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(soft intriguing music)
(soft poignant music)
- Things grow at exponential rates.
They're not linear.
And if they're going to fail,
they fail exponentially as well and collapse.
Our top priority right now is to repair the soil.
Can't go on that way.
We'll all just wind up dying.
- [Man] If we stay on our course,
you know, we could look at a worldwide catastrophe.
- [Woman] In the United States,
we're losing soil at 10 times the rate
it takes to regenerate it.
- [Man] We have plenty of civilizations
over the course of the course of time
that didn't get that right.
And so our challenge is how do we make sure
that we're not one of 'em?
- [Michael] We're still in kind of an extraction mentality
where it's what it costs us to bring it out of the earth.
It's not what the earth has paid to get it in.
We need to start shifting
from a death-based or a harvest-based mentality
into a life-based economy.
- [Woman] Industrial agriculture says
we have to go with these machine-intensive,
chemical-intensive means of producing food
and that is a false dichotomy.
- [Vandana] The more you care for biodiversity,
the more you care for the soil,
the more food you actually grow.
- [Man] The issue we're facing right now
is two different futures.
- [Man] You cannot feed the world from dead soil.
- [Man] Then the ecosystem begins to unravel.
- Things are collapsing everywhere.
Food essentially has no nutrients in it these days.
- [Man] People know that it's hurting people.
People know that it's harming the environment
and they do it anyway.
- [Man] We gotta stop focusing on the problem
and start focusing on the solution.
- [Man] Not one single solution
that's gonna solve every problem,
but many many small solutions
that collectively will actually lead to a societal shift.
- [Man] But it takes the will of the people
and I think that time is coming.
I think that time is coming.
- It didn't take very long for us to tear the soil apart,
to tear it down.
We need a equal solution,
the inverse of that to build it back up again.
So what we've tried to do here is to take
natural biological processes
and accelerate the regeneration of soil.
Something that would normally take decades
or a few hundred years,
we can do in a matter of hours or days.
(soft pensive music)
(birds chirping)
(rhythmic intriguing music)
- [Rosario] Agriculture is the most destructive
human activity on the planet.
Can we feed the world without destroying it?
The difference between death and life,
between extinction and abundance
is the difference between dirt and soil.
Just a handful of healthy soil contains more microorganisms
than there are people on the planet.
The entire food chain and our very existence
is made possible by billions of tiny creatures
coexisting right under our feet:
complexities of galactic proportions.
(soft intriguing music)
Since the dawn of agriculture some 10,000 years ago,
the simple act of tilling our land
has been disruptive to fragile soil life,
it's ability to hold water
and turning soil carbon into atmospheric carbon dioxide.
With the invention of machinery and powerful new chemicals,
industrial agriculture has exponentially
exacerbated the issue.
Roughly 30 soccer fields worth of soil
are lost every single minute.
Today, 70% of our planets soils have already been destroyed.
At this rate, the earth runs out of farmable soil
in a mere 60 years.
Without soil, all ecosystems
outside of our oceans become impossible.
We can either wake up before it's too late
or guarantee a path to consistent drought,
extreme food scarcity and catastrophic climate change.
Is our only option a system with a built-in expiration date
or will we acknowledge our responsibility to this planet
and uphold our debt to future generations?
(soft intriguing music)
(birds chirping)
(soft piano music)
- When I grow up, I wanna try to get a big backyard.
Then I can plant like almost like every fruit and vegetable.
Maybe I'll get a huge fig tree.
I drew it in my journal.
Then I can tell my sisters
and then they'll be kinda like me.
And then they'll start growing
like a garden in their backyard. (giggles)
- Okay, I need you to sit nicely and finish your smoothie.
I've got four kids.
- No!
- Make sure you make 'em so we're not late, okay?
Can he do anything else?
After seeing all the sugar being dished out to them,
and that's kinda where my path started
was the abundance of sugar.
And once I learned about that,
it ended up leading to all kinds of different things.
It was like a snowball effect.
(audience applauding)
- It's pretty cool to help people
see what's happening to the world and help them,
help make a change in the world.
