical and sustainable – if only we can build up the courage to take it. Beautifully written and full of hope, Our Sunburnt Country shows that there is a way to protect our land, our food and our future, and it is within our grasp.

CONTENTS

About Our Sunburnt Country Title page Acknowledgement of Country Dedication Prologue 1 Family 2 Belonging 3 Life 4 Heartbreak 5 Boundaries 6 Involvement 7 Understanding 8 Loss 9 Future 10 Unfairness 11 Detachment 12 Politics

13 Narrative 14 Comfort 15 Benefits 16 Solutions 17 Justice 18 Collaboration 19 Diversity 20 Leadership 21 Courage 22 Accelerators 23 Home 24 Responsibility 25 Vision 26 Action Resources References About Anika Molesworth Copyright Newsletter

I acknowledge the Aboriginal People of the place I call home and recognise their continuing connection to land, water, animals, plants and culture. I pay my respect to the Wilyakali people and Elders past, present and emerging. I also extend that respect to all First Peoples in Australia and around the world, and celebrate their enduring relationships to their homes and honour the value of their knowledge and stories that help us create a brighter future together.

To my family, who are my home.

PROLOGUE

FOR ME, FOOD is about family. It’s the delicious, steaming meals that bring us around the table together and connect me to my home – not only because home is where I cook and share stories around the kitchen table, but because my home also produces food. My family’s farm is located in one of the most beautiful and fragile places of Australia, in far western New South Wales. It’s a landscape of endless sapphire-blue sky, ancient trees twisted by the years and unique beady-eyed creatures that live among them. Red sand horizons stretch out forever and set the stage for the most spectacular sunrises, swirling all the colours of an artist’s palette. Here we raise sheep on rugged ranges and over flat grass country. The animals graze in a quiet broken only occasionally by the swoosh of a passing flock of ruby-flecked parrots. My home fills me with awe and wonder every day, and is a place to which I feel a great sense of belonging and a responsibility to look after. Although everyone has some interest in the weather – if it is rainy or warm and sunny outdoors – for farmers nothing is more important to their way of life. Temperature and rainfall guide decisions such as when to sow and harvest crops, and how much water is available to grow grain and for livestock to drink. Our way of life is embedded deeply in our environment. So it is understandable that there is a growing concern now that things are changing. Natural rhythms and seasonal cycles are no longer acting as they once did. Nature is breaking down around us. These observations are backed up by

science. The evidence is clear. As a global society, we have emitted dangerous greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, trapping heat and increasing global temperatures. In so doing, we have thrown the climate system into chaos and the food system into harm’s way. As farmers live and work so closely with the natural world, we are some of the first to feel the true impacts of climate change. Hotter temperatures are directly associated with heatwaves and bushfires, while greater evaporation dries out soils and causes heart-wrenching droughts. More moisture in the atmosphere increases rain and flooding intensity by fuelling the rage of storms and cyclones. Crop and livestock diseases are spreading, worsening animal welfare and food’s nutritional value. These disruptions have impacted what type of food farmers can produce and where. Around the globe, mounting food and livelihood insecurities are now driving mass rural-tourban migration, exacerbating poverty and inequalities in the most vulnerable and important communities – that of our food producers. And, at the end of the day, the impacts of climate change on the farming community affect all of us, as we all eat food. Climate change threatens every meal on every plate. Over the past few decades, the world has changed immensely as a burgeoning global population has asked more and more of our common home. We have razed forests to make our coffee; mined precious minerals for the latest gadgets; snuffed out birdsong and humming insects for highways and honking; and have polluted our land, water and skies as though consequences do not exist. The way we are devouring the planet is unsustainable. To highlight this, we need look no further than the food system. It is broken. Agriculture and associated land use consumes 75 per cent of the water extracted from nature, occupies more than 30 per cent of land surface, is a primary driver of biodiversity loss, and generates around 30 per cent of human greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is impacting what we eat, and what we eat is impacting

climate change. For those of us in developed countries, food that is neither seasonal nor local travels thousands of kilometres, and is smothered in plastic and chemicals to satisfy our insatiable appetites. Our bodies warn us to stop as medications and hospital admissions increase. But we continue to select high-sugar, high-salt, high-fat, highly processed foods that defy nutritional recommendations. These resource-consuming, carbon-intense foods cripple our health, yet we stuff them in our mouths and demand them at the cheapest price. Any excess food is scraped into the bin, trashing precious finite resources and releasing gases of rotting wasted food into our skies. And still we remain complacent, naively thinking that what we’re doing can continue. Because there’s food in the shops today, we believe that there will be tomorrow. But delusions of safety do not actually protect us. Reality has a way of catching up. And the food on our plates is at risk. Farm production, processing, transport, consumption and waste define the global food system. Interactions are highly complex and connected. But the system isn’t working. Today, 2 billion people are overweight or obese while more than 800 million people in the world are hungry. Two billion people suffer from micronutrient deficiencies, and a quarter of the world’s children under the age of five are affected by stunting because they are not eating enough or the right kind of food. Meanwhile, perversely, enough food is wasted every year to feed 3 billion people. These statistics should make us feel unsettled in the stomach. Such troubles are hard to digest. So, the question of our age has been laid on the table before us: How do we simultaneously achieve good health for people and our planet? The world is in a perilous state and what we have lost and destroyed over the past few decades is inexcusable. Grief and frustration infect many of us. Yet it would be more inexcusable to give up, not to save and protect what can be. There is so much beauty and mystery in our world that deserves our care and respect. Our food system is fragile, and so is all the life that depends upon it. Life that depends on us.

Acknowledging the climate crisis and the responsibility it demands of us is not done lightly. And that’s where courage comes into it. As global challenges erode the pillars of food security – its availability, access, utilisation and stability – we can choose to watch on as silent witnesses, or find the inner strength to change our trajectory. What we do today will determine our tomorrow. Igniting hope and mobilising people with better narratives towards an exciting vision is what’s needed. Using our imaginations to redefine how our society interacts with the planet, harnessing traditional knowledge and employing innovative technologies will set us on a better path. These actions will help create a truly sustainable and climateresilient food system that nourishes communities and regenerates landscapes. We can fill the leadership void by stepping out of our comfort zone, shifting mindsets and inspiring behaviour change. Climate courage is the mental and moral strength to express our fears, challenge the status quo, and help bring to life the vision that we know is possible. That is my intention with this book. While the early chapters focus on my growing awareness of the climate crisis and sense of responsibility to do something about it, the book then turns the storytelling over to others who are doing what they can to look after their homes and our planet. As a reader, you will hear about the efforts from people all over the world – from farmers, scientists, chefs, nutritionists and advocates – who are striving to make the future the best it possibly can be. This book shares the story of the humanity entangled in the climate crisis throughout the food system. It portrays the connection of people to nature, explains why we are crossing Earth’s boundaries and causing frightening damage, and how we as individuals can influence positive change and secure a better future for our world and all the precious life it holds. Ultimately, it is my hope that you will find knowledge, skills, inspiration and courage from within these pages. The climate crisis is not imminent. It is here. And farmers like me are being challenged today. This concerns everyone who eats food. Now is the time when we must recognise that we are all problem-makers and problemsolvers. To look after the food system and create a better world, we must now

cultivate climate courage.

1 FAMILY

‘Food for the body is not enough. There must be food for the soul.’ Dorothy Day, Catholic Worker, 1940 HER HANDS ARE soft as silk and delicate as tissue paper, flecked with pale sunspots and faded scars that show they have worked hard in life. My fingertip traces the veins on the back of my grandmother’s hands. She lounges on a tan faux-leather couch distracted in conversation with my father about pruning the lemon tree in the garden. The tree is large and leafy, decorated with a bounty of golden-orb fruit. Pruning it properly is important, she says, and no lemon should fall wasted to the ground. Kneeling on the linoleum-tiled floor, I rest against her legs, my gaze following her fingers that move like a conductor’s baton, directing which branches can go and which must stay. Her warm hand lands back in my upturned palm. It’s a strong grip, surprisingly tight for someone in her eighties. But for me, as a seven-yearold, it’s a grip that always makes me feel secure. The best way to describe my grandmother is as ‘a force’. Her dark, captivating eyes could flash between humour to intent in an instant. Her wit cracked like a whip, and if you happened to be at the receiving end you felt momentary shock and a sting before a playful glint in her eyes reassured you of her good intent. She wasn’t the submissive type – Granny had a reputation of speaking her mind. On more than one occasion, she stared down a police

officer while shaking her walking stick and delivering a fierce reprimand when something hadn’t quite played out as she thought it should. On more than one occasion, I peered around her ample waist to see the helpless police officer apologising profusely and agreeing that my granny was entirely correct and, whatever the error was, it would never happen again. There was an intensity in her loyalty to family and friends, a protective nature where the sole reason for her every action seemed to be looking after the people in her care. This is perhaps a common trait of grandmothers – sweet as fresh cream but with a lifetime of lessons ready to impart. Granny’s small red-brick home was tucked behind my family’s house in an unusually large and vegetated garden perfumed by the scent of citrus flowers in bloom. The trees moaned when the wind blew strongly but radiated birdsong when all was still. It was an oasis in suburbia, only a short train ride away from Melbourne’s city centre. On weekends, my parents, two brothers and I tumbled through Granny’s door, her quiet house erupting in a cacophony of noise as we grandkids scampered between rooms playing hideand-seek. Tucking myself into a linen closet, I would stifle giggles as my elder brother padded down the hallway, imploring my parents to reveal which direction I had gone to hide. When the suspense was just too much, I would burst from my den, grab the outstretched arm of my younger brother and we would sprint out into the garden with Granny’s little ginger-coloured terrier, Binnie, barking at our heels. I would wield a stick in the dog’s direction and give a mighty ‘Hi-yah!’. Outside among the trees we would run, as fast as our toothpick legs would carry us. ‘Slow down!’ Granny would call at our disappearing figures. ‘You’ll knock someone over!’ Shrill children’s voices tangled with the dog’s bark, cricket commentary on the television and my grandad, who was hard of hearing, asking for the third time where the morning’s newspaper had been put. The house was full of life and the kitchen table was our meeting place. Here, conversation was as effervescent as the fizzy drinks we guzzled, full of laugher and adventurous stories. Over Sunday roast served on delicately painted floral chinaware, the noise only ever dulled momentarily, as plates were filled and appetites satisfied. There seemed to be a magnetism to the

food in the way it brought us together – my mother wearing oven mitts pulling a tray of beef out of the oven, the wafting smells of succulent meat tantalising our bellies, my mouth watering involuntarily as plump juicy carrots rolled onto the serving platter. Butter-sautéed green beans and roasted potatoes with crispy skin that made a satisfying crunch – all gobbled down before the next round of ‘tag’ ejected us kids from the kitchen-table chairs. This urban upbringing never gave me much reason to think about where my food had come from or anything else about it really. My only interest in food was whether it tasted good. For me, food began its life in the brightly coloured packets I swiped off the supermarket shelves while hanging onto the shopping trolley (though whichever parent was pushing the trolley surreptitiously returned most of my selections). Food was produced under fluorescent lights and the sound of crackly shop speakers. Down the aisles I rolled, mesmerised by the abundance of fruit and vegetables of every shape and imaginable flavour. I was lulled by the shelves of plenty. Back home in the kitchen I would help unpack the shopping bags, bewildered that my selections had seemingly once again been pilfered by the nifty check-out teenager, but nonetheless happy to stack the pantry cupboard and fridge with another successful haul. Food was always around, within reach, just ready to be plopped into my mouth. I was blasé about it really, despite Granny’s attempts to make me appreciate it more. She would tell me stories of her childhood on her family’s farm west of Geelong in Victoria. It was hard to imagine such a life in the countryside or the effort to grow one’s dinner. But in times gone by, she said, people thought of food differently and understood its importance. ‘We are lucky to have this meal,’ Granny would say across the kitchen table, ‘because times can change quickly. So you have to keep alert!’ She would give her walking stick a loud thump on the floor to emphasise her point. She did this when she was getting serious and I needed to stop and pay attention. Granny learnt about the importance of food during the Great Depression of the 1930s, a period of worldwide social disruption and food insecurity. Many communities lost normal access to food, and the painful hollowness of hunger became the puppeteer of many anxious bodies. During the Depression

years, Granny took up nursing, tending to the ill and injured. She comforted those in distress and held the hands of weakened bodies. In the hospital ward, she delivered trays of food to each patient, hiding her fear of possible shortages from those under her care. She was around 30 years old when World War II broke out in 1939, a horror that followed on from the Depression. Food rationing became a fact of life in Australia from the 1940s. Meals became fewer and smaller for most people. Tea, sugar and meat disappeared from shelves, and eggs and milk were distributed under a system of priority for vulnerable communities during periods of shortage. Such commonplace items were regulated and restricted to ensure that each person would receive equal food resources as the War continued. Every person was allocated a certain number of coupons per item. Adults, for example, were assigned one pound (450 grams) of butter per fortnight. This precious staple was used sparingly. Meals were prepared with what food was available and affordable. As soldiers fought one another on battlefronts, people’s bellies grew hungry and malnutrition rose around the world. Children and the elderly became vulnerable to nutrient deficiencies, and their weakened bodies made them susceptible to disease. Tuberculosis and rheumatic fever became rife. As the War dragged on, food imports were curtailed in many countries. In Europe, Asia, America, Africa and Oceania, there was a stark awakening to how brittle the food system really was. The War was a shared social and human experience, and keeping loved ones well fed and safe became central in everyone’s minds. People at home in Australia were encouraged to be as self-sufficient as possible, to keep backyard hens for eggs and to grow their own vegetables. Some public parks were dug up and converted into community vegetable gardens. During this time of disruption, there grew a sense of community through food. Everyone was in this crisis together. Recipes designed to cater for lack of eggs, butter and common cuts of meat appeared in newspapers and magazines, and animal parts like brains, tripe, liver and kidneys formed a more significant component of diets. Shortages in food could have propelled greed and ignorance, yet people chose to react instead with compassion and generosity of scarce resources, to be innovative and hopeful – an example of the banding

together that is born from times of great need and finding courage during crisis. Respect for food and conscious consumption were ingrained in the generation that lived through the Depression and the War in a way that persisted long after the fighting stopped and official rationing ended. The true value of food, the precious giver of nourishment and health, had been brought to the forefront of Granny’s understanding, as it was to all people who learnt about food insecurity via this frightening experience. So it was understandable that food was never wasted in Granny’s house. Even when she was in her eighties, five decades after the War had ended, no mouldy slice of bread or yellow-tinged tub of yoghurt was discarded. Sure, the bread crust of blue fuzz may have been trimmed, but even that was carried straight out to the chicken coop where, to my youthful amazement, old food scraps were converted magically into perfectly shaped brown eggs the next morning by the shed full of clucking feathered magicians. Though this was impressive, I must admit that at this young age, I didn’t always see eye to eye with Granny on her mission to let no food go uneaten. I would scrunch up my nose at the pungent smell of acetic acid from fruit becoming overripe in the wooden bowl that sat on her kitchen bench. I dreaded those black bananas being sliced up for my afternoon fruit salad. Despite my protests and pleading to my parents, Granny wouldn’t have a bar of it. ‘Always be thankful for your food. Don’t ever take it for granted.’ And with a thump from her walking stick on the floor, the conversation would end. Food turns from a subject of pleasure and complacency to one of concern when my elder brother falls ill. Our childhood escapades end and a foreboding unknown ailment begins to cripple my closest game-mate. His muscles deteriorate and he drifts in and out of consciousness. He lies in a darkened room in excruciating agony, unable to bear light and noise. Weeks drag into months. My parents frantically try to ease his suffering. I look on silently from a crack in the door as his body wastes away, his moonlight-

white skin folded into crumpled sheets. Rendering him unable to lift food to his own mouth, the vicious disease strips him of his once-healthy, exuberant self; a pale, shrunken frame lies near motionless in his place. It’s a long time before specialist doctors diagnose him with an extreme case of chronic fatigue syndrome, the outcome of a virus that invaded his young body. He is admitted to hospital as his condition worsens. In the sterile ward he sleeps alongside other bed-ridden children, with faces too young to be lined up against white walls. Their characters prematurely aged by their conditions. I slowly approach my brother’s side, barely recognising the boy I used to battle with stick-swords on the lawn at home. His powerful jousting always disarmed me during our duels. I was too timid, usually fleeing when the game became serious. Now his contorted arms loosely cradle his favourite toy, a small gorilla we bought on a family outing to Melbourne Zoo before he fell ill. The gorilla looks as out of place as my brother in this strange stark room, its black eyes staring unblinkingly at the ceiling. The smell of the hospital bleach makes my head thump as I sit quietly while my parents read my brother books of princes with enormous courage who overcome great odds. As they tell these stories my mind wanders, hypnotised by the steady drip from a small, clear bag hanging on a metal hook above my brother’s head. Each drip of liquid runs down a long, plastic tube taped to his cheek and disappears into his nose. The doctors tell me the fluid is full of good nutrients and is feeding him so that he will be playing games with me again someday. I trust these experts in white coats and the words they tell me. But the games don’t resume anytime soon. I watch red-eyed family members embrace and offer support in a circumstance where no comfort can be found. My parents live in a state of dread that one day they will lose him. I find my mother crying into a basket of dirty laundry in the back room of our house. She can’t even catch her breath as she tries to tell me, ‘It’s all right, sweetie, everything’s going to be all right.’ I run to get my father. They cling together while I watch helplessly, crouched in the corner as they weep among the laundry until both their shoulders are stained damp with tears. Some weekends my parents bring my brother home from the hospital for

a day. I sit in his wheelchair while he lies on the couch under a quilted blanket. Occasionally my younger brother clambers up onto the wheelchair with me, and we stretch over the arm-rails and heave while turning the large metal wheels. We usually manage a wobbly half-circle before flipping the wheelchair over, quickly smacking our hands to our mouths to stifle our gasps so as not to wake our brother or stress our parents further. In the evenings when my parents are leaving to take my brother back to his hospital bed for the night, Granny appears at the front door under lamplight with her oversized handbag crooked under her arm and a packet of candied papaya for us to share. My parents’ absence as they tend to my brother in hospital means more sleepovers with Granny. It’s a chance to practise my dance routines with her and to dress my younger brother in her fox-fur coat as my audience. Chopping vegetables and moving pots on and off the stove’s flame, Granny bustles noisily around the kitchen while I work on mastering the pirouette in my hot-pink lycra leggings. Granny critiques my form while stirring the food with a wooden spoon in a pirouette of its own. The soft bubbling sound of hot stew cooking in the pot is my background music, before Granny dishes dinner onto our plates and the kitchen morphs back from dance studio to dining room. ‘Food is life,’ Granny says, sitting at the kitchen table and ladling another steaming serve into our bowls. She reminds me how lucky we are to eat tasty and healthy food, as not everyone has food in their pantry, and even when some people have food their bodies reject it. I see the stark contrast in how food nourishes my body and not my brother’s. The food I eat gives me strength, sustains my energy and enables me to go to school. But without the ability to eat meals, my brother has increasingly become a mere shadow of the healthy young boy I once knew. I miss our games and having my parents home at night. During those evenings, after dinner when my belly is full, I climb onto Granny’s lap, nuzzle my face into her bosom, and breath in her warmth and comfort. She opens up stories of her childhood as though they are books, describing to me her family’s farm where she rode her pony along a clear

flowing creek. Imagining the green fields and the sound of hooves splashing in the water, I pull at threads on her woollen jumper as my eyelids become heavy. The street noise and sirens outside the window dissolve into the background, replaced by the whistling call of the barn owl and the bellow of cattle in the valley. Granny tells me about a land that is as fit and vibrant as her younger self. An environment full of secrets and wonder. In these moments, it feels like my brother’s illness and the troubles of the past are far away and long ago, and here within my four walls, with Granny’s arms wrapped around me and her hands holding mine, my world is safe and always will be.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE Food is life. It is the nourishment for our bodies and the stability of our communities. It is the story of our past and the story of our future.

2 BELONGING

‘Wisdom begins in wonder.’ Aristotle, Metaphysics, ~350 BCE THE CAR DOOR swings open and I tumble out of the back seat along with a pile of suitcases and empty packets of travelling snacks. Twelve hours of driving north-west and we finally arrive at our destination. I get to my feet and look around. I have never seen a landscape so enormous. My four walls of suburban familiarity and comfort feel far behind me now. I am twelve years old when my parents purchase a farm. It isn’t close to the city of Melbourne or even in the nearby region that is known for producing fine wool and rich landholders. No, my parents have bought a farm in one of Australia’s most remote places, in a landscape that greets you with a whack – a fly-kick to your chest and it pins you down as its hostage. You don’t forget meeting a landscape like that. Undisturbed red sand vistas are peppered with spiny shrubs as merciless as the intense outback sun that hangs in the sky. Here in the foothills of the Barrier Ranges, in far western New South Wales, kangaroos outnumber people one hundred to one. This place is wild, rugged and untamed. My parents buy the farm from a man with a smile like a picket fence in a state of disrepair, who, somewhat impressively, fills one toothless gap with rolled tobacco and whistles ‘You Are My Sunshine’ from another. Unlike the

adults I knew in the city, who stashed their intrigue for nature away in a travelling backpack kept in a closet, this antagonist of dentists is in wonderment with his surrounds. His knuckly finger points out things I have never seen in my urban upbringing, telling me which animals have passed by from their tracks in the sand and when the rain will fall from the movement of the ants. Naturally I am suspicious of how he knows what he knows. My parents have no prior farming experience. Their life, like mine, has been metropolitan-based until this point. But they leap at the tasks of fixing fences and painting sheds with admirable gusto, laughing at their own learning mishaps. I am not the only one who is hesitant about this new life. Their Melbourne friends make the occasional snide remark like ‘What a dreamy little hobby farm’ and ‘Enjoy your rural holiday’. It does nothing to impede their ambition though. They work out how to drive a tractor to dig dams, and spend hours researching livestock and markets. They purchase a truck full of a hardy Egyptian sheep breed, called Damara, with doe eyes and large satin ears. It’s an uncommon breed for the area, which attracts its own criticism from our farming neighbours, but my parents put their trust in this long-legged, arid-adapted sheep and watch them grow fat grazing in the paddocks. With a philosophy of working with nature and minimising external inputs, they undertake the steps needed to obtain organic certification. They clear away the synthetic chemicals, clean the yards of any residue and waste, and care for the sheep in a way that naturally alleviates parasites and diseases. There is a great sense of pride when they finally qualify as organic sheep producers, symbolised by the framed certificate they hang in the study. I learn the term agroecology, the idea that food is produced based on ecological principles, where ‘health and nutrition per hectare’ is measured rather than ‘yield per hectare’. I begin to see my parents as active participants in this landscape – a role I am also being invited to share. Initially, I am hesitant though, sure that I will get lost or trampled, or worse, punched by a kangaroo. So I hover around the house, viewing the outside world from within. I feel safer behind a wall of glass. But seeing the rejuvenated spirit of my parents and their exhausted happiness at the end of long days, I start to

wonder what it is they’re learning. What do people out here know that I don’t yet? The unfamiliar land beckons me to explore it, like the daring older kids at school who know the best adventure lies just out of sight. It wills me to come with it and discover its hidden secrets. And eventually I succumb to curiosity. At daybreak I wake to a concerto of magpies warbling outside my bedroom window, tie back my unruly long brown hair, wiggle into a cotton shirt and, with a determined grunt, yank on my boots. From the pure morning air filling my lungs as I cross our home lawn heavy with dew, to the dank, earthy smell of mud on the edge of the dam, my senses are tantalised. By the water, I set traps for yabbies and stare in equal amazement and disgust at the awkward crustaceans hanging onto the meaty-bone bait. I delicately pluck their powerful pincers from their feast and release them back into the murky depths. I marvel at flocks of thousands of emerald budgerigars and am enchanted by shy wallaroos in the rocky hills. As months and years pass, I cradle newborn lambs in my arms as my parents check their health, and I learn the names of the plants that grow around our farmhouse. As I get to know the world around me, the richness of life bursts forth. The new scenery seems to be doing my elder brother some good as well. He has been in and out of hospital for eight years, and whether it’s the quietness that comes with this rural life, or the distraction, or the fear that if he doesn’t recover soon the landscape will devour him, his symptoms seem to be slowly abating. Colour is returning to his cheeks, and although he’s unable to exert as much energy as he used to, he’s back at my side discovering this new place with me. Together in the paddock, we learn to drive in an old, beat-up Suzuki ute with flaking paint and the driver’s door held on with bailing twine. Barely able to see over the steering wheel, we bump along the corrugated red-dirt tracks, grabbing at the gearstick while straining to reach the clutch pedal. With a crunch of metal on metal, a forceful arm jab, and the deafening whirr of the engine revving, we jump into a higher gear, our necks whipping at the change in speed. I am beginning to enjoy this place. And as I come to know it, the landscape becomes more than trees and rocks. I see past its tough and

enduring façade. I see its fragility, an eggshell of interdependent and symbiotic relationships – an ecosystem moulded and looked after by those who live here. What a responsibility, I think. Admittedly, the hardened saltof-the-earth people out here in this remote landscape do not at first appear to be appropriate for this vital task. Some have more sun wrinkles crisscrossing their face than the landscape has ephemeral creeks that transport life after the rain. What an incredible role for someone with a sweat-stained felt hat and a worn-out shirt, I think, contemplating my reflection in the mirror. But as I learn how the hands of rural people nurture the land and the care they take to produce food from it, I see these custodians endeavouring to protect a sacred balance. There is a relationship between them and their environment, an intimacy in the connection of these people to their surrounds. It’s common knowledge that farming can be difficult, so the words ‘resilient’ and ‘resourceful’ are often used to describe the people who live on the land, given the variety and number of challenges they face weekly, if not daily. To sustain such a lifestyle suggests deep and strong foundations, underpinnings that are not broken or weathered by trivial matters or even mild inconveniences. I begin to understand that such foundations can only be based on love, as clichéd as it seems. For those who choose to live close to the land, their affinity with the natural world is indissoluble and their care for it unwavering. And like them, to my own surprise, I start to fall in love with the land. I feel encircled by things of significance, their meaning sensed rather than grasped – subtle, embedded associations between soil, water, food, health, family and happiness – where no monetary figure can ever reflect its true value. To live with this land and produce food from it feels like an honour. And as I spend time here, I learn that my family is certainly not the first to feel this way about the land. The closer I look and the more I listen, the rich anthropology etched into the landscape begins to reveal itself to me. I learn with growing fascination about the local Indigenous people who call this place home and whose culture is one of the earliest on Earth. In this region, the Indigenous people are divided into numerous cultural groups, the Bulalli and Wilyakali people based in and around the Barrier Ranges, and the

Barkandji occupying a large section of the Barka/Darling River frontage. For tens of thousands of years, these people collected bush bananas and fished for river cod, living directly off the land around them. They pulverised wattle seed into flour and cooked fresh meat on fires dotted along the water’s edge. These Indigenous people had an affinity with the landscapes in which they laughed together, danced in ceremony, built their homes and hunted for food. They were not separate from their surroundings, but part of them – a human– land association shared by Indigenous peoples worldwide. This connection to the environment was so apparent, in fact, that the early European arrivals to the far west of New South Wales noted the deep spiritual relationship with some astonishment. The Barrier Miner newspaper of 17 March 1892 includes a telling account of a rain-making ceremony conducted by the Aboriginal people on Poolamacca Station during the prevailing drought. The following is a condensed version by historian Richard Kearns: The proceedings involved the patriarchs of the tribe (no women or youths being allowed) sitting in a circle, steadily chanting ‘lo, lo, lo,’ (meaning ‘rain, rain, rain’) for three days and nights. Into an inflated wallaby skin was placed a quantity of hair cut from the old men’s faces, to represent black clouds, a bundle of swans-down to symbolise white clouds, two small bones for lightning, and a branch of a shrub known as water-bush. Then followed many hours of chanting, after which the rainmakers performed a circular dance as they approached a small well sunk in the bed of a creek. Veins were opened up and the blood of the old men spurted into the wallaby skin until it was full. Bleeding was stopped by the application of a plaster of mud and leaves. The skin was placed in the well, and two of the oldest men were forcibly held under the water until they almost drowned. The others filled their mouths with muddy water and squirted it out with great force, to represent falling rain. Still chanting ‘lo, lo, lo’ they hauled out the exhausted old men and covered the well with great reverence.

The Poolamacca Aboriginals then marched back to the area at which they had begun the ceremony, and prophesied confidently that ‘big fellow rain’ would come. Big rain did come that year. Water filled the streams and flowed into the river. Wild tomato and native mustard grew in abundance and the fleshy taproot of the tar vine was pulled from the soil and cooked on campfires. The Indigenous people gathered nourishment from their surrounds, taking enough to feed themselves but rarely ever more. Leaves were pounded to make medicines and animal skins provided warmth to their bodies. They had an understanding of nature, living by the hours of daylight and the ebb and flow of the seasons. For most of human history, to speak of time was actually to assess the condition of the natural world – which flowers were in bloom, where the migrating animals were feeding, how low the sun sat on the horizon. Our ancestors’ time was structured by nature’s rhythms and cycles originating from Earth’s tilt and rotation. To this day, the sun is buried deep in our human biology, as we rise and sleep with circadian rhythms – betraying our identity as animals deeply embedded in a planet turning on its axis. And how foolish we would be to think this untrue – to cut our own cord from Mother Nature and to forcefully disconnect others who remained cognisant of our dependence. But the growing global population over the past few centuries and white colonisation of other areas disrupted and displaced Indigenous people who lived within the natural world. Europeans arrived in the district west of the Barka/Darling River in the mid 1800s, assuming control of vast expanses of land and destroying much of the fabric of the tribal systems over the ensuing years. Many traditional camping and hunting grounds were taken over, and Indigenous groups on sheep farms soon became dependent on issues of flour, meat, tea and sugar, usually in exchange for labour. By the early 1900s, either voluntarily or by government action, most of the Barka/Darling Aboriginal people had been relocated to or near the small river townships. Many of the tribal identities

were lost with time, together with thousands of years of customs and beliefs from undisturbed existence. There was both a casual, uncaring and unpremeditated destruction of Indigenous lifestyles and cultures, and brutality and harsh treatment towards these people who looked, spoke and lived differently from the colonisers. Thereafter occurred the gradual loss and suppression of people who had a profound respect for the natural world, from which they did not see themselves as separate. This coincided with an influx of new arrivals who had an eagerness to conquer new lands and often held both a domineering and exploitative mentality. In the vast Australian outback, the separation of self from the environment is a treacherous mistake. An unforgiving sun can make quick work of those inexperienced in locating water and food. Captain Charles Sturt and his party were the first Europeans to penetrate the far west region of New South Wales. His team located and mapped the Stanley’s Barrier Ranges – which were subsequently shortened to the Barrier Ranges – thanks to Aboriginal guides who could read the landscape and navigate between sources of sustenance. By the time the expensively outfitted Burke and Wills expedition was organised in 1860, river traders had established the small settlement of Menindee on the Barka/Darling River. Paddle-steamer boats brought in dried and salted provisions from hundreds of kilometres away to feed the European colonisers. Right alongside them, skilled Aboriginal people used canoes and elaborate stone traps to catch fresh fish and picked succulent berries from the surrounding bushes. The Burke and Wills expedition was plagued by discord and is one of the numerous tragic tales of Australian colonial exploration, where the new arrivals did not understand the environment in which they were trekking and refused the knowledge of the Aboriginal people. Their deaths by vitamin deficiency and starvation in a landscape that was sufficiently feeding Indigenous communities were due to a combination of ignorance about and arrogance towards their surrounds. The failure to learn from Indigenous people and traditional cultures has been detrimental to the invading society throughout history. The depth of

understanding of the past has often reflected adaptability to difficult circumstances. Attenuated connection between people and place has not only served humans poorly but severely weakened environments. A loss of interest in and relationship with the natural world has dimmed our ability to see its glory as well as its demise. For many Indigenous peoples, the environment is sacred, a part of them, the spirit of their ancestors. Their connection goes far, far beyond the concept of property, which is mostly how we talk of it now. Today, many people do not feel a spiritual relationship to the place they call home – an attachment to their location like it is an extension of themselves. The sense of belonging to a place is a trademark of Indigenous people, developed over thousands of years of cultural heritage born from the surrounding environment, where recollections of ancestors and stories of the future entangle with the landscape. ‘The river is our memory, we walk along it and remember our history and our ancestors by looking at the marks and places,’ local Barkandji Elder William ‘Badger’ Bates tells me. He talks with deep fondness about his homeland, which is located down the road from my family’s farm. Badger is a well-respected Indigenous artist who creates many types of artwork depicting the beauty of the natural world, including ornate herons carved from timber. One of these herons stands at the entrance to my family’s house. There is such fineness in its detail that I stroke the carving as though it is a real bird about to take flight. ‘The young kids in Wilcannia use the town weir as a fish trap,’ Badger explains. ‘When the water is at the right level they shape the rocks into pools to trap the fish; this way of catching fish has been handed down through the generations. The Barka River gives us healthy food and medicine, it gives us wood to make our artefacts, reeds to weave, it is where we go as families to swim, boat, camp, picnic, and prepare and cook our traditional food.’ I sit on the river’s edge watching the slow-moving water and thinking of the fish, ducks and turtles that Badger grew up catching and cooking. He is an Elder of his community now and uses his artistic creativity to share the story of his home – a place full of extraordinary detail and wonder. Like him, I am enveloped in a feeling of belonging. I see the shapes and folds of the

land that we both call home; the toughened exterior, the soft and fragile places, the well-hidden secrets. It has become undeniable to me that the land breathes and evolves as the sun rises and falls and as the seasons change. I contemplate Badger’s words, the people who came before me, and as I listen to the river’s music, I am overcome by the gentle melody of this place. This land is more than a name on a map; it is a teacher, a counsellor, a member of our family. And in this place, significant moments in my life are happening all around me. Everywhere I turn, I see the memories my family and I are making – from birthday picnics held under the towering eucalyptus trees, to scattering my grandfather’s ashes among the quiet granite boulders. I see more than a place. I see the story that is connected. I see my own story being revealed. Many hands have cared for this land before me, and now I realise it is my turn. My time to learn from this place and do all I can to look after this sunburnt country.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE The natural world is rich and wondrous. There is so much we can marvel at and learn about, and when we do so, we realise that our own story is etched within it. Developing connections with nature and a sense of belonging engenders the care and compassion we need to look after it and its people.

