09/25/2017
The soil in which food is grown will fix everything, including desertification and climate change, according to this overwrought manifesto. Tickell, an activist and film director (Fuel, The Big Fix), fleshes out his documentary (also titled Kiss the Ground) on “regenerative agriculture,” a suite of farming reforms that aim to restore soil health through no-till agriculture, crop rotation, fertilization with compost and manure, and free-range livestock grazing. In his messianic telling, this program will halt erosion, feed a swelling population, save farmers from bankruptcy, summon rain, and sequester enough carbon underground to reverse global warming. Tickell entwines his explanation of the new agriculture in vivid reportage, featuring much dirt porn as farmers, ranchers, and agronomists savor rich, dark soil full of earthworms and fungi. It also feels like a one-sided treatment, drawn from the most optimistic reaches of scientific literature and paired with a biased attack on conventional farming, aka “the Nazi chemical experiment that has become our modern industrial agriculture.” (His condemnation of genetically modified crops repeats long-debunked claims that they helped cause a wave of farmer suicides in India.) Tickell’s vision is captivating, but these complex agricultural innovations deserve a more balanced, clear-eyed investigation. Photos. (Nov.)
Kiss the Ground: How the Food You Eat Can Reverse Climate Change, Heal Your Body & Ultimately Save Our World
Narrated by Josh Tickell
Josh TickellUnabridged — 11 hours, 52 minutes
Kiss the Ground: How the Food You Eat Can Reverse Climate Change, Heal Your Body & Ultimately Save Our World
Narrated by Josh Tickell
Josh TickellUnabridged — 11 hours, 52 minutes
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Overview
Discover the hidden power soil has to reverse climate change, and how a regenerative farming diet not only delivers us better health and wellness, but also rebuilds our most precious resource—the very ground that feeds us.
Josh Tickell, one of America's most celebrated documentary filmmakers and director of Fuel, has dedicated most of his life to saving the environment. Now, in Kiss the Ground, he explains an incredible truth: by changing our diets to a soil-nourishing, regenerative agriculture diet, we can reverse global warming, harvest healthy, abundant food, and eliminate the poisonous substances that are harming our children, pets, bodies, and ultimately our planet.
Through fascinating and accessible interviews with celebrity chefs, ranchers, farmers, and top scientists, this remarkable book, soon to be a full-length documentary film narrated by Woody Harrelson, will teach you how to become an agent in humanity's single most important and time sensitive mission. Reverse climate change and effectively save the world—all through the choices you make in how and what to eat.
Editorial Reviews
Our food choices not only impact our personal health, but the health of the world we all live in. Kiss the Ground is the first book to connect our health to what is going on in the atmosphere. If you care about your kids, about the food you’re feeding them and about the future of the planet, you need to read this book.
Kiss the Ground gives us the most practical solution to reversing climate change. The soil is a vital and untapped resource. A must read for anyone committed to healing our bodies and our Earth.
“Kiss the Ground re-imagines conventional wisdom and adds to our armory in our existential duty to slow and reverse climate change. We know that we must aggressively reduce our carbon footprint. But as we learn in this profound, timely, and important book, we can also pursue traditional solutions to harness the carbon already in our atmosphere—and replant it here on earth. A simple composting program and healthy soils can be a key weapon in saving our planet (from ourselves).
Food, soil, even eating itself...all are fundamental issues in the effort to live a more enlightened life. Kiss the Ground both informs and inspires, as it connects biology and geography and species diversity to the yearnings of the human heart.
Kiss the Ground paints a hopeful yet achievable picture of a way of growing food that makes our soil healthier, makes us healthier, and ultimately could make our climate healthier too. As somebody who’s thrown his hat into the new ‘regenerative movement’ I recommend this book to anyone wanting to heal themselves and our planet.
Through my life as a chef, one of the most important lessons I have learned is that we have to take care of our Earth, or it won’t be able to go on taking care of us. Every one of us—farmers and chefs, parents and children, business people and world leaders—must play a part in keeping our planet healthy so that it can go on keeping us healthy. That’s why I’m so happy to discover Kiss the Ground, which offers a fascinating, easy-to-follow blueprint for how eating in ways that nourish and regenerate the soil can not only help reverse global warming but also bring greater vitality to our lives. “
The book Kiss the Ground shines a beacon of light on the growing global 'regenerative agriculture’ movement, illuminating a new path toward carbon sequestration and hopefully, a path toward a balanced climate. With clear, accessible language, wit and humor, this book gives readers powerful tools to overcome humanity’s greatest challenge."
Kiss the Ground is a powerful, provocative new look at how we can all participate in honoring Mother Earth. Our food is the source of our life and the soil is the source of our food. This book shows the simple steps each one of us can take to restore the health of our bodies and our planet.
"Kiss the Ground takes the reader on an adventure... with an empowering section on concrete steps everyone can take to be a part of the solution."
2017-10-02
A journalist, activist, and filmmaker examines how soil-conscious farming practices may affect climate change and aims to move consumer sentiment to support them.Tickell (Biodiesel America: How to Achieve Energy Security, Free America from Middle-East Oil Dependence, and Make Money Growing Fuel, 2006, etc.), whose films include Fuel and The Big Fix, is a vocal disciple of value-based consumerism. Unfortunately, in seeking to convert the uninitiated, the author too often preaches to the choir. The book will appeal the most to readers who are already pro-organic foodies and/or anti-GMO crusaders. Refreshingly, the narrative is richly visual, likely due to the author's primary vocation as a respected documentary filmmaker; his description of the arrival of the French Minister of Agriculture reads like a scene from a James Bond film. However, the science at the center of this thesis is lacking. Tickell argues that the reason these farming techniques will transform agriculture is because they foster the health of the billions of microbes and fungi that live in the soil, but he only rarely mentions the name of a single species (there are thousands). Furthermore, it takes more than two-thirds of the text for the author to note that soil microorganisms thrive when suspended in water and go dormant without it, a premise central to his thesis. Similarly, Tickell discusses soil microbes that break down methane, a greenhouse gas found in cow excrement, but he fails to adequately explain the scientific research focused on it. In addition, the entirety of the book takes place in France or the United States, where food is plentiful. What happens when you take Tickell's ideas to nations that struggle to feed their people?Fellow members of the author's choir will find some useful nuggets, but readers seeking to learn more about microbial soil health and its implications for farm practices and climate change should look elsewhere. Regarding microbes and our bodies, a good start is Alanna Collen's 10% Human (2015).
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940170946655 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Simon & Schuster |
| Publication date: | 11/14/2017 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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