You should really start thinkin' 'bout what you eat.
I'm gonna keep telling people to help
and they'll tell other people.
Hopefully soon the planet will change
to gardens and healthy people
and it will be a better place.
(soft gentle music)
(girl shouting)
- [Monica] Wipe your place and then we gotta go.
(girl shrieking) (door slamming)
Who's taking the compost today?
- Can we play with the wheels? - Get in, buckle up. Okay.
(children muttering)
- She wants us to be healthy so we can be more active,
we can do sports better and we can think better.
(singer vocalizing)
- [Monica] So I figured the best place to start
was where this comes from.
- When I saw one, a seed grows to a giant plant
I thought it was pretty fascinating.
Some people just don't get how fun gardening is.
They think TV is way more important
than what we're doing now.
People should really learn about
how to help your community and help yourself and live.
(soft cheerful music) (singer vocalizing)
- It's important because then everyone will know
where their food comes from and how things grow
'cause normally you don't really see it.
(soft serene music)
- These farms here are what we're planning to build
the next scalable step-on.
The idea that you can grow
100% organic nutrient dense food at warp speed basically
over cement or man-made surfaces is what I feel
is going to be a really amazing shift
in the way we perform agriculture
within a densely-packed urban environment.
Waste is not an option
and that's got to be a mantra that we all adopt.
- This is Alicia. - Who's this?
- Hi.
- Wow, where'd you get such a nice smile?
(Alicia giggling)
- We wanted to take a look and find out a little bit more
about what you got going on here.
- Well, fantastic.
Come on, let's go over
and we'll check out some vertical towers.
You could put about 40 plants in two square feet.
Extremely resource-efficient, 90% less water,
50% less fertilizer.
Now let's go over here and lemme show you
one of my monster beets.
This one's tryin' to escape.
It's breaking itself outta the pot.
Strawberries go really good in these towers.
- Yummy, I love strawberries.
- And you're gonna taste a piece of lettuce.
I'll bet you never tasted lettuce that tastes like this
and I'm gonna show you something special about it.
Here's the secret:
When I pull a piece of lettuce,
see the white milk in there?
- [Monica] Mm-hmm.
- [Erik] I want you to just taste it.
Okay, most people wouldn't even eat lettuce like this
and look at all the milk that's drippin' off of that.
So that milk generally disappears in about 24 hours.
- Really? - Yeah.
If you're not eating lettuce within 24 hours,
you're missing a huge part of the antioxidant load
that this lettuce carries.
Even though we came from a powered up hydroponic background,
we started looking at soils in a completely different light.
(soft intriguing music)
The more we study them, the more we know.
Life as we know it actually comes from it.
(soft intriguing music) (birds chirping)
- We are here today because of very smart choices
on the evolutionary path
and we are born from the soil that gives us life.
All of our food comes from the soil.
And so when we begin to destroy the biology of the soil,
we destroy the food networks that give us life.
And this is where we face an unprecedented circumstance.
- You go in and kill the soil, you kill off the earthworms.
You kill the biota of the soil, right?
That soil's dead.
All it's good for is whooshing out to the Gulf of Mexico.
That's all it's good for unless you go back in,
re-mulch the soil, reinvigorate the soil with biota,
with life, then you have a soil that can produce food.
- Building soil, building living soil
is the highest actually to human beings can be in nature.
- We can actually take you know
and store atmospheric carbon in the soil.
We know that that can be done.
It's physics.
We just have to create the conditions
for the soil to absorb it, right?
And there's all kinds of ways to do that.
- [Rosario] Over the last century,
our farmers have been encouraged
to rely on unsustainable synthetic inputs,
gaining short-term boost in production
at a major cost to soil longevity.
When combined with mono-cropping and repeated tilling,
biodiversity's all but eliminated,
eventually leaving nothing but dead dirt.
This degradation accelerates erosion
as lifeless dust is blown away and washed downstream.
In the US, we're losing soil 10 times faster
than it could be naturally replenished.
However in the longest study of its kind
after more than 30 years,
organic agriculture has proven to match
or surpass conventional yields,
emit 35% fewer greenhouse gases,
use 45% less energy and build soil rather than deplete it.