3 LIFE

‘The truth is that we never conquered the world, never understood it; we only think we have control.’ Edward O. Wilson, Biophilia, 1984 I ARRIVE AT the stockyards under the cloak of darkness when the air is heavy and still. So still that the sound of my kelpie dog panting on the back seat of my car resonates like an amplified heartbeat in a thriller movie just before the shootout climax scene. There is a similar, yet less extreme, anticipation hanging in the car. He shifts his weight as we sit together, peering out the window, ears pricked, ever alert to the faintest of sounds. Momentarily the panting pauses in response to an inaudible rustling outside, and I turn my head to see his eyes glistening in the softest light. A kangaroo leaps from a nearby saltbush and whacks its tail with a thud on the ground to alert others of our presence. It bounds off into the darkness. The sky above is still black and some of the larger stars are shining defiantly, despite their impending morning extinguishment. A thin apricot-pink line then appears on the horizon, as though a red wine induced watercolour painter has haphazardly feathered their brush along the skyline for my personal enjoyment. Sunrise is my favourite time of day. I’m lost in bleary-eyed dreaming, gazing at the painted horizon and the mulga tree silhouettes that remind me of wooden cut-outs in a stage play at

my high school, when I hear the exasperated change of truck gears. The heave and grumble of a multi-trailer semi slowing down as it approaches our front gate. The truck’s air brakes exhale a sigh of relief that they have finally found our place. I flick on my car’s ignition, bringing the headlights to life, and guide the semi down our rough dirt driveway to the sheep. Scaling the steel yards, I swing my leg over as a tearing sound meets my ears. ‘Dammit,’ I say under my breath as my jeans catch on a protruding rusty bit of wire and rip a small hole. I land squarely in the yard, red dust rising around me as the sheep stir, and I pull my bandana up over my nose. I feel the warmth radiating from their huddled bodies. Or maybe it’s the heat of the ground trapped from yesterday’s fiery sun. Standing there silently, my hands resting on my hips, I look into their faces as they look back at me. Every muscle twitch is observed between us. Even the annoying harassment of the flies is ignored. That is until they become unbearable, and with irritation have to be swatted away, but then the stand-off resumes. My brothers are ahead, opening old gates that whine in rusty protest, making sure there is a clear run to the ramp and onto the truck. My parents give instructions in hushed voices to move the sheep forward. As my eyes run over the sheep’s large white frames, I feel a sense of pride. They look good. They are standing tall and strong. There is decent weight on their loins, which was helped by the late-spring rain and the new plant growth. They ate well, grazing native spinach and button grass, breathing the same clean air as me and spending quiet days in the expansive landscape. They had a peaceful life out here. My heart clenches now that it’s time to say goodbye. You get to experience the cycle of life and death with great intimacy on a farm. You raise and nurture life. You celebrate it. You enjoy with fascination watching something grow before you. Seeing the smallest seedling emerging from the soil or a lamb taking its first gasps of air can send a shiver of excitement through your body. You feel almost light-headed when you get to witness new life at such closeness. To think you helped make that happen. A primordial parental instinct swells inside you. Those first breaths, those first steps. Over the following months you obsess about this new life. You dedicate every waking moment to making sure the crops or livestock have

enough food, the right food and the cleanest water. You find your chest puffs out every time you mention their development. Any opportunity to share photos you do so. You worry about them when a storm blows in and the wind howls. Any excuse to be in the paddock you’re there. This life is in your hands. To create life with the intention of sacrificing it may seem to some a peculiar thing to do, a thought that sits uncomfortably – to nurture one life to give it to another. There is a weight to that role that is hard to describe. But the plant or animal that is trucked out the farm gate goes to nourish someone. Its nutrients become incorporated into the body of another being, providing them with energy and strength, assimilated into their make-up. Food is life. And it’s this understanding that carries the weight of a farmer’s role and gives an importance to their work that cannot be overstated. I learnt quickly from my family’s farm that food doesn’t start its life in a supermarket. It begins on a farm, and it begins as a life itself. A life that needs care and nurturing. A life that has become my responsibility to care for and nurture. Because of this, I experience a murky porridge of emotions when the sheep are brought into the yards and sorted for slaughter or saving. My feelings run high. I’m aware of my impact on the life around me, the decisions I make and the consequences they have. Sorting sheep is a methodical process. The sheep in the pen to the left go onto the truck for sale, the pen to the right go back to their paddock, and the one sheep in the middle yard will be killed for our dinner. At the end of our day in the yards, I will scoop its wet intestines off the kill-floor and help heave its stiffening body into the back of our car. We will hang it by two hooks in our chilling-room, and every time I catch a glimpse of the upturned carcass in the cold fog, my skin will prickle, knowing the life it was and knowing the role I played. I don’t take my responsibility lightly, and the respect I have for the life of that sheep and the life it gives me is without limit. Fellow farmer Jody Brown describes this as ‘the privilege of touching life and death’. Her home is in the endless grasslands of Longreach, Queensland, a place that inspired a generation of Australia’s iconic poets and continues to

captivate those who adventure into its vast expanse. When we catch up, Jody tells me that she and her parents have been sorting cattle for sale on her family’s 18,000 hectare property. ‘We had a couple of really lucky breaks in the season, so while there’s not a lot of bulk left in the pasture, the breeders are in real good nick, so we’ve been fortunate. But a bit more rain wouldn’t go astray, hey?’ Jody has one of those outlooks on the world that makes her seem like she’s lived more than one lifetime, an insight and wisdom usually reserved for those decades older. ‘One of the greatest privileges of life on the land is also the most humbling of responsibilities: to not only bear witness to life and death, but to be implicit in the circle of life. Animals will live or die, flourish or falter, under our watch and beneath our hands.’ We talk at length about the land and the animals in our care, the relationships we build with other life and the responsibility we have to it. ‘There is little else that I have experienced that fills me with the same wonder and awe as that of witnessing a calf’s first breath in the world outside its mother’s womb.’ My mouth involuntarily falls agape as she describes her experience of living remotely where there is no veterinarian on hand and having to deliver calves herself. ‘Sometimes they come out breathing. But not always. Sometimes, you labour away painstakingly for an age to get the calf in the right spot, on the right angle, to use the right amount of pressure to pull him or her out. Progress might be measured in mere inches. But at some point, the planets align and suddenly there’s an avalanche: a slippery mass of warm baby bovine, sliding out towards you, filling you with triumph as you deliver it messily and haphazardly to the ground. And then your elation turns to apprehension, as you note the stillness of its lungs. You pull the remnants of sac from its little face, and clear the slimy gunk from its mouth and rub its spine and give its lungs a little pump, and you don’t even realise that you are now holding your own breath in anticipation. The seconds drag on mercilessly, with no sign of breath. Then, suddenly, wondrously, this inert little sac of hide and hoof that you have delivered into the world flexes and stretches beneath your hands; its nose crinkles upwards and its mouth opens wide, and beautiful life-giving air rushes down its demanding throat and inflates its defiant lungs. And suddenly, life begins.’

A smile spreads across Jody’s face. She turns her gaze to the window and I feel her thoughts are out there in the paddock rather than inside the house, somewhere among the tall grass with her beloved mob of cattle. After a long silence, she speaks without taking her eyes from the view. ‘You build connections to landscapes you spend time with. The beauty of it eventually seduces you and gets into your system. And that’s it, that’s the end of you!’ I know that feeling of seduction well – the canopy of stars, the soft churring voice of the desert tree frog, the nights so quiet that you can hear your heart beating. ‘When you spend time in the landscape, an odd relationship evolves. You feel like both a parent and child – it sustains and nurtures you – but you also feel incredibly responsible for it. You are so aware that the decisions that you make impact on its health and whether it thrives or whether it suffers. It looks after you, and you feel responsibility to look after it.’ Responsibilities shape our identities and priorities. Developing an understanding of the landscape in our care, the people who call it home, the animals dependent upon it, influences our perceptions of the world and our roles within it. Cherishing life and respecting life are ingrained deeply in those who see how fragile it really is. Time on a farm makes it clear how impermanent life can be and how closely we stand alongside death. I know morality and death are not popular topics of dinner-table conversation, but the reminder that we won’t be here forever brings us firmly back into the present. Death helps us reflect on how precarious life is. To observe life’s delicacy allows us to consider our responsibility to nurture it where we can. On a farm you get a pretty good insight into the passage of time and worldly cycles. You are shaped by and respond to the rhythms of life and death, waltzing in its cadences and tempo. The whole farm operation is based on cycles that determine when to plant, water, breed, shear, prune, harvest and sell. The long quiet days that Jody spends in the paddock give her an acute awareness of those cycles. ‘The land you live on makes up your life. It’s constant company and holds a beauty that fills you with reverence. And when you spend time around it, you notice changes. And I think we have to get better about interpreting changes.’ Things are starting to be different, explains Jody to me. Things are not as

they once were. She is noticing changes around her and cycles unravelling. Temperature and rainfall doing strange things. Missing seasons and the disappearance of native species. As though the song of the land is playing erratically and out of tune, an irregular beat in the music. She is observing that death is becoming more distinctly a part of life. ‘Nowadays, I get up, I go outside and it’s silent. All the birds have left.’ There is a tremor in Jody’s voice and a worry in her eyes that comes with knowing something in her care is suffering, a knowing that something is wrong. ‘There’s been so much loss of life. It’s brown, everything is one colour. And as though it’s ash, it just blows away.’

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE Life is fragile and precious. By acknowledging our relationship with the life around us we become aware of our responsibility to look after it.

4 HEARTBREAK

‘It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.’ Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, 1865 HAVE YOU EVER stood before an approaching dust storm? The impenetrable wall of sand whipping up from the ground in a wailing wind. A formidable dark beast crawling along the landscape, bellowing a low grumble as it makes its way across vast stretches within minutes, unfolding to the heavens and engulfing everything in its path. Sand stings your skin like lashes from a whip and only a cloth pressed against your face allows you to breathe. Standing in a dust storm is a powerful reminder of one’s smallness in the face of Mother Nature. When my parents purchased our farm, we were unaware that it was the start of a decade-long drought. The early millennium turned out to be crippling dry times for much of Australia, and the ten years of little rainfall became known as the worst drought on record. These tough times made me realise just how connected people are to nature, and that the health of our society is inextricably tied to the health of our environment. To pull at any thread of the world reveals that we are woven into the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. We are attached to our surrounding ecosystem and to one another.

Although sufficient vegetation and water in the dams masked the effects of the drought on our farm during the first couple of years, by the time I left high school, the impacts were obvious and brutal. A drought is a thief. A slow-creeping, sinister shadow that stretches its fingers and takes all it can. Its wants are insatiable. First it takes the rain. Then, day by day, it plucks the grasses, shrubs and trees from the landscape. The mud-cracks at the bottom of the dam reveal what has slunk into my life. Remorseless in its stealing, the thief pinches the birdsong from the trees and peels the smiles from familiar faces. Brows crinkle with worry. The sky-gazing begins. The drought steals the feed and water from our livestock. We sell more sheep to ease the grazing pressure on the land. Heated conversations about income spark like firecrackers between my parents. Bills need to be paid and frustration ignites even trivial matters. The drought then starts taking people around me. Townsfolk begin to leave as dusty days blow away their jobs. Shops close down and visitors choose not to visit such a sad-looking place. Concern deepens as the clouds stay away longer than usual. Worry and depression seep into cracking minds. I learn to hate the colour blue. Another day of sunshine and clear skies makes me feel sick. I turn off the television and throw down the remote as the weather presenter forecasts more ‘bad weather’ along the eastern seaboard – rain that we so desperately need. ‘Why do they have to call it “bad weather”? Don’t they understand the lifeblood rain is? Don’t they feel the festering wound of the inland that has gone without “bad weather” for so long?’ I blink back the tears that well in the darkness behind my eyes. I refuse even them because water saving is now so deeply imprinted on me. I try to slow my rattling breath, but the dust in my throat just makes me cough. I wake in the mornings to throw armfuls of hay from the trailer to the small flock of sheep we have kept. They are orphans that we raised on bottles of milk. They all have names. The sheep gobble the hay down voraciously as I assess their condition while in my head tallying the cost of the feed. Give them enough food to keep them going but keep enough money in the account for the next purchase of hay. Stretch it out as far as we can, as long as we can, and hopefully we will get some rain soon. I can feel the presence of the

drought thief lurking in the shadows of the sheep yards. The same shadow lingers in the dry creek, beneath the dying trees, and hides in the quiet rooms of our house. I know with growing anxiety that we can’t keep the thief at bay much longer. Another dry day and I throw down another armful of hay. My eyes start to itch and my sinuses are blocked. Why such an uncomfortable sensation would transport me to a happier time seems strange, but it reminds me of hayfever from the wildflowers we used to have. How they would bloom! The colours so vivid that an artist’s palette seemed dull. Millions of delicate flowers dancing in synchronisation with an afternoon breeze. The horizon a mass of pink, white, purple and green, and tiny winged insects busily visiting each and every one. I couldn’t walk without regretfully stepping on blossoms because there were that many, the air filling with perfume at my every footfall. My eyes miss the sight of the wildflowers. The life that once was in our paddocks has been shrivelled by the drought and blown away in the dust storms. What remains are ugly grey sticks and bleached carcasses from kangaroos that starved to death. Watching as the rich gamut of life, which once filled me with wonder and awe, is damaged, wraps me in a heavy blanket of sadness. The weight of it is suffocating. I have a constant tightness in my chest. It’s like the feeling of losing or having lost something truly meaningful – of being simultaneously unable to focus and unable to be distracted – awake but without full consciousness. The neologism ‘solastalgia’ describes the state of emotional or existential distress caused by a deterioration in an environment; pain or sickness (-algia) that comes from the loss of solace. It’s grieving for one’s home being hurt. A legitimate response to losing a place one cares about deeply or feeling helpless watching its demise. People experience it in different ways – a sense of bottomless defeat, guilt from blaming themselves for permitting pain to grow, or fierce resentment of others who didn’t do enough to prevent tragedy. Some describe it as a sense of homesickness while still being at home, melancholy in the desolation of a place one loves. It’s similar to the growing sense of hopelessness felt as a family member falls ill and their condition

deteriorates. The metaphor of medical disease we see in a person is rather apt when considering the environment’s state. For both, the risks are often caused or aggravated by human behaviours; they produce symptoms outside the normal range of past experiences; they’re progressive; and there are uncertainties in the prognosis. Treatment often involves trade-offs or side effects, and it’s usually most effective to treat the underlying problem instead of only alleviating the symptoms, because symptoms alone are harder to manage or reverse if the cause is not attended to. During the drought I see my home becoming sick, and like a family member in distress, it needs looking after. But its illness feels unmanageable. I’m at a loss as to how to respond properly. Any ill patient needs to be given treatment before the symptoms become unmanageable, but I don’t know what to do. I don’t understand the diagnosis. And so my grief grows. The drought tightens its grip around my chest and I lie awake at night, staring at the ceiling. In those sleepless twilight hours, I see my future on the farm falling through my fingers like desert sand. The land I care about no longer being able to care for me. The life I thought I was going to lead blown away in the heat and dust. I feel the insidious drought thief waiting to steal my future. Poet and philosopher David Whyte writes eloquently about the pain of loss, and refers to heartbreak as an unpreventable indication of our sincerity. ‘Heartbreak is the beautifully helpless side of love and affection and is . . . an essence and emblem of care.’ We feel the intensity of emotions because of what these places mean to us. Resignation and despair are natural reactions to witnessing the suffering of things that are precious and unique. Their damage and loss elicit a strong psychological response. And with these emotions born of troubling times, we ask ourselves, Where to now? ‘Heartbreak is how we mature;’ says David, ‘yet we use the word heartbreak as if it only occurs when things have gone wrong: an unrequited love, a shattered dream . . . But heartbreak may be the very essence of being human, of being on the journey from here to there, and of coming to care deeply for what we find along the way.’ And although I didn’t realise it at this point, my journey was only beginning.

* It’s the height of the drought in 2006 when I learn a new term. A pairing of words that change my understanding of the world forever and subsequently my role within it. Climate change. I’m lying on the lounge-room floor, resting on some pillows, when my father slides a new-release DVD into the player. It is Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth. I whine that I don’t want to watch a movie about the weather. ‘How boring,’ I say, so tired of checking daily forecasts where I hope to read good news of approaching rain clouds but am always let down. I am drought-fatigued. So is my family. Too many years of too little rainfall has weathered the most resilient around me – tiredness brought about by uncertainty, a feeling of being lost bred from the unknown. As the film plays, I hear a story, both familiar and unfamiliar. Images of droughts and people leaving their homes. Devastating weather events and large-scale drying and heating trends occurring around the world. I see statistics on pollution rising into the sky, altering the climate. I learn that there is certainty in the science. I am told that it’s our own doing, a planetary illness caused by humans. And it’s as though a dirty window is being wiped clean in front of my eyes, and I can see clearly what is going on. I begin reading and watching everything I can find on the topic of climate change. I start connecting the dots. What I’ve been experiencing and the anecdotal stories I have been hearing from farmers of unprecedented changes in the landscape match the scientific findings. I learn that droughts, like the one depriving me of sleep, are becoming more frequent and intense. The cruel thief is visiting more people every year. Rising temperatures, greater evaporation and less precipitation stealing people’s homes and livelihoods. Drylands expanding and degrading. The number of people bent double, coughing from dust storms, is on the rise, with more people being admitted to hospital from respiratory illness and asthma attacks. I see images of rippling heat from sun-scorched earth stretching figures like a Salvador Dali artwork –

the spindly, arachnid legs of people and livestock floating through mirages in hauntingly barren landscapes. I learn that the increasing heat caused by pollution exacerbates desertification, which amplifies global warming further through the release of carbon dioxide as vegetation dies. The soil, naked and exposed, is stripped of its greenery and scoured by the winds. This displaced soil, whipped up into dust storms, is dumped elsewhere, creating ‘dead zones’ in rivers, lakes and oceans, destroying fisheries and coral reefs. The storms rip the nutrients from the ground, like a lion shredding its prey, leaving only a wasted skeleton behind. Nothing but graveyards of dead farms remaining. I read on and on, unable to tear myself away from the statistics and their consequences, consumed by the science, terrified of its truth. And then I realise the reality – that I’m part of this. It’s a human-made phenomenon that involves me. I’m inflicting pain on the place I love, the animals under my responsibility and on the people I care about. At that moment I know that the only way to address my heartache is to learn as much as I can about this planetary illness so I can help treat it. So I decide to study science and enrol in an online bachelor’s degree, undertaking my course remotely while still helping manage my family’s farm. University life for me is not lecture halls and gatherings of student societies, but rather textbooks laid out on the kitchen table and observing my learnings of the environment and agriculture in real time, outdoors in the land I care about. I tumble like Alice in Wonderland down the rabbit hole, and in this freefall of discovery my attention is drawn to time, memory, foresight, perspective, and the interaction we are having with our surrounds. I enter a world previously unknown to me, and just like Alice, am curious about what I find and what it means. I consider the science as I move sheep between drying paddocks. I critically mull over the literature as I clean water troughs caked with salt. As I go about my farm chores, questions float through my mind about the state of the world, where we are heading, and how we can do better.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE The health of our society is inextricably linked to the health of our natural world. We are indivisible from the environment and its future.

5 BOUNDARIES

‘This is our home. It’s time we start acting like it.’ Michael E. Mann, ‘Stand up for Science’, 2016 CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE is actually pretty straightforward. Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), trap heat in the atmosphere. And humans are adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. That’s it. The beauty, as always, lies in the detail. Carbon and nitrogen naturally circulate through the biosphere – between land, ocean and atmosphere – via the growth and death of plants, animals and microbes. Carbon and nitrogen constitute many cellular components and are essential in biological processes. Upon dying, some plant and animal matter is buried under soil, sediment and rock, and exposed to extreme heat and pressure. In certain conditions and over very long periods of time, coal, oil and natural gas result, which we have come to call fossil fuels. For nearly 3 million years, Earth’s well-balanced cycle has ensured that the atmosphere has contained less than 300 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide. And for the past 12,000 years or so, since the last ice age ended, the climate has been particularly pleasant. One could think of this as a Goldilocks time, where Earth’s temperature has remained just right, to enable the rich

variety of life as we know it today to flourish. Unfortunately, humans interfered with the climate that, in Goldilocks’s astute words, was ‘just right’, and as a result it is now becoming ‘too hot’. The scientific evidence has been clear for decades that the human-induced release of greenhouse gases leads to a greater concentration of heat-trapping gases in our atmosphere. We have dug up, pumped and burned coal, oil and natural gas unrelentingly. Initially this was done without understanding the consequences, but more recently, we’ve continued to suck on the siphon just for the hell of it. The atmosphere we used to have kept Earth at a balmy temperature that was good for life as we knew it. The atmosphere now, with its greater concentration of greenhouse gases, is an ecological catastrophe. As with body temperature, a rise of a few degrees can be the difference between good health and a crisis. The sun’s energy which arrives at Earth through radiation, is trapped by the molecules released from burning fossil fuels, thereby heating our planet. Much like a car left in the sun on a hot day (or, as the name suggests, a greenhouse where you grow vegetables) warmth from the sun comes in but can’t escape. The changes in atmospheric carbon also alter the rate of absorption and release of carbon from natural reservoirs in the oceans and land. Warmer oceans are less able to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Many hotter land areas are less favourable for growing plants needed to draw down (i.e. convert and sequester) carbon dioxide. When ocean and land sinks absorb less carbon, more carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere, strengthening feedback mechanisms that create more warming. The trapped heat causes the thermometer’s red line to climb. Higher seasonal temperatures, more heatwaves and increased risk of bushfires result. Hotter temperatures lead to greater evaporation and drying soils, creating more moisture in the atmosphere. In some regions this worsens the intensity of rain and flooding from severe storms. Anyone who has been caught in torrential rain knows its power to wreak havoc, easily submerging city roads and damaging buildings. For farmers, severe storms flatten crops, wash away fertiliser and strip the soil of its nutrients, leaving fields bruised and eroded in

the aftermath. Soil, nutrients and plant debris end up in waterways, which is bad news for organisms that live in lakes and rivers, and for the people who use these water sources to fill their drinking glasses. Higher temperatures are doing damage to the polar regions too. Our planet’s natural air conditioners are breaking down. Snow and ice play critical roles in reflecting the sun’s rays. Fewer frozen surfaces mean less light energy is reflected, exposing darker surfaces that have lower albedo (i.e. ability to reflect sunlight) and greater heat absorption. When sea ice melts, oceans rise, and this directly threatens people who live in coastal areas. Forty per cent of the human population live within 100 kilometres of the coast and are increasingly at risk of king tides and storm surges. Warming oceans change the currents that distribute nutrients and dissolved gases, devastating coral reefs that provide habitats for countless marine species. Corals, with their three-dimensional tree-like structure, offer shelter and food for aquatic animals like fish, lobsters and octopus. This marine life is not only a marvel in itself, but an important part of many human diets, with estimates that more than a quarter of a billion people depend on food that originates from coral reefs. Unfortunately, much of the carbon dioxide we emit dissolves in oceans, increasing acidity and seriously damaging corals and marine organisms that have calcium carbonate shells and skeletons. Plankton, for example, the bedrock of the ocean food system, have difficulty manufacturing their shells in increasingly acidic waters. This raises the red flag of an ecological crash, otherwise known as a trophic cascade, when the strands holding an environment and food web together start to break apart. Trophic cascades, caused by crossing tipping points or boundaries in our ecosystems, have a series of undesirable effects. These are often points of no return – where warming puts in motion unstoppable processes. When perturbation initiates a change in underlying system dynamics, it can trigger strong self-amplifying feedback. This propels the system from one stable state (or mode of operation) to a different one – a less desirable state. An example of this is observed in parts of the west Antarctic. Due to hotter atmospheric and ocean temperatures, the ice sheet is disintegrating, and

there is an irreversible retreat of the grounding line, the transition from grounded to floating ice. The current rate of melting and thunderous collapse of glaciers imperils the entire ice sheet. This breakdown of the west Antarctic directly affects ocean level, acidity, currents and temperature, and once certain damage is done, there is no coming back from it. Due to the extraordinary complexity and variability of Earth’s ecosystems, there is no single tipping point but many, and like an avalanche that cannot be stopped once it starts, we do not want to set these off. ‘But the climate has always changed!’ says our troglodyte uncle who is intent on causing dinner-table angst, and yes that is correct, Earth’s climate has always changed. But what our uncle needs to know is that this time we are changing it, and we are changing it for the worse. The Industrial Revolution, which began in the mid-1700s, really kickstarted global warming by magnifying the release of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. Over the subsequent centuries, countries across Europe, North America and other parts of the world transitioned from rural, farming communities to urban, industrialised ones, powering their economies with coal and oil. Growing wealth increased fossil fuel consumption, leading to more greenhouse gas release into the atmosphere. Before the Industrial Revolution, there were 280 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Today we have passed 410 ppm. Earth, in a mere blink of an eye in geological time, has warmed 1 degree Celsius in response. Although a 1 degree Celsius rise may seem small, climate scientists say it is enough to cause more extreme weather events and destabilise the climate as we know it. And we know what they are saying is true, because we are experiencing these impacts today. Science is pretty neat in what it can tell us about the past, where we’re at now, and where we’re heading. What’s not neat are the red alarms flashing in our faces. The dashboard of warning lights illuminated. Earth is telling us something is wrong. The palaeoclimate record shows that our planet’s climate is capable of changing abruptly, flipping from one state to another,

sometimes within a few years. Unfortunately, once this new state is triggered, it will be much less sympathetic to life as we know it. The science is unequivocally clear: if we let it, the kind of climate that has allowed civilisation to flourish will be gone, and humans will enter a struggle to survive. Imagine you’re in a car with a group of people. The windows are down on this hot and sunny day, and you cruise along enjoying some of your favourite tunes. Then your fellow passengers decide to light up cigarettes. They are all smoking. The windows are wound up, and your companions start blocking the air vents. You can feel the heat from the sun making the car hotter. The cigarette smoke is becoming thick in the cabin, and the air around you is turning a dirty grey. Your chest is tightening. Your eyes sting. You’re flustered by the heat, and the filthy air is suffocating. The driver is pushing on the accelerator pedal without a clear vision of what you’re speeding towards, but you know you’re in danger. How long can you stand this? How long can you survive this? Into our world we are unrelentingly releasing dangerous particulates and gases that are poisonous to breathe, and the forests and soils that are our vents to remove these gases are becoming less capable of doing so. We’re trapping ourselves in a very hazardous situation and hurtling along at a perilous speed. * The Holocene epoch was a 12,000-year period of stable climate that allowed humanity to flourish. Throughout this period, temperatures, precipitation patterns, and terrestrial and ocean ecosystems were in a sweet spot that was conducive to human propagation and wellbeing. This helped facilitate the boom in agricultural production and the resultant surge in global population. With a kind climate, the human species liked to eat well and make babies. Unfortunately, the resource-intense lifestyles of those in the past few generations rather ruined the good thing we had going on. Humans began to take more than the planet could sustain or replenish. In only two centuries,

the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has increased by around 50 per cent. In that short period of time, we have managed to cut down the planet’s carbon-capturing and oxygen-making systems, removing 10 million square kilometres of forests since the beginning of the twentieth century – an area larger than the whole of China. We are now, well and truly, feeling the impacts of these actions. Enter the Anthropocene, the current geological period, which is characterised by humanity’s destruction of the very conditions that had allowed us to thrive. The Anthropocene epoch is different from the Holocene, as biogeochemical conditions are dominated not by natural processes but by human activity. For the first time in Earth’s existence, humans are the prime driver of large-scale change. The word ‘Anthropocene’ is attributed to Paul Crutzen, a Dutch meteorologist and atmospheric chemist who shared a Nobel Prize for discovering the effects of ozone-depleting compounds. In his 2002 essay, ‘Geology of Mankind’, published in the prestigious academic journal Nature, Paul wrote, ‘Tropical rainforests disappear at a fast pace, releasing carbon dioxide and strongly increasing species extinction. Dam building and river diversion have become commonplace.’ In his assessment of the changes humans are inflicting upon Earth, he highlighted the prominent role of food production: ‘More nitrogen fertiliser is applied in agriculture than is fixed naturally in all terrestrial ecosystems,’ and noted that ‘fossil-fuel burning and agriculture have caused substantial increases in the concentrations of “greenhouse” gases’. Our dominating effect on the planet is now blatantly apparent in the form of crippling desertification, furious bushfires and raging floods, with unprecedented changes to Earth’s physical, chemical and biological processes. Because of these human influences and emissions, Paul wrote that the global climate may depart significantly from natural behaviour. The article ends with the warning: ‘At this stage, however, we are still largely treading on terra incognita.’ We are now outside conditions humanity has ever experienced or really

understands. The slow and gradual evolutionary processes of the past have been broken. We are now crossing planetary boundaries that should not be crossed. These are limits that define life on our planet and when transgressed, trigger a cascade of ill effects, irreversibly altering the viability of habitats for virtually every species on Earth – including us. In 2009, Johan Rockström, a Swedish environmental science professor, led a group of 28 internationally renowned scientists who identified nine processes that regulate Earth’s stability and resilience. The meticulous scientists in Johan’s team proposed quantitative planetary boundaries within which humanity must remain in order to continue to develop and prosper for generations to come. Crossing these boundaries, the scientists concluded, increases the risk of generating large-scale abrupt or irremediable environmental changes. As illustrated in the diagram on page 62, the nine planetary boundaries are: 1

climate change

2

chemical pollution and release of novel entities (i.e. toxic and long-lived substances such as synthetic organic pollutants, heavy metal compounds and radioactive materials)

3

ozone depletion in the stratosphere

4

atmospheric aerosol loading (i.e. particulate concentration in the atmosphere, such as dust, smoke and haze)

5

ocean acidification

6

biogeochemical flows (i.e. disturbance of natural nitrogen and phosphorus cycles)

7

freshwater use

8

land-system change

9

biosphere integrity (i.e. biodiversity loss and extinctions).

Figure 1. Planetary boundaries

In his 2010 TED talk, ‘Let the Environment Guide Our Development’, Johan suggests that identifying these boundaries reveals how people are interacting with the world, and that we can use our understanding of these planetary limits to direct better interactions with Earth. ‘This gives a new paradigm to guide humanity, to put the light on our so far overpowered industrial vehicle, which operates as if we’re only on a dark straight highway.’ Unfortunately, the latest evidence suggests that humanity has transgressed four of the nine boundaries – climate change, biodiversity, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, and land-system change. This is greatly worrying, due to the interaction between these global regulators. Johan describes the nine acting like the Three Musketeers – ‘One for all, all for one’ – the degradation of land, ocean and atmosphere undermining one another and the ability of the climate to remain stable. In a closed system where there are no real

externalities, our impacts on the biosphere – the thin and frail membrane that envelops Earth and in which all life occurs – are undeniably damaging our home and all living things with it. You would think that all this evidence would perhaps persuade us to do something different, to be a bit more responsible, to ease our foot off the accelerator. But due to our current societal set-up, which involves the careless emission of greenhouse gases and the degradation of natural systems that manage these, we are currently on track to double pre-industrial carbon dioxide levels by mid-century. This will likely result in further unprecedented changes in how our climate and ecosystems function, and the best science states that these changes will not be in humanity’s favour. Not by a long shot. Spewing carbon dioxide into our atmosphere in the quantity we have has rather big and devastating consequences. But it is possible to do something different. It is possible to be more responsible. The story of our future is not yet written. To stay within the planetary boundaries, according to Johan and other experts in this field, a radical evolution of key societal systems is required. We need to redesign food, urban and energy systems, and move to a circular economy. We must reach carbon neutrality as quickly as possible, and then move beyond it, to a point where we are removing more greenhouse gases from the atmosphere than we release. Carrying on as we are will guarantee disaster, and incremental change will not suffice. The only solution is transformative change. ‘We’re the first generation – thanks to science – to be informed that we may be undermining the stability and the ability of planet Earth to support human development,’ Johan says. And because of this, ‘we’re in a phase where transformative change is necessary, which opens the window for innovation, for new ideas, and new paradigms.’ The problems we face demand that we change the way we interact with our planet – it is the only way to ensure that we have a safe future – and the changes we make in the food system will provide some of the most important solutions.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE Climate change science is solid. It has been studied for decades from many different angles, and it is irrefutable that we humans are driving climate disruption. The responsibility therefore rests on our shoulders to address this problem, stay within planetary boundaries, and ensure the best future for our common home and all the life it holds.

6 INVOLVEMENT

‘But man is a part of nature, and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.’ Rachel Carson, ‘The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson’, 1963 THE FOOD SYSTEM holds a special place in the climate change story for three reasons: it is a contributor to the problem, it is one of the first sectors to feel the true impacts of climate disruption, and it plays a key role in getting us out of this mess. The major greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – are produced in the food system. And all of these gases behave a bit differently. Every greenhouse gas has a different climate-warming potential, both because of its particular molecular structure, which determines how effective the gas is in absorbing and emitting heat at different wavelengths, and because it has a certain atmospheric residence time before being chemically changed or absorbed by the biosphere. For instance, methane has 30 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide over a hundred-year time period, whereas nitrous oxide is around 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Both methane and nitrous oxide are important to consider, especially in the farming system, which is the greatest anthropogenic source of these gases. However, carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas released by human activity, accounting for around 80 per cent of all

emissions. In agricultural systems, greenhouse gas emissions come from many sources. Carbon dioxide is released from energy consumption and the use of fossil fuels, such as petroleum for running farm vehicles, machinery and generators, and coal-fired electricity when flicking on light switches. Out in the field, soil respiration contributes carbon to the atmosphere, a process that is increased by practices such as tillage (i.e. ploughing and land cultivation) before crop planting, which aerates the soil and encourages microbial carbon mineralisation. Ruminant animals – those with four parts to their stomach, like cows, sheep, goats and deer – produce methane when they eat. Forage consumed by ruminants is digested by microbes in one part of their stomach – known as the rumen – and the by-product of the digestion process, methane, is expelled regularly from the rumen through the mouth in a process called eructation, but more commonly known as burping. Animal waste produces both methane and nitrous oxide gases, so how manure on farms is managed determines related emissions. Animal manure can be an important nutrient source for crops, but farmers also often use synthetic fertilisers, such as manufactured urea for nitrogen, which is made using fossil fuel energy. Nitrous oxide gas is released by soil microbes that interact with the nitrogen fertiliser. The amount of nitrogen fertiliser used globally has increased substantially over the past few decades – in fact, by 800 per cent in 60 years – mainly as a result of increased demand for crop and livestock products from the growing human population. There are a lot of other sources of these gases too, including methane from paddy rice cultivation, and carbon dioxide from deforestation, soil degradation and crop residue burning. For those who like figures and data, one of the best resources for emissions breakdown is the United Nations body that provides objective, scientific information on climate change, known as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC. According to the IPCC, emissions on farms and from agricultural land expansion represent 16–27 per cent of total anthropogenic emissions. Emissions beyond the farm gate, including from

energy and transport for food, represent another 5–10 per cent. Of course, given the diversity of farming and food systems globally, there are large regional differences in emissions. Locally sourced information may therefore be better to understand local contributions. Overall emissions from agricultural production are, however, projected to increase, driven by population and income growth as well as changes in consumption patterns. Every person and every sector in society has a greenhouse gas footprint, and the food system wears a hefty boot. ‘Global food production threatens climate stability and ecosystem resilience. It constitutes the single largest driver of environmental degradation and transgression of planetary boundaries,’ states Johan Rockström and his team in the notable EAT–Lancet report that uses the planetary boundaries to assess what a sustainable food system does and does not entail. But the food system, in addition to being a contributor to the climate change problem, is highly exposed and vulnerable to its impacts. Food is simultaneously an offender and a victim. As the report states, ‘Food in the Anthropocene represents one of the greatest health and environmental challenges of the 21st century.’ Farmers are on the front lines of climate change impacts because they live and work so closely with the natural world. What they grow and where they can grow it depends on the surrounding environment. With the weather becoming more erratic, however, food production globally is becoming increasingly difficult. And due to the great diversity of landscapes and unique social challenges that rural food producers face, the problems arising are highly regional and context-specific, and therefore require many nuanced responses. ‘Water is one of the main problems,’ says Simon Leiva, coordinator of the Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture, who describes to me how some rural towns in his home country of Chile depend on daily water trucks for their survival. He has a busy schedule working on the large and complex impacts of climate change on farming, so he’s multi-tasking as we speak on the phone, the whirr of his exercise bike and his heavy breathing not

detracting from his message on the seriousness of the issue. He talks about melting glaciers in the Andes mountains and less snowfall reducing water availability for many farmers in Latin American countries. The increasing severity of water shortages is projected to have a huge impact on both rural and urban communities. But Simon says people haven’t been good at preparing for what lies ahead. ‘Until people open the tap and don’t see water coming, they don’t start to freak out. It’s like they don’t see what is coming.’ The fluctuations in precipitation are having serious implications for the capacity of farmers to grow food worldwide. Without secure water, their ability to grow grains, vegetables, fruits and livestock becomes increasingly tenuous, and as temperatures rise, crops and livestock require more water, so the problem multiplies. With a rapidly increasing global population dependent on the food that farmers grow, Simon says that the urgent need to address climate change impacts cannot be overstated. He pauses on his exercise bike so that I can hear his next words clearly. ‘We need to get the importance of acting quickly. By 2050 we need to feed 10 billion people, that is the clock ticking.’ The effect of climate change on the lives of farmers extends well beyond the farm boundary fence. Agriculture is deeply embedded in all parts of society, whether obvious to us or not. The health of landscapes, the provision of jobs, national economies, and the food we eat are based on the success, or failure, of agriculture. And it’s not only supporting us today, but also providing the foundation for the future. When we think of efforts to improve our planet and people’s lives, the starting point is often the food system and land management. Globally, the most important framework for the health and wellbeing of people and the planet is the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals, agreed upon by all United Nations member countries, provide the blueprint for achieving a better and more sustainable future for all. Interlinked like twigs in a bird’s nest, they support measures to address poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. Each of the seventeen SDGs encompasses food and farming in some way or another, most obviously ending hunger (SDG 2), responsible

consumption and production (SDG 12), climate action (SDG 13), and land restoration and the prevention of deforestation (SDG 15). Studying the interrelations between the global challenges shows that the improvement of the food system can positively impact all the other global goals. It is ultimately the lynchpin in a prosperous and resilient society and a habitable Earth. So if we really want to understand climate change, how it’s impacting the world and how we can make changes for the better, we need look no further than the story of the meal on our plate. Farms, food and climate change are inextricably connected, and so are the successes and improvements, and breakdowns and failures. ‘Eating is not about getting fed, it is about nutrition and doing something good for your body and in line with the planet,’ says Simon, describing to me how global dietary and land-degradation trends are increasingly harming people as well as the places that produce food. ‘There is no way this will change if we don’t take action.’ It is true that this story is not without difficulty. Knowing the facts is confronting. It can all feel too much, too big, too complex. To come to terms with our involvement, to recognise our accountability and culpability, is not easy. But the issue of climate change and our broken food system is not easy. We know that. So we should not shy away from what we find out, and we should not hide from what we don’t yet know. Through learning we build understanding, and from understanding we find answers.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE The food system is part of the problem. It’s one of the most vulnerable and exposed sectors to the impacts of climate change. And, most importantly, it’s a key part of the solution.

