Climate Is What We Eat
“Daily, our eating turns nature into culture, transforming the body of the world into our bodies and minds.” ― Michael Pollan, Omnivore’s Dilemma
Climate is the clockwork movement of complex systems, a constancy and reliability that comes from the interactions between geology, chemistry, physics, and crucially, biology. Climate as we know it is born from life and supports that same life, and this is why its health is tied to our own. Climate is what we eat, as much as it is what we experience because in the grand scheme of life on earth, there are no boundaries between these cycles that nurture and support all beings.
When we talk about climate we talk about patterns and systems, and interactions that seem abstract and almost purely mathematical but the roots of climate stability are found in everything tangible. The life-giving water we depend upon may come to us in clouds that are the product of chemical bonds, but even those chemicals have some living origins. In the forests the trees breathe out gases that form the seeds of clouds, while in the farthest reaches of the ocean tiny algae are a major part of the process. During their lives crashing in the waves, and in their deaths, these microscopic creatures release their delicate calcium shells into the atmosphere; and as they gently travel, slower than falling feathers would, moisture gathers and clouds are formed.
Surprising us time and again, the biological life that evolved on this planet is proving inseparable from the chemistry and physics that many thought were the exclusive heart of climate patterns. As the scientific findings spread across disciplines the interconnectedness between all things is becoming apparent not just as a story but as a reality rooted in data. We are realizing that the world is brimming with an invisible micro life force, from soil to sea, from the roots of trees to the crests of our salty waves, along our skins and inside our guts.
When we think about climate in this more living way, we begin to appreciate how our daily food choices influence its behavior. If we cut down forests to plant monoculture palm trees for cheap oil we change the mixture of gases being put into the atmosphere and we change the soil. If we pour chemicals into the oceans we alter the ratio of microorganisms, and end up disturbing the cycles of fresh clean water returning onto our surface. Considering that fertilizer runoff has already created 400 dead zones in the ocean, the time to think about these matters — and the power of our food choices — is now.
For a living climate to persist we have to embrace foods that nurture the land and the water and this is best achieved through regenerative agriculture. By going one step beyond organic farming and by promoting life from soil to sky we can renew the cycle of life that is fundamental to our daily weather, central to our long term survival. By holding the soil up as a living medium, and by appreciating the wind and the rain with that same reverence we can help ourselves connect again to foods that are brought to our tables without toxic chemicals, without long haul trips that consume and dump fossil fuels into the mix. We can do all the things we need to do to heal our bodies by recognizing that we are in effect, eating the climate in every bite.
To understand every part of climate science is specialized work, but to heal the climate is everyone’s challenge, and potentially our shared bliss. To make life delicious again, all we need to do is follow the lead of nature. By not losing sight of the small relationships that make the big picture possible, by believing in the worth of small actions and by stewarding small changes in ourselves we can change the big trends, meal by meal.
“More than a third of the world’s land surface and nearly 75% of freshwater resources are now devoted to crop or livestock production” — IPBES Global Assessment, 2019
As we read the newest environmental reports we can get lost in the numbers, become overwhelmed with the breakdown. We can find ourselves at the breaking point of anger or apathy, or seeking salvation in one or two big solutions. The truth is, our climate did not come to a point of breakdown with one or two acts, but through a series of many small actions that took the planet for granted; therefore only small actions rooted in appreciation for this living system can shift the tide.
Climate is a rhythm of harmonious conditions, and it has evolved to nurture us and everything else on this planet, from the tiniest microorganisms to the trees that tower above us. To love ourselves we have to love those grand trees and we have to love the earth below us. To show that love with every meal we have to get into deeper connection with what we truly mean if we find ourselves saying, “I love a good meal.”
Climate is food that is sweet and tender, ripened on the vine and the stem. To love that sweetness, we have to love local growers who can pick in season. Climate is the gentle slope where a mist gathers and a valley bursts into rainbows of flowers, leaves, and stalks year after year. To express our awe for those living rainbows, we have to love those gentle mists that nourish them, and respect all the life in between.
Season by season, climate is an essential part of what we eat and feel; it is the source of comfort of both body and mind. Climate is maple syrup every spring, and cold watermelon on a hot summer’s day. Climate is the juicy fall apple and the winter’s snow blanketing the roots in repose. Climate is all the cycles of the elements understood as a unified field of support and exchanges that serve us as much as it does all other beings. From each micro climate to their macro result we can perceive climate as a vehicle for creativity, a tool for understanding our essential connectivity to the earth and each other.
By recognizing the climate as a unified operating system that encourages and stewards a great variety of life we can realize our responsibility to partner with its integrity instead of challenging it needlessly. By embracing this path of cooperation with our life-giving planet we can stop provoking its systems to prove their resilience in spite of our actions and perceive them as gifts we choose to assist. By understanding this essential unity between climate and our own lives we can engage with our biology and our biosphere in a spirit of cooperation — and we can get so much more beauty and stability from it in return.
Climate is so much more than conditions kept in a tidy box ready for evaluation or argument. Climate is delicious and rich, and it flows in streams and it collects in rivers. From the breezes that spread the spores of fungi, to those that give apex predators a whiff of their potential dinner, climate — as a force, a field, a collection of networks and needs — is constantly meeting at intersections we can’t quite name, or don’t yet know. To protect what we love and to preserve the workings we don’t yet understand is part of the gift of regenerative practices, since they provide the time we need to learn how our planet supports so much life; and they restore our personal and collective stability in the here and now.
Our old ways of thinking, those that mistakenly proclaimed the Earth dead material have now depleted 23% of our global land, turning once living soil into the sterile medium we believed it to be. That depleted soil indicates a growing percentage of earth where drought is rampant, floods are unavoidable and nothing grows without exponential amounts of work and cost. Regenerative agriculture can transform these numbers by bringing chemically assaulted soil and dead zones back to life in less than one human generation. Acre by acre and meal by meal, dedicating to regenerative living through agriculture, through our modes of eating, we can make space for a genuine renewal in our society, and in every facet of our lives.
Through the choices we make in how we eat, we can give back to this living system of earth — provide it a rest from the chemicals, waste and the stress. At every level we can choose with our wallets and our hearts to keep this world full of variety and life, and keep our own bodies alive with non-toxic food and water. We have enough pollution and we have ways to transform it back into viable resources but to do that we have to get clear that climate isn’t just some collection of abstract forces. Climate is a collection of living relationships wrapped in a single atmosphere and supported by one common ground, and it is engineered to provide abundance and stability enough for all.