Studies show that the more soil health
is holistically managed, the more food is actually grown.
A strategy called no-till farming
minimally disturbs fragile soil microbes,
while cover crops are year-long plants
which shield the ground
rather than leaving it exposed to the elements.
No-till, cover crops and composting all help retain water
and generate more carbon-rich soil every year.
These methods increase humic substances,
one of the most important indicators of healthy soil.
Humic substances are a critical component
of decomposing organic matter,
supporting the flow of essential plant nutrients
in soil structure.
A healthy tablespoon of soil
contains an astonishing six billion microorganisms.
Tens of thousands of different species
each playing a vital role in a cosmic microbial ecosystem.
Fungal mycelium networks
act like a vast underground internet,
transporting nutrients, water, carbon
and creating a stable structure which prevents erosion.
With only a 1% increase in organic matter,
soils hold an additional 25,000 gallons of water per acre,
reducing the risk of both drought and flood.
When plants absorb CO2,
carbon is fed to microbes through the roots
as a storage container for what was once atmospheric carbon.
Enough healthy soil could offset
virtually all greenhouse gases on the planet.
These principles working in harmony
are known as regenerative agriculture.
By creating a more resilient and nutrient-dense food system,
regenerative agriculture can not only feed the world,
but may be the planet's only hope
to actively reverse climate change.
Like nothing else, increasing the health of our soils
simultaneously addresses nearly all
other environmental issues.
- Just how
beautiful that soil is.
This stuff will grow anything.
- [Monica] It all boils down to the soil.
- [Erik] Yeah and what microbes are working the soil.
You have to start thinking about feeding the soil.
- Right. - Not feeding the plant.
- It's something that I never really thought about.
Had I gone out and planted something,
I would've scooped up some dirt,
reseeded and called it a day.
So to see how complex the soil is
and how important it is to have a nutritious soil.
(soft serene music)
- You can see right over there, you hear the tractors?
- Yeah.
- We're surrounded by development.
And so what's happening is our land is goin' away.
Now Soxx system can be deployed over the ground
on manmade services and put this beautiful soil in here
and grow fully-organic, super nutrient-rich food.
70% less water, 2 1/2 times faster growth,
50% less fertilizer and over land that nobody's using.
I mean, there's nothin' about that that doesn't make sense.
And that to me is the paradigm shift in urban agriculture.
(soft serene music) (birds chirping)
The question is when's it gonna go mainstream?
- Where does your passion for this come from?
- Well
as an old organic biochemist,
I've always been curious as to how can we maximize
the plant's genetic potential?
So we've had a few anomalies in this farm lately.
We've been using all of our vermicompost
and we've been experimenting with our soils.
This blue kale here used to be this size.
It used to be one of these.
They were all planted at the same time.
This thing just found nirvana down in the soil.
I mean, it's just an insanely healthy kale plant.
Imagine if all of a sudden our soil blends
could start producing crops that were of this scale.
This stuff is just spectacular
in getting the nutrition it needs.
And it's not happening everywhere,
but it's happening enough for us to realize
that there is a secret here that we've gotta unlock.
- I been working with Erik Cutter at Alegría Farms.
He had brought me on board as a soil consultant.
I was bringin' him the rarest resource materials
that plants don't create by themselves.
Some mycorrhizae, some biochar.
Something that he's like, "Biochar?
"Where'd you get the biochar in Montana?"
And he said, "How is Montana?"
And I said, "I went to this place
"called the Green Power House
"and I met this man Michael Smith who's amazing.
"He's brilliant."
I knew it was just technology that was cutting edge.
It's like a liquid biochar with some humic acid
and that's what plants need.
They need a transporter and they needed the carbon,
a little air and we have a healthy plant.
So I gave Erik a sample.
And within 24 hours he called me
because a plant had changed color in 45 minutes
after he applied this byproduct at this energy facility,
the Green Power House.
He said, "I have to go to Montana immediately.
"Book some airfare."