7 UNDERSTANDING

‘I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.’ Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, 1868 QUESTIONING HELPS US make sense of the world. It is the cornerstone upon which theory and understanding are constructed. From questioning, we enrich and expand our familiarity with our fascinating and fragile planet and acquire knowledge that can be used to improve our situation. My university studies include subjects on soil fertility, animal health, water policy, climate change, agricultural economics and business. It is not only from within the pages of textbooks that my understanding of these topics grows, but also from spending time in farmers’ fields and sharing conversations across kitchen tables. I desire to learn beyond my own backyard and to understand farming worldwide. Throughout my bachelor’s degree, and later my master’s and doctoral degrees, I am drawn to the big picture and to look at how people are placed within it. I want to know how everything and everyone fits together. The intricacy of the global food system captivates my interest, but in learning about the enormity of its challenges, intense emotions awaken within me. From this I learn how the acquisition of some new knowledge can test mental resilience.

‘I inherited my love of the farm.’ Valentina Di Cienzo says to me that her bond with the vast, windswept plains of La Pampa in Argentina was formed when her great-grandparents settled on land there. They created a home for their family on a farm near the rural village of Conhello. Painted on an old door that sits at the entrance of the property is the word Nahuel, the name of the son they never had, but given to the land that would be part of their lives. ‘When I am in the orchard where my great-grandmother grew vegetables and fruit trees, I am very happy. She proved to be a very strong woman, she could do everything.’ Knitted blankets that have been handed down over generations drape over worn couches and old wooden furniture. ‘Inside the house it smells of my great-grandmother, I see her photos and the kitchen full of memories.’ Traditional barbecues, known as asado, bring her family together. Meats crackle and sizzle over an open fire, charcoal glowing red, while old and young generations prepare the dining table amid boisterous conversation. The land is woven into Valentina’s heritage as well as her future. Wearing a woollen poncho and high leather boots, the softly spoken twentyyear-old describes to me the role of the horse-riding gauchos (cowboys) that share bitter maté tea while crossing the rambling estancias (ranches). Their roughened faces hide a sensitivity to the herds they look after, the universal trait of care for animals found in those who work in agriculture. Valentina says that she hopes to become a veterinarian when she is older. She studies hard. ‘I dream of one day being the one who heals them, takes care of them, and is head of the farm in order to help my family.’ Both Valentina and I are drawn to science, delighting in the thrill of learning – studying the world around us through reading, observation and experimentation, questioning unrelentingly: why, what, where and how? The unfamiliar lures us to lean close, slow down and consider. Scientists want to know the unknown. To fully understand reality. To discover knowledge that can be used to solve problems and make better decisions. But some things we learn are difficult to know. Like me, Valentina is seeing changes on her family’s farm and is beginning to worry about her future there. She recounts waking up and seeing

snow falling in springtime, completely out of season. The cold white blanket killed the grass when her sheep needed it the most, as they were giving birth. The sheep suffered. In the rangelands, both in Argentina and Australia, where there are naturally few trees that provide shelter to newborn animals, unexpected and sudden cold snaps do serious harm. ‘That day I understood that climate change affects us a lot. That worries me a lot because it is very important for the future.’ I tell her about the strange weather we have also been experiencing in Australia and how my family has been selling more and more of our sheep. I feel it’s sometimes challenging to vocalise my concern of the changing conditions, like I don’t want to hear my own words. The unease eating away at me from the inside. ‘I understand. It’s a very complicated situation,’ Valentina says sensitively. Facts and figures, statistics and graphs lie scattered on both our desks as we study. But for Valentina and me, scientific theories can be seen in real time, in real life, in both our paddocks. Science is no abstraction for us, especially that of climate change. The ability to produce food from my family’s farm is diminishing before my eyes and the forecast scares me. My horizon no longer appears as it used to. And that is a difficult realisation. When you fall in love with a place – truly see it, know it, and feel responsible for it – you find yourself breaking when the world around you starts to fall apart. When a place or people we love comes under assault, we feel it at our core. A worry, a fear. A sadness settles, arriving unannounced and uninvited. Dark clouds brew in my mind from their absence in the sky. I realise vulnerability – both in myself and in what is around me. The once-healthy teardrop-shaped leaves of the mighty eucalyptus trees that line the creek of my home have turned crisp and yellow. Leaves litter the ground like stained confetti the day after a wedding, out of place and provoking a memory of happier times now gone. The dying trees are temporal markers that tell me something is different from the way it has been for the past many hundreds of years. From observing such things, we rid ourselves of wishful thinking and heroic illusions. We meet despair – a pain that reminds us the world owes us nothing, and that no dishonest bargaining or false façade will deliver us

safety or success. The acceptance of mortality, sickness, and the loss of ourselves and the things we cherish rips us away from a Pollyanna faith and blinding optimism. The world becomes more real. The ache of loss and fear of losing what I cherish in the landscape breaks my heart. But it is from those cracks that I learn what matters. From dark places we see shards of light. We find ourselves and connect at a deeper level with others in our reach. Family, friends and home become extensions of our emotions, parts of our story. And after the shadows descend and tears fall, we meet a stronger, wilder, unyielding presence in those depths, a presence found only in a tougher and grittier place – a place of truth. Grieving for our world evokes a profound connection to it, a deep affection for it. And it is from that place that despair ignites our will to heal, to take care. In understanding vulnerability and fragility, we develop strength and determination. We meet resilience. We become encompassed and carried by love. ‘I feel connected to every place in the farm. I love being there,’ says Valentina, who applies what she is learning in her studies to her farm work. She uses the knowledge and skills she is gaining to care for her sheep and look after the land. Her understanding of how temperature and rainfall patterns are shifting helps her to respond proactively and not reactively. Grasping the science of climate change can feel like a heavy weight, but we grow with strength as we learn to carry it and find ways to resolve it. ‘I am sure we can improve. We must understand that we can grow without harming the environment. I never give up.’ Finding hope in situations that seem hopeless may seem like an impossible task. But it’s not. Confronting despair and grief awakens within us new perspectives and appreciation. We take note of the air, the trees, the sounds around us. Rustling leaves are louder, the taste of tea seems richer. We take care of what matters to us all the more. By gaining a clearer understanding of reality we feel ourselves within it. And it is exactly this understanding that is needed in this world now – to know what reality is, to have an awareness of the world around us, and feel connected to the ground on which we stand. This is what is required for us to recognise the important

role we each play. Setting personal goals and pathways to reach them allows us to rid ourselves of despair and helplessness and make progress where it matters. One step leads to two. We do away with falsehoods and fiction. We double down on our efforts. Two steps become three. We find the courage to move forward. The word ‘courage’ comes from the French word coeur, meaning ‘heart’. In its earliest forms, to be courageous was to speak one’s mind by telling all one’s heart. Courage in the face of climate change means finding ourselves at a deep and personal level, and using the power of fear, grief, excitement and hope to lift our efforts. To raise our voices. To speak honestly and openly about who we are, what we face, what we are set to lose if too little is done – and what our vision is, because we know it is possible. Courage is not to shy away from reality, block our ears and bury our heads. Courage is to know reality. To learn it. To stand with it. To mourn it. To have one’s heart broken by the horror, the injustice, the pain, and to still imagine something better – an alternative reality. To hold a better vision. ‘Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than one’s fear,’ wrote American author James Neil Hollingworth. We live in an overwhelming reality that is literally overwhelming species, rivers, forests and people around us. But there is also overwhelming strength, determination and perseverance within humans. A capacity to know reality and to stand up against the odds. A spirit and willpower to create a better outcome for ourselves and the precious life this world holds. Courage comes from deep places within us. It is courage that takes us forward.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE Courage is not to shy away from reality, but to know reality, and act because of it.

8 LOSS

‘Every breath is a sacrament, an affirmation of our connection with all other living things, a renewal of our link with our ancestors and a contribution to generations yet to come.’ David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance, 1997 A RIBBON OF steam rises from the kettle, whistling impatiently. Jerry Kitt scoops two large spoonfuls of coffee into a mug, and pushes a freshly baked loaf of bread flecked with sunflower and hemp seeds towards me. Barely containing my eagerness, I cut a jagged slice. Jerry has returned to his logwood cabin in northern Alberta, Canada, for a late breakfast. He was up at dawn moving his bison out of a paddock where melted snow had turned the soil into sticky mud. Calling out, ‘Moostoos, tatonka, astum!’ (meaning ‘Buffalo, buffalo, come here!’ in the local Indigenous Cree and Lakota languages), Jerry led his herd back among tall grass. Having graduated from university with a Bachelor of Science and a specialisation in Agribusiness, I then set off to Canada, and find myself working on Jerry’s farm as a volunteer labourer. My uniform consists of dark blue overalls and mud-covered boots, and a mattress in a loft above the tractor shed is where I collapse after long days in the field. I am fascinated by the farm environment here, but I am also concerned when I learn of the changes occurring. ‘Everyone agrees, the winters are getting warmer,’ Jerry

tells me. In high-latitude regions close to Earth’s poles, land that was once covered in knee-deep snow and where twinkling icicles hung from pine trees, the sound of running water can now be heard year-round. Reindeer tread warily over fallen tree branches with ears twitching to the woodland sounds. Their majestic forests of North America are changing. Once-common plants are disappearing and strange vegetation now grows in its place. The diets of grazing animals like bison, reindeer and elk are not as they once were, and neither is their habitat. Over the past few decades, monster wildfires have ravaged this landscape. Red embers spit high above the treetops and hungry flames lick the life from the forest, leaving blackness in their wake. The fuel for these infernos is increasing, not only as the tree line creeps north with the warmer temperatures, but due to an unexpected villain in the form of a little black insect. The mountain pine beetle is laying the region to waste. This unassuming insect, which grows to about 5 millimetres in length, has killed millions of hectares of the region’s forests, scuttling between the trees en masse, tunnelling beneath the bark and spreading fungus. It is now possible to fly a small plane over the woods for more than an hour and see no living pine tree. ‘This creature has decimated the pine forests across western Canada,’ says Jerry. ‘The little beetle was kept under control by winter temperatures – minus 40 degrees Celsius would kill it – but we haven’t seen minus 40 for a long time.’ Without the winter chill of the past, beetle numbers have exploded and, as a result, the dead forests they leave behind become kindling, waiting to ignite when summer arrives. Plant and animal species abundance is highly correlated to environmental conditions. Some species prefer warmer conditions, others cooler climates. Over millennia they have adapted to and optimised for where they live. Moon-eyed frogs, iridescent-winged butterflies, shy forest cats – extraordinary and unique life has evolved in all parts of the globe in response to the conditions. And as temperature and precipitation patterns change, so does the biodiversity and the creatures that make Earth a marvel. I spend my weekends at a beaver pond upstream from Jerry’s farm.

Sitting among reeds, I watch timid furry faces pop above the water surface, the beavers checking what I’m up to before returning to their stick lodges. I’m told this is usually a good spot to see trumpeter swans, but their migration is late this year. They are not the only birds becoming less common in the region. Jerry tells me that he used to love listening to the songbirds in the trees. The barn swallow was one of the most common around here. ‘We used to have hundreds of nests built on the eaves of our buildings 30 years ago.’ The tiny birds would swoop in and out of their mud and feather nests, feeding hungry chicks. ‘But I would estimate that now we have only 1 per cent of that number.’ He says that the reasons for the population decline are not well understood, but the magnitude and geographic extent of wildlife losses are cause for conservation concern. Changes in temperature, food sources and large-scale tree mortality in the area due to the beetles has reduced the habitat for many birds. There is a sadness in his nostalgia for the lost barn swallow songs and for the changes occurring around him in the forest. ‘Before, the barn swallows were almost considered pests, now they are rare.’ Both climate change and human pressures on the land have modified plant and animal species mix, which has caused an overall reduction in biodiversity. Globally, 14 per cent of birds, 26 per cent of mammals and 40 per cent of amphibians are now threatened with extinction. More than 40 per cent of insects face being lost forever in the next few decades. The global rate of species extinction is tens to hundreds of times higher than the average rate over the past 10 million years and is accelerating. We are witnessing a ‘biological annihilation’, says Professor Gerardo Ceballos of Mexico, a senior species research scientist. His studies reveal that species are disappearing before our very eyes. The pace and scale of humaninduced landscape changes have ultimately weakened native plant and animal communities, and have contributed to global shifts and disappearances. Native habitats, feeding and breeding grounds are mutating and pushing creatures beyond their adaptive capacity. As numbers dwindle, those that remain become increasingly at risk of disturbances that can wipe them out. Unlike humans, who may be able to uproot and relocate, many other animals

cannot adjust quickly enough to these changing environmental conditions or move to new areas. This spectre has now been termed the sixth mass extinction, and it raises grave issues, not only about the alteration and loss of species that will never return, but about the potential endangerment of our own species in the process. We are observing a ‘frightening assault on the foundations of human civilization’, says Gerardo. His research team, not mincing words, makes their findings clear that, ‘The resulting biological annihilation obviously will have serious ecological, economic and social consequences. Humanity will eventually pay a very high price for the decimation of the only assemblage of life that we know of in the universe.’ In her book The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Pulitzer Prize– winning author Elizabeth Kolbert highlights that in addition to the large and familiar animals disappearing, we are also losing the small and shy ones that support entire food webs and ecosystems. Loping elephants, jungle-prowling tigers and savannah-grazing antelope may populate myths, stories and newsreels, but these magnificent beasts are not the only ones vanishing on our watch. The unfamiliar that do not adorn our emblems or flags and are never sold as soft toys are also being lost. The Panamanian golden frog, the Carpentarian Rock-rat, the Brazilian guitarfish – hidden in depths of forests, deserts and oceans – are disappearing before most of us even know they exist. These creatures play pivotal roles in the proper functioning of ecosystems upon which we humans depend. They are just as worthy of our care to save them. Their loss is our loss. ‘Even if we can survive, is that the world you want to live in? Is that the world you want all future generations of humans to live in?’ asks Elizabeth. ‘Right now, in the amazing moment that to us counts as the present, we are deciding, without quite meaning to, which evolutionary pathways will remain open and which will be closed forever. No other creature has ever managed this, and it will, unfortunately, be our most enduring legacy.’ We don’t need to look back very far to see the scale of the changes at hand. In most instances, the stories from our parents or grandparents are enough for us to realise the extent of ecosystem deterioration and species loss. We hear their tales of rivers running clear and the birdlife they used to

see. They describe places that no longer resemble anything like they are now. This reflection on past conditions is critically important for us to understand the changes in our environment and within plant and animal communities. By doing this, we begin to understand the curse of the shifting baseline. The shifting baseline concept describes the phenomenon that as the world worsens, the next generation, who know nothing else, regard the state as ordinary and unremarkable, and this continues. Over generations, we accept almost any degree of deprivation or oppression, believing it to be normal. The theory was originally identified in the fisheries realm by Daniel Pauly, a University of British Columbia marine biologist. He identified that as populations of large fish disappeared, people had gone on obliviously fishing slightly smaller species. As a result, Daniel wrote that there was a ‘creeping disappearance’ of overall fish stocks behind ever changing and ‘inappropriate reference points’. Daniel termed this impaired vision the ‘shifting baseline syndrome’. This theory, and its related syndrome, bring to the forefront the issue of our generational amnesia, an inability to recognise changes afoot. Peter Kahn, a psychologist from the University of Washington, came upon the shifting baseline idea around the same time as Daniel, and has described it as ‘one of the central psychological problems of our times’. The scope of this theory reaches far beyond the fisheries realm. As consecutive generations fail to recognise the extent of changes occurring in the world around us, the result is that we inadequately avoid or cope with the suffering that these changes induce. So the case is made that it is important for us to look back at the past and learn from it, so that we know where we are placed now and what we are experiencing is not as it should be. Rapid and substantial changes are occurring. The world we live in today is environmentally a lot more fragile and vulnerable to adversities than it has been for previous generations. Only by properly assessing and understanding the past will we treat the degenerative shifting baseline syndrome that infects society today. We must awaken from our amnesia. Indeed, it is our ability to look both back and forward that helps position us where we are now, and see what we need to do.

The changes occurring in the environment and with species type and prevalence is ultimately hurting people. The first to feel these impacts are those who live and work closest to nature. Jerry tells me that more and more people are losing their jobs due to the changes occurring in the Canadian forest surrounding him. Forestry workers and farmers are struggling to get by and morale is running low. As people leave the region, the conversation between those who remain gets progressively more desperate. ‘Another bad year – that’s the coffee shop talk,’ he says. He tells me suicide in the region is increasing. I don’t know quite how to respond, only to say it’s saddening, but I feel my words are painfully weak given the gravity of what’s happening. Conversations like these cannot be rushed. It’s important to listen, to really listen, and to acknowledge that things are tough. The ailing planet that lies naked and vulnerable before us is not just expressing symptoms by way of disappearing plants and animals and disruptive weather. People are also suffering as environmental conditions worsen. ‘We now call this place “nextyear country”,’ says Jerry. ‘Everyone hopes next year will be better, but they’ve been saying that for a long time now.’ The story of climate change is ultimately a story about us – of what we have done and what we will choose to do.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE Our world has changed tremendously over a very short period. In order to protect what we cannot afford to lose, we must acknowledge our unique responsibilities in this time. Learning from the past, and looking to the future, we realise that we need to act now.

9 FUTURE

‘If we want to save the land, we must save the people who belong to the land. If we want to save the people, we must save the land the people belong to.’ Wendell Berry, Our Only World, 2015 DANGKOR DISTRICT OF Phnom Penh municipality in Cambodia was once quintessential South-East Asia. Here, buffaloes occasionally lifted their heads to snort at passing motor-scooters and needle-necked white storks skewered small fish in swaying rice paddies. Farmers folded at the waist methodically pulled weeds between little green seedlings, their arms moving as swiftly as the feeding birds around them and their hands grabbing mouthfuls of greenery where they trod. If one overlooked the backbreaking work of handweeding a rice paddy, one could be pacified by the simplicity of life among the rustling leaves and white storks. But a growing urban population has resulted in city sprawl oozing into the countryside, which has changed this food-growing region into a construction company’s playground. The fields provide abundant space for dumping residential waste. Piles of rubbish are mounded while voracious property developers snatch up parcels of farmland and raze them for the next cement apartment building. The now clogged and stagnant drainage canals are breeding grounds for mosquitoes that carry malaria as well as dengue

fever, known as ‘breakbone fever’ for the extreme pain it causes the infected. The rubbish stench attracts flies, which is one of the main reasons tourists zip past on shuttle buses with no desire to linger here. The area is prone to flooding, and when it rains, industrial waste and dumpsites leach heavy metals into the surrounding land. Weak building regulations do little to prevent the toxic substances infiltrating and contaminating the water table used for growing rice. This once peaceful farmland is just one of many regions around the globe that has been scrubbed from the map by urban encroachment and endless waste generation, which has uprooted farming families and their way of life. Many rural parents now encourage their children to leave and make lives for themselves elsewhere. Lives that they hope hold better futures than that of their farms. * Sitting on the floor in the back hall of the Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Institute, I roll my shoulders to relieve cramping muscles. Between my awkwardly crossed legs is a mortar and pestle, and a hard anaemic-looking lump of dirt. I lift the pestle and bring it down on the lump, breaking it into a few smaller but equally hard clods. Fine dust hangs in the humid air, and I take a swig of water to wash the clay from my dry throat. Next to me sits my Cambodian colleague, Sodany Srom, twenty-seven years of age and pounding dirt with her pestle with great force and pace that puts my attempts to shame. Her impossibly shiny jet-black hair falls across a sympathetic smile at my effort to pulverise the dirt. In the Cambodian language of Khmer, Sodany tries to explain to me the stiff wrist and twist motion that is much more effective for the job. Together we have spent the week collecting soil samples in the field, which I am studying as part of my PhD candidature. I developed a taste for South-East Asia while completing a Masters of Sustainable Agriculture, partially done here in the tropics, which involved social research on climate

change resilience. When the opportunity arose to continue my education in South-East Asia, I jumped at it. The more I have learnt, the more I’ve realised there is so much to discover. Soil health has been a major component of my studies. But unlike some of the more productive soil types I know back in Australia – like Chromosol, Vertosol and Sodosol – this one in my lap is affectionately known by those in my research team as ‘Craposol’, a soil that is painfully difficult to work with and causes farmers many headaches. With low inherent nutrient value, poor water-holding capacity and a strongly acidic nature, this soil, which covers a lot of South-East Asia, doesn’t have much going for it. With two very distinct wet and dry seasons, the soil spends half the year in a state similar to thick soup, and the other half dry and cemented like concrete. With the extremes in weather conditions becoming more noticeable – the torrential, unrelenting downpours of rain during the wet season, and the hot, parched dry season – farmers growing food here are having increasing difficulty managing an already problematic and infertile soil. The Craposol used for growing food for millions of people in the region is becoming, well, more crap. Our research group has been trying to identify ways farmers can work with these soils better as climate conditions worsen. I wipe my sweat-glistening brow and in doing so streak the pale clay across my forehead. Sodany giggles and kindly passes me a cleaning rag. ‘Here, use this,’ she says, and I run the twisted cloth across my brow. I’m always impressed with how dirt-free and well dressed she remains, despite being a soil and water researcher who spends a lot of time outdoors. But I have learnt it’s an effort local people are willing to make so they don’t appear to work in agriculture. Here, as in many parts of the world, there is social prejudice towards those involved in the farming sector. Widely considered unskilled and poorly educated by those in cities, many go to great lengths to cover every inch of their skin from the sun to avoid becoming darker, a trademark of a field labourer. We share stories of the farms we grew up on as we pound away at the dirt. Sodany, with a wide smile on her face, describes to me her family growing tropical fruit. ‘When the mango trees start to flower and fruit, it is so

beautiful.’ Along the banks of the Mekong River in Koh Choram village of Kandal province, her parents also harvest deliciously sweet bananas and papayas. Not only is every mouthful a sticky delight, but the fruit provides vital nutrients for those who eat it – potassium, vitamin C and folate. But with the dry season becoming longer, the rain falling later, and temperatures becoming ever hotter, Sodany tells me in her soft voice, ‘Climate change is making farming difficult, especially for young people like me who want to be involved in agriculture.’ Although Sodany’s parents were very excited for her to leave the village and go to university, she explains that at the same time they were also worried about her future. ‘My parents were hesitant, they didn’t want me to study agriculture. Many families who can afford to send their children to study want their children to work in air-conditioned offices rather than the field.’ Another young researcher listening to our conversation pipes up, saying that when she started studying farming her mother cried and cried. She looks at the floor with a dejected expression that betrays her contorted inner conflict – of wanting to respect the wishes of her parents but knowing the longevity and success of her community depends on new agricultural research and young field workers. It’s understandable why so many farming parents like Sodany’s actively discourage their children from returning to the farm, especially in developing countries. Living and working on a farm, often remotely with limited labour, financial and educational resources, can be a difficult life. Poor land tenure systems and agreements threaten farm ownership as pressure from urban sprawl increases and land-reclamation projects undermine biodiversity and waterbodies that sustain many agrarian communities. The increasingly problematic climate adds further stress, with shifting rainfall and seasonal patterns rebelling against traditional farming knowledge. With poor access to new information and technologies, the opportunities to make on-farm changes are limited. Rural parents, wanting the best for their children, often work tirelessly on their farms so they earn enough money to send their children away for a good education that will lead to a stable and well-paid job in a city. To have a child wanting to work in food production, which is

becoming more challenging with every passing year, is something many parents do not wish for. This is especially the case for young women, who are more vulnerable to rural robberies, abuse and exploitation. But Sodany understands how important agricultural research is if the problems that plague farming production are to be appropriately addressed. Improvement of the food system is a central lever for whole of community betterment. With the dirt-pounding leaving us both hungry, I walk with Sodany to the communal dining hall. Movement slows in hot places like this, and we scuff our sandals through the courtyard following the sound of people enlivened by food. The cavernous hall we arrive at echoes with every chopstick click and outburst of laughter of the three dozen or so agricultural researchers eating lunch. I take a seat on a heavy wooden chair, its ornate carving not disguising its uncomfortable rigidity. But the plate of steaming white rice on the table distracts me, beckoning with its delicate fragrance for me to ladle wilted greens and grilled fish upon it. I crush a full red chilli with my fork, stir in its spice, and top my meal off with a dash of salty soy sauce. The food is as fresh as it can get – all picked, fished, cooked and served within the last few hours. As I look around at my fellow researchers eating, I can’t help but admire their commitment to seek out new and better ways for farmers to interact with the land. Sodany is one of the next generation of Cambodians dedicated to expanding local knowledge to ensure the best prospects for her family and community, despite the difficulties she faces. * I travel on rickety buses loaded with suitcases, bicycles and fighting cocks on my free weekends. My research station and the city of Phnom Penh dissolve into the horizon behind me and are exchanged for emerald mountain landscapes. The serrated slopes of South-East Asia are an area of dazzling beauty, an amazing place to reconnect with nature. On stepping off a cramped bus, I breathe in the steamy rainforest air deeply. Narrow clay roads lead to tiny hamlets hemmed in by sheer limestone escarpments. Many of the

traditional mountain communities appear to be centuries behind the rapid globalisation and urban development of the rest of the world. Living in sunsoaked dwellings surrounded by tropical forest, the villagers tend to small subsistence plots of rice, maize and cassava. These crops are occasionally disturbed by the meanderings of pigs and chickens, closely followed by someone widely waving a stick to stop their food from being trampled. Foraging among green velvet moss, twig-armed children and their parents collect arrowroot, yams and baskets of firewood. It’s a seemingly idyllic setting. Over the years, however, these lush native forests, which were once serenaded by a chorus of insects, have been steadily disappearing. Towering hardwood trees, with trunks so large that it would take many people holding hands to circle them with a hug, have been felled, in large part illegally, for timber export and paper production. But the agricultural sector is also a prime culprit in the deforestation story. Three-quarters of deforestation worldwide is attributed to agriculture, which destroys around 30 million hectares of trees every year. The mass removal of trees alters the ecosystems they support. At a regional scale, changing land conditions can reduce or accentuate warming and affect the intensity, frequency and duration of downpours as well as forest fires. Large-scale changes in land conditions can also affect temperature and rainfall in regions hundreds of kilometres away. Throughout their lifetimes, trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen through photosynthesis, and in so doing transfer carbon into their leaves, branches, trunks and roots. Forests form massive reservoirs of stored carbon. When trees die and decompose, this stored carbon is released back into the atmosphere via respiration (i.e. the conversion of glucose from plant matter with oxygen into carbon dioxide and water vapour) or added to the soil. But around the world, mature forests are obliterated for timber, mining, development and food production. The scale of this deforestation is now so vast that it constitutes one of the leading causes of global warming – contributing an estimated 15 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, similar to the total emitted by all cars and trucks driving on the roads. As forest perimeters shrink, the cacophony of the rich biodiversity – from

the great hornbill, clouded leopard and langur monkey found in South-East Asia – has dimmed with the roar of loggers’ chainsaws. Traditional foods and medicines, once common in the forests, are now rare, leaving the rural people who live here and many ethnic minorities unable to maintain appropriate nutrition and health. As temperatures become hotter without the shade of the tree canopy, the risk of heat stress increases. The changes in the landscape are not only leading to physical exhaustion, but mental exhaustion as well. So more and more people, especially the youth, are being encouraged by their families to leave their villages and find a better life far from home. Far away from the farms where they grew up. But what will be the future of the land without the people of the future? As young people leave, the relationship between the environment and the ageing population left behind becomes increasingly strained. The global average age of farmers is now around 60 years old. Gossamer clouds sail over mountains, lowlands and the rural communities who call these places home, and as I spend time with farmers, it’s clear to me that the bedrock of stability on which people have built their lives is beginning to crack. What was once healthy and normal is no longer. And as the resilience of ecosystems decreases, so does that of the people dependent on them. Creative and inquisitive youth, who bring fresh ideas and perspectives, need to be reassured that there is a bright future for them within the agricultural sector. Their involvement is essential to feed a rapidly growing global population and conserve precious forest ecosystems. But this reassurance can only come when the climate change issue is being properly addressed. And this means implementing strategies that help young people cope with and remediate the situation.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE The next generation of food producers is being challenged by climate change. To save the food system and the environment, we must look after the people of the future.

10 UNFAIRNESS

‘Life is a farce if a person does not serve truth.’ Hilma af Klint, Sweden, 1862–1944 SOUTH-EAST ASIA is made up of eleven countries, located at the intersection of Asia and Oceania, the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. The region covers the Indochinese Peninsula and the Malay Archipelago, and includes Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, East Timor and the Philippines. Along the thousands of kilometres of coastline, out of sight from the bustling cities, wooden fishing boats bob in the water. Villagers collect clams and electric-blue crabs which they cook on open barbecues along the shore. Here, a gentle salt breeze can easily mask the reality of the ocean’s power and the trauma it can unleash. The unfairness of climate change lies in its wicked ability to hurt vulnerable people. Those who are ill equipped for the rate and scale of change occurring in their environments are dragged below the waves of a comfortable life, and are caught in a turbulent current of poverty, inequality and dislocation. Shiela Castillo grew up in a small rural village close to the water on the island of Mindoro in the Philippines, where she and her older cousins collected snails and frogs from the rice paddies. ‘I loved spending afternoons on top of the roof of our house, just daydreaming and feeling the wind on my face. I watched the rice fields change hues with the planting cycles, from

deep brown to various shades of green, to golden yellow.’ With her father she would lose track of time gazing up at the flocks of great white egrets gliding over her home. Her memories of the countryside in which she spent her childhood are laced with deep affection. But when Super Typhoon Yolanda (aka Typhoon Haiyan) made landfall in 2013, Shiela’s world was rocked. She recalls the horror of one of the most powerful tropical cyclones ever recorded. ‘I remember that we did not go out of our house in Iloilo for a couple of days, and when we went out, we saw the devastation.’ Sheets of iron and wooden beams that had been houses days earlier lay scattered in filthy water, trees were flattened, and disorientated waifs searched for their loved ones among the rubble. The typhoon’s fury killed more than 6,000 people and left nearly 2,000 missing. ‘Many people lost their whole family in the super typhoon. The survivors recount their ordeal. Many of them almost died, had multiple wounds and broken bones.’ The storm, with 240 kilometres per hour wind and gusts of 380 kilometres per hour, laid waste to villages and cities across the islands, displacing 4 million people and affecting more than 16 million. ‘But the trauma that people live with now, I think is one of the deepest wounds that Yolanda caused,’ says Shiela. ‘One child I met in the town of Balasan was scared every time it rained or whenever she heard thunder or lightning. She was afraid she would again witness the typhoon’s wrath.’ South-East Asia is highly vulnerable to the impacts of worsening storms. Over the past few decades, the sea has advanced and risen, eating away coastal villages. King tides send polluted seawater crashing into people’s lives, breaking apart flimsy homes, and causing residents to flee for higher ground. Increasingly fierce storm winds growl with madness, battering down doors and ravaging the land. Fields that grow staple food crops like rice are torn apart. Salt is dumped, killing plants and contaminating drinking water. The intrusion of salt water threatens food shortages for the countless people dependent on arable coastal land to produce food. Land degradation resulting from the combination of rising seas and more intense downpours are projected to jeopardise the lives and livelihoods of millions in storm- and cyclone-prone areas worldwide. More often than not,

the rural poor do not enjoy the economic conditions that would enable them to cope in the face of such climate hazards – many cannot construct sturdier houses, travel to safer areas when warnings are issued, or rebuild after devastation. ‘In the last ten years, we have been experiencing really destructive typhoons,’ explains Shiela. ‘It takes people’s lives, livelihoods and property. Other people take months to be back on their feet, only to be hit again by another typhoon.’ And it’s not only the people who live along the coastlines of the Philippines who are at risk of worsening tidal and storm events. More than 3 billion people live within 100 kilometres of the coast. Unrestrained rising sea levels and wild coastal weather have the potential to cause unprecedented human movement. These deteriorating conditions force people out the doors of their homes, making them climate migrants. Refugees unwanted and unwelcome. And already, climate change–induced human displacement is causing a tsunami of issues. Migration is an extreme form of adaptation. The pressure from environments collapsing causes a wave of human unsettling. Dispersed and disassociated peoples have cascading social-disturbance effects on the communities they leave and the communities they enter. New immigrants often encounter challenges of social exclusion as well as difficulty finding work. Disputes erupt from the desperation of stressed people who face unrelenting poverty and food insecurity. Worsening climate events expose and weaken communities to other threats such as land conflicts, religious tension and poor health. Crippled crops and perishing livestock push migration both within countries and across borders, causing large-scale disruption to food chains, livelihoods and economies. Urban expansion to cope with growing populations moving from problematic rural regions to cities leads to increased conversion of peri-urban cropland to new housing, resulting in further loss of local food production ability. Raised by a farming family, Shiela knows firsthand how changing climate conditions amplify rural vulnerability and make the livelihoods of its people less reliable. ‘In the provinces, those that are trying to eke out a living on agriculture are faced with droughts or extreme rainfall that greatly undermine their capacity to earn a decent income. So they resort to taking loans or

selling their little land and just working as seasonal farm labourers. Some of them just leave and go to the cities where there is no assurance of a better life.’ The densely populated city of Manila is where many desperate rural Filipinos end up in search of more livable conditions. And it is here in the city’s shadows that Shiela walks with me through a place where rural people are settling – a landfill of rotting garbage. Once food producers, they are now scavengers among society’s trash. I lose my breath in horror seeing what these farmers’ lives have become. The flies are thick and rats scuttle between smouldering tyres. ‘Most ragpickers come from rural farming backgrounds. They come to the cities expecting a better life. But they don’t have homes in cities, they resort to odd jobs and live in the streets. Resorting to trashpicking is the lowest one could go on the rungs of economic status.’ Mountains of the world’s filth pile high around us. I step over streams of raw sewage and with Shiela navigate laneways of makeshift rubbish houses. The putrid smell of rotting trash stings my nose. Small faces peer from the darkness. I cannot imagine being forced to leave my family’s farm. I cannot imagine the trauma of doing so and ending up here – in Hell on Earth. The unfairness of the situation where people who have contributed so little to the problem are impacted so heavily steals my words. I barely utter anything as I walk the landfill. It makes me feel disgustingly lucky, repulsed by the inequality and the birthright lottery. Shiela tells me that her work with displaced people for the United Nations Environment Programme does not make her impervious to the awfulness of the situation, or desensitised either. She recounts her own struggles in dealing with what she witnesses among the rubbish. ‘One time when I was at a waste site in Cebu, a young man saw a half-eaten burger still in its fast-food paper wrapper. He said, “Wow, burger!” and he immediately ate it. I was totally shocked. I couldn’t show my reaction to the guy so I turned and held back my tears. Once home I cried my heart out. It left me crying for three days.’ Seeing rural farmers forced by desperation to leave their homes and live in the trash of landfills haunts my mind as it does Shiela’s. ‘The extent of suffering that these extreme weather events bring to Filipinos, it is tragic, and it is not something people would or

should ever get used to.’ Lost faces among the trash stare at me in my mind as I sit in an aeroplane waiting for take-off a few days later. My head is thumping from what I have been learning about the farming situation around the world. The engines whirr to life and in a few hours I will be back home in Australia. But the farmers turned ragpickers will remain here, struggling. I hate the injustice. I hate the cruelty. Those of us who live in developed nations have been cushioned by our finances, large houses and food always within reach, and we have not felt climate change impacts to the same degree as those in developing countries. We have dimly perceived climate change through the gauze of daily life, as something to deal with at a later date, a more convenient time, once the mortgage is paid off and the kids have finished school. Right now, we pretend it’s far away and distant in time. With our privilege of being born on the safe side of the border, we seem comforted by the thought that others out of our sight will bear the brunt of the impacts, and we relieve our conscience with an annual charity donation. But our conscience should not be relieved. The richest 10 per cent of the global population is responsible for half the carbon emissions, while the poorest half is responsible for only 10 per cent. And perversely, the largest part of emissions from rich countries are ‘luxury emissions’ – those that originate from producing and consuming goods and services that allow us to live a more than comfortable life. These non-essential and unnecessary emissions come from overly big cars, big houses and big meals, and most significantly, from the overuse of fossil fuels and the destruction of the natural world. There is selfishness in this generation of luxury emissions, which I am aware I contribute to. In a societal set-up that values economy over humanity, we are encouraged to swipe our credit cards as fast as we can fumble them from our wallets, purchasing another serve of indulgence bestowed on us by those we hurt. The people who are least responsible for causing climate change are the ones most punished by it. Millions of Filipinos, Cambodians, Rwandans, Haitians are paying the price for a resource-opulent lifestyle they

have never themselves enjoyed. In We Are the Weather, American novelist Jonathan Safran Foer provides a fitting analogy: imagine you had never touched a cigarette in your life but were forced to absorb the health tolls of a chain-smoker on the other side of the planet. Every time they puffed, you coughed. Imagine if the smoker remained healthy and at the top of the affluence charts, smoking more cigarettes with each passing day, month, year, satisfying their addiction, while you suffered emphysema and lung cancer. Climate change is handed by the rich to be carried by the poor. It is unfair. It is unjust. We who live in developed countries are lucky. We have more options, and choices we can make. We suffer fewer hardships and tragedies. Our loved ones are not taken from us by wholesale war, famine or raging torrents. We do not end up on landfills, but we pile the bodies high with faces we do not see. Self-delusion is tempting – that hunger, plagues and forced migration will remain the fears for lesser mortals in distant places – but let’s be clear: climate change affects everyone. Every country and citizen are now impacted – at varying speed and magnitude, but all trajectories point in a dangerous direction. There is now no weather we haven’t touched. No wilderness unaffected. No person immune. No body we cannot dispose of. And what would be most irresponsible, and cruel to those around us, would be not to use our options to make better choices. Only by doing what we can will we have a chance to save all of us – and I mean all of us – who stand in the crosshairs of climate change.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE Climate change impacts are not just and equitable, but are cruel and unfair. Those least responsible for causing the problems are the people who suffer the most and are least able to cope. To save humanity, we must show our humanity.

11 DETACHMENT

‘Do not stand in a place of danger trusting in miracles.’ African proverb THE POLISHED BLACK barrel of the gun is resting out the car window. It’s a dark moonless night on my family’s farm, and I’m behind the wheel. The headlights bump up and down as we navigate the rough dirt track, flickering the illumination of trees and ground like a scratched film reel from an old movie. The air is cool and crisp and the only sound is the hum of the car engine. We don’t speak. It’s essential, even if not pleasurable, that feral rabbits are removed. They are an introduced species that has periodically bounced to plague numbers, decimating the Australian outback landscape. My partner turns the spotlight methodically from left to right as we drive along, and the silhouette of the rifle is clear when the light beam catches the backdrop. You need a keen eye to spot a rabbit at night from a moving car. You need keener knife skills to prepare it for a stew. My partner jokes that the best way to cook an old wild rabbit is to boil it in a pot with a leather boot, leave for twelve hours, then remove and eat the boot. What a remarkable job we have done upsetting natural ecosystems. We have carelessly disrupted our climate, naively removed habitats, introduced invasive and predatory species that push native ones to extinction, and have made the natural world, which all people depend upon, increasingly frailer.

We have then, most remarkably, managed to deceive ourselves that the fitness of ecosystems and population of wild plants and animals does not affect what we find on our plates. Somehow, we have disassociated food from nature and the people who grow it. The environment, climate, farming and food, we make believe, bear no relation to one another. This failure to recognise that this is one and the same system, and to understand the interrelations and multidirectional flow of influence has got us into a bit of a pickle, to say the least. ‘There is a real disconnect between the food in our homes and where it comes from,’ says chef Lynton Tapp, who grew up on a remote cattle farm in the Roper River area of the Northern Territory and learnt to ride a horse before he could walk. ‘For most people, food comes from a shelf of a supermarket or is served up on a plate. They don’t spend a lot of time thinking about its origins.’ Lynton tells me that we are affecting climate change every time we sit down at the kitchen table, and some of the foods we choose to eat have a greater impact than others. ‘The pressure that the population’s diet is putting on the environment is far, far more than the environment can handle. But if the diner keeps demanding certain things on their plate, then the farmer keeps on using resources to produce them, and ultimately this drains the ecosystem. People need to take it upon themselves to become better educated on what they should be eating, and how much they should be paying for it.’ Today, it’s advertising agencies, at the behest of corporations and supermarket chains, that direct food consumption, rather than nutritionists, ecologists or farmers. From this stems a detachment from the farm environment and a growing number of health problems – for both people and the planet. Corporates have trained consumers to expect ‘cheap’ food, with disastrous consequences for their health as well as for the land that produces the food. Cheap food encourages land clearing, second-rate animal husbandry, and is grown by pumping unnatural inputs (such as synthetic fertilisers and pesticides) onto farmland to spew out food as quickly as possible. These draining linear systems are unsustainable as inputs become scarcer and outputs become more harmful. Cheap food does not reflect the

real cost of producing or consuming it. But what options do farmers have when cheap food is what people demand? ‘Chefs have a responsibility to do their due diligence. They have to be ethical and serve the right food. And as consumers, we are all responsible for what we choose to eat and how we eat it.’ Food is essential for every person, but the way we are currently feeding ourselves is fundamentally flawed. At this moment, an estimated 821 million people are undernourished, 151 million children under five years of age are stunted due to poor diets, 613 million women and girls aged fifteen to 49 suffer from iron deficiency, and 2 billion adults are overweight or obese. These statistics are horrendous, yet where are the media headlines? Where are the policymakers frantically trying to save these lives? Are we so desensitised to human suffering and environmental degradation that we won’t give up the $2 hamburger to deal with these problems? Aware of how the degrading natural world directly affects consumers, Lynton describes it as ‘a little surreal knowing that most people in the cities are completely oblivious to the battles for the future of our food. In the city, climate change can sometimes feel distant from our everyday lives. But for farmers on the front line, rising temperatures and more extreme weather are a reality. These are not freak weather events any more, they are happening all the time now.’ Lynton loves spending time in the kitchen and serving good food to family and friends. His passion for cooking led him to become a favourite contestant on the popular television show MasterChef and a successful recipe book author. Today he is recording a cooking demonstration in his kitchen while his one-year-old son Atticus swings his legs in his highchair, gurgling at his dad. Lynton moves a bubbling pot off the electric stove and turns up the dial, making the circular hotplate glow bright red, before placing a frying pan in the pot’s place. Holding up a barramundi fish to the camera, he beams, ‘It makes me really proud to use this. It’s full of great protein and really healthy fats.’ The Northern Territory is famous for its barramundi, so I’m not surprised he loves cooking this type of fish. The searing-hot pan sizzles as he places the fish in it.

I ask Lynton how he has noticed the effects of drying paddocks and sweltering days in his kitchen. ‘Climate change impacts every aspect of being a chef, because what comes from the soil or the ocean is directly affected by it.’ Lynton says that farmers he knows are experiencing the highest temperatures and lowest rainfall in living memory, resulting in the lowestyielding crops. ‘These effects are not only passed on to me in the kitchen, but to everyone else who is consuming these foods in the cities. Whether it’s cost, whether it’s supply, whether it’s quantity – all of these issues faced on a farm flow on to the supermarket and into the kitchen.’ I reflect on Australia’s spring and summer of 2019–20, when bushfires ravaged the country. These violent infernos scorched millions of acres, blocked out the sun with acrid black smoke and left people bereft and traumatised. The experts had warned that these fires were coming. Climate change fuelled their fury. Many farming regions were charred, the food that farmers had been working hard to grow, wiped out. In the weeks that followed, I noticed fewer vegetables on my local supermarket shelf. The selection had decreased, and the only substitutes were tinned, imported from afar. This didn’t sit well with me, knowing the carbon footprint of processing and packaging these foods, as well as their lower nutrient value, preserving additives and higher associated salt and fats. It was a stark reminder of how the availability of fresh, healthy food could be disrupted by a worsening climate and the effect that has on wellbeing. People who cannot access or afford fresh food are at risk of serious health implications. Poor diet is now the leading cause of preventable disease, disability and premature death globally, while conversely, a sound diet is the number-one determinant of reduced illness and increased life expectancy. In developed countries like Australia, malnutrition stems not from eating too little, but from consuming too much over-processed produce with lower nutrient density. High-fat, high-sugar, high-salt and heavily processed foods that defy sound nutritional advice are gobbled down in our society. It’s not only the damage to human health this causes that is of concern, but also the damage to planetary health. The production and manufacture of these foods destroys the world that grows them.

‘Some dietary choices require more land and water, and cause more emissions of heat-trapping gases than others,’ says Debra Roberts, the cochair of IPCC Working Group II and a prominent figure in designing resilient cities in her homeland of South Africa. Better diets are balanced diets – ones that take into consideration human nutrition and environmental condition. ‘Balanced diets featuring plant-based foods, such as coarse grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables, and animal-sourced food produced sustainably in low greenhouse gas emission systems, present major opportunities for adaptation to and limiting climate change.’ The diversity of food in these balanced diets is important. In recent decades the genetic base of the human food supply has become frighteningly narrow, owing mostly to the dominance of large food corporations. Virtually identical food can be found in shops in most parts of the world. Familiar labels line the shelves in Sydney, Amsterdam and Cairo. Of the thousands of plants and animals eaten in the past, the modern menu now consists of less than 200 species, and just nine crops account for almost 70 per cent of all crop production. Look at any ingredients list and you will see the same things over and over. As a result, many people do not receive the nutrients essential for good health. As a chef, Lynton is concerned by the narrowing food choices on offer. ‘There are much fewer ingredients used in modern diets compared with previous generations. That’s not good for the environment, for our diet or food security. We need diversity in our diets for health benefits, but we also need diversity in the farmer’s repertoire so they can change direction as they deal with a more volatile environment.’ The over-reliance on an extremely narrow range of high-yielding livestock and crops, and their gene pools, has made food production riskier, less nutritious and less sustainable. When we farm genetically similar plants and animals, it means that pathogens (i.e. disease-causing organisms) can move quickly and easily between them, and that their climate-related thresholds, like temperature limits, can topple them en masse. On the other hand, diverse diets are not only good for encouraging biodiversity in farming systems and improving farms’ climate resilience, but they also nourish our

bodies properly. According to the EAT–Lancet Commission, a group of world-leading food-system experts, healthy diets – with ‘a diversity of plantbased foods, low amounts of animal source foods, unsaturated rather than saturated fats, and limited amounts of refined grains, highly processed foods and added sugars’ – could prevent between 19 and 24 per cent of all adult deaths. A good life is only possible with good food. We need to reassess the food we’re putting on our plates, and expand our palate to include all the delicious flavours within our reach. And as less than 1 per cent of the world’s 30,000 edible plants are eaten today, there is a lot of room for improvement. Diverse food diets can be learnt from past generations and by exploring foods endemic to our regions. Traditional and Indigenous communities still hold much native plant and animal culinary expertise. Using this wisdom to expand our diets and improve our nutrient intake will serve both us and our environments well. ‘The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think,’ said English anthropologist Gregory Bateson. At the kitchen table we act as though we sit distanced from the natural world. We drift through breakfast, lunch and dinner in blissful ignorance, overloading our plates with more food than is necessary, adjusting our belts to make extra room and scraping what’s left over into the bin. We continue to power our stoves by burning harmful gas or coal, and to use plastic straws in swanky cafés, despite full awareness that these things are bad to do. We have allowed the establishment of a system where perverse social norms accept that many people should suffer so a few may prosper. Where everything we can touch and extract from the natural world is consumable, disposable and exchangeable for money. We trash wetlands, rainforests, savannahs and our own kind for steak that overhangs our plates, bargain-priced meals, and asparagus flown in from the other side of the world. The increasing consumption of resources – which requires the accelerated

degradation of the natural world – is reported by business and political leaders as a booming economy, a sign of success, while any reduction in resource use is considered a failure. In this perverse scheme, we are told that we don’t have enough and that we should not be satisfied. Discontentment clutches at our wallets and retail therapy takes pride of place in our lexicon. Unhappiness and unfulfilment propel us to purchase more. Consume, consume, consume. From the department store we search for ways to establish self-worth and identity with brands, price tags, the latest gadgets and the new season’s outfit. Yet these substitute gratifications never provide what we really seek. Sustained purpose and contentment are not found on shopping racks or beneath lurid candy wrappers. Even our manufactured, mall-weary selves must reason that this endless consumption and relentless growth cannot go on forever on a finite planet. Are we deluded enough to believe that our current lifestyles can carry on unimpeded? I don’t believe so. We know continued complacency to society’s insatiable consumption will result in a future of food instability, scarcity and strife. We are unreasonably disposing of a stable climate needed to grow the very food we so often and so unwittingly throw into the trash. Precious wildlife has been treated like single-use plastic cups – used and then discarded when it fills no visible purpose. With this mentality we will ultimately dispose of ourselves as well. We cannot keep taking indefinitely and wasting unconscionably. But alas, this is exactly what we are doing. And how we waste is just as insane as the way we pointlessly consume. Today, it is estimated that one-third of all the food produced in the world never gets eaten. That’s equal to about 1.3 billion tons of fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, seafood and grains that either never leave the farm, get lost or spoiled during distribution, or are thrown away in hotels, grocery stores, restaurants, schools or home kitchens. Enough food is lost and wasted every year to feed around 3 billion people. Wasted food isn’t just a social or humanitarian concern either – it’s likewise an environmental one. When we waste food, we also waste all the water, nutrients and energy it takes to grow, harvest, transport and package it. This uneaten and rotting food emits climate destabilising methane and carbon dioxide, released into our atmosphere in

excessive quantities. Food waste highlights the careless consumption and ignorant disposal of resources that we have become accustomed to. Subdued by shop shelves of plenty, cunning marketing of low-priced food and political narratives of endless abundance, we have lost respect for food. We fail to consider how the wastage of food impacts anything other than our bins, making them heavier when we place them on the street late at night, for our waste to miraculously disappear by the morning. With our waste out of sight and out of mind, our lives move on. Unfortunately, the world doesn’t move on from our interactions; instead, it carries them forward with us. The waste we generate doesn’t cease to exist once the rubbish truck has turned the corner of our street. It’s just dumped where those who are lucky enough can’t see it. Our impact is very much still existent and is cumulative. The present is a residual of our past. So the only way to make the future better is by fixing what we are doing now.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE We are devouring our common home with insatiable extraction and consumption. But we cannot continue to act as though we are detached from our world. We must consume consciously, for the betterment of our own health and the health of our planet.

12 POLITICS

‘You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.’ Maya Angelou, Bill Moyers Journal, 1973 CLIMATE SCIENTISTS MUST sometimes feel the frustration and despair of Cassandra of Greek myth – cursed to see the future but never to be believed. As the story goes, Cassandra was given the gift of prophecy by Apollo, but when she failed to return his love, he cursed her so that her predictions would not be trusted. For the community of climate experts, Cassandra syndrome is no doubt exhausting when their valid warnings about the state of the planet and where we are heading are doubted and downplayed by others. It must be particularly exasperating when those others are in positions of significant influence, such as walking the halls of parliament or talking on the nightly news desk. Scientists enjoy academic scrutiny and peer review to evaluate validity – that’s part of the scientist’s jive – but to have irrefutable evidence offhandedly dismissed without proof is somewhat demeaning and can be terribly dangerous. Michael E. Mann, with a friendly twinkle in his eyes, is recounting to me his enthusiasm for the Mad Max film series – the dystopian action thrillers of post-societal collapse, directed by George Miller and released in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In an apocalyptic landscape, gangs fight to secure the last oil reserves after the world has been drawn into a nuclear war that has

decimated the remaining natural resources. The films were shot just down the road from my family’s farm. For me, the landscape of my home is beautiful, but admittedly, in a lousy season it does fit the bill as a post-civilisation ruin as well. In the late 1990s, Michael published the now famous ‘hockey stick curve’ depicting temperature trends over the past millennium. The curve demonstrated the unprecedented rate of modern global warming. He is a distinguished professor of atmospheric science and the director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, so you’d be hard-pressed to find a more notable or respected climate change scientist and avid science communicator. In my first correspondence to Michael I had to seriously refrain from writing: ‘I’m your biggest fan!’ Now we’re talking face to face in a pub on a rainy Melbourne afternoon. ‘Given the overwhelming strength of the evidence, as we have seen, that climate change is firstly real, secondly caused by humans, and thirdly a grave threat, one might rightfully ask how it is that some of our most prominent elected officials can still deny that climate change is even happening.’ For someone who has so nobly dedicated his life to broadening our horizon of understanding, to continually face unsupportable denial and rejection of the evidence could only be draining. Over the years I’ve come to admire the strong constitution scientists have, their perseverance in expanding human knowledge, despite some people not wanting to know it. ‘Climate change denial isn’t really about the science; it is instead about the politics. It’s about powerful vested interests that find the implications of the science – that there’s a need to stop burning fossil fuels – inconvenient. It’s about a massive disinformation campaign to justify an agenda of inaction.’ A lot of climate change action has been stalled by political wrangling and media saturated with misguiding and misleading articles. Lies and propaganda as poisonous as the greenhouse gases they perpetuate are told over and over. This has muddled society’s understanding of climate change and propelled disengagement. Just as the natural world can be polluted, so can public conversations. The hijacking of the lines from Dorothy Mackellar’s poem ‘My Country’

by some Australian politicians emphasises the mischievous befuddling of natural climate variability with man-made climate disruption. They drag Dorothy’s land ‘of droughts and flooding rains’ into a not-so-poetic political discourse in which they claim no climate crisis exists – that because certain weather events have been experienced in the past the current conditions are no reason for concern. Our sunburnt country, which Dorothy wrote about with deep affection, falters beneath the hands of such miscreants. And with poor political narratives, dismissal of evidence, and sheer cowardice to address real problems, we have been led ignorantly and unceremoniously towards a future of strife. Of course, not all politicians refute the irrefutable facts; many good members of government are genuinely working to better society and the environment. Former US Vice President Al Gore is a case in point. When I watched his film An Inconvenient Truth all those years ago, I remember thinking how bad climate change looked but thank goodness smartly dressed leaders and the adults we look up to as children would be working on the problem. The science was, after all, so clearly showing that political leadership was needed. So when I found myself in Brisbane at Al Gore’s Climate Reality Leadership Corps more than a decade later, you can imagine my surprise, and quiet horror, when I saw some familiar images from An Inconvenient Truth illuminated on the projector screen. But this time it was even worse. There were new images, new videos, new stories of the turmoil that had unfolded in the years following the film’s release due to the lack of high-level response. ‘The world’s leading scientists, of course, are ratcheting up their pleas to the leaders of political systems around the world to commit to meaningful climate action,’ said Al Gore in his Tennessee twang. ‘But we don’t even need scientific reports to understand the urgency of the need to act, because here in Australia and throughout the Asia-Pacific region, Mother Nature has joined this debate. And she is speaking very loudly and clearly, with messages in the form of record heatwaves, raging bushfires, punishing cyclones and storms, and downpours and floods and coral bleaching. And of

course the relentlessly rising sea levels, now accelerating, that threaten the very existence of some Pacific Island nations and is having an impact in Australia in some regions already.’ As he stood silhouetted against a backdrop of temperature charts with alarming exponential bends, I looked around at the hundreds of people who had come together with a shared concern about the future. There was a strange concoction of emotions in the group – fear, hope, sadness, excitement – bubbling at the surface, like a stew simmering on the stove. With the right spark of leadership, it felt like this energy would boil over; that despite the gravity of the problem, so many committed individuals were ready and waiting to take action. Al Gore’s final message reverberated in the room, and it was one of both exasperation and motivation. ‘We don’t have time to be discouraged, we’ve got to dig deep, to work boldly and swiftly.’ In 2007, Al Gore shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC. He stated his concerns of poor political leadership prolonging dangerous pollution in his acceptance lecture: The earth has a fever. And the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself. We asked for a second opinion. And a third. And a fourth. And the consistent conclusion, restated with increasing alarm, is that something basic is wrong. We are what is wrong, and we must make it right. He has used his platform and voice to increase understanding of the climate threats facing us and the measures needed to be adopted to avoid worsening conditions. It is this kind of political leadership that the world has been so sorely in need of. After Al Gore’s presentation, the Climate Reality Mentors, who included me, convened in a side room for a briefing. It was there that I met Uili Lousi from Tonga. Gathering us in a circle, he gave the group a traditional Tongan blessing, with words of sincerity for the dire situation he has been witnessing

in his home islands. After the blessing, I thanked him for bringing us the story of his homeland and raising awareness of the Islander people’s plight. The Kingdom of Tonga is an archipelago of 169 islands in the South Pacific Ocean. You’ve probably seen pictures of it – it’s the poster that hangs in travel agent windows of white-sand beaches, aqua-blue water and palm trees slouched along the shoreline. The escapism we daydream about during a long week of work. But all is not well in paradise. Increased ocean temperatures and seawater acidification have harmed the health of the surrounding coral reefs, and the movements of migratory fish are being affected. Over the past three decades, sea levels around Tonga have risen by about 6 millimetres per year, well above the global average. Storm surges are also becoming more powerful – a reality not lost on Uili. ‘One loses sleep knowing at any time a king tide can sweep away your children as they sleep.’ Uili’s parents farmed yams in fertile volcanic soil on the island of Vava‘u while he spent his younger years swimming in crystal-clear waters. He describes the richness of butterflies and cicadas that lived on the island, and closes his eyes while he tells me about the birds he used to hear singing. Just for a moment, he seems to have drifted away on the tropical breeze in his mind. But his eyes open with a look of pain, and he talks of the cyclones that now batter the islands. These wild storm events have taken their toll on plants, wildlife and people. ‘Our Pacific Ocean once teemed with an abundance and variety of food sources ranging from coastal shellfish to deepsea tuna. Simply put, the ocean provided us with a source of food security second to none, which was shared with the world.’ But the coastlines Uili grew up on have changed. Once-vibrant colours have faded to grey. ‘As ocean acidification becomes more prevalent, our beautiful and vital coral reefs, which provide a home for fish and other sea life, are becoming lifeless.’ Fisheries around the world are in collapse as important coastal breeding regions corrode under climate pressures in addition to overfishing, pollution and development. The degradation of fish stocks is having a devastating impact on the ability of many countries, which rely on the sea for food, to feed their people. Fish provide a vital source of protein for more than half the global population, and the livelihoods of

around 56 million people worldwide are supported in some way by marine fisheries. Some people in coastal and island countries are dependent almost exclusively on fish as their meat source. ‘Climate change is causing havoc to the economy here, and life havoc as well.’ As I listen to Uili’s story, I can’t help but feel a deep sense of betrayal and a kind of futility knowing of the political lethargy on climate action from Australia and many other countries. I am acutely aware that we are maliciously hurting our closest neighbours. The lack of political will to wean society off fossil fuel’s teat has rendered the people of Tonga, Kiribati, Tuvalu and other Pacific nation islands collateral damage in the senseless pursuit of never-ending economic growth. Governments that have built their nations on suckling coal, oil and gas have signed the death warrant for these communities, whose people run for higher ground during storm surges and weep as a furious ocean engulfs their culture and sacred burial sites. Australia is the fourth-largest coal-producing country in the world, and the desperate appeals from our neighbours to navigate to a better path of clean energy seem to go unheard. Their people, it would seem, are a mere trade-off for our economy addicted to digging up the dirt. Some low-lying islands are expected to disappear under rising seas by the end of the century, and the governments of several Pacific atolls are already planning to shift entire populations. These new Atlanteans will become members of ghost nations once submerged. I feel the impacts of climate change on people and the environment with growing anger. Season after season, year after year, records are smashed in high temperatures and low rainfall. This year, climate change impacts are being felt even worse than last year, and the year before. The evidence and reports pile high on my desk. My newsfeed spins uncontrollably with the latest evidence, more evidence, that things are becoming worse. Yet despite having had the science at hand for decades, our political leaders have failed to respond appropriately. A problem that became an emergency has now become a crisis. My skin prickles. My teeth clench. I am furious. How did we

let this go on for so long, knowing what we did? How do we continue to let it go on, knowing what we do now? Climate change represents a monumental failure of modern politics. The ideological fetish for growth at all costs, the obsession with commerce over humanity, has caused, is causing and will cause untold suffering. Around the world, governments – whose primary purpose is to protect its citizens – have let us down. They have failed to act as though this is the crisis it is. Emissions have not been curtailed in the way scientists have stated they must, and too many politicians have plugged their ears to the sounds of our environments and the people who live closely with them screaming out that something is wrong. Worldwide, climate policy is progressing far too slowly to avoid the worst impacts on global food production. Indeed, the evidence suggests that continuing on the current trajectory and accepting the current rate of policy change makes future food catastrophes unavoidable. ‘Our greatest enemy is complacency – the lazy belief that because there is food in the shops today, it will always be there tomorrow,’ says John Hewson, chairman of the Commission for the Human Future and a former Australian politician. ‘It has allowed dangerous, corrupt and unhealthy elements to assert control over this most precious life-giving substance.’ Inept policies to deal with climate change have left society and our food system in a perilous state. The perversity in our political institutions and our own psychological dispositions regarding status, self-interest and short-termism have sent us down a self-destructive path. This has been propelled by an undesirable mix of greed, materialism and alienation from nature. Deliberate pseudoscience and manufactured doubt have stalled public concern and blocked policy solutions. Anti-science propaganda and echo chambers in the media that manipulate facts and encourage tribalism magnify this. Self-interested and self-entitled people on hierarchical thrones squeal like pigs in a stall about never-ending growth. We are force-fed toxic narratives that block our ability to think collectively and solve the many dangerous problems stalking our

food system. Because of this, we are impaled upon the horns of ignorance and deception, awaiting our imminent demise. ‘Climate change is impacting our Pacific Island home, which is where we harvest food, where our history is written, where our culture is developed, where our heritage is ingrained, where our myths and legends are derived.’ There are tears in Uili’s eyes as he bares his soul. But I realise he’s not just referring to his home, he is talking about what’s happening to our common home – our world. Decades have been wasted with disinformation and denial. The regurgitation of antiquated and misleading tales has delayed progress and the reduction of emissions. This has to change. We can no longer ignore the science and what it asks of us. We can no longer avoid the sensible choices. We must use what time we have left wisely.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE Narratives that mislead and discourage sensible responses to climate change are dangerous. Political leaders must give an honest account of the problem and respond with evidence-based strategies. Policies must align with science.

13 NARRATIVE

‘We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are.’ Anaïs Nin, Seduction of the Minotaur, 1961 IT IS NO secret that a leadership void has hindered satisfactory progress on climate change – problems left unsolved, tough challenges unaddressed, and occupants of powerful positions not delivering. This vacuum of leadership is most apparent in the poor storytelling concerning our climate that dampens emotional connection and downplays accountability and urgency. ‘Something needs to be done’ and ‘Someone needs to do something’ are phrases commonly used, yet most people rarely move beyond reiterating the need for someone to do something. Whether through reluctance or not knowing how to act, a wilful misreading of the science, a Pollyanna belief in political ability, or faith in divine intervention, we have shrugged responsibility off our own shoulders. Self-recognition does not always indicate self-awareness, critics of the mirror test say. In his book The Devil’s Dictionary, satirical author Ambrose Bierce wrote that responsibility was, ‘A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one’s neighbour. In the days of astrology, it was customary to unload it upon a star.’ This tongue-in-cheek definition isn’t far off the mark when we consider environmental responsibility in the modern era, which, more often than not, is considered

‘someone else’s problem’ and ‘someone else’s responsibility’. The brokenrecord political narrative would like us to believe it so: ‘Our emissions are so small. The other guys pollute more. If they don’t act why should we?’ We’ve heard the mouthpiece at the lectern tell us repeatedly that ‘we’ don’t have to do anything, but ‘they’ should. It’s as though no one wants to admit that they are in the driver’s seat, or at least no one wants to take the steering wheel. As a result, we are moving rapidly in a dangerous direction. To date, we have failed to accept our responsibility, as individuals, communities and nations, to address climate change. It would seem that we would rather shift our responsibilities elsewhere. But to pretend that climate change is ‘not my issue’ is to perpetuate the inequality, hardship and environmental vandalism that comes with it. We don’t get to decide whether we want to be responsible for our planet or not. It’s not up for negotiation. At this point in time, we have to step up and be the ‘someones’ who do ‘something’. We must become the leaders we’ve been waiting for. ‘You cannot lead others until you lead yourself’ is a mantra Emmanuel Atamba abides by. Banana trees grow tall, providing him with dappled shade as he tends to the tubers and native vegetables that grow beneath them. Uasin Gishu county in Kenya, along with neighbouring Trans-Nzoia, which are renowned for their wheat and maize production, and contribute the bulk of the country’s harvest, are considered Kenya’s breadbasket. The wheat and maize are used to make flatbread and ugali, a cornmeal staple and common Kenyan food that tastes like popcorn and is served with vegetable stew. In this region, however, greater variability in rainfall – both in the timing of when it falls and the amount received – is impacting grain and vegetable production. Food insecurity is on the rise. ‘People die of hunger here. People actually drop dead,’ says Emmanuel to me on the severity of food challenges in his part of the world. But with an indomitable spirit, Emmanuel believes people need to, and can, lead by example when it comes to climate change. He walks the talk. On his farm, he has created a lush micro-climate by integrating food trees alongside perennial crops, many of which are native

plant species. He tells me about his home with such passion in his words that I can visualise his garden of plants, cool and green. Emmanuel says he was an advocate for action on climate change before he became a father of two, but now his response to the threat will be part of his legacy. He describes how his daughter digs in the soil and curiously examines the insects and seedlings. Proudly talking about his flourishing farm, and describing it as a food forest, he says that its richness in diversity makes it vibrant and full of life that supports other life. He shares his story and learnings within his community and beyond, encouraging people to think differently. ‘We need to put forward arguments that challenge the current system. I look at the facts, I put the facts on the table, and I try to communicate the facts in a way people understand.’ By giving people the resources to access and understand the impacts of climate change and appropriate steps to take, we move forward in a better direction. We can shift the trajectory. People disagree – sharply and persistently – about facts on which expert scientists agree upon, not because people are irrational, but because an unsavoury communication environment disables their reasoning ability. For example, narratives that inflict fear have been used as political weapons to normalise and protect polluting industries, corralling people to think and act in certain ways. Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale Law School, says that people’s beliefs are shaped by their social groups. It is unfortunate that positions on climate change have come to signify the kind of group one belongs to, be it defined by locality, industry or political persuasion. Beliefs that are at odds with those whose cultural identity we share put us at risk of being labelled weird and intolerable (the media and political narrative have a lot to answer for here). In that situation, it seems quite sensible for someone to be guided by modes of reasoning and align their beliefs to the predominant views of their group. Unconsciously, we fear alienation from our peers more than we fear the consequences of climate change. But when the stories within our self-established tribes perpetuate beliefs that contradict scientific evidence, we head down a road of danger. One way to overcome this, and engage people on topics of importance

such as climate change, is by using a communication technique called ‘framing’. Just as a picture frame enhances and draws attention to parts of an image inside, linguistic frames can do the same with ideas. This is because our reasoning is often influenced by how information is framed – the way the story is told. One framing technique Dan encourages is disentangling facts from people’s identities. If we talk about things that are important to the listener – be it fishing, faith or food and how, for instance, more violent storms may threaten this thing they value – they can better grasp how scientific evidence is important to their social group’s identity, not contradictory to it. This approach aids a marriage between emotion and logic by speaking in a language of values and making the conversation relevant to the individual. It’s even better when issues are communicated in a way that is local, personal and urgent. This helps the receiver of the message reach the ‘Aha!’ moment in order to realise why things need to change. Personal interaction and face-to-face conversations can also be effective ways to build trust and convey information in a much more resonant manner. Conversations with family, friends, colleagues and neighbours can be greatly influential to engage them with climate change. Our use of social networks to share information and ideas should not be underestimated. The conversations that Emmanuel has with people in his community are interactive and respectful. He listens intently to people’s concerns and values before responding. In these discussions, Emmanuel not only considers biodiversity management on farms, but he also talks with people about their food choices, and how diets and food prices influence the food system from which they originate. He has chosen a vegan diet and opts to pay premium price for locally produced vegetables and fruits, knowing they are fresh and that the money is staying within his local community. He is concerned about the prevalence of cheap, highly processed foods and meat-heavy diets, and says it’s important that people understand the true cost of unhealthy eating and resource-intense foods, for them and the planet. The food system needs to be designed to give more options to farmers and discourage harmful consumption, and this can only happen if we’re willing to engage in the conversation. ‘There is not a day we go without

eating, so there should be not a day we go without thinking about how we can eat better.’ Despite the seriousness of climate change, Emmanuel maintains a clear resolve that things can improve by bravely trying new things and telling a different narrative. He has witnessed positive outcomes from diversifying plant species on his own farm and having bold conversations about land management and diets with members of his community. ‘We must have the courage to take a risk. Having the courage to not do the ordinary, but to do something different.’ We can tell the story of climate change better – with all of its challenges, heartaches and reasons for hope. We can articulate narratives that illustrate, illuminate and inspire. Rather than telling stories that are reactive and oppositional, we can share stories that are optimistic and propositional, which encourage positive thinking and motivate people. Telling stories of the food system that help us to learn from the past, and place us in the present, can guide us to a better food future. With narratives that are evidence-based and connect the mind with the heart, just imagine what we could achieve! But without a compelling counternarrative, the demagoguery we hear today continues uncontested. With no convincing or relevant alternative, we are caged, encouraged and discouraged from certain thoughts and feelings. The trouble is, when we pay attention to these false confines of reality – for instance, when we are told that we can’t transition to renewables because there will be mass job losses and unemployment – our attention is paid to possible futures forgone. Poverty of imagination and inability to tell better stories locks us into a world of despair from ecological ruin. I’m sure most of us have a brighter vision in our minds than the reality we live with today. We imagine a different world. We know there’s a better way of doing things. And now we need to articulate it. It’s time to take responsibility for our knowledge, perspective and conversations, and to think and talk outside established patterns and groups. We should question unrelentingly how to go about things in a better way. The most hopeless conditions can stimulate the most hopeful thinking and can give rise to superior stories that make us believe that we can and will secure a better future. And when we believe something is possible, then we act like it is too.