(soft serene music)
(birds chirping)
- When I was four years old,
I did have a severe car accident in front of my house.
My brothers were getting onto the school bus.
I was very excited about them going to school.
And I ran across the street in front of a car
that should've stopped for the bus,
but it hit me about 40 miles an hour
and just knocked me outta my shoes.
The driver of the vehicle was uncertain
that I was gonna live, but fortunately he was a doctor.
So I have this sort of good news, bad news kind of a life.
You know, what do you want?
You want me dead or do you want me alive, you know?
He knew exactly what to do afterwards
and I believe that saved my life.
After that, I didn't know who my parents were.
It took me a long time to relearn everything that I knew.
Diane thinks I'm a walk-in from another world. (chuckles)
- Imagine how smart he would be
had he not been hit by the car?
- Yeah.
- Or did that make him smarter? (chuckles)
- I don't necessarily see myself as that smart.
That's the problem.
(soft soothing music)
I got a chance to work with Walt Disney Studios.
I worked with NASA.
We worked with the FBI.
We remastered Pink Floyd's "The Dark Side of the Moon."
We actually captured and digitized
some of the Beatles stuff.
I like to say that I was one of the first pioneers
in 3D printing long before 3D printers were known as such.
I was working with The Dire Straits on a music video
called "Money for Nothing."
I worked with physics engines that are used in video games.
Games like FIFA and Madden, Grand Theft Auto and Halo.
We tried to introduce more natural behaviors
into character animations,
which involved a lot of artificial intelligence.
And I was offered the job at Lucas Arts,
but they required that I live and stay in San Francisco.
I thought well gee, I value my freedom.
There's no job here
for somebody doing artificial intelligence research.
I thought well, I can apply technology to biology
and we can have dynamic systems
that are controlled completely natural.
'Cause we're not doing anything like GMOing
or modifying the species.
Rather than treating a character in a game
as the main component,
we thought well maybe we could use algae as a character.
Turned down George Lucas.
I don't know if that was the best decision,
but it was a decision.
(soft soothing music)
- [Woman] All checked in carry-on luggage
is subject to search.
- You and I are gonna have some talks.
Well I've done some testing behind your back.
Well I compared it
to some of the best root enhancement mediums
and there's some compounds in that that are quite different.
We're an energy company too.
Food is energy,
so I had the same problem you do with saying,
"Can we scale and who's gonna stop us from scaling?"
Big-picture concerns that down the road
big ag's gonna pound on me and say,
"Yeah, that's just gettin' a little bit
"outta hand right there."
I mean, how do we hide out in Montana
and all these niche areas that'll defend our power plants
and we can distribute the power
without getting you know, squashed?
'Cause we're all about takin' it back.
(soft guitar music)
(soft soothing music)
This new compound that's comin' off the Green Power House
is a very powerful root stimulator,
which means that it's a very powerful, natural fertilizer,
so this oughta be fun.
Here we are.
Look at this.
Look at that power plant.
Wow, middle of Montana.
Who would guess?
The Biodome, wow.
All right, I already want one.
- I believe it's a game-changer.
What the algae and the biochar together do
is literally rejuvenate, revitalize and remake soil
and I cannot emphasize enough how important that is.
So Michael Smith, this is Erik Cutter.
- Erik Cutter. - Hi, pleased to meet you.
- Pleased to meet you as well.
- I'm a biochemist and oncologist by training.
I grow food and I'm a chef.
And so I started playin' around with this stuff
and I called Ken and said,
"Ken, where'd you get this stuff?"
- Really? - Oh my gosh.
- [Robin] Michael is an extraordinary visionary.
He was the visionary behind the company,
even though it had several founders.
- We discovered that the waste usually occurs
when you short circuit natural processes.
You take carbon where it does the most good
and you put it where it does the most damage.
You know, the rate that we're pushing the carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere just overwhelms
the planet's ability to capture it.
'Cause we're trying to emulate
something that nature is doing
and nature is inherently complex.
You realize that there's a billion microbes
in this piece of soil the size of your little finger.
- Oh yeah. - And we think we know it all.