So we must practise telling different narratives, better narratives, ones that illuminate an inspiring vision in ourselves and the people around us.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE Telling better narratives that illustrate climate change facts will encourage people to be engaged in solving the problems.

14 COMFORT

‘Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers, but to be fearless in facing them.’ Rabindranath Tagore, Fruit-gathering, 1916 WE CAN ALLOW ourselves to be intimidated by the rate at which climate change is occurring, or we can use this discomfort to power our efforts. I think we should choose to do the latter. The level of risk to our food posed by climate change depends on the amount of warming and how population, production, land management, technological development and consumption patterns evolve. Projected increases in population and income, combined with greater meat and dairy consumption patterns, propel increased demand for overall food, livestock feed and water. These changes, combined with land-management practices, have implications for future land condition, greenhouse gas emissions, carbon sequestration potential and biodiversity. A future where there is more resource-intensive production, consumption and waste but with only limited improvements in the food system will result in a world with higher risks of water scarcity, environmental degradation and food insecurity. All of these challenges ultimately stem from us: people. And so the issues of sustainable food supply and climate change are inseparable from the subject of human population. Our failure to properly engage in topics related

to global population is a failure to examine Earth’s capacity to support us. At present, humans and their livestock account for 97 per cent of the biomass of all vertebrate land animals – an almost complete reversal of the situation barely a century ago. On our overcrowded planet, where human numbers climb steeply by the day, we desperately need discussions on a sustainable population number and how it can be achieved. These conversations are closely linked with education, jobs, credit, access to medical services, family planning, contraceptives, nutrition and human health. A decline in population growth and numbers will lessen the challenges of emissions mitigation and climate adaptation. While population growth tends to be strongest in developing regions, it needs to be remembered that reckless overconsumption of resources is greatest in the wealthy world. A thorough analysis of human population is beyond the scope of this book, but it can be concluded that our growing global population needs to be fed, and fed well, and climate change makes this increasingly difficult. No major city, anywhere on Earth, is detached from the global system needed to feed itself. All draw their food from elongated and delicate transport, processing and storage chains, often extending for thousands of kilometres. This makes them highly vulnerable to failure from oil shocks, transport shutdowns, supply shortages, wild weather, trade disputes, industrial strikes and, as we have recently seen, health pandemics. The COVID-19 crisis was the first time many Australians saw what empty supermarket shelves look like. Countries reliant on food imports are especially at risk. And in these import-dependent places, food insecurity can be a prime trigger for societal upheaval. Food-system failures have the potential to shove masses of refugees out of afflicted regions, with domino-like destabilisation of communities and governments in neighbouring areas and countries. Competition and disputes over increasingly scarce food, land and water resources have the potential to ignite civil conflict and international wars. National security is thus closely intertwined with a region’s ability to feed itself, so ensuring solid food-system foundations is key for social stability. Paradoxically, though, the world presently spends $1.8 trillion a year on new

weapons but only $70 billion a year on improving food systems and production methods. The rate at which climate change is occurring and the magnitude of its impacts does feel intimidating. The scientific projections with insufficient action are grim. It is therefore understandable that seeing the threats of climate change laid out before us can trigger certain psychological as well as physiological reactions. This includes the automatic activation of the sympathetic nervous system and the fight, flight or freeze response. Perceived danger causes a chain reaction that sweeps through our bodies, a helpful evolutionary response that has enabled us to survive thus far. When threatened, our bodies release the hormone adrenaline (aka epinephrine), which leads to quicker heart and breathing rate. Increased oxygen and energy are pumped to skeletal muscles and the brain, enabling us to jump out of the way of a moving car or duck as a ball flies towards our head. I’m sure we’ve all experienced sweaty palms and racing hearts in the face of confronting situations. And some of us feel those reactions when we read articles about climate change with dire warnings. The thought of leaving our children in a world of ferocious floods and forest fires makes our hearts pound faster. But this physiological reaction also occurs when we realise that we must step up, engage in public conversation and make changes in our personal lives. A lot of us feel challenged. Some of us feel scared. The thought of writing an opinion piece for the newspaper, arranging a meeting with a local political representative, even holding a conversation on climate science with a denialist uncle, can cause a quickening of the pulse. At times it does feel easier to avoid confronting the problem, to flick off the nightly news rather than hear about more ecological collapse and know something must be done. We literally leave the room. We find this simpler than facing the reality of what is being asked of us. It’s less demanding to deny the seriousness of climate change and the responsibility we all have than to do something about it. But this type of avoidance – whether it stems from fear, uncertainty or apathy – is selfish. It is dismissing our responsibilities and prioritising our own comfort over the need to address a crisis. And there’s no longer time for this. Instead, we must learn how to

manage and harness our nerves. Fleeing or freezing in the face of climate change is of no use to us. Instead we must engage constructively, using one of our most basic evolutionary reactions – fighting for survival. As an introverted person myself, being seen and heard has never come naturally to me. At school, I would deliberately skip class if there was a presentation to be given or a book reading to be delivered. I avoided public scrutiny at all costs – even when it was only scrutiny from my classmates. Right into adulthood, nerves have got the better of me. Before giving my first talk on a stage, I was sick in a bathroom. I have felt emotionally and physically challenged on countless occasions. But I have learnt ways to overcome my own barriers. Fear and excitement are essentially the same physiological response. For instance, when people ride on a roller-coaster, some are terrified (me), while others love it. Both people are experiencing the same ride; the difference is their interpretation of the situation. Harnessing the energy released from adrenaline and rethinking fear as excitement can be a useful technique when we feel challenged. I give myself reasons to look forward to speaking and writing about climate change, like contemplating the beneficial outcomes that may emerge. To make change, we need to shift our mindset to enable us to undertake purposeful activities. We can train our brain to feel enthusiastic – and yes, even excited – about engaging with climate action. Positive internal dialogue and practising presentation techniques can help us focus our energy in a way that motivates us and others. ‘We have to make a stand. We need to be storytellers around issues and make sure our voices are heard,’ Danielle Nierenberg, who grew up in a rural town called Defiance in Ohio, America, says to me. She co-founded the nonprofit organisation Food Tank to offer solutions and environmentally sustainable ways of alleviating hunger, obesity and poverty. Defiantly believing that no one should go to bed hungry, Danielle has committed her life to working with farmers, researchers, media personnel and politicians to spotlight and support a better food way. ‘What we do at Food Tank comes out of this sense of desperation and urgency,’ she says. Danielle refuses to let fear hinder her efforts to make positive changes in the food system. Nor does

she accept the cynics’ words that changing the system is too difficult or too costly. Instead, she carries her hometown’s name, Defiance, close to her heart and into her work. ‘Everything we do is in defiance of that cultural, social and political paradigm that still holds true in agricultural development across the globe.’ It is defiance to the thinking that what we have now is all that can be. Engaging in climate action, sharing stories and ideas, is not always easy. The topics of climate change, sustainable diets and land management often attract opposing standpoints. It can be difficult to participate in some of these interactions, and I myself have been at the receiving end of many an angry, pointed finger. I have been called an imbecile, brainwashed, anti-farmer, a fool – to name just a few – and although I’m not impervious to hurtful comments, the nastiness hurled in my direction becomes somewhat irrelevant when I remind myself why I do what I do – because doing something is my only option. When I feel broken reading about animals becoming extinct and coral reefs disappearing, doing something is my only option. When I fear possible future food crises in parts of the world where farmers are struggling to adapt quickly enough to heatwaves and drought, doing something is my only option. I know that the only way I can help look after my family and my farm is by doing something. I can live with being called an imbecile and a fool, I can live with stomach butterflies as I speak on radio and stage, but I refuse to live as a silent witness and prioritise my own comfort knowing that avoidable harm is occurring. And climate change can be avoided. The harm does not have to happen. Speaking up may be risky, but keeping quiet can be more dangerous. When our perspectives and ideas are never revealed, we allow a continuation of the unacceptable. It isn’t easy to step out of our comfort zone, come to terms with reality and engage in conversations with people we have not had to speak to in the past. But Danielle says that getting uncomfortable, listening to different views and participating in discussions is vital to bring people together in search of solutions. ‘We all need to be more uncomfortable and have more uncomfortable conversations – to talk to people who we don’t know or don’t agree with.’ We can listen with compassion and respect in an attempt to

understand the drivers of fear, anger and disengagement. By welcoming new and different standpoints we gain a greater awareness of barriers to change and opportunities to overcome these. Moving out of our comfort zone exposes us to different perspectives and ideas, and this is important if we are to move the food system forward. ‘We have to embrace uncomfortableness and look for uncommon collaborations,’ says Danielle. As most people are not farmers – 75 per cent of the global population, in fact – one of the critical issues is that there needs to be much more and much better dialogue between rural and urban communities. Without urban engagement and input we have no hope of addressing the challenges facing the food system. Everyone who eats food has a role to play in shaping food’s future. As our present becomes more desperate, our future desperately needs more than we are currently doing. No longer will half-hearted attempts cut it. Fragmented efforts and siloed conversations won’t create the change necessary. Instead, we must act in proportion to the magnitude of the challenge. The word ‘crisis’ derives from the Greek krisis, meaning ‘decision’. At this point in time, faced with the climate crisis, we have crucial decisions to make, concerning how we should think and how we should behave. The actions and inactions from the choices we make now will determine the planet’s fate forever, for everyone. Some will say it is too late. Some will say humanity cannot be saved and that Earth has been degraded beyond repair. True, it’s late in the game. And of course it’s inexcusable what we’ve already lost – the creatures that will never return, the ecosystems that have been irreparably damaged. But do we give in to hopelessness and commit the species and places that remain to the same unfortunate fate? No. We cannot succumb to this mentality. It’s not too late to put a stop to net carbon release and prevent a worsening world. It’s not game over, but it is game on. The actions we pursue are defined mainly by the mindset we decide to cultivate. We are only as doomed as we believe ourselves to be. At this moment, we can resolve that nothing is worth fighting for and allow our ailing planet to become a terminal patient, or we can find a way to treat the

underlying causes of its illness and make all possible attempts to heal the damage done. We can allow the fear that it’s too late, too difficult or too uncomfortable to save wonders like the Great Barrier Reef to incapacitate us, or we can allow those fears to capacitate us and power sensible action. We can draw energy and strength from the things we find wondrous and irreplaceable. Right now, we’re our own, our children’s, and our planet’s most valuable resource. Indeed, we may not have complete control over the complexity of this challenge, but we do have control over how we behave in the face of it. And it’s in stepping out of our comfort zone, amplifying our own and others’ voices, bringing forth new ideas, that we can be a catalyst for great transformation. As immortalised in Mahatma Gandhi’s words, we need to be the change we want to see. I believe it is possible to transform as a global society in the way that is needed, that we can move from resignation to optimism, that we can do away with self-interest and advance to altruistic behaviour. We can act for the common good. We can also replace senseless short-term thinking with inspiring long-term vision. The people I’ve met and spoken to along the food system give me this faith. But in order to make the transformative changes in the time required, more of us must move out of our established comfort zone and the false confines of our current reality that we have set in our minds. We must push and stretch ourselves, inspect our own roles in tackling climate change and truly believe something better is within our reach. By stepping up and getting uncomfortable, we can create the change needed. But we can only expect the world to change if we’re willing to change ourselves. Doing something different is essential if we’re going to have a safe and secure food future. The response we need to take now must be unlike what we’ve been doing so far – because that strategy obviously isn’t working. More ambitious efforts must be made. For all of us, that means breaking the bad habits of unrestrained consumption, and recognising the boundaries of this finite planet that we share with others. It includes decarbonising all aspects of society as quickly as possible, and employing effective ways to draw down excess emissions that we’ve already put into the atmosphere. It

also means exploring improved economic frameworks – shifting from extractive, linear systems to regenerative and circular ones. Changing the established and dangerous economic model that encourages endless consumption and gives the illusion of infinite possible growth is essential. This requires redesigning the current economic paradigm in order to stay within planetary boundaries, and establishing systems where money supports good behaviour, encourages innovation, and pays the right people in the right way. A healthy and equitable food system is one where food is affordable for all people – especially the vulnerable – and proper nutrition is achieved. It is also a system where there is just remuneration of farmers that enables them to care for their households and allow better land management, especially as conditions become more challenging. To achieve this, a circular economy is needed. Such an economy regenerates natural systems, eliminates waste and pollution, and keeps resources and materials continually in use by recycling them. The planetary boundaries are at the heart of one circular economic design, the Doughnut Model, developed by Kate Raworth. This model uses an analysis of the space between the limits of the planet to support complex human activity and the needs of humanity within which a sustainable world might operate. Kate, a renegade English economist, suggests we rethink economics from first principles, beginning by articulating our objectives, then determining how the economy can best deliver them. The goal of the Doughnut Model is to ‘meet the needs of all within the means of the planet’. In this proposed new model, the welfare standards established by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are represented by the inner ring of the doughnut. This is the social foundation that reflects a sufficiency of the basics of life – good food, proper health, access to education and livelihood, housing, energy and clean water – accompanied by gender equality, social equity, democracy, peace and justice. The aim is to ensure that no one is deprived of life’s essentials and falls into the hole in the middle of the doughnut. Alongside this, the outer ring consists of the planetary boundaries identified by Johan Rockström and his team of scientists – the environmental limits of a stable climate, protective ozone, fertile soils,

available freshwater, and diversity and abundance of life. The purpose of the economy within this model is to bring everyone into the doughnut, which represents the ecologically safe and socially just space for humanity.

Figure 2. Doughnut economics

‘People worry when they hear about new economic models that something is going to be taken away from them. They don’t realise what they have to gain,’ says Danielle to me. ‘If we start framing discussions around economics in a way of “here are the exciting array of things that you are going to get” then people will naturally be on board!’ Danielle does not doubt

that a redesigned and better economic model can do a lot of good in creating a sustainable food system. Using the Doughnut Model to consider circular food economies that respect social and planetary boundaries, food prices could be adjusted to include environmental costs and nutrient composition. ‘We need to understand that there are planetary limits,’ says Danielle, ‘but we can grow and develop within those limits in a sustainable way.’ This moment is the most significant turning point for the food system. Being alive at a time of such great consequence means we have outrageous responsibility. The future of food is in our hands. In order to achieve what we must, we need to step out of our comfort zone, to question the decisions we’re making, to truly consider what is being threatened and what we have to gain from creating a fair and just food system. And my goodness, there is a lot to gain!

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE Moving out of our comfort zone and stretching ourselves will help create positive change. Engaging with different perspectives, fresh thinking and new paradigms will allow us to identify ways that manage and alleviate environmental, social and economic problems.

15 BENEFITS

‘Everything is impossible until it is done.’ Robert H. Goddard, ‘That Moon Rocket Proposition’, 1921 ACTING QUICKLY AND decisively on climate change brings many benefits to lives and livelihoods. Social benefits include better human health and improved community stability. Economic benefits include new and varied jobs and income sources. Environmental benefits comprise increased landscape productivity and resilience to adversity. The multitude and magnitude of benefits that flow from acting on climate change now and reducing emissions greatly outweigh any perceived advantages of staying on our current trajectory and hoping that perhaps the scientists got it wrong. As Tolkien wrote, ‘False hopes are more dangerous than fears.’ * When Mark Wootton began farming, he was sceptical about the idea of climate change. ‘I initially put it down to climate variability, to the vagaries of weather. I didn’t accept climate science as the key reason for the changing climate.’ Fast-forward a decade, and Mark realised that the drier years were more than just ‘climate variation’ and that serious changes were afoot. Rather

than sitting back and doing nothing, Mark was instrumental in starting up the Climate Institute – an Australian non-profit organisation aimed at providing policy advice and advocacy centred on the idea that ‘the climate change challenge demands a whole-of-society response’.1 Mark also turned his attention to the way he and his wife Eve, along with their four children, were running their farm near Hamilton in western Victoria. ‘We planted trees before we were doing it for carbon neutrality reasons. We were initially doing it for biodiversity reasons and to create shelterbelts. The understanding of the carbon storage benefits came later.’ Black cattle graze in the paddocks, heads hanging low as they eat phalaris, fescue and clover pasture. There’s a chattering of birds in the surrounding spotted eucalyptus and mahogany forest. Some of the older trees have hollows, out of which grey-fluff parrot chicks pop their heads. Many trees were cleared in the early agricultural pioneering days in this region, but the protection of remnant vegetation is now central in Mark’s business plan. He tells me that his family now purposely plants new trees each year, to capture and store carbon, increase biodiversity and improve livestock production. ‘I’m concerned about climate change. I’m concerned about the risk it poses us. I have children, so I want to make sure I’m doing all I can. My only regret is we didn’t start this earlier.’ Mark and Eve say carbon neutrality on farms is not just a goal – it’s a reality. Despite the large scale of their operation – 550 cows and 25,000 ewes running across more than 3,300 hectares – the couple achieved carbon neutrality in 2010. ‘The trees provide shelter that improves pasture growth because the soil is warmer, there are higher lambing percentages, and better calving.’ Productivity and profitably have improved from greater livestock birth and growth rates due to better pasture utilisation. Farm operations that consider livestock feed and genetics can significantly reduce methane emissions – an important step towards mitigating global warming. The carbon sink provided by the trees has also allowed Mark and Eve to participate in carbon-offsetting projects, including selling carbon-neutral wool to a high-end Italian fashion label. Farmers play a leading role in environmental management, particularly in

capturing and storing carbon in soils and vegetation. With appropriate incentive schemes that encourage best land-management practices, farmers who maintain or increase carbon and biodiversity on their farms may receive extra income. Financial benefits aside, the couple have been happy to see significant improvement in their environment since planting trees. ‘We have amazing biodiversity gains here. We started with 47 species of birds, we now have 159, so there are a lot of good reasons to do it beyond the carbon neutrality.’ Since 1997, Mark and Eve have revegetated more than 600 hectares with native trees and shrubs. Their incorporation of agroforestry has not taken farmland out of livestock production, but has instead benefited the existing grazing operation, and because of this Mark says confidently, ‘Carbon sense makes economic sense.’ The farm operation demonstrates the synergistic gains that can be achieved from something as simple as putting trees in the ground. The improved cash flow from the greater productivity of livestock grazing among the woodland has enabled this family to employ a team of nine people, giving jobs to local residents and injecting wealth into their rural community. ‘The reality is that trees provide enormous benefit. Much more than you would imagine at first.’ Mark and Eve’s farm highlights the multiple co-benefits for the environment, people and income generation. And the gains achieved in the many parts of their farming operation have added up to overall greater system resilience – a healthier environment and a more stable business income. This has flowed on to the greater resilience of its people. Family, community and social stability are closely interlinked with livelihoods. We are too often force-fed the nonsense false dichotomy that acting on climate change will hurt people and cost jobs. On the contrary, acting on climate change allows the development of a more sustainable economic framework by supporting new forms of employment and investment that are of better quality and longevity. Great opportunities exist in sectors such as land and soil remediation, renewable and clean-energy production, water engineering and infrastructure, land-use planning, resource distribution and consumption, waste management, low-emission transportation, building

design and materials, ecotourism, green technology and innovation. Skilled labour positions emerge as we advance better products, services, social systems, business models and markets within these sectors. Improved individual livelihoods and community stability result from the economic security brought about by climate action. Mark and Eve’s farm also provides an exemplar of the way consumer behaviour can support this transition. Produce from farmers who demonstrate a low carbon footprint and ecologically responsible behaviour may enjoy new markets and greater value. Consumers who are conscious of their carbon footprint seek out food and fibre with high environmental standards. They are often willing to spend more money on these products when they are properly informed and trust the certification standards. As Mark and Eve’s farm shows, the eco-conscious consumer may pay more to slip on a woollen jumper with green credentials that aligns with their values. Low-carbon food and fibre production can enable farmers to tap in to new markets, thereby increasing their commodity’s value and their farm’s economic success. A healthy environment is the foundation for society and our economy, and looking after the building blocks of life – soils, water, vegetation and animals – is essential for us to thrive. For instance, a flourishing ecosystem produces more nutritious food, which leads to healthier people who suffer from illness less and take fewer days away from work, and this helps safeguard a more stable and well-functioning economy. The environmental benefits of acting on climate change are therefore very much tied back into the social and economic goals we strive to achieve. Economics was a key driver for change on Karin Stark’s farm near Narromine, in central western New South Wales, where a paddock full of solar panels is tilted towards the sun – 1,550 solar panels to be precise. Karin’s house is nestled among the spreading branches of box eucalyptus trees, and sometimes a scuffling can be heard as echidnas waddle under the verandah looking for ants. Kangaroos visit the front lawn, oblivious to the conversations going on in the house about transitioning to clean energy.

Karin is sitting at the dining table with a cup of tea warming her hands. She shows me a photo of her seven-year-old daughter, Noa, smiling in golden sunlight in front of the solar panels that sit in the field across from their house. It strikes me as an image of the future we want to create, and why we want to create it – safe, renewable energy that provides a healthy world for children like this young girl to grow up in. Karin says it was the unpredictable and increasingly severe weather patterns impacting the family’s wheat and cotton yield that led her and her partner, Jon Elder, to investigate ways they could cut household expenses. ‘Soaring energy costs are causing stress on family farms and eroding farm competitiveness. The utilisation of renewable energy sources is a practical way for farmers to significantly reduce their operating costs, reduce their exposure to energy price fluctuations and build business resilience.’ Ultimately, it was a financial decision, not an environmental one, that prompted the family to convert their farm’s power source. ‘On our farm, we were spending $350,000 each year on diesel pumping from bores to irrigate our crops. In 2018, we installed a 500 kilowatt solar diesel hybrid system to an irrigation bore previously run solely on diesel. We’re now on track to halve these costs and pay for the system in just five years based on diesel savings alone.’ Since installing the solar hybrid pumping system, Karin says her farm produces 500 tonnes less greenhouse gas emissions each year, approximately equivalent to saving the total emissions from 40 Australian households. Energy and food conversations go hand in hand, as the global food system consumes 30 per cent of the world’s energy. Rural communities are well positioned to become the renewable energy powerhouses we need for the future. We can harness electricity from the endless abundance of energy coming from the sun, wind, waves, rivers and heat within the earth – sources of power that can never be depleted. New renewable energy projects inject wealth and skilled jobs into rural townships. Farmers, who often have expansive land area, can host the solar panels and wind turbines and sell this energy to the community. In turn, this helps farmers ride out the rough times, such as drought periods, when income from other farm sources is low.

Powering farm businesses with renewable energy and exporting what isn’t consumed on the farm is a sensible business strategy. As we’re talking, Karin’s partner Jon comes into the dining room, his cheeks rosy from the wind blowing outside where he was fixing a fence line. He joins Karin at the dining table, keen to talk with me about the benefits of the farm’s solar panels. There is a shared excitement for what they are doing. Together they explain how the solar panels have not only reduced their farm’s energy costs, but also provided additional income through the displacement of diesel with renewable energy under an Australian government scheme that incentivises on-farm emissions reduction. ‘There are huge opportunities for farmers to be receiving secondary and secure income from solar and wind set-ups. Food production and renewable energy production can be combined and be really beneficial for one another. A farm and a coal-fired power station on the other hand can’t co-exist.’ Rural jobs are important in order to enable people to stay in their home communities. It’s a key factor in alleviating rural-to-urban migration. So I ask the couple what they make of the argument that replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy will take jobs and damage the economy. Jon raises his eyebrows and says, ‘Baloney! My path of being interested in the environment came from a purist economics approach, which might sound counterintuitive, but renewable energy just makes good business sense. I mean, there’s no point living in a museum as we move into the future, especially if that museum is having huge costs to our planet.’ It’s true. Our current energy set-up is wreaking havoc on the land upon which food producers, and all of us, depend. Not only is it aged, unstable and unreliable, it’s also emitting particulates and toxic gases. The World Health Organization estimates that 7 million people die each year from causes directly attributed to air pollution. How can we possibly justify those deaths? We can’t. These dangerous emissions also have a direct negative effect on food-production capabilities. As fossil fuel energy is the largest contributor to climate change, the conversion to clean renewable energy has to happen. It’s also one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to drastically reduce pollution. And as Australia is the sunniest and one of the windiest continents

on Earth, we have a lot of good reasons to cut ties with fossil fuels and embrace renewables. We know, however, that society cannot simply switch off from coal and flick on solar without fair consideration for people caught in the old, wellestablished systems. A just transition is required for those who are currently employed in sunset industries, like coal mining, that are coming to an end. Many other people’s jobs are directly and indirectly linked to the fossil fuel industry. We must respectfully work with the coalminers, oilfield engineers, gas drillers and the like, who undoubtedly feel as if the changing energy system may take away their cultural identity and job security. They, too, are victims of climate change. Their story is part of the struggle for climate justice, and they lend an important voice in future strategies. Other people working in energy-intensive industries – steel, iron, aluminium, power generation and transportation – also need to be treated with dignity, as they, too, will be affected by carbon reduction and elimination. We need to ensure a just transition, and that no fossil fuel worker or community gets left behind. Appropriate approaches for achieving this would consider income support, benefit insurance, new skills training, and access to health care for those most affected. A just transition entails the retraining of people displaced by the dying fossil fuel economy and adequately assisting them into clean energy or other industries. This also applies to energy-intensive and high-emitting farm businesses and parts of the food system that have to change. Governments consulting and partnering with people and communities can take the fear and uncertainty out of the transition. Collaboration is essential. Working together, providing the assistance necessary, and establishing clear direction, will allow people to realise why we can look forward to this change. The boom in renewable projects has the potential to lower electricity bills, alleviate financial burden and help address energy poverty. Lower costs of doing business strengthen the competitiveness of local employers and provide opportunities to invest savings in business development, hire more workers and undertake maintenance projects. The jobs of the future give the security for the future that people so desperately desire.

The threats to our planet may be dire, but opportunities for betterment are immense. A multitude of benefits flow from acting on climate change. Many of these improvements are mutually supportive and reinforce each other. Climate action is not about ‘sacrificing’ what we have; in fact, it’s the opposite – it’s about seizing opportunities to make our world a better place and welcoming the flow of benefits. And the plethora of ways we can make improvements is good reason to be excited about the future.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE Many social, economic and environmental benefits grow from climate change action. A delayed response means we miss opportunities that we may never have again, so let’s seize the moment now.

____________ 1 The Climate Institute closed in 2017, but its legacy remains as part of The Australia Institute.

16 SOLUTIONS

‘Avoiding climate breakdown will require cathedral thinking. We must lay the foundation while we may not know exactly how to build the ceiling.’ Greta Thunberg, UK Houses of Parliament speech, 2019 THE POSSIBLE WAYS to treat climate change from within the food system are many and varied. Changes that can be made on farms and through to the kitchen are, of course, highly context specific, but the abundance of options and strategies are real reasons for enthusiasm. To understand what they are, let’s slip on our boots and go for a stroll along the food system, from paddock to plate. ON THE FARM At the start of the food system, on the farm, climate-smart agricultural strategies consider the local conditions, including the social, economic and environmental context. In so doing, improvements within two major farming components can be identified: first, the efficient use of resources that optimises farm inputs (like nutrients, water and energy) in relation to outputs (like food quality and quantity per unit of input and waste); and second, the improvement of overall ecosystem health and functioning. Let’s start by looking at how farms can improve and optimise resource-

use efficiency. NUTRIENTS

Crops and livestock need nutrients to grow strong and thrive. These precious nutrients are either derived naturally from soil and plants on the farm, or are added by the farmer from external inputs. Both organic and synthetic fertilisers are important nutrient providers for crops, yet low plant uptake and unsustainable nutrient sources reduce farm profitability and can have adverse environmental impacts. Fertilisers or manures that release excessive emissions, leach into underground water tables, or run off into creeks, can have devastating consequences. So improving fertiliser management in the field is key to nutrient-use efficiency and better land management. The application of the right fertiliser, at the right rate, at the right time and in the right place is important for optimising nutrient supply to nutrient demand of a crop. Advances in spatial technology help create digital soil and yield maps that can guide nutrient management, while controlled release fertilisers further improve nutrient uptake. Recycled and revalued agricultural by-products – like livestock manures and crop residues – can be used as natural soil amendments and organic fertilisers. They have enormous potential as substitutes for synthetic fertilisers, like urea applied for its nitrogen, which is produced using fossil fuel energy. Thoughtful crop rotation can also take advantage of natural nitrogen fixation, which improves soil fertility. In this process, nitrogen in the air is converted to nitrogen in plants and soil by nitrogen-fixing microorganisms termed diazotrophs. Some nitrogen-fixing bacteria have a symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationship with plant groups – such as with legumes, like chickpeas, lentils and beans – and the wonderful thing is that these plants are also highly recommended in human diets. So by growing certain plants, we naturally increase soil fertility, reduce synthetic fertiliser use, and produce a healthy food source. WATER

As primary consumers of freshwater resources, optimising the use of water on farms is a must. In fact, agriculture consumes 75 per cent of the world’s

water extracted from nature. Improving water-use efficiency and implementing water-saving practices enables farmers to grow more produce with less water, which means greater water security. Crop-irrigation technologies, like drips and sprinklers, make water application more exact, delivering the right amount of water more precisely to the root zone, reducing wastage and enabling plants to thrive. Irrigation scheduling, sensors that monitor soil moisture, and systems that turn pumps on and off automatically help achieve the best crop-per-drop outcomes. These strategies can also prevent anaerobic conditions from saturated fields, thereby reducing methane release. Growing crops and livestock that are native to a region can also save water resources, as these species are usually better adapted to local climates. Having evolved to local conditions and soil types, native plants and animals can be more productive in these environments, more resilient to endemic pests and diseases, and less resource-intensive than non-native species. ENERGY

Improving energy use and energy source is important on farms. Generating and consuming renewable energy not only reduces greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel power but also decreases electricity bills. With the right infrastructure and buy-back schemes, farm-generated renewable energy can provide farmers with a secondary income source when they can sell the excess power they produce. Energy generated from solar panels in vineyards, wind turbines on pasture with grazing cattle, hydroelectricity stations on flowing streams, and anaerobic digesters that convert livestock manure and biomass into energy, can all provide farmers with clean electricity and potentially extra income from off-farm buyers. For example, microgrids can share power between nearby households, selling and purchasing as they need. Climate change solutions in the food system aren’t confined to practices that increase resource-use efficiency. The climate challenge can also be tackled by improving overall ecosystem health and functioning. This involves enhancing ecosystem assets and services that support food production and

further reduce the need for external inputs (especially synthetic fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides). This can be achieved by enriching soils and biodiversity. CARBON MANAGEMENT

One of the most important ecosystem health objectives is retaining and increasing carbon. Farm management plays a big role in the capacity of landscapes to absorb and store carbon. To achieve climate objectives, there must be no further agricultural land expansion on high-carbon landscapes such as primary forests and peatlands. This must be coupled with sustainable forest and landscape management. Revegetation and restoration of degraded land can capture carbon from the atmosphere and store it in new plant growth. Growing trees and smaller vegetation, like grasses and shrubs, creates habitat for wildlife and increases animal and insect numbers. Healthy biodiversity is key to proper ecosystem functioning and longevity. Tillage of soil before planting crops usually results in higher soil carbon emissions and reduced soil carbon concentration compared with low or notilled fields. Reducing or eliminating tillage in cropping systems minimises soil disturbance and leaves crop residues and organic matter in place after grain is harvested. Farmers can seed the next season’s crop directly into the soil among plant residues or lightly graze stubble with livestock to lower biomass bulk. Avoiding bare soil surfaces means reduced loss of nutrients, greater soil moisture, less topsoil lost to erosion, and better habitat for important soil organisms like worms and beetles. Organic soil cover can be retained with crop residues and strategic planting of inter-row crops and green-manure crops (such as soybeans, clover and wallaby grass) that increase soil nutrients. Some farms that integrate crops and livestock and are managed in a way that is responsive to seasonal conditions can achieve co-production benefits – simultaneously improving the quality and quantity of plant and animal produce. Good livestock grazing practices can enhance net carbon sequestration and vegetation quality on some land by regulating plant growth

and returning nutrients in manure to the soil. Controlling the intensity and timing of sheep and cattle feeding on the land, varying their numbers with seasonal conditions, and allowing land and vegetation to rest, are all techniques that can be used alongside other kinds of adaptive grazing practices. Such techniques as pasture cropping (annual crops grown among perennial pasture) and silvopasture (grazing livestock among trees) can further improve overall landscape health. BIODIVERSITY

Agroecosystem vitality depends upon plant and animal species diversity. Plant variety can lead to pest suppression, lower greenhouse gas emissions, increased soil biology and greater soil nutrient retention. This is because different types of plants play complementary roles. Incorporating perennial and tree crops among traditional annual crops provides windbreaks, habitats and food for birds and pollinators, while long-rooted plants can draw up nutrients from deeper soil layers. Diversification of farm produce also provides more market options for the farmer. Producing a variety of vegetables, fruits, grains and meats means fewer income-generating eggs in one basket, so to speak, and these multiple income streams are key to financial security. FOOD WASTAGE

Food wasted before it even leaves the farm is a big driver of climate change, but food loss can be reduced through many tactics, including improved harvesting and storage practices and better markets for the sale of food. This means food is not left in fields to rot or dumped because it cannot be sold. Improved storage practices, such as using silos, sheds and refrigeration, can extend the saleable life of produce and help prevent damage from heat, moisture, insects or mice. Once food leaves the farm gate, losses can be further minimised by improving transport and processing techniques. Preventing food from being damaged or delayed on its way to market means less food is made unfit for sale. Reducing food waste is critical in preventing unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions and the loss of resources used to grow this produce. Some waste will be inevitable, so investment into and

development of innovative waste-to-resource conversion techniques are required. This includes food-waste rescue schemes and – one of my personal favourites – feeding food waste to insects, which are then fed to fish and chickens as a high-protein animal feed. FARM TO MARKET Once food leaves the farm, it’s on its way to market, but it’s not often a quick or straightforward route. Synthetic chemicals and products (such as additives, preservatives and plastic packaging) are frequently used to extend shelf life, but much of this can be replaced by sustainable natural alternatives. Tradeoffs between natural and synthetic inputs that reduce food spoilage and get more food to consumers need to be considered. Energy is again a big player at this point in food’s journey. Seventy per cent of the food system’s energy is consumed after food leaves the farm, in transportation, processing, packaging, storage and marketing. Fossil fuel energy used in food operations can be replaced with renewable energy – for instance, solar energy can be used in milk-bottling facilities, and anaerobic digesters (using microorganisms in oxygen-free tanks) can convert spent grain to biogas energy in beer processing. Energy is also an important consideration in transportation. Food miles is a term used to describe the distance food travels between the producer and the purchaser, and is linked to carbon footprint. Food transported by aeroplane from the other side of the world is not very environmentally friendly. Clear food labelling, including the food’s provenance and nutritional value, along with the transparency of its social and environmental footprint, assists the buyer in making an informed purchase. The price tag on food items must also reflect the true cost of that food’s production, distribution and consumption, and compensate the farmer properly. AT HOME Finally, you carry the shopping bags into your home. The food has reached you and your family. In the kitchen, there are many ways we can consume food better so we have less impact on the environment. Diets that are healthy

for people consider the nutritional value of food and portion size. Diets that are good for the planet have a low carbon footprint and have originated from production systems that use resources efficiently (meaning less water, land and nutrients are used to produce high-quality food) and come from biodiverse and healthy ecosystems. Food that is fresh, local, seasonal and largely plant-based generally ticks these boxes. In order to reduce waste, home refrigerators and freezers can help extend food shelf life, while better food-label instructions on preparation and serving methods can assist consumers in confidently eating all possible parts of plants and animals. The ick factor of eating cuts of food we’re not accustomed to can be overcome through education and encouragement of leaf-to-root and nose-to-tail eating. And after all that, if there are still leftovers (that can’t be frozen, pickled, baked or boiled), they can be added to a compost heap, worm farm or fed to backyard chickens. The story of food is a beautiful one – in both its complexity and its simplicity. We can improve farm resource-use efficiency and ecosystem health, fix transport and processing practices, have better diets, and reduce food waste. These examples show that many practical improvements can be made along the entire food chain to help reduce emissions, draw down carbon, improve biodiversity, increase climate resilience and feed more people with nutritious food. None of these ideas is particularly radical or difficult to implement. They are commonsense solutions that are already applied around the globe. They require no sacrifice and deliver great benefits to our health and that of our planet. And with these improvements, from paddock to plate, comes the opportunity to create a fair, equitable and healthy food system.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE There are a lot of solutions out there that can be tailored to local contexts. The bounty of options for improving the food system and the benefits they deliver are great reasons for excitement.

17 JUSTICE

‘In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to switch to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground.’ Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize lecture, 2004 CLIMATE CHANGE IS an ethical problem for two main reasons. The first is that Earth’s atmosphere, which provides life-sustaining services to humans and all other beings on the planet, is a public good, a piece of the global ‘commons’. The second is that the atmosphere is a limited resource, subject to depletion and degradation under certain conditions. This latter statement is important, as moral philosopher Peter Singer clarifies, ‘Climate change is an ethical issue, because it involves the distribution of a scarce resource – the capacity of the atmosphere to absorb our waste gases without producing consequences that no one wants.’ Further to this, it is an issue of injustice because most of the problems stem from a wealthy minority whose national policies lack credible climate ambition. Any prolonged injustice steers us towards radical inequality, and major asymmetries are emerging between those who are shaping nature with unrestrained pollution and consumption, and those who bear the brunt of the effects and hold little authority to prevent major catastrophes from occurring. Explicit burden is carried by those inhabiting the impoverished and underdeveloped regions of the world. Due to the global

magnitude of climate change, these people have limited control over their ecological fate and less ability to adapt, disadvantaged through no fault of their own. Deeply breathing in the scent of rich, fertile soil – with a faint aroma of early morning dew on grass and distantly baking bread – puts a smile on a farmer’s face and a pulse in their veins knowing what it can create. It’s the fragrance of life. Beneath one’s boots it is spongy to walk upon, and on crouching down to feel it, the soft, friable texture crumbles between fingertips like ground coffee. Anthony Houston is standing on such soil surrounded by thousands of cos lettuce rosettes. ‘I started working with my dad on our farm when I was six years old and have spent my whole life building our business, which today is one of the largest salad producers in the country.’ Anthony’s light blue cotton shirt mirrors the cloudless sky above his farm in the Coal River Valley of Tasmania. He chuckles as he jokes to me that he learnt how to grow rabbit food very well. The lettuce looks immaculate, almost like a digital image it’s so uniform and perfect. But despite the seemingly flawless crop, Anthony furrows his brow and runs a sun-weathered hand through his thinning grey hair. ‘Our set-up is doing okay for now, but we only need to look at what’s happening on the mainland to know what awaits us if nothing is done to rapidly bring down greenhouse gas emissions and act on climate change.’ Anthony recalls a sense of guilt welling inside of him as he watched 600 kids standing outside Hobart’s Parliament House, calling for adults to do more to protect their future. Pleading eyes on the faces of young people holding brightly coloured placards, megaphones in hand. ‘What got to me was what they said – they asked, “Where are the adults? Why do they do nothing when they know the facts?”’ That evening driving home, Anthony felt solemn staring at the dark road ahead. ‘I was ashamed that I had done nothing. I knew about the carbon we released, but I was always too busy to do something about it. It actually brought me to tears. I made a pledge that I would spend the rest of my life saving what I could for these kids.’

Anthony couldn’t shake the feeling that these adolescents, just starting out in the world, had spoken directly to him, scared for their prospects if no one took the responsibility to make the changes needed. ‘It was a sombre reminder that the very future of our young ones is at stake.’ From that moment, at age 67, Anthony changed the label he had always placed on himself from ‘farmer’ to ‘climate activist’. He knew that if he didn’t step up and put climate change front and centre of everything he did, the fate of his grandkids was in jeopardy. Sitting up late at night, Anthony read everything he could about climate change projections and impacts, and what he, a salad grower on an island state, could do about it. ‘I was desperately looking for something to do. I’m a businessman, I look at ways to fix things. Like a lot of farmers, we are action people. It’s not in my nature to do nothing.’ One of the articles he chanced to read, written by another food producer, expressed similar concerns about the state of the environment and their frustration regarding the lack of political activity being taken to address the problem. The article mentioned Farmers for Climate Action, a newly formed group of Australian food and fibre growers tackling climate change. Anthony quickly looked them up, made contact and said he wanted to be involved. And that’s how Anthony and I met, through this group of farmers doing their best to address this problem. Anthony admits he came late to the party, that he had spent most of his life without much thought of climate change, but became determined to do what he could now. Farmers for Climate Action connected him to climate scientists who helped him understand the impacts of what was occurring in his region. He decided that he could no longer accept the misleading narrative from industry bodies and shoddy journalism stating climate change wasn’t posing a crisis for farmers, so he undertook media training to enable him to better share his story. ‘Doing nothing was no longer an option.’ Together we talk about our initial apprehension of speaking publicly and engaging with the media, but now when fear comes to him, Anthony says he thinks about his six-year-old granddaughter Evie. Standing only waist tall, Evie talks about animals constantly and draws pictures of forests and flowers that Anthony sticks on his fridge door. ‘She, more than anyone, has pushed me.

Whenever I think it’s too hard, I think she would do it. She has really inspired me.’ The sight of children marching in the streets demanding greater climate action, which spurred Anthony to reflect on his own involvement, is one we have all become familiar with. Thousands of fresh-faced youngsters crying out at the top of their voices have taken their future into the streets and into our conscience. Aware that by the time they are old enough to vote their fate will already have been sealed, they are skipping school and demanding more be done by those who can now. These marches and school strikes highlight the intergenerational implications of climate change, the moral and ethical issues we’re now faced with, and how this is a matter of justice and human rights. THE ETHICAL COMPONENTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE Climate justice takes into consideration the moral and ethical implication of the climate challenge. Environmental ethics Professor Dale Jamieson from New York University says this dilemma centres around ‘rich people appropriating more than their share of a global public good and, in addition, harming poor people by causally contributing to extreme climatic events such as droughts, hurricanes and heatwaves.’ Climate justice highlights the need for all people, especially those who are most vulnerable, to be fairly considered in climate change impacts, solutions and trade-offs. To do this, consideration of four key elements is necessary: intergenerational equity, human rights, gender equality and cultural integrity. INTERGENERATIONAL EQUITY

The actions and inactions of the present population can jeopardise the rights and wellbeing of successive generations. The destruction of the environment is a fundamental breach of the principle of intergenerational equity, as it causes significant flow-on effects to present and future communities. By delaying climate change action, we risk passing on an irreparably diminished legacy by way of a terribly damaged world. HUMAN RIGHTS

Climate change impacts – from subtle weather shifts to extreme events – erode people’s needs, capabilities and rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that basic rights and fundamental freedoms are to be enjoyed by all people, no matter who they are or where they live. Rural people are often unfairly disadvantaged due to high dependence on agriculture and natural resources; the burdens of poverty, isolation and marginality; neglect by policymakers; and lower indicators of human development. Climate change worsens existing deficiencies, exacerbates inequalities and creates new vulnerabilities. The Declaration recognises that everyone is entitled to the inherent dignity delivered by the foundations of freedom, justice and peace – yet these are undermined by the deteriorating climate. GENDER EQUALITY

Men and women are affected differently by climate change due to different social and cultural roles. In many rural communities, women form the majority of self-employed, small-scale farmers, so, given existing gender inequalities and development gaps, climate change ultimately places a greater burden on women. Worsening climatic conditions also increase gender vulnerability through: the emigration of men, which increases the workload on women and forces them into new and challenging situations; the alteration of the type of crop and livestock species that can be grown on farms, which affects gender division of labour; the greater difficulty in accessing water and fuel resources; and the possibility of conflict over increasingly scarce natural resources. CULTURAL INTEGRITY

Climate change causes social degradation via community instability and dislocation, which ultimately undermines cultures. Migration challenges the identity, sovereignty and heritage of people leaving their homelands, as well as the integrity and continuity of their traditional ways of life. These dispersed and disassociated peoples can have cascading social disturbance effects on the communities they leave behind and the communities they enter. Although separating climate migrants from those moving for other reasons is

near impossible, as climate change aggravates existing problems for the rural poor, greater migration of these people is inevitable. To achieve climate justice, it is necessary to marry human rights standards with issues of sustainable development and responsibility for climate change. It is expanding the dialogue beyond emissions to incorporate the language of humanity. To deliver climate justice, policies and food system strategies therefore need to encompass intergenerational equity, human rights, gender equality and cultural integrity. * ‘I was born in one of the poorest regions of Brazil,’ says Ana De Lima, ‘and raised in one of the most devastated regions of the Amazon.’ Near the rural town of Marabá in the state of Pará, Ana spent her childhood exploring the outer edges of the rainforest. There, serpent-like vines wrapped around thick tree trunks adorned with delicate ferns and orchids, and processions of leafcutter ants dutifully marched among the foliage. Life appeared to be everywhere. But over a scratchy video call, Ana tells me that where once stood primary forest, with trees that stretched to the skies, there is now bare ground and building construction. The trees in her home region have all but disappeared due to housing, mining, agriculture and forestry. ‘It’s terrifying,’ she says. Ana learnt about beekeeping from her father when she was young. She was fascinated by the tiny winged creatures that produced delicious golden honey. As she grew older and came to realise the critical role of bees in food production, her curiosity turned into a passion. The management of bees in her community is a traditional activity with embedded ecological knowledge and beliefs accumulated by generations over time. The bees pollinate the plants and produce honey, which is a food source for the rural communities. The honey’s medical properties have also been passed down in families, especially within Indigenous communities. ‘When we talk about food

production, I think a lot of my father, because my father would take care of the trees.’ The trees are dependent on the bees, and the bees are dependent on the trees, Ana explains to me. They need one another. And people are dependent on both. When Ana walks in regions where the forest remains, leaves crunch under her shoes, no matter how delicately she tries to tread. The sound alerts the birds and monkeys in the tree canopy far above her and their calls echo down the streaks of sunlight. She asks if I know how many plant species there are in Australia, and I admit to her that I do not. She tells me that 40,000 different plant types live in the Amazon rainforest (I later read that Australia has around 20,000 recorded species in the entire country). The plant diversity in her region astounds me. Yet even this diversity and wilderness is not immune to land-use pressure and climate change. Modelling studies project warmer and drier conditions for the Amazon, painting a bleak future for the region and for both humans and biodiversity. The migration rate of people is high as the forest environment becomes frailer, but it is not only the loss of community that saddens her. ‘There are a lot of trees and insects that we are going to miss because of climate change.’ Many native Amazonian bees are stingless, and Ana says they are more active in pollinating the forest plants on sunny summer days. The rainforest has a natural cycle of wet and dry seasons, and the bees have evolved to thrive in those conditions. ‘But these two seasons are really changing now. There is a very clear difference.’ She explains that the native bees produce honey with a higher water content than the European honey bee, and so they are being challenged by the drying trend. When the rain does fall, however, it now comes so heavy, in torrential downpours, that the bees can’t get to the flowers. The intensity of the storms also damages their hives. The disruption of rainfall patterns directly impacts the bees’ ability to service the forest plants. This means both reduced plant pollination and that the bees are getting less food. Bee population numbers are suffering as a result. ‘The bees are the first measurement that things are really changing.’ Around the world, habitat loss, increasing temperatures and the spread of insect diseases are having severe consequences for bee numbers and

wellbeing. Changes in seasons are disrupting flower blooming cycles and both the availability and protein content of pollen for bees. Put simply, climate change is bad for the buzz. With one in every three bites of food made possible by bees and other pollinators, the loss of these insects has grave repercussions for global food production. Watching the forest around her retreat with every passing year, the worsening weather, and the impact this was having on the bees, Ana knew she could no longer be a silent witness. She decided the voice from her homeland needed to be heard. So Ana, at age 26, started a podcast, Apenã, meaning tomorrow in the local Indigenous Jê language, to create a space for thinking about the tomorrow we want to build.2 Despite initial uncertainty about how much impact she could make, Ana started to find her voice and share her concerns about what was happening. She did not shy away from the difficulties of speaking up, although completely aware of them. ‘You need courage to show yourself completely.’ By sharing her story – a young woman with Indigenous heritage who grew up alongside a forest that is now disappearing – she hopes to bring greater awareness to the critical challenges of her home and inspire others to join her in the efforts to save it. With support from the podcast listeners, Ana was able to crowdfund activities and the creation of Meli Bees Network, a research and engagement community that brings together Elders and tech-savvy young people. Traditional and new knowledge are used to shape the community’s future and the health of the forest. Ideas on how things can be improved are debated and deliberated within the group to identify the best path forward. Ana firmly believes that just like a single bee in a hive, she can play an important role in supporting her community and bringing people together. Meli Bees Network works with research institutes to expand the knowledge base about native stingless bees, and runs community education programs on environmental management and the production of sweet golden honey. With an enthusiastic team of volunteers, most of them young women with Indigenous family roots, the organisation describes itself as ‘a new generation of leaders from the Amazon’. ‘The future is about change,’ says Ana, ‘and we need to change and take

a direction which is smarter.’ That means considering the next generation, valuing gender and cultural diversity, and ensuring the rights of all living things are protected and respected. Our lives influence people, creatures and habitats all around us. We cannot go about pretending that our actions don’t affect others, and that what we do today doesn’t affect tomorrow. We are writing the story of our future, and for everyone yet to be born. So we must work on creating the best possible future. One that is fair and just. ‘It is important to challenge ideas, and to have the courage to ask, “Is this the best way we can do things?”’ Ana says. She knows that the future of Amazonian life, from the towering trees down to the tiny stingless bees, is being determined by what she and others do now. And like members of a beehive, tackling problems requires purposeful and collaborative effort, in which everyone has an important role to play.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE We must expand the dialogue beyond emissions to incorporate the language of humanity. By encompassing intergenerational equity, human rights, gender equality and cultural integrity we move towards achieving climate justice.

____________ 2 The Apenã podcast now goes by the name Meli Conecta, emphasising the connection between people, place and bees.

18 COLLABORATION

‘Decide then whether or not the goal is worth the risks involved. If it is, stop worrying.’ Amelia Earhart, Last Flight, 1937 IT’S A BITTERLY cold winter’s night in the Buttes-Chaumont borough of Paris, following a long day at the 21st United Nations Climate Change Conference. I’m sitting on the edge of my Airbnb host’s sofa-bed in his living room. It’s three paces to the bathroom and five to the sink in the wall that defines the kitchen. My bedroom, arguably the largest room in this tiny apartment, is a mighty nine paces away in comparison. My Parisian host is demonstrating the seductive flamenco dance with his gorgeous Moroccan friend. The lights have been dimmed and the music is loud. The floor doesn’t allow much dancing room, so the pair hug close, her dark eyes hidden behind feathered eyelashes. Their cheeks are just touching and lips are parted, breathing deeply as the moves intensify. They sway in synchronisation around the room to the Spanish melody. I almost feel the need to avert my gaze because the dance is so passionate, but I am transfixed in the beauty of the moment. Here in my host’s small living room in a housing block on a busy street with a name I cannot pronounce, a cocktail of cultures and accents create an intoxicating experience. It’s a reminder that we’re all humans, sharing the same world, and there is indescribable power when we come together.

It was only two weeks earlier that the human spirit had been tested right here. In the City of Love, 137 people died due to the events of one night. Three suicide bombers exploded outside the Stade de France in Saint-Denis during a football match. This was followed by a series of mass shootings and bombings at cafés and restaurants around Paris. Terrorists had attacked. Martial law was declared and national security was tightened, with 30,000 police officers and 285 security checkpoints deployed across the country over the following days. People wept in the streets while bouquets and photographs were laid for the deceased. Although the sound of gunfire reverberated in the minds of many, the terrorists failed to fracture community. Just days after the bloodshed, leaders of nations and nearly 30,000 civilians gathered in Paris, and a consensus was reached that would change the history of climate negotiations. The world came together when it could have so easily divided at that point in time. On 12 December 2015, the participating 196 countries of the Climate Change Conference agreed to reduce emissions and as a global community advance action on climate change. In the twelve-page document, the members settled to reduce their carbon output ‘as soon as possible’ and to keep global warming ‘to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels’. The Paris Agreement was a triumph of hope and unity over darkness. Christiana Figueres, the diminutive but indefatigable former United Nations Executive Secretary for Climate Change from Costa Rica, led the negotiations. Although atrocity had occurred right there in the streets, she determinedly moved forward with the climate conference agenda, knowing humanity required courageous leadership at that moment. In her book The Future We Choose, she wrote, ‘In times of profound suffering and great need, we rise to the occasion, we stand shoulder to shoulder in mutual support.’ After the Paris terrorist attacks, 3 million people in France and millions more worldwide lit candles and marched in solidarity. There was an outpouring of kindness that reflected our innate tendency to join together against threats, and to view an attack on a few as an attack on us all. ‘We knew that the only

way to truly protect our own children was to courageously continue the work of protecting all humanity and our planetary home,’ recounts Christiana. She is recognised for her collaborative diplomacy and bringing together national and sub-national governments, corporations, financial institutions and NGOs, believing ‘that impulse to gather in a circle of care for one another must be extended to our efforts to address the climate crisis’. The energy in the Paris conference halls was unlike anything I had experienced before. People of all ages, backgrounds, nationalities and industries talked about the future – about what they could do personally and what could be achieved by working together. To newspaper and television journalists, and to rooms full of delegates, I spoke about the challenges facing rural communities, farmers and the next generation of food producers. I took with me images of my family’s farm and the stories of farmers I had met, the fears they held and the future they hoped for. Those formative weeks demanded everyone who attended to reflect on the challenges we face as a global community and what we’re genuinely willing to work for. The day the pivotal Agreement was signed, I was overcome with emotion. The gavel came down with a whack. My skin tingled. The announcement was made that the world had chosen to unite to protect humanity. In the historic Paris Agreement, countries around the world, from the large and powerful to the small and impoverished, agreed to do what was necessary for the world to avoid the worst effects of climate change. It’s one of the greatest international achievements in multilateral diplomacy, and a shining example of how the world can come together to address a shared global problem. It also highlights the importance of food and farming in climate solutions, with nearly 80 per cent of Nationally Determined Contributions to limit emissions including the agricultural sector. The true success of the Agreement, however, is still yet to transpire. While the Paris meeting resulted in a treaty of hope for our planet and remains an unprecedented success, it is also only a starting foundation. The movement to address climate change – and promote climate justice – has to

shift rapidly to action. All of us – individuals, communities, businesses, cities and governments – bear the responsibility of converting words into activity. Collective action is needed to achieve what we must. History has shown, time and time again, that when we act collaboratively, we are capable of big changes. As a result of collective action, literacy among the global population has more than doubled since 1960. Average global life expectancy has risen from just 50 years in 1950 to over 70 today. Between 2000 and 2015, the world’s population living in extreme poverty halved. Gender disparity in education has fallen, there are fewer infections of malaria and tuberculosis, and in the last 25 years child mortality has dropped by half. And it’s not just people who have benefited from purposeful and collective action, but also wildlife and nature. Animals like the Przewalski’s horse and the whooping crane have been brought back from the brink of extinction, while plants like the dainty thermal water lily and the yellow mountain Robbins’ cinquefoil, once feared lost forever, still flower today. Great expanses of land have been protected and conserved to evoke wonder and awe in future generations. This is proof that we can succeed in tackling enormous developmental, environmental and existential challenges when we come together. Great change for the better can occur. Our combined capacity can again challenge the course of human history now. Saving the food system requires collective action, and acting collectively will change us. Generosity and curiosity flourish when people come together with shared purpose. Together we can prevent the destruction of what we value and promote the creation of what we want, through willingness to make something better. This social ambition in turn revives community and mutual aid. By working together, we ignite empathy, altruism and belonging. A participatory and inclusive culture, where all input is appreciated, stimulates environmentally responsible and socially cohesive behaviours. This calls for experts and politicians to create solutions not for people in the food system, but with people in the food system, drawing on local familiarity with and wisdom about soils, rivers, plants and animals. We already have so many of the answers: we just need to come together to apply them.

Since the climate and food-system problems are human-made, only human action will overcome them. I believe we are not facing a technical or evidence problem, but rather a collective cultural challenge. The solutions exist within and between us and nature. To resolve the issues we face it is therefore a matter of people working together and working with the environment. There is a need for many and diverse people to gather at the table to decide the best future for the food laid before us. And there is great need to support and empower those who have been excluded from these conversations for too long, which in turn will help address poverty and inequality that marginalised people face. Within the food system, we must plant seeds of opportunity and water them with optimism so we can grow as a global community. From diversity and inclusion bloom new ideas and attitudes. The participation of people from starkly different backgrounds creates a broader range of viewpoints and currently unimaginable solutions that will never come from a group with narrow specialisations and similar backgrounds. We do not learn by talking to ourselves in the mirror, we learn by encountering differences. By encouraging input from diverse perspectives, we will make the greatest progress to improve the food system. For us to properly tackle climate change, collaboration between people of all walks of life is key.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE Collective actions have changed humanity’s course throughout history. By coming together with a common purpose, we ignite willpower, perseverance, empathy and altruism, all of which are needed to tackle climate change.

19 DIVERSITY

‘I call this blindness to the high productivity of diversity a ‘monoculture of the mind’, which creates monocultures in our fields and in our world.’ Vandana Shiva, BBC Reith lecture, 2000 I’M SITTING AT my computer eating fresh strawberries – their soft red flesh bursts with sweetness in my mouth and stains my fingertips – when the online video connects. Quickly, I move my hands out of camera shot and clean them on my shirt under the table. I’m transported into Yemi Adeyeye’s sunny apartment in Rome. ‘Good evening Anika!’ ‘Good morning Yemi!’ we exchange, and catch up on how each other has been going. We have both had our PhDs accepted in the past few weeks, and are very relieved to have finally passed this milestone. We both love learning, especially about topics relating to agriculture, but we were still exhausted by the workload of our postgraduate studies. Being involved in research is fascinating, and we chat about our passion for science communication and the real-world application of new understanding. Yemi is the director of Young Professionals for Agricultural Development, a network that consists of more than 30,000 young people involved in food and agriculture across 85 countries. The group focuses on peer-to-peer mentoring and collaborative work that assists with the creation of a better food system.

Bathed in the golden light of summer in Italy during our video call, Yemi has a sincere enthusiasm for enabling and empowering young people to help shape sustainable food sources and diets. He tells me he believes that food is the treatment for many of the world’s ailments and our future depends on us realising this. ‘Agriculture, more specifically food security, is central to human existence. Any conversation we have about agriculture is a conversation about human existence – the continuity of life.’ But in order for strategies to be effective, Yemi explains, it’s important to bring people together. ‘Collaboration to solve a problem is not an option we get to negotiate on,’ he says, ‘it just has to happen. Because when we collaborate we can create a common vision of what we want the food system to be, we can create a common vision on what strategies should be adopted towards climate change. A common vision is what takes us forward.’ His words echo the sentiments of other people along the food system and around the world I have spoken with – that alone we can only go so far, but together we can go so much further and faster. And by sharing our vision of what the food system could and should look like, in five, ten, 50 years, we create a pathway to take us there. ‘How we articulate what we want to be – it shapes our lives and the larger system – it enables us to seek a new kind of reality,’ Yemi says. Promoting questioning, experimentation and curiosity opens new doors through which new opportunities emerge. Yemi talks about the many ways we can improve the methods by which food is produced, distributed and consumed, and how most of these practices have co-benefits, which magnify and reinforce one another. I probe what his vision looks like. Looking down the computer camera and into my home on the other side of the world, he says, ‘I want to see a food system where everybody is a participant in defining what characterises food. No one is left behind. Especially rural youth, Indigenous communities and people of island states.’ To transform the food system and tackle climate change, we need to do things differently by acting in a way we haven’t before. ‘We have set up a timebomb for ourselves that will explode sometime in the future. Now we are struggling to fix it, because the systems in place fertilise the continuity of the

problem.’ I think about the news articles I read all too often, written by (or at least supporting the views of) powerful vested interests, stating that change will mean job losses, a ruined economy and increased household costs. These narratives encourage more of the same and discourage creative and critical thinking. Misleading stories drown out the voices of those who are literally drowning in unprecedented storm surges and rivers breaking their banks. Changing the story and what we’re doing means changing who’s involved in the conversation. Having the quieter voices heard may be challenging, Yemi admits, but he says it has to happen if we are to achieve what he describes as, ‘A compassionate food system that attends to the needs of the people who are oppressed, who are disenfranchised, who are struggling.’ The most vulnerable people desperately need our attention and care, and these people are predominantly rural-based and producing the world’s food. They must be heard. The socioeconomic and health burdens of climate change fall disproportionally on the shoulders of rural people, poorer communities and communities of colour. Historically, however, these groups are least involved in climate adaption discussions. They remain outside the discourse on priorities and planning, which instead is governed by a narrow representation of education, race, ethnicity, class, age, income and gender. The unevenness and unpredictability of how specific communities will be impacted by climate change means no top-down, one-size-fits-all recipe will work. Likewise, neither will limited representation of backgrounds and ideas from decisionmakers. Instead, community resilience depends upon building diverse and local social capital and bringing new voices into these conversations. Yemi talks about his father, and how in his youth he was ‘a hardcore farmer’. His father wrestled with poverty and social prejudice, and worked tirelessly so that his children could have a better life than his. And yet his voice was not heard in conversations about land management and food production, his ideas not actively sought out. The problems in the food system can only be remedied by including those who are on the outer edges of society’s progress and currently left out of important decisions being

made. These people, such as Indigenous and small-scale subsistence farmers, often have a close affinity with and an in-depth understanding of their local ecosystems. Yemi highlights that, saying, ‘Even how these people articulate who they are is often related to the concept of land, the place where they are from, their forest, their village, their community – they have a desire to take care of the environment.’ With most of the world’s food being produced by smallholder and subsistence farmers, who are often marginalised and vulnerable, the need to lift them out of harm’s way as climate change bears down is critical. This means elevating their voices so they can help design a better pathway forward. Barriers to the participation and engagement of these people therefore need to be overcome. This can be done by building trust and legitimacy, improving online and in-person dialogue settings, valuing different perspectives and encouraging new ideas. Sketching down a map of all the interrelated components of the climate and food puzzle makes me feel somewhat dazed by the task at hand. I ask Yemi how he navigates the seriousness and complexity of the global challenges that confront him in his work – such as rural poverty, food insecurity and social prejudice – and sustains the resolve to shape a better future for the next generation of food producers. ‘I get courage from remembering who I am,’ he says with calmness and eloquence. He talks about self-reflection, learning from his family’s past, and examining his own lifestyle and values as a way of finding purpose. ‘Seeking an understanding of who you are and your own story, it can be very empowering. That in itself can give you strength and courage, and give you meaning.’ Maybe it’s the Italian summer light dancing around the room, but there’s something almost divine or spiritual in his words. Yemi’s passion for what he does can be observed throughout his initiatives and research. He works with people within and outside the agricultural sector, bringing as many voices and ideas to the table as he can. Yemi builds relationships easily with his warmth and by taking the time to listen to others. I suspect that having a celestial glow also helps. Although our individual work may seem small in the scale of things,

Yemi says that all efforts to address the climate crisis contribute meaningfully to substantial change, and by being inclusive and considerate we can help lift others up. To do this, he recommends being ‘more intentional. Know what is going on. Know where the gaps are. And help give voice to the voiceless.’ They are words of determination and pragmatism that I’ve heard from so many others working on the front lines of climate change. Yemi’s advice to those wanting to do more is not costly or time-consuming or even particularly difficult. It’s just about having the will and determination to help make positive change – doing what you can, with what you have, where you are. Reflecting on the efforts of individuals like Yemi and organisations such as Young Professionals for Agricultural Development fills me with hope that is sometimes difficult to find in our newsfeeds of endless troubles in this world. It provides encouragement that good work is already happening in the food system, and it’s happening because of ordinary people who, en masse, do extraordinary things. Our conversation moves on to climate change leadership, a term that is usually assigned to people who appear on our television screens wearing smart suits. I was right to suppose that Yemi doesn’t subscribe to this interpretation of what a leader is. ‘Anyone making a change,’ he says, ‘anyone influencing the lives of others. Anyone using their own opportunities to amplify the voices of others is taking leadership. You are leading people. You are leading a transformation from one point to another. That’s what matters most.’ Real leadership – as opposed to inhabiting a position in a hierarchy – is doing what you can with what you have. It’s also inherently an act of adaptation, in ways that enhance both personal effectiveness and the system’s adaptability to achieve desired outcomes. Rigidity when trying to navigate complexity is fraught with problems. To build a climate-friendly and climateresilient food system, leaders need to be well informed and adaptable, and have a keen eye for areas that can be modified for the better. This is what Yemi refers to as ‘filling the food system gaps’. We need to adapt our current ways of doing things to approaches more suitable for this time of need right now.

Alone and disconnected we will never achieve the global transformation required. People from the same group tend to have the same outlooks and understandings, which is why we need to facilitate the greater participation and empowerment of all people. It is the variety of individuals that form great movements, the diversity that allows perspective. All people need to be involved. ‘People in suits always leave out someone – even if they are trying really hard not to,’ laments Yemi while recounting the number of meetings he has attended where diversity is seemingly left at the door and the full breadth of possibilities and solutions is never realised. ‘All people need to participate in these conversations.’ The only way we can adequately resolve the issues before us is by lending our diverse and valuable ideas and skills. Time is of the essence. We need to find the courage to lift our unique voices, share our varied insights and become leaders who work together.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE The inclusion of diverse perspectives and ideas enables a greater understanding of the challenges we all face and the ways they can be overcome.