I mean we can go to the moon,
but we have no idea what's goin' on
with those billion microbes. - And what we're doing now,
of course they're killing those microbes in the soil.
- And we don't even know what we're killing
and what ratios we're offsetting.
- It's one of the battles that we're fighting
against standard fertilizing concepts.
- Right.
- You know if I were to start a fertilizer company
and I wanted just to maximize my profits
and didn't care about anything else,
what a great strategy, right?
You put it on one year, you get a good growth.
The next year, the growth's not so good
so you have to add a little more.
And then you add a little more
and pretty soon you've completely destroyed your soil.
So we discovered how can we integrate
these components together
to bring those cycles back into balance again?
Well the answer's been with us forever, right?
All we had to do was open our eyes and look around.
(reverent organ music) - [Erik] Why don't we go in
and see what you guys have created?
- And we'll go talk to the dragon.
- [Rosario] What Michael calls the dragon
is a state-of-the-art pyrolysis machine.
When biomass like wood waste enters the dragon,
it's heated close to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
The absence of oxygen prevents combustion,
leaving behind a stable carbon structure
similar to charcoal.
The extracted energy runs the entire
Green Power House off-grid
while creating enough excess electricity
to meet the needs of roughly 100 homes.
It would take over three acres of solar panels
to accomplish this.
- So the electricity is not our main product.
We call that our waste byproduct.
- Utility companies are gonna love that one.
Our waste byproduct's electricity.
- This 9,000 year old technology is to make this biochar.
Our ancestors knew how to do this to fertilize the soil
and we just reformatted it for the 21st century.
It's pores within pores within pores.
- [Rosario] Biochar is a form of extremely stable carbon
with exponential pores creating massive surface area
in a tiny space.
Just a two inch piece of biochar, if unfolded,
would have the surface area the size of a football field.
This structure is an optimal breeding ground
for beneficial soil microbes,
holding both water and nutrients
where plant roots need them most.
- It also creates space for air to get in
for microbes to get in. - And the soil microbes.
- Wow, amazing. - So all that stuff to me
is an essential component to the web.
Gets recreated.
You're putting back into the soil the infrastructure
for soil regeneration.
- [Rosario] Without the dragon,
this waste would end up in a landfill
releasing greenhouse gases as it decomposed.
Instead, biochar locks the stable carbon back underground
for hundreds or even thousands of years.
The biochar is emerging
as one of the planet's best solutions to climate change.
One Green Power House or GPH
stabilizes over one ton of carbon every day.
It takes roughly 50,000 trees to do the same.
- You're fixing carbon. - I'm fixing carbon.
- Pullin' it outta the atmosphere
and putting it back to where it belongs.
- Two billion years of engineering experience. (chuckles)
We include the algae into that.
So I mentioned the liquid prairie.
(soft soothing music)
The heat necessary to operate this
comes from the breakdown of the wood waste.
- That's amazing, I love that.
I'm learning a lot here.
A lot.
This is actually seriously exciting
how you're takin' all these natural systems and linking 'em.
Hoo, look at this place.
Don't fall in.
- [Michael] Algae is one of the primary
organic material generators
on the surface of the planet and it operates very fast.
So the fact that we can take carbon dioxide,
we can take water and we can take sunlight
and we can create biomass from it
is a big boon to this concept of generating soil
because that's the way it's been done for millions of years.
All we've figured out how to do
is take that and accelerate it.
- [Rosario] Continuously-fed CO2 from the dragon,
rapidly-growing algae is harvested every day.
Through biodigestion, algae is converted
to a nutrient-rich organic fertilizer
to be combined with biochar,
creating a powerful soil rejuvenator.
Methane, a byproduct of algae digestion,
is sent back to the dragon to heat and process more waste,
completing the cycle.
In each element of the Green Power House,
the output of one becomes the input of another,
a true closed-loop system.
- [Michael] Yeah
and the algae tells us what it needs, right?
So we have this sorta self-regulating system
that algae's been sucking up nitrogen
as well as carbon dioxide.
- So it's nutrient-rich big time.
- Yeah, I mean and it's high in energy.