20 LEADERSHIP

‘The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.’ Robert Swan, Antarctic expedition, 1999 WHEN THE CURRENT trajectory needs to change but a noticeable leadership void remains, more of us must take the reins and help guide us to safety. Sure, it may seem daunting at first to step up and play a more active role, but challenging times call on the courage within us. It asks us to put our heads together to find a better pathway forward. According to John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine, the survival of humans thus far has largely been due to our brain’s adaptability in response to harsh environments. ‘There are two ways to beat the cruelty of the environment: you can become stronger or you can become smarter.’ As it’s highly unlikely that we can become strong enough to live comfortable lives in the world of mega forest fires and vicious storms that is predicted with unrestrained climate change – unless you have superhuman abilities like a character from a Marvel comic book – it’s probably best that we use our smart brains to guide us away from the precipice towards which we are moving. The good news is that smart thinking is already being used. Fragmented but meaningful acts of climate leadership are everywhere. It’s recycling the

honey jar in your home. It’s refusing the plastic straw at the café. It’s being conscious of your meal portion size. It’s scientists researching in farmer’s fields and writing articles that bring us new knowledge. It’s universities divesting themselves of fossil fuel investments. It’s state politicians setting renewable energy targets when national politicians don’t. It’s local councils and community groups establishing food-waste initiatives when state politicians lack ambition. We should celebrate what is being achieved and congratulate those who do so much. This leadership is invaluable. It’s making a difference. But to really catalyse the large-scale transformation urgently required now, we need even more than this. We need leadership everywhere. And it’s time for more of us to lead actively. Motivating ourselves and other people to change their mindsets and behaviours is a complex challenge, made so by psychology and socioecological systems. Every day we tussle with feelings of fear, hope, grief, excitement, worry and joy, responding each moment to internal and external signals. People are complicated, we all know that, as is the situation we find ourselves in now. But climate leaders don’t need to know all the answers to every question. No one expects you to have all the solutions and all the emotional capabilities – if it were that simple, someone would have solved these problems long ago. No, leaders strive to do their best and surround themselves with others who help out. In emergencies, leaders gather the people who hand them bandages, forceps and antiseptic, they call upon others who offer skills and guidance on treating problems. It’s a collaborative effort of diverse thinkers and doers. Climate leaders don’t need to have the longest title, the most awards, the loudest voice. Suits and solutions are not synonymous. Instead, leaders are people who are willing to step up to the bedside of our ailing planet, hold the hand of those in their care, and try things with an experimental mindset. There might be mishaps and incorrectly applied bandages, but we learn from experience and improve our practices as we come to know more. Whatever happens, though, leaders need to be part of the operation. BECOME A CLIMATE LEADER

What is required now is true leadership en masse. This includes farmers, urban diners, politicians and everyone in between – people acting where they can with what they have. We cannot wait on ignorant, inattentive or indifferent people in hierarchical positions to deliver solutions. The longer we wait, the more difficult and expensive climate action becomes. Moreover, we lose leverage as time passes and relinquish opportunities for a better food system. We need more and better climate leadership, from a greater number and diversity of people. Here are just some of the ways we can develop our own personal leadership. FACE REALITY

We make excuses that life is busy and climate change doesn’t seem to be impacting us too much right now. But inaction will not maintain the status quo; it will only allow things to worsen. The food system is fragile and comprises a complex yet delicate web of relationships between soil fertility, water quality, biodiversity, livelihoods, people’s health and community wellbeing. We can preserve a status quo of comfort for those who are fortunate to have it, and make things better for those who don’t, but only by facing the reality of our ailing planet and treating its problems now. SEIZE OPPORTUNITIES

Scan for the right opportunities and take the first step. We each hold unique skills, knowledge and capacity. By identifying problems that we would most like to help solve and that align with our personal skills and interests, we can find new and impactful ways to participate. COLLABORATE TO COMPETE

Competition characterises much of society, but rivalries can stymie progress. Competing against one another is often pointless, while initiating, enabling and sustaining collaborative relationships to compete against the real dangers and foes is much more effective for gaining positive traction. LEAVE THE CLUBHOUSE

Silo mentality can create counterproductive competition, and hinder communication, creative thinking and boundary-spanning collaboration. Forge productive working relationships with people who hold differing

perspectives, expertise and interests. The participation of people from varied ages, backgrounds and experiences allows a pooling of knowledge that is more penetrating, insightful and able to be implemented. This enables the advancement of new ideas and allows progress to truly flourish. COMMUNICATE MORE EFFECTIVELY

Mobilising collective action requires effective communication. We need to improve framing and narrative, most importantly when the stakes are high and audience response is inadequate. We must understand our audiences – what their issues are and how to help address them. Learn to speak with common language and values. Get practical communication skills from experts. Observe other communicators you admire to see what works and what doesn’t. Using different communication methods and various platforms, through trial and error, we can identify the approaches that work best for us. RECHARGE AND SUSTAIN

Setbacks and frustrations are inevitable. Leading change requires not just engagement, but patience, persistence and sustained involvement. We need to look after our minds and bodies so that we are capable of looking after the things that matter to us. HIGHLIGHT THE POSITIVE

Shine the spotlight on best knowledge and practices. Creating a flow of trusted, evidence-based information equips people with the necessary understanding to make change. Draw attention to projects that are doing things well and are making a difference, and share ideas on how we can increase the number and expand the distribution of these solutions. Seek out ways these innovations and practices can be tailored to best suit local situations. STAY OPTIMISTIC

You wouldn’t have picked this book up if you didn’t believe that a better future is possible and that you have a role to play in creating it. We must face the world with a fierce belief that change for the better is possible, and that the vision in our minds can be achieved. Your optimism and leadership will inspire others to think and act positively too – and that plants the seeds of

change that will grow into fields of impact.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE We are all problem-makers and problem-solvers. It’s up to us to fill the leadership void, and to become the leaders we’ve been waiting for.

21 COURAGE

‘The true test of “knowledge” is not whether it is true, but whether it empowers us.’ Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens, 2015 WE CAN AVOID the worsening impacts of climate change and its detrimental effects on the food system by acting quickly and effectively. Tapping into our collective wisdom on food-growing and environmental management that we have developed over thousands of years, we can learn how to look after nature and make the best use of natural resources. We can couple traditional knowledge with the injection of new, awe-inspiring thinking and technology. By doing this, we can make the route to the future as smooth as possible, and we can reach our goal of creating truly sustainable and resilient food systems and societies. But this means doing things differently from the way we are now. To change mindsets and behaviours, and ultimately our current societal set-up, it will take good narrative, vision, leadership and courage. In south-western Nigeria lies the city Ibadan, the name meaning ‘by the edge of the meadow’. It’s a sprawling city of red roofs with a tropical wet and dry climate. Saheed Alarape is in his garden shed, showing me via video call the large fish tanks in which he produces catfish for the local market. He throws

a handful of feed to the tiny fingerlings, which swarm to the surface, gobbling up the food in a frenzy of glistening scales. A few blocks away he leases land where he grows yams, cassava and plantains, gaining practical field knowledge that he applies to his work at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. Hotter and drier conditions are exacerbating droughts and heatwaves and hampering farm production, particularly rain-fed agriculture, which many Nigerians rely on for their livelihoods. Saheed’s learnings, both in the field and at the Institute of Tropical Agriculture, are critical in his quest to help address food security issues. Saheed spends many hours educating himself and farmers in his region on how to adapt to higher temperatures and more unpredictable rainfall. He has transitioned many of his vegetable plants from field-based agriculture to a controlled-environment screen-house with irrigation facilities. This allows him to apply water more directly to his tomatoes and cucumbers, reducing water use and keeping his crops productive even when the rain isn’t falling. In this heavily populated city where land is scarce, food-growing methods that make the most of space and resources are important. But it’s difficult for food producers here, he says, regardless of whether they are urban or rural, as not all farmers have the information, capacity or finances to adapt to the changing climate. He believes fragmented efforts in addressing problems and community divides are dangerous and ineffective in overcoming food challenges. It is having the courage to come together, learn from one another and support each other that Saheed thinks will change our trajectory. ‘Farmers, their work is tied to people’s lives. What they are doing is not a joke. The poor farmers who live in rural areas form integral parts of the food system’s sustainability. As poor as they are, as small as their farms are, they are producing food for people around them. We have to take them into consideration.’ This means more teamwork, says Saheed. A greater number of perspectives and a diversity of technical skills in the food system are necessary to predict downstream problems and address them before they become crises. There is great importance in strengthening human capacity in order to strengthen the system in its entirety. Fragmentation only blinds us. ‘We have gone beyond the old days of working alone.’ In order to find novel

approaches for sustainably producing food in a climate-challenged world, there must be collaboration between all kinds of people, urban and rural, those working in agriculture and those not. Saheed undertook postgraduate studies that enabled him to travel to different agroecological zones in Nigeria and work online with international researchers. He found that the learning experience and the opportunity to talk to many people – from food producers to scientists, students and government officials – expanded his understanding of and perspective on how farmers play a critical role in looking after the land, biodiversity and wellbeing of communities. It also gave him the opportunity to work with agrientrepreneurs and co-develop ideas on improving local and regional food practices. Climate change and what it means for food security in his country concerns him greatly. This fuels his drive to listen and learn from others and share his ideas. ‘With the climate changing so rapidly, we need to collaborate. We need to learn how to manage this. Only with strong collaboration will we bring agriculture to where we desire.’ And Saheed thinks it starts with education. ‘I believe so much in education. When people are educated, they will cultivate the culture of better land management themselves because they know the advantage they stand to gain when the environment has been taken care of.’ Saheed tells me about a school program he is helping to coordinate, which teaches students from Nigeria, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of the Congo about agriculture and environmental management. He particularly enjoys talking about the importance of trees with the students. In the hot months, the city of Ibadan swelters, but Saheed’s urban farm plot remains a few degrees cooler. ‘Take people to a place where there are no trees. Let them feel the weather.’ Not only do the trees he has planted on his farm create a shady and cool microclimate under their dark green canopy, but they help maintain soil nutrients and encourage birdlife (which can be useful natural eradicators of troublesome grasshoppers that get into his crop). From his learnings about food production, both through trial and error and formal education, Saheed helps inform other urban farmers about the

critical importance of preserving mature forests and planting new trees. He also shares this message with non-farmers in the city around him, promoting trees in backyards and along nature-strips, and creating green road avenues that can cool down city environments – a critical strategy as global temperatures rise. He is a true and impassioned champion for a better food future. To be an advocate for addressing climate change often means speaking about the challenges and seeing the damage others refuse to. It can be difficult to remain positive and determined at times when things don’t change as quickly as we want them to. Frustration and optimism can be a strenuous and dissonant combination of mindsets. It’s tough to front up to the denial, hostility and, above all, indifference that is sometimes encountered. It can also be challenging to face the fear and sadness of seeing how our world is suffering. But striving to improve the world does not negate our ability to enjoy it. The advocate also sees possibilities that others don’t. They hold powerful visions of something better in their minds. They persist when others give up. By striving to make the world a better place, the advocate witnesses the regeneration of landscapes, and the improvement of life and liberty. In so doing, they open themselves up to a more meaningful and wholesome existence, and to the excitement of purposeful pursuit. But to be a climate advocate, committed to making positive change in their life and the lives of others, despite the challenges and adversity, takes courage. Climate courage means having the mental and moral strength to withstand the fear and difficulty of a changing climate and choosing to act; persevering in the face of hardship and uncertainty; and challenging the status quo despite inevitable barriers, failures and setbacks along the way. Courage is making tough decisions and stepping out of our comfort zone. It’s having uncomfortable conversations with people with whom we don’t see eye to eye, and encouraging participation from dissimilar thinkers. It’s acknowledging the desperate reality of the world we now live in, and resolving to do our best even without the assurance of a happy ending, but knowing it is possible.

American journalist David Wallace-Wells describes humanity’s current struggle with climate change as akin to an epic drama – the kind that we see in blockbuster films, mythology or theology – but we’re living in real time. We are the protagonists, the characters at the centre of the story who face the obstacles, make the key decisions and experience the consequences of those choices. The future climate of the planet is being written by what we, the actors in the theatre of life, choose to do. This analogy, emphasising our involvement and responsibility, is also heartening, because we have decisions to make that determine the outcome. Our role could not be more important. And another word for ‘protagonist’ is ‘hero’. ‘Courage is key,’ says Saheed, who updates me with photos and videos of his vegetable plot. Grasshoppers have descended and have eaten holes in the leaves. We text back and forth, discussing strategies that may alleviate the insect burden and enable him to harvest. He has just been accepted to undertake a PhD in plant breeding and crop improvement, and says he wants to build knowledge on how to enhance biodiversity on farms, and provide tangible solutions for farmers to deal with crop-eating insects in an ecologically friendly manner. He is eager to investigate new and better ways of farming, and particularly to identify beneficial plant genes that will increase farmer resilience under changing pressures. He is excited by agricultural research advancements in laboratories and how new knowledge can complement traditional understanding of the natural world and be applied in fields. I admire his ambition to continually seek new ways to improve how food is grown, and his desire to share his learnings with others. Conscious of the heightened challenges farmers in developing nations face, I ask him how he remains hopeful of overcoming problems as weather conditions become worse and food shortages flare. ‘That tenacity, that motivation, to do more and to champion it, is key. Courage is the word. We have to have the courage to face the reality that this is real, to do what we can, and it begins with you and me.’ From the farmer planting in the field to the cook serving in the kitchen, we can all help fix the broken food system by cultivating the resolution to do our bit and to do our best. Former UK prime minister Winston Churchill said

that courage was the one virtue that made all others possible. When we have courage, we can foster truthfulness, ambition and justice. It is the foundation of the personal growth and resolve needed to propel change. Instead of skittering about in a state of anger, bitterness and grief, we must find ways to ignite and sustain courage in order to pursue actions that benefit the food system. This includes finding the courage to learn what we can and do all that we must to regenerate farms and green urban landscapes in order to achieve a carbon-neutral society as quickly as possible. Humanity’s future will be determined by the courage we foster to redesign the food system and by the people who step forward to help out. Climate change cannot be tackled effectively without the involvement of farmers, food-chain distributors, processors, scientists, policymakers, nutritionists, chefs and food consumers. This is because strategies need to be implemented along the entire food system – from production in the field, through transport and processing, and into the kitchen. Each person along the chain plays a critical role. And although this may seem like a daunting task, there are a multiplicity of ways to grow food better, eat healthier and reduce food waste. No one practice or technology is a complete solution to every sustainability problem. It would be great if there was a silver bullet, but there’s not. In this highly intricate and interconnected system, hundreds of tweaks need to be made. But excitingly, we have options for solving the world’s complex problems. A plethora of options. And the great news is that many of these changes often address more than one problem at once, helping to resolve the time-critical challenges we face. Food and fibre production, energy generation, social development and environmental remediation are interrelated and, indeed, synergistic undertakings. Together they hold tremendous potential to improve high-quality food production, capture and sequester carbon, and nurture human health and wellbeing. They positively reinforce and propel one another. And that’s good reason to be cheerful. Laid before us are the causes, the symptoms and, most excitingly, the treatments.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE Climate courage means having the mental and moral strength to withstand the fear and difficulty of confronting climate change and all the challenges it poses, and still choosing to act. With courage we learn how to make positive change and in doing so, stride towards a brighter future.

22 ACCELERATORS

‘The secret of change is to focus all your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.’ Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior, 1984 AS THE GREEK philosopher Heraclitus is quoted as saying, ‘Change is the only constant in life.’ His assertion was that life is flux (panta rhei in Greek, meaning everything or all things change), which contends with people’s resistance to the natural movement of life and clinging to what is known and considered safe. Heraclitus claimed it was this clinging that caused people to suffer. The resistance to change is a kind of death to the individual who refuses to participate in that which defines life. Knowing that change is inevitable and unstoppable gives us hope. The certainty of change produces the possibility of betterment. It also demands our attention, for change may take a turn for the worse. We must therefore closely monitor our influence on this change and the direction it takes. ‘No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man,’ wrote Heraclitus, an astute observation and analogy for existence and the role we play in this world. Our very presence and actions influence everything around us. So with that in mind, how do we drive positive change, and what do we need to do to accelerate change in the right direction so that we can overcome the climate crisis as rapidly as possible?

Interventions by individuals, lots of individuals, have the potential to collectively pave the way for accelerating transformative change, making the seemingly impossible possible – the creation of a decarbonised global society with a climate-resilient food system that can feed everyone and feed them well. Individuals, working as a community, change society as a whole. This usually occurs when we reach social tipping points, when enough people are advocating and acting for a common cause. Social tipping dynamics manifest as a spreading process in social networks through behaviours, opinions, knowledge, technologies, structural organisation and social norms. The multiplying process resembles contagion dynamics observed in epidemiology, by which diseases spread through society. Interactions lead to a transmission, which results in a contagion and the change that comes with it. In the climate context, this means a few concerned citizens coming together can lead to community groups being formed, mass marches on city streets, changes to policy and the raising of national climate ambition. As more and more people change their mindset and behaviour, the contagion grows and spreads more quickly. Once triggered, such processes can be irreversible and difficult to stop. When social tipping points are reached, the climate cure is within sight. We stand on the edge of some very powerful social tipping points right now, waiting to release a cascade of positive change. Solutions to climate disruption will then spread and be implemented quickly. Regenerative food systems, clean energy powering homes, large-scale tree planting, waste recycling, conscious consumerism – all possible outcomes of climate action gone viral. In the words attributed to American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead, ‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.’ With enough individual action, change is not only possible, it is inevitable. ‘Our food system can change, and it can change for the better,’ says Phillip Baker. ‘Even the smallest changes, if they are made by many of us, can have huge impact.’ Coming from a long line of New Zealand dairy farmers and

agricultural innovators (his grandfather invented the milk meter that revolutionised dairy farming by enabling the scientific measurement of milk output from cows), Phillip grew up in the city but spent his summers farming, fishing and roaming his extended family’s farms north of Auckland. He went on to undertake a PhD in population health and nutrition, and now teaches the next generation of problem-solvers at the university from which I graduated. As he casts his eye along the entire food system, he tells me that he sees many opportunities for improvement. ‘We need to make huge structural changes to the ways we produce, process, manufacture, distribute, consume and dispose of food. We also need to change the economic system, especially the “food economy”, in a fundamental way.’ When he’s not teaching, Phillip is catching waves on his surfboard. He spends a lot of time outdoors with the sun and sea breeze. This fit and active lifestyle means healthy eating is always at the front of his mind. His concern for human nutrition as climate change disrupts food choice and quality has propelled him to investigate ways people can make better meal decisions that help improve their health and the food system. At an individual level, what we eat, how we eat it, and how we waste it, all influence the larger system at hand. ‘Climate is impacting the quality of our diets and diets are impacting climate,’ says Phillip. ‘As much as we can, we need to remove ultraprocessed and packaged foods from diets and swap them for whole, unprocessed, fresh, real foods. We need to think slow food, not fast food, enjoy cooking and sharing food with family and friends. We can use food as the medium to connect with people in our community. And when we buy local over global, we support local people and appreciate culinary food culture.’ Collective action that stems from lots of individuals will shift the system in a profound way. ‘There are many pragmatic ways of improving the food system so it’s more secure and climate-friendly. For instance, we can turn down the power on big supermarkets by creating more diversity in food outlets – how and where we procure our food. We can give food true pricing – such as reflecting the true cost of a bottle of Coke to the individual, to the health system, to the environment. We can better connect farmers to urban

consumers and better distribute their food by providing meals in schools, hospitals and other public institutions that come from the local food bowl.’ Phillip believes that redistributing power and influence, and using incentives and penalties to do that, will help drive the change necessary. ‘At the moment we leave the governance of our food system to the market, meaning a small number of powerful corporations control too much of what farmers grow and get paid. They use huge marketing budgets to influence our beliefs and social norms about food. And they have lobbyists in Canberra who have too much influence over our decision-makers, which explains why we have a lack of food system leadership and no national food policy in Australia.’ The time is ripe to change this. THE MAJOR ACCELERATORS OF CLIMATE ACTION The need to treat the underlying causes of our planet’s problems is urgent, our ability to effect change is undeniable, and each of us can use our influence to accelerate positive improvement. The major accelerators of climate change action can be divided into three groups: policy accelerators, capital accelerators and behaviour accelerators. These are areas where individuals or groups of people can exert their influence. This helps us move towards our vision as quickly as possible. The different interventions don’t work in isolation either; instead, they reinforce and magnify each other. Consideration of policy, capital and behaviour accelerators can potentially lead to rapid decarbonisation of societies, protect landscapes and livelihoods, strengthen the food system and food security, and avert some of the worst impacts of climate change. POLICY ACCELERATORS

Policy guides direction and presents the roadmap for where we’re going. Good policy also provides certainty for investors. For example, governments that set ambitious clean-energy targets deliver confidence for investors to put money towards secure renewable energy projects. Long-term, multipartisan agreement is needed, yet strategies must also be adaptive, identify gaps in knowledge, and incorporate new research and development to ensure continual improvement. Policies for a safe climate need to include risk

assessment, national adaptation plans, and progress reporting on the implementation of these plans. Good policy accelerates the technological advancement needed to deliver emissions reductions at rates sufficiently fast to avoid crossing boundaries in Earth’s systems. Examples of climate-smart policies include removing fossil fuel subsidies; abolishing political donations from fossil fuel companies; establishing carbon tax/pricing and emissions trading schemes that use financial markets; establishing independent climate commissions to provide emissions budgets, expert advice and monitoring to help keep successive governments on track; and incentivising decentralised renewable energy generation. Large-scale food-system improvements that meet climate goals will only be gained with good governance and policy. Phillip encourages people to speak about these issues directly with elected representatives, and to join civil society groups that are advocating in this space. Creating broad-based coalitions of non-governmental organisations and social movements can help generate political commitment. Existing policies need to be revised, and new policies must be developed that enable and stimulate effective change. Appropriate incentives for sustainable, inclusive, healthy food systems must be set, while concurrently addressing barriers to adoption and considering potential trade-offs. Policy and institutional changes that enable transformation and address power disparities and trade barriers are needed. ‘Ultimately there must be better food system governance,’ says Phillip. ‘That might include ideally a multilevel network of a national food policy council, state and territory food policy councils, and local food policy councils. This would be supported by a national food policy, an implementation plan and a large budget to make change happen. The government using law and regulation could stop things like the marketing of junk food to our children, and could mandate sustainable food labelling. There are lots of other things too, like distributing community grants for local initiatives.’ Multi-stakeholder dialogue and inclusive decision-making processes, especially with marginalised groups, will help coordinate planning and policy

coherence across the food system. This will enable relevant interlinkages to be identified, synergies to be enhanced, and possible trade-offs to be avoided. And all of these policy improvements arise from the pressure we apply as individuals to governments. Even eating is inherently a political act, Phillip says. ‘We vote with our fork. Every bite we eat sends a signal back up the chain of the type of food system we want.’ CAPITAL ACCELERATORS

Money in the right place, in the right amount and at the right time is essential for accelerating change. ‘The current food system is dominated by an economic logic of endless market growth, export and cheap food prices. And that’s a terrible logic when it comes to sustainability,’ Phillip explains. ‘We can’t keep extracting endlessly from the food system without major consequences – depleting our soils, draining our water reservoirs, and destroying our native forests and marine ecosystems. It doesn’t even make good economic sense, because it’s short-term thinking and it can’t be sustained.’ Shifting money moves the needle towards the development of a carbonnegative and regenerative society. When finances are directed towards research, development and extension, then innovative thinking, practices and technologies emerge. Customers can use their purchasing power to support goods and services in line with their value system. This personal capital assignment helps speed the transition. The purchases we make every day as consumers influence what our funds support and what they do not. By choosing fair-trade, carbon-neutral, rainforest-alliance products, we buy a better food system. With more businesses and institutions disclosing greenhouse gas emission information, there is greater transparency of pollution contributions. Customers can use this information, not only to create societal pressure to reduce emissions, but to become savvy investors and move funds away from organisations supporting fossil fuels to those with cleaner spreadsheets. By making carbon dioxide emissions transparent, financial companies, such as banks and retirement savings institutions, are aligning their portfolios with

customer values. Assessing emissions related to loans and investments helps people make informed decisions in order to reduce their financing of the fossil fuel industry and to actively support the transition to the low-emission economy of the future. Placement of public and private capital leverages the transformation to a climate-resilient food system and a safe world. Not only does the reorientation of finance help address numerous climate-related risks, but it also takes advantage of new investment opportunities. Enabling and promoting new markets and agricultural research makes businesses productive and sustainable in the long run – and ultimately this delivers lasting societal and environmental benefits at scale. BEHAVIOUR ACCELERATORS

Social change can be supercharged through the education and empowerment of people. Shifts in behaviour will reorientate our current trajectory. Behaviour change feeds back into who we vote for, which policies are legislated, and where capital is invested. But our behaviour in the supermarket is equally important. ‘Every time we shop for food,’ says Phillip, ‘we need to question where that food comes from, who produces that food, what is the nature of the food seller, what are the ingredients, what is the price we are paying and what are the negative externalities of that price.’ And if these things aren’t clear and transparent to us, then we as consumers should be asking for labelling to be improved so that they are made clear and transparent. Through climate-science education and revealing the moral implications of fossil fuel usage, people can make better choices in their daily lives. Information allows us to be eco-conscious consumers and divest assets linked to fossil fuels. By gaining access to tools for estimating and benchmarking emissions, including those on farms, people can track how their personal or business emissions can be mitigated. We can learn how to use resources more wisely. Incentives for early adopters of reduced-emissions practices and technologies will help increase the rate of behaviour change. Beyond educating people of the facts, they must also be engaged with

these issues at an emotional level and have the desire to overcome them. Phillip and I both strongly believe in the power of the arts to shift social norms and perspectives. ‘Art, literature, film and graphics really transform what people think. Science gets to our logic, but the arts capture our hearts. So important questions are, how do we help people imagine alternative realities and futures? And through what medium should we sell our vision?’ In addition to increasing peoples’ capacity and engagement along the food system, from farmers in the field to cooks in the kitchen, we also need to consider strengthening local and national institutions. There is a need for improved technical skill and institutional coordination, such as within and between food distributors and processors, research institutes and agribusinesses. A collaborative effort is needed to adequately reduce food loss and spread better dietary health information. This means building and supporting diverse networks, partnerships and platforms that can assist in the co-development of innovation and generation of new knowledge. Changing the behaviour of our institutions and businesses will change the behaviour of the people within them. But overall, to accelerate the shifts in policy, capital and behaviour needed, there must be an underpinning of good science. We need to support researchers, expand the evidence base and translate scientific knowledge into messages that inform strategies and behaviours. A solid scientific foundation is critical for identifying effective and sustainable farming options that enable land managers and people right along the food system to be well informed for decision-making. New research is imperative for improving the adaptive capacity of the food system in a climate-challenged world. And the proper communication of and public engagement with this knowledge is essential. Phillip has spent the last few decades researching and publishing on foodsystem issues. He loves talking about what his research is revealing and how this improved understanding of the food system can help make it better. When I ask him about his vision, he says it’s a food system that’s healthy, uses sustainable practices and is grounded in agroecological thinking –

working with nature rather than extracting from nature. He wants to see a food system where everyone has access to affordable, nutritious, culturally appropriate foods that are provisioned by supply chains where people, animals and the environment are treated with dignity and respect. ‘I also want to see a food system that is a net carbon sink and where food is given the priority it deserves. And with mass mobilisation I think we can achieve this.’ As informed and empowered people, we can all help take greater action on climate change and save the tasty food on the plates before us. Every person has opportunities to help make their household, workplace, school, local council or industry sector better for the planet. By influencing what we can, where we can, it is possible to accelerate policy, capital and behaviour changes that benefit people, forests and oceans. If enough of us decide to help redesign the food system for the better, just imagine what we could achieve and how quickly we could get there!

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE We can accelerate the transition to a climate-friendly food system by making positive policy, capital and behaviour changes. This will help achieve our goals faster and more effectively, and reach the social tipping points needed to heal our planet.

23 HOME

‘This is where I begin, but it is not where I will stop.’ Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Peace Prize lecture, 2014 DEALING WITH CLIMATE change is no longer an issue of know-how or technology. We know what to do. We’ve got the skills and equipment to do it. Now it’s just a matter of people getting their act together. And that’s what gives me hope, that this is a people problem. People problems can be fixed. People problems can also change incredibly quickly – almost overnight in some instances – when social tipping points are reached and the right form of leadership occurs. It is then decided that a new path will be taken. Throughout history we have examples of when people have decided enough is enough and it was time to cultivate a different future. The abolition of slavery, the women’s suffrage movement, civil rights, resistance to apartheid, marriage equality for the LGBTQI community, and the banning of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) all started as social movements that have changed our world for the better. Individuals – tens, hundreds, thousands, millions of individuals – used their voices and actions to influence change. These social movements arose from defining moments when the courage of a few swelled into the unstoppable courage of many – think of Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela and Greta Thunberg. The seeds of change planted by a small number of hopeful people can

flourish into great societal transformations. Courage attracts imitation, it is contagious. Even the improvements we make within our homes inspire family and friends when they learn why change is necessary and what they can do too. One of the human species’ most admirable qualities is our capacity to come together, learn from one another and overcome the odds when it is needed. Realising our inner strength, we can achieve what we must. It’s also worth noting that these social movements are most pronounced at times of crises. And we’re in a time of crisis right now. It’s a sunny day in Brisbane and I’ve just finished speaking with a group of students about how they can use their skills and voices to become climate leaders within their community. As I’m putting my papers away in my backpack, Natalie Issacs bounds over to me, her flaming red curly hair cascading off her shoulders. We embrace in a full, warm hug. It’s lunchtime at the Climate Reality Leadership Corps and we wander together into the foyer where people are scooping creamy potato salad and roasted red capsicum onto plates. The aroma of the food makes my stomach growl in anticipation. In the middle of this busy metropolitan city, I can’t help but pause for a moment and think about the journey this food has taken to reach all these people around me. The plant-based menu has been sourced from fields of grain, vegetable, legume and fruit crops, all grown, watered, harvested and transported to feed this room of hungry climate advocates. And with around 1,000 people at this event, I’m impressed that there is not a single disposable cup or any plastic cutlery in sight. The type of food, the amount provided, and the cutlery and crockery it is served on have been planned for minimal waste and with the environment at the forefront of the mind. Natalie describes herself as a normal city mum, someone who always had a vague concern about environmental problems, but had more pressing matters in her day-to-day life that needed attending to. ‘I could sit around the dinner table and talk about climate change and express my horror at what was going on and then just leave and carry on as normal.’ She talks about the

disconnect between being aware of what is happening and actually doing something about it. ‘I used to think, “Well, what can one individual do anyway? It’s not my problem.” I felt that way for a very long time. Climate change just wasn’t my issue.’ It wasn’t until record-breaking summer temperatures set forests around Sydney ablaze in 2006, that things started to really worry Natalie. Major roads around the city were closed as thousands of firefighters battled to contain the flames. ‘The drought, the heat and the fires seemed the worst they had ever been that year,’ Natalie recalls. ‘All of the various messages that I had been receiving about climate change to that date began to add up.’ She realised that the world was being thrown into disarray from actions to which she was contributing. This she could no longer stand for. At that point, Natalie decided to take ownership of the issue and make changes where she could – in her home. First, she replaced all the lightbulbs in her house with more energy-efficient ones and saw her electricity bill decrease. Then she turned her attention to her household waste, and started to avoid buying items with lots of packaging and created a recycling regime with her family. She sought out locally sourced produce, cooked less meat, and made a compost heap in the garden with a couple of worm farms for food scraps. She sold her car and started taking the bus to work. Natalie describes the feeling as addictive and emboldening. ‘When I did one thing and saw the result, that empowered me to do the next thing and the next. I was learning the secret of life: that less is more. It was such freedom. I felt so light.’ It does take bravery to truly acknowledge what we are witnessing, what the science is saying, and what changes we need to make in our lives. But we are all capable of making alterations and will be rejuvenated because of them. As Anaïs Nin wrote, ‘Life shrinks or expands according to one’s courage.’ One day Natalie strolled into a farmers’ market. ‘It was the first time I had ever been to a farmers’ market, and it changed my life. I picked up an apple and I met the farmer who had grown that apple for me. It was an emotional connection, that real people were involved, that I had never thought about before.’ The farmers’ market gave her an appreciation for the people behind the food.

After researching how climate change could be tackled from within her home, Natalie discovered that nearly 17 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions are the product of 1.5 billion households around the world. These household emissions are mainly caused by food waste, fossil fuel combustion for heating and cooking needs, electricity consumption, and leaks from refrigerators. Natalie realised that by making minor changes in her kitchen, she could help contribute to solving the problem. ‘I learnt to stack my refrigerator better, so it was more efficient at using energy and cooling products, and I reorganised food in there so that perishables sat at the front so that they were not forgotten. And just by doing small, regular shops we reduced food going off before it was eaten.’ It’s estimated that about 11 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions from the food system could be reduced if we just stopped wasting food. ‘Essentially, buy what you need,’ says Natalie, ‘and eat what you buy.’ Having learnt how to cut her own home’s carbon footprint, Natalie was motivated to share this message and empower other people in their households to do the same. Natalie founded 1 Million Women to help people at home reduce their emissions by giving them useful information and practical tools. Easy lifestyle improvements are offered, like replacing singleuse coffee cups and water bottles with reusable ones, eating real food not junk food, and avoiding excess food packaging. Members can track their carbon footprint and see how much pollution has been saved by the 1 Million Women community each day. This provides an inspiring insight into collective impact, the reminder that so many people are acting on this issue together. Just like me, Natalie initially questioned how much influence an individual could make. ‘I used to think, “I’m one person, am I really going to make a difference?” And you end up in the default position of doing nothing.’ All too often we allow ourselves to think we don’t have a role to play in changing the world, that individuals can’t create the change needed. We tell ourselves things like, I can’t do it. I don’t know enough. It might be difficult. I’ll get challenging questions from friends. I’ll get strange looks if I speak up. I can’t influence the right people. Now’s not the right time. I’m too

busy. Someone else will do it. We fill our heads with excuses about why we can sit this one out. But it’s necessary to silence the inner critic, cynic and procrastinator, and to realise what we can truly do as individuals. Because time is no longer on our side. Our concern about climate change needs to be harnessed and converted into action to help drive change quickly. And the difference we can each make is important. It adds up and multiplies as others see our efforts. No one else on this planet can have the same influence that you can have. No other person has control over your diet, your household energy, your transportation choices, your purchasing habits, your vote, like you do. No other person has the networks you have. They cannot reach and influence your family, friends and colleagues the way you can. And no one is going to save the world for us but us. Natalie tells me that change can start with one person in their home, and the kitchen is a great place to begin. ‘I love the joy that comes from cooking – the freshness, the creativity, the conversation and the laughter that comes with sharing food. It truly nourishes my soul. The good news is that none of that has to change.’ Indeed it doesn’t, and the only way to continue enjoying all these things is by protecting them from the threats of climate change. Natalie now appreciates the important role she plays in safeguarding the food she loves. ‘We are not perfect. This movement is not meant to make you feel guilty. It’s meant to make you feel inspired that we’re all doing this together, that we’re all trying to do our best. You can’t go into total despair over the effects of climate change. You’ve just got to start and do one thing, and that leads to another and before you know it, you’re just living like that.’ Natalie’s conviction that she can make a difference, however seemingly small it feels at first, has helped transform her household’s carbon footprint and improve her family’s lifestyle. It has led her to collaborate with people in their homes all over the country and around the globe. She is part of the exciting social movement changing the world for the better. ‘As individuals we can never underestimate the power we have. That one thing you do, multiplied by millions and millions who do it too, shifts the system.’

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE Fixing the food system starts at the kitchen table, and it begins with us. The efforts from individual people add up to have a significant positive impact on addressing climate change.

24 RESPONSIBILITY

‘But the bush hath moods and changes, as the seasons rise and fall, And the men who know the bush-land – they are loyal through it all.’ Banjo Paterson, ‘In Defence of the Bush’, 1892 TAP, TAP, TAP – tap. The mallet comes down on the wooden post one more time for good luck. My hands, flecked with the earth they look after, keep a firm grip on the mallet handle as its heavy steel head swings down to my side. My family and I have finished planting for the day. All the posts are in the ground, all the plant guards are standing upright, all the little seedlings are in the soil. Over the coming years, the saltbush, eucalyptus and wattle seedlings we have planted will grow strong roots and provide a habitat for wildlife. Here in the valley, where passing clouds silently caress the land below, a sense of purpose and comfort wells inside me at the revegetation and rejuvenation of our farm. After all these years, this landscape still takes my breath away and holds my heart. The sun hangs low on the horizon and the golden backdrop silhouettes the ancient trees in the hills – they are markers from the past and observers of the future. The beauty, delicacy and power of this place captivates me, and I feel there will never be enough time to learn all its secrets. Looking around this sunburnt country, I can’t help but imagine the future of our farm and what lies ahead. Some days I feel like our problems are too big, that damage is happening

too fast and our trajectory is pointing in the wrong direction. I fear losing the things I hold closest in my heart – my home that I share with my family, the wondrous life in the landscape, and the ability to have a future growing food here. These reflections make me aware of time, connection, life and death. A humility arises from a sense of dependence on the land that surrounds me. Its fragility is my fragility, its strength is my strength. As I observe this landscape, which inspires both a deep belonging and a great sense of responsibility to look after, I know that my future, and everyone’s future, is being determined today by how we interact with our planet. Climate change touches all aspects of our lives. By acknowledging wholeheartedly the current state of the world, and feeling its effects, we realise our vulnerabilities and ultimately the role we must play to protect what we can. Climate change gives no illusion that our responsibility now is great, and with it comes an opportunity to redefine our humanity. Every day I’m learning how to take better care of my home. I shape and am shaped by these interactions. Although I am just one person, and everyone else is only one person, our shared commitment to do what we must changes our collective course. And the cumulative efforts of people around the world are already making a meaningful and significant difference. Determinedly we plant the seeds of change and are motivated every day by the millions of others who do the same. We have influenced the health of our planet for the worse, but now we will influence the health of our planet for the better. From questioning we learn, grow and move forward, and it is this exploration that allows us to return to where we started and know it truly for the first time. On my family’s farm, where auburn lichens stain boulders like flaking paint and churring insects fill my days with their music, I have come to realise that the self is a kind of illusion. The boundaries between oneself and other people, nature and memories are blurred and non-existent. We are our history, culture, heritage, stories, worries and hopes. There is an indivisible connection between people and the world around us. The air we breathe, the water we drink, every morsel of food we eat, connects us all and everything in a profound way. The health of our society and the future of humanity is inextricably linked to the health and future of our planet.

So many hands have cared for this land before me, and now it’s my turn. It’s my time to learn from this place, to know it and feel it, and to take up the responsibility to do all that I can to look after it. I realise the challenges we face, but I also know the opportunities within our reach. There is a better way to interact with the environment, each other and our food system. The knowledge we gain, despite its difficulty and gravity, enables us to understand reality, and to know that a better, alternative reality can be created. It is possible to achieve good health for people and the planet simultaneously. It is possible to work together, celebrating all our diversity and uniqueness. Within us all, we have the knowledge, skills and capacity to treat climate change, restore good health to our ailing planet, and look after the life that surrounds us. Now we must step outside our comfort zone, tell a better narrative with a clear vision, ignite hope and action, and cultivate climate courage.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE It is time to heal our planet. It is time to find our inner courage and create a better future.

25 VISION

‘The world isn’t just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no? Doesn’t that make life a story?’ Yann Martel, The Life of Pi, 2001 THERE IS A tantalisingly sweet fragrance in the air. I can’t help but stop, close my eyes, and breathe in deeply. My chest rises and falls as a soft breeze brushes my cheek. I feel the sun’s warmth on my back and relax into a feeling of home. I open my eyes slowly and look around at the world we were able to create. My imagination shows me an alternative reality. The vision is vivid . . . I am standing on the red soils of my family’s farm looking out over the paddock. It is lush with vegetation, dense with saltbush and gnarled wattle trees twisting towards the sky. The golden seed heads of the grass wave among the bushes, rhythmically swaying to the sound of zebra finches chattering as they busily make their nests. They quieten momentarily as a wedgetailed eagle glides overhead. Effortlessly, it catches an up-draft and scales to heights above scattered fairy-floss clouds. I hang a motion-sensor camera in place, which is camouflaged against the bark of a eucalyptus tree. It’s one of many cameras set up around our property, helping us to understand and record biodiversity. Since the rewilding of small mammals, including bandicoots and bilbies, we have used photographs and videos to monitor the population and distribution of these creatures. Their numbers have more than doubled since our efforts began. They were endangered and locally extinct up until recently, but collective work on feral

pest eradication continues to be a great success. These small animals do not have an inconsequential impact on the environment; the opposite is true in fact, they are ecosystem engineers. Their foraging and eating behaviours have benefited the vegetation, built up soil nutrients, and brought the landscape back to better health. I feel great joy seeing the improvement in biodiversity. I jump into my car and head for home. Apart from the soft crunch of the tyres on the sandy track, it is silent. The electric vehicle is powered by the sun’s energy, as is our home, and on a blue-sky day like today, the energy we produce is more than we need. We earn an income from selling our excess sunlight energy to others on the electricity grid. Most homes are both power consumers and producers now. I arrive at the farmhouse shed and step inside the large cool building. It’s been well designed, constructed from natural and recycled materials that provide well-insulated walls and ceilings. Its passive design means we don’t have to run an air conditioner, despite the warm temperatures outside. Motion-sensor lights automatically turn on when I enter a room and switch off as I move out of it. Smart sensors and devices throughout our buildings have significantly reduced our energy consumption. Although energy is now clean and renewable, we have developed habits and technologies to only use what we need. I walk past our hydrogen-powered tractor and electric forklift that is plugged into the wall silently charging up. Old barrels of diesel, no longer used, collect dust in the corner. At the sink, I wash the red sand off my hands using water that has washed my hands over and over again, and fill up my drinking glass from the same tap. Our water filtration and reticulation systems provide clean potable water. Rainfall has decreased but our recycling of this precious resource and water-efficient set-up has now made us more water secure than we were a couple of years ago. Not a drop is wasted on our farm. My parents are leaning over a table sorting through native seeds, getting them ready to send to a laboratory for genetic analysis. Information within the tiny seeds will be revealed, this knowledge used for land revegetation, and shared with people in other regions who are seeking ways to manage their landscapes in hotter and drier conditions. I am under no delusion that the climate change wheels of motion have set off changes to which people need to adapt, but I am no longer fearful and without hope. I understand that my future will be different from what I imagined in my younger years. And that’s okay. Because I know it will be a good future. Although we no longer farm as we once did, that doesn’t mean my family and I have given up on our home. Not at all. We are now proud farmers of knowledge and are using better land management practices. We generate an understanding of soils, water and biodiversity by learning from the environment and others, and we share this information with farmers far and wide. We are studying the plants and animals and being educated by them. Working with Indigenous experts has expanded our understanding of native species as food and medicine. We celebrate traditional knowledge and culture and use it alongside the latest innovations. Working with chefs and nutritionists, we use social media streams and virtual reality videos to connect and engage people with the food in their kitchens. Technology allows viewers to access cooking tutorials, healthy eating advice, and even tips and tricks on growing plants at home. Virtual reality enables budding gardeners to walk around nurseries and learn pruning and grafting techniques, and how to identify beneficial insects. We have planted long-living native trees on our farm that capture atmospheric carbon and store it in their leaves, branches, trunks and roots. Birdlife flourishes with the diversity of trees.

We receive carbon credit and biodiversity income, and since we became carbon negative and gained credible certification, consumers have sought out our farm products. Chefs say locally produced, carbon-neutral foods are now the most popular menu items. The multiple income streams on our farm, from renewable energy generation, carbon sequestration, biodiversity gains, native foods, research and education programs have secured our farm finances. Diverse revenue sources mean we’re much better positioned when we face drought, heatwaves or market shocks. We’re more resilient and better prepared for adversity now. This flow of money has also enabled us to employ new farm workers. The boom in local innovation and the establishment of teaching institutes has helped retain, attract and train people in our nearby rural town. Its streets are vibrant and full of activity. There is a thriving rural economy. Our farm workers study agricultural engineering and biodiversity regeneration, and many people consider food production to be one of the most exciting and meaningful sectors to be involved with. Social prejudice against farm workers has been dispelled and highly skilled agricultural jobs are in demand. When our farm workers give their weekly online lessons to urban school students, it’s hard not to share their enthusiasm. Kids with broad smiles race to put their hands up and ask questions. Since lessons on the food system were added to all school curriculums and vegetable gardens were planted in schoolyards, the interest in food production and creative thinking on how it can be improved has been jaw-dropping. The students have unlimited imagination and question unrelentingly. Some of the students have come up with ideas that we would have never thought of ourselves, especially on robotics. It’s incredibly rewarding to know that our farm operation is community-designed and continually evolving. The engagement of youth – the next generation of food producers and consumers – helps us to be forward-thinking and active in redesigning and improving as we learn more and imagine greater. After the government made addressing climate change central in all policy decisions, there was a surge of investment in projects aimed at reducing emissions. We now work closely alongside researchers and are building a better understanding of how our world works to ensure the best human interaction with it. There is a flow of knowledge from the ground up, with the latest science feeding directly back into policy decisions, so every step forward we take as a nation is science-based. The improvement in resource-use efficiencies in the farming sector has been outstanding, which has kept more soil, water and landscapes in their natural state. Carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide mitigation research is occurring on farms in partnership with universities and education centres. The farming sector has moved beyond carbon neutrality and now removes more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits. When the national education and engagement programs were rolled out, more people in the cities started to really appreciate the time, effort and resources it takes to produce food. Improved food traceability and labelling helped them understand where their meal had come from and who was involved in getting it to their plate. Simply scanning a phone over the food label reveals its nutritional value, recipe ideas, best storage methods to keep food fresh, and videos of the farm on which that food originated. There is greater rural–urban connection and understanding. A boom in urban agriculture reduced food mileage and made cities more food secure. Food produced locally in urban centres is fresh and seasonal – just as it should be. It’s also rich in flavour and reminds people what real food tastes like. When green building regulations came into effect, the rooftop gardens were a huge hit in

the redesign of cities. The amount of time people spend outdoors with friends has dramatically increased. Many people have been surprised by the animal and insect life that has returned to the cities, filling urban gardens with colour and birdsong. Beehives produce local honey and pollinate city crops. Interest and enthusiasm in home gardening and food self-sufficiency have meant that agri-architecture has taken off. The aroma of herb walls, and vines laden with grapes and passionfruit growing on fences, has significantly increased people’s enjoyment of their neighbourhoods. There is a much greater appreciation and love of delicious food, all within people’s reach. When it was realised how ridiculous the food aesthetic standards of the past were, food wastage dropped. Seeing food being grown up close made people more at ease with eating misshapen and blemished fruits and vegetables. Of course, there are always some leftovers, but these are added to worm farms and compost piles, which return the nutrients to the soil for the next season’s plants to grow. All new housing properties have compost systems on site, and local parks have large communal composting and mulch amenities for public use. Exciting progress with insects converting waste to a high-nutrient, organic material leads the development of closed-loop systems. Plants grow much faster and stronger now more organic matter is being returned to urban soils and since air pollution levels have dropped. Without the particulate matter from car exhausts, plant leaves photosynthesise more easily. Combustion-engine cars are a thing of the past. Algae farms dispersed throughout cities absorb carbon dioxide, acting as microforests, and return clean oxygen to the air. The improvement in electric public transport, ridesharing and a societal shift to work more from home and local centres has meant unused and vacant cement carparks have been replaced by groves of nut and fruit trees. These community orchards are now filled with children climbing and playing as parents enjoy the cool shade. People cycle freely and safely on extensive networks of bike paths along the streets. Apart from the mental health improvements from living in greener, quieter cities that are well planned for outdoor activity, the physical health benefits mean fewer people are admitted to hospital. The greater access to fresh food has reduced type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. At the same time, cleaner air and lower heavy metal concentrations in the soil have also lessened the strain on the healthcare system. Respiratory illnesses such as asthma and neurodevelopmental disorders in children have dramatically decreased since the burning of fossil fuels ended. Costs recouped from public health savings have been invested in more strategies to tackle climate change. Coal, oil and gas industries have transitioned to cleanenergy generation. The cost in human health was too much to justify the continued harmful pollution of the past, and now renewable energy mixes of solar, wind, hydro, tidal, geothermal and hydrogen power our cities. Our better lifestyles and supporting services have created so many jobs that employment rates have increased and people who worked in sunset industries, such as coal, have been able to gain secure new roles. Community consultation and training programs were rolled out to avert fear of and hesitation about the transition. Job satisfaction levels have risen, as people feel like they are working in more purposeful sectors that contribute to greater societal improvement. The transportation and delivery service of food and other goods operated by drones has been fascinating, providing greater ease and convenience in buying and selling. The drone

and other smart delivery services have further reduced road traffic. Some feared this would mean fewer jobs for people – but the changes have actually increased new skilled positions in logistics, engineering and data analysis. The improvement in telecommunications has meant greater access to online learning and allows more people to conduct work remotely and via virtual meetings. Education is no longer restricted to capital cities, and rural expertise has climbed. People soon realised that time once spent commuting – wasted hours sitting in traffic – could now be spent with their kids, cooking healthy meals and enjoying conversation at the dining table. As energy, industries and workplaces have become increasingly decentralised, local community empowerment has risen. Crime levels have fallen significantly due to supportive social networks and decreased poverty. The reduction in electricity expenditure has helped this. As more people produce renewable energy from their own homes, there has been a drop in electricity prices and household energy expenses. These energy savings coupled with reduced healthcare expenses from better diets and cleaner air have enabled food prices to be increased without people feeling financially strained. The appreciation that people now have for the water and nutrients needed to grow food means that they are willing to spend more on their meals to ensure farmers are paid fairly and have the financial resources to manage the land in the best way possible. Fairer distribution of food expenditure from supermarkets and corporations has further benefited the people growing the food. This has resulted in food producers now having greater financial capacity to make positive on-farm changes. Taxes imposed on highly processed foods, and unhealthy fats and sugars in particular, have resulted in improved diets as well as reduced cancers, strokes and heart attacks. This has boosted our collective health, while emissions generated from these energy-intense foods have declined. Funds collected from these schemes are channelled into land-restoration projects and food research, to identify additional ways to reduce our environmental footprint. There is an air of excitement, and the mindset for continual improvement has resulted in many advances that had previously not been identified. Farmers around the globe are now much better connected with each other. They share ideas readily and offer support without restraint. Knowledge no longer stops at borders. Virtual classrooms empower those in agriculture with the latest information and innovations, from water-efficiency technology and nutrient management to sanitation solutions. When extreme weather events result in disaster, the international community responds quickly to distribute aid and resources. Salvation farms in shipping containers feed displaced and vulnerable people in times of crises. In these shipping-container farms, hydroponic and aquaponic systems are powered by renewable energy with 24-hour virtual farmer support. Highly vulnerable farmers and rural communities, particularly in developing nations, recover faster from adversity with help from their near neighbours. Innovative relief systems have saved thousands of lives after extreme weather events have shaken communities. Greater consideration in global governance and strategies for the most vulnerable people have directed research and resources to where they are needed most urgently. International goodwill and community collaboration have changed the way we see our world, each other, and our personal roles within it. What surprised most people was just how quickly the change occurred. When enough people were informed about what was going on and started to transform their own lives, their

actions and voices became noticeable. A vision was articulated clearly, a better narrative was told, and people understood the problems, the causes and what they could do to bring about the solutions. It was the social tipping point we had been waiting for. The policy moved rapidly after that. When political donations from fossil fuel companies were abolished and fossil fuel subsidies were removed, the writing was well and truly on the wall for dirty energy. The confidence in investing in carbon-neutral and carbon-negative projects boomed, and incentives to decentralise energy generation supercharged the clean energy transition. Ecosystem restoration became central in all considerations, and the development of new practices and technologies soared as did the implementation of traditional knowledge from Indigenous people. The benefits that flowed from these changes were noticeable in people’s health and wellbeing, and in the quality of food and its availability, while eco-conscious industries created new skilled jobs so the economy flourished in a sustainable way. The rejuvenation of the environment was remarkable, and species that had long disappeared from regions returned and proper ecosystem functioning was restored. Despite the challenges of climate change that did exist, and still do exist, we have been able to create a better world. We have finally achieved lifestyles and diets that are good for humans and good for the planet. We have done this by finding our inner courage to effect positive change and working together to make it a reality. We have been able to fix a broken food system in a climate-challenged world and create one that is truly sustainable and resilient.

I open my eyes and look out across my family’s farm. The vision is vivid in my mind. My will to make it a reality is unwavering.

CONCEPTS TO CULTIVATE Let’s not limit our imaginations – an alternative reality is possible. We already have the practices, technology and know-how to implement many of the solutions today. By thinking boldly and ambitiously, by sharing a better narrative, we inspire action and find the courage to make our vision a reality.

26 ACTION

‘My actions are my only true belongings.’ Thích Nhâ´t Ha·nh, Understanding our Mind, 2006 THE SECOND MOST important thing we can do is to ask ourselves, ‘How can I help create a better food system that achieves good health for people and our planet?’ The most important thing we can do is act on it. Each of us has unique skills, knowledge, networks and capacity to bring about positive change. I don’t have the skills you have, and I will never be able to reach and influence the people in your life as you can. But you have those skills, and you can reach those people. It’s true, the food system is complex and the climate challenge is great. No one can do everything, but everyone can do something. The seemingly small seeds of change we each plant will grow, regenerate and flourish into fields of impact. To end this book, here are some suggestions for what you can do today, tomorrow, this week, this month and this year to influence change and accelerate turning the vision of a better food system into reality. TODAY

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Be still. Give yourself time to contemplate and reflect. Look out the window to the natural world or, better yet, find a place outside to be with nature. While you sit and spend time with it, gaze internally at the role you play in looking after the planet. Assess what skills, knowledge and networks you have. How can you use and apply these to make a positive difference? Think about your food. When you open the fridge today or prepare a meal, consider where that food has come from, how it got to you, and the resources that went into producing it. Take time to appreciate the food that fills your stomach.

TOMORROW • Gather knowledge. Read, watch and listen. Learn what you can about global sustainability challenges and explore different sources of information to shape a holistic perspective on the situation. Notice what intrigues you and dive deeply into that area. • Reflect on your carbon footprint. Identify where your emissions can be reduced. Talk with others in your household about your commitment to lower your carbon footprint and invite them to do the same. • Consider what changes you can make in your home. These may be both physical changes, like installing energy-efficient light globes and appliances, and behavioural changes, like turning off the lights, air conditioning and television when you leave a room. Recycle if possible, and let those you live with know why it’s important to do so. • Choose your food carefully. Seek out food with a low carbon footprint that has been grown in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. Whenever you’re at a café, supermarket or your local farmer’s food stall, contemplate the nutritional value and method of production of the food you select. THIS WEEK • Communicate. Share what you know and ask the questions you have. Engage others in the conversation and contribute your ideas for

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addressing the problems you see. Be motivated. Surround yourself with inspiring people working on positive change. Let their determination and action energise you. Identify what and who motivates you and let this sustain your work. Invest your money wisely. Scrutinise where your money is being invested with banks and retirement fund institutions. Keep your finances with institutions that are investing in a safe future. If you’re moving your money to another institution because their values align better with yours, let the one you leave know why you’re moving your money and encourage them to consider more sustainable investments. Manage your power supply. Assess where your household and workplace energy are coming from, and switch to energy suppliers that provide clean energy. Investigate installing solar panels and battery storage systems or other forms of renewable energy. Practise conscious consumerism. Buy less and buy better. Our planet can no longer afford for us to purchase pointless and disposable items such as single-use plastic food containers or drink cups. Recycle, reuse or repair before purchasing new items. Speak with your political representatives. As their constituent, you want them to represent your views. All policy, from local and regional to national levels, needs to be science-based and best for the planet and humanity. Make sure your representative knows what issues matter to you and that you want them to act appropriately. Let them know that you will cast your vote on these issues. Spread the climate word. Speak about climate change impacts and solutions with your family and friends, as our most trusted messengers are those in our inner circle. Don’t underestimate the influence you can have on those who sit across the dinner table from you. Reconnect with nature. Make time to enjoy the beauty of the natural world. Let it rejuvenate you, fill your soul, and motivate you to do what you can to look after it. Eat a planet-friendly diet. Consider your personal nutritional and health requirements and try to develop a low-carbon meal plan. This may mean

reducing meat consumption if you currently eat excessive quantities, limiting highly processed foods, and seeking out fresh, local and seasonal produce. THIS MONTH • Collaborate with others. Connect with people like you and unlike you. Climate change is a people problem and therefore requires a people solution. Many great individuals, groups and organisations are working in this space. Contribute what you can, where you can. Whether you’re working with the leaders or the laggards, you can make meaningful change. • Engage with your local council. Share your ideas on what changes can be made in your neighbourhood or town, and offer your skills and expertise. Bring solutions to the table, not just the problems. Work with your local council members to reduce emissions, increase green spaces and improve recycling programs. • Amplify your voice. Speak on local radio, write a letter to your local newspaper, contribute a blog article, give a presentation to a local school or community centre. Your advocacy brings visibility to the cause. • Plant a garden. If you can, put trees, shrubs and grasses in the ground. Not only will this protect the soil from erosion, moisture evaporation and nutrient loss, but it will also provide habitat and food for wildlife. Gardens are great for people’s mental health and for invigorating their spirit. • Grow your own food. Whether you have a bit of space to produce a variety of fruits and vegetables, or just a small pot on the windowsill for a herb plant, you can derive so much enjoyment from eating something you’ve grown yourself. It’s also a great way to learn about the connection between soil, nutrients, water, sunlight, plants, food and nutrition. • Encourage your workplace to raise its environmental standards. Get your workplace to reduce, reuse and recycle materials, and not to waste energy. Don’t leave air conditioners, computers and lights running when everyone has gone home. Switch your workplaces’ bank and energy

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providers to those that are climate-conscious. Get to know the farmers in your region. Find out what they produce and how they grow it. Be respectful and inquisitive. Many farmers love sharing their story and passion for what they do. Ask how you can help them overcome local food-system challenges.

THIS YEAR • Consider your modes of transport and lifestyle. Fly and drive less if you can. There are a multitude of online video platforms for holding meetings and events. Jump online before jumping on a plane. Explore somewhere local for your next holiday instead of a faraway location. If you do have to travel, offset your carbon emissions through a credible program. • Vote for your future. Elect political representatives who are putting the climate crisis front and centre. We need leadership from all levels of government, and it’s your vote and voice that ensure the right people and party are elected to do that. If you don’t see a representative campaigning for what you believe is important then consider running for office yourself. • Encourage your sector to be a leader in climate change action. Whether you work in agriculture, tourism, energy, mining, transport, education, manufacturing or any other sector – you can drive change from within. Use your knowledge and ideas to improve the role your sector is playing to reduce its carbon footprint. • Work towards net-zero and negative emissions. We need to get to netzero emissions and beyond (negative emissions) as soon as possible. This needs to be in all aspects of our lives – our homes, children’s schools, workplaces, transport, council offices and industry sectors. Educate yourself and advocate for strategies that enable net-zero and negative emissions. • Be curious about the food system. Learn what you can and stay informed on the challenges facing farmers. Investigate how problems can be overcome and what role you can play. Contribute your ideas and expertise to ensure the best for the environment, all people, and the meal

on your plate.

RESOURCES

Farmers for Climate Action farmersforclimateaction.org.au Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations fao.org/climate-change/en Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security ccafs.cgiar.org EAT-Lancet Commission eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission Planet-Based Diets, WWF planetbaseddiets.panda.org Climate Council climatecouncil.org.au The Climate Reality Project climaterealityproject.org Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) ipcc.ch Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) ipbes.net Psychology for a Safe Climate psychologyforasafeclimate.org

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The scale of this deforestation is now so vast . . .: UCS, ‘Measuring the role of deforestation in global warming’, Union of Concerned Scientists, 9 December 2013, ucsusa.org/resources/measuring-role-deforestation-global-warming; R. Sims et al., ‘Transport’, in Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, eds O. Edenhofer et al., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014, p. 606, ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_chapter8.pdf The global average age of farmers . . .: H. Jöhr, ‘Where are the future farmers to grow our food?’, International Food and Agribusiness Management Review, 2012, vol. 15, pp. 9–11, ifama.org/resources/Documents/v15ia/Johr.pdf More than 3 billion people live within 100 kilometres of the coast: UN, 2010, op. cit. The richest 10 per cent of the global population . . .: T. Gore, ‘Confronting carbon inequality’, Oxfam, 21 September 2020, oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/621052/mb-confronting-carboninequality-210920-en.pdf In We Are the Weather, American novelist Jonathan Safran Foer . . .: J.S. Foer, We are the Weather, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2019. At this moment, an estimated 821 million people are undernourished . . .: C. Mbow et al., ‘Food security’, in Climate Change and Land: An IPCC special Report on Climate Change, Desertification, Land Degradation, Sustainable Land Management, Food Security, and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Terrestrial Ecosystems, eds P.R. Shukla et al., Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Geneva, 2019, ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/4/2021/02/08_Chapter5_3.pdf Poor diet is now the leading cause of . . .: Commission for the Human Future, 2020, op. cit. ‘Some dietary choices require more land and water . . .’: IPCC, ‘Land is a critical resource, IPCC report says’, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change press release, 8 August 2019, ipcc.ch/2019/08/08/land-is-a-critical-resource_srccl Of the thousands of plants and animals eaten in the past . . .: UNEP, ‘Hungry for change: the global food system’, United Nations Environment Programme, 2020, unenvironment.org/newsand-stories/story/hungry-change-global-food-system According to the EAT–Lancet Commission . . .: EAT–Lancet Commission, ‘Healthy diets from sustainable food systems: food, planet, health’, EAT, Oslo, 2019, eatforum.org/content/uploads/2019/07/EAT-Lancet_Commission_Summary_Report.pdf And as less than 1 per cent of the world’s . . .: ibid. ‘The major problems in the world are the result of . . .’: N. Bateson, An Ecology of Mind, Bullfrog Films, Pennsylvania, USA, 2011. Today, it is estimated that one-third of all the food . . .: FAO, ‘Food loss and food waste’, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2021, fao.org/food-loss-and-food-waste/flwdata That’s equal to about 1.3 billion tons of fruits . . .: WWF, ‘Fight climate change by preventing food waste’, World Wide Fund for Nature, 2020, worldwildlife.org/stories/fight-climate-changeby-preventing-food-waste Enough food is lost and wasted every year . . .: Commission for the Human Future, 2020, op. cit. The hijacking of the lines from Dorothy Mackellar’s poem . . .: D. Mackellar, ‘My country’, in The Closed Door, and other Verses, Australasian Authors’ Agency, Melbourne, 1911.

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In 2007, Al Gore shared the Nobel Peace Prize . . .: A. Gore, ‘Nobel Peace Prize lecture’, Nobel Prize, Oslo, 2007, nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2007/gore/26118-al-gore-nobel-lecture-2007/ Over the past three decades, sea levels around Tonga . . .: Australian Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO, ‘Tonga’, Climate Change in the Pacific: Scientific Assessment and New Research, Country Reports, 2015, vol. 2, p. 221, pacificclimatechangescience.org/wpcontent/uploads/2013/09/Volume-2-country-reports.pdf Fish provide a vital source of protein . . .: H. Tasoff, University of California – Santa Barbara, ‘Climate change is shifting productivity of fisheries worldwide’, ScienceDaily, 28 February 2019, sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190228154846.htm Australia is the fourth-largest coal producing country in the world: J. Dillinger, ‘The top 10 coal producers worldwide’, WorldAtlas, 14 June 2020, worldatlas.com/articles/the-top-10-coalproducers-worldwide.html Some low-lying islands are expected to disappear . . .: L. Yamamoto & M. Esteban, Atoll Island States and International Law, Springer, Berlin, 2014, springer.com/gp/book/9783642381850 ‘Our greatest enemy is complacency . . .’: Commission for the Human Future, 2020, op. cit. In his book The Devil’s Dictionary . . .: A. Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary, The World, New York, 1911. One framing technique Dan encourages is . . .: D. Kahan, ‘Why we are poles apart on climate change’, Nature, 2012, vol. 488, p. 255, nature.com/news/why-we-are-poles-apart-on-climatechange-1.11166 At present, humans and their livestock account for . . .: Y.M. Bar-On, R. Phillips & R. Milo, ‘The biomass distribution on Earth’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2018, vol. 115, pp. 6506–11, pnas.org/content/115/25/6506 While population growth tends to be strongest in . . .: Commission for the Human Future, 2020, op. cit. Paradoxically, though, the world presently spends . . .: ibid. As most people are not farmers . . .: FAO, 2019, op. cit. The goal of the Doughnut Model is to . . .: K. Raworth, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist, Random House, London, 2017. Figure 2. Doughnut economics model: ibid. As Tolkien wrote, ‘False hopes are more dangerous than fears.’: J.R.R. Tolkien, The Children of Húrin, ed C. Tolkien, Harper-Collins, London, 2007. Since installing the solar hybrid pumping system . . .: ‘Help prevent climate change’, Australian Government, 2006, environment.gov.au/resource/help-prevent-climate-change Energy and food conversations go hand in hand . . .: FAO, ‘Energy’, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2020, fao.org/energy/home/en The World Health Organization estimates that 7 million . . .: WHO, ‘Air pollution’, World Health Organization, 2021, who.int/health-topics/air-pollution - tab=tab_1 In fact, agriculture consumes 75 per cent . . .: IPBES, 2019, op. cit. Seventy per cent of the food system’s energy . . .: FAO, 2020, op. cit. The first is that Earth’s atmosphere . . .: G. Hardin, ‘The tragedy of the commons’, Science, 1968, vol. 162, pp. 1243–8, science.sciencemag.org/content/162/3859/1243 ‘Climate change is an ethical issue . . .’: P. Singer, ‘Ethics and climate change: a commentary on MacCracken, Toman and Gardiner’, Environmental Values, 2006, vol. 15, pp. 415–22, environmentandsociety.org/mml/singer-peter-ethics-and-climate-change-commentary-

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maccracken-toman-and-gardiner Environmental ethics Professor Dale Jamieson . . .: D. Jamieson, ‘Climate change, responsibility, and justice’, Science and Engineering Ethics, 2010, vol. 16, pp. 431–45, link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11948-009-9174-x The destruction of the environment is a fundamental breach . . .: O. Spijkers, ‘Intergenerational equity and the Sustainable Development Goals’, Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, no. 3836, mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/11/3836/htm The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states . . .: UN, ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, United Nations, 1948, un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights Rural people are often unfairly disadvantaged . . .: P. Dasgupta et al., ‘Climate change 2014: impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Part A: global and sectoral aspects’, in Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, eds C.B. Field et al., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2014, pp. 613–57. In many rural communities, women form the majority . . .: UN, ‘Rural women and the Millennium Development Goals’, United Nations, Geneva, 2012, un.org/womenwatch/feature/ruralwomen/documents/En-Rural-Women-MDGs-print.pdf These dispersed and disassociated peoples . . .: K. Warner et al., ‘Climate change, environmental degradation and migration’, Natural Hazards, 2009, vol. 55, pp. 689–715, link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11069-009-9419-7 Although separating climate migrants from those moving . . .: ibid. The management of bees in her community . . .: R.M.A. de Carvalho et al., ‘Meliponiculture in Quilombola communities of Ipiranga and Gurugi, Paraíba state, Brazil: an ethnoecological approach’, Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 2014, vol. 10, no. 3, ethnobiomed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1746-4269-10-3 She tells me that 40,000 different plant types . . .: S.P. Hubbell, ‘How many tree species are there in the Amazon and how many of them will go extinct?’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2008, vol. 105, no. 1, pp. 11498-504, pnas.org/content/105/Supplement_1/11498 Australia has around 20,000 recorded species in the entire country: L. Broadhurst & D. Coates, ‘Plant conservation in Australia: current directions and future challenges’, Plant Diversity, 2017, vol. 39, pp. 348–56, sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468265917300781 With one in every three bites of food . . .: A.M. Klein et al., ‘Importance of pollinators in changing landscapes for world crops’, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2007. vol. 274, pp. 303–13, royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2006.3721h In the twelve-page document, the members . . .: UN, ‘Paris Agreement’, United Nations Climate Change, 2015, unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf In her book The Future We Choose, she wrote . . .: C. Figueres & T. Rivett-Carnac, The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis, Manilla, Stockholm, 2020. As a result of collective action, literacy among . . .: M. Roser & E. Ortiz-Ospina, ‘Literacy’, Our World in Data, 20 September 2018, ourworldindata.org/literacy Average global life expectancy . . .: D. Dicker et al., ‘Global, regional, and national age-sexspecific mortality and life expectancy, 1950–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017’, Lancet, 2018, vol. 392, pp. 1684–1735, thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31891-9/fulltext Between 2000 and 2015, the world’s population . . .: UN, The Millennium Development Goals

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Report 2015, United Nations, Geneva, 2015, un.org/millenniumgoals/2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG 2015 rev (July 1).pdf Gender disparity in education has fallen . . .: ibid. ‘There are two ways to beat the cruelty . . .’: J. Medina, Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School, Scribe, Melbourne, 2011, p. 32. Motivating ourselves and other people to change . . .: C. Folke et al., ‘Resilience thinking: integrating resilience, adaptability and transformability’, Ecology and Society, 2010, vol. 15, no. 4, ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss4/art20 Silo mentality can create counterproductive competition . . .: A.H. Van de Ven, Engaged Scholarship: A Guide for Organizational and Social Research, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007. This enables the advancement of new ideas . . .: T.S. Bateman & M.E. Mann, ‘The supply of climate leaders must grow’, Nature Climate Change, 2016, vol. 6, pp. 1052–4, nature.com/articles/nclimate3166 American journalist David Wallace-Wells describes . . .: D. Wallace-Wells, The Uninhabitable Earth, Tim Duggan Books, New York, 2019. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus . . .: J.M. Robinson, An Introduction to Early Greek Philosophy, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1968, p. 90. In the words attributed to American cultural anthropologist . . .: ‘Planetary Initiative group forms’, 100 Mile House Free Press, British Columbia, 3 March 1982, p. 16. As Anaïs Nin wrote . . .: A. Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin, 1939-1944, vol. 3. Mariner Books, Boston, 1969. After researching how climate change could be tackled from within her home . . .: M. Robinson, Climate Justice: Hope, Resilience, and the Fight for a Sustainable Future, Bloomsbury, London, 2019. It’s estimated that about 11 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions . . .: WWF, 2020, op. cit. The greater access to fresh food has reduced . . .: P.Y. Wang et al., ‘Higher intake of fruits, vegetables or their fiber reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes: a meta-analysis’, Journal of Diabetes Investigation, 2016, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 56–69, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4718092/

About Anika Molesworth Dr Anika Molesworth is a farmer, scientist and storyteller. She is widely recognised for her work in agriculture and food systems and generating climate change awareness. Her awards include Young Farmer of the Year (2015) and Young Australian of the Year, New South Wales Finalist (2017). Anika is passionate about ensuring the best possible future for the planet, people and the food on our plates. AnikaMolesworth.com @AnikaMolesworth

Pan Macmillan acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. We honour more than sixty thousand years of storytelling, art and culture. First published 2021 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd 1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000 Copyright © Anika Molesworth 2021 The moral right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted. All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher. Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia http://catalogue.nla.gov.au EPUB format: 9781760988173 Planetary boundaries figure on page 62 from W. Steffen et al., ‘Planetary boundaries: guiding human development on a changing planet’, Science, 2015, vol. 347, no. 1259855. Redrawn with permission from AAAS. Doughnut economic figure on page 154 recreated from K. Raworth, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist, Random House, London, 2017. The author and the publisher have made every effort to contact copyright holders for material used in this book. Any person or organisation that may have been overlooked should contact the publisher. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this book may contain images or names of people now deceased. Love talking about books? Find Pan Macmillan Australia online to read more about all our books and to buy both print and ebooks. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events.