Well few people know this,
but algae's higher in energy than coal per pound.
- Really?
- So when we pull that energy outta there, we digest this.
We're left with a really compact nutrient substrate
that we can then use as part of our soil amendment.
So in about four or five days,
we can do what normally a normal digestor
will do in about a month.
- So you actually put an efficiency
on a already-known efficiency.
So you're gonna get humic substances
outta this as a byproduct.
What would it take in nature for that to occur?
- Well if you include the carbon from the carbon engine,
you know that's hundreds of years.
- Okay, so you're doing in four to five days
what nature would take--
- In about 400 years.
- 400 years. - Yeah.
- Wow (chuckles), that's pretty amazing.
- So you know, we don't wanna it push too hard.
But the idea is we create the environment
and you monitor the environment
and you accelerate the processes naturally.
- Don't wanna push it too hard.
Four to five days versus 400.
- (chuckles) Yes.
(soft serene music)
- Wow.
I'm up here because I have a similar conundrum
that you guys have.
I see this power plant as an amazing opportunity to scale
and to actually change the way we live
and go back to natural processes that are zero waste.
That's why I worry about this.
I think you got a game-changer here.
You're gonna have a lotta pushback
and you're all of a sudden takin' on everybody.
The entire energy world is now looking at you
saying, "Okay, do we let this technology exist or not?"
- Yeah.
- I think what you guys are doing
probably could be one of the greatest empowering tools
that we've seen 'cause you got all the different things
that you're able to create with this.
That's why I worry about it gettin' you know,
squashed before it gets out.
(soft guitar music)
- After World War II,
there was an excess of bomb-making material
which was turned into fertilizer,
an excess of nerve gas which was turned into pesticides.
So the military industrial complex
moved into the agricultural industrial complex
and forced a model of chemical dependency.
- Industrial agriculture in my point of view
is first and foremost a war against the earth
because it is a war against all species
since you're bringing more chemicals into food production
and all they're doing is killing.
- Putting chemicals onto the soil:
nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium
and trying to backfill with some of the micronutrients,
trying to do that, we in essence kill the life in the soil.
(soft intriguing music)
- When we denature soils by removing their biology,
then we are really taking a step back
hundreds of millions of years in time.
- It is a war against every citizen.
Because food that comes out of that kind of war,
economy and war production is loaded with poisons
which then give us the epidemics of cancer,
of allergies, of everything else that's going wrong
because of a toxic, imbalanced diet.
- Because we now have a vast array of toxins
that we have in our body
and we are a reflection of the environment in which we live,
we're now trying to adapt to suddenly influxes of toxins
that have heretofore been unprecedented.
- The United States Department of Agriculture
practically a Washington office for Monsanto,
has in their research over 14 years has shown
there has been no significant increase
in yield because of GMOs.
The idea, the sheer audacity of the idea
that we can fight nature is dead on arrival.
We cannot fight nature.
You cannot blow things up or poison things
to the extent that where you "win."
- I think people around the country have realized
that the FDA and the USDA
are not gonna fix their food system;
that they actually have to do it themselves.
It's a challenge to live in a world
where our government cannot be counted on to defend us
from an industrial food system
that's actually making us sick.
(soft intriguing music)
- [Rosario] 44 billion pounds of chemical fertilizers
are used each year.
Synthetic fertilizers disrupt the soil's balance
of microbes, beneficial fungus and organic matter.
As biodiversity decreases,
more fertilizers are required to achieve similar results.
Now pesticides and herbicides must be used
to fight off weeds and bugs that would normally be handled
by a healthy ecosystem.
Up to 50% of nitrogen fertilizers
are washed away with rain and irrigation water,
a drastic pollution leading to an ocean dead zone
the size of New Jersey.
Contributing to dead zones are animal factory farms,
(cow mooing)
easily the most pollutive activity on the planet.
In the US, more than 1/3 of our fossil fuels,
1/2 of all water and 80% of our farmland
is used in the raising of animals
and the grain to feed them.
Most of these grains are genetically modified organisms.
Over 80% of GMOs are specifically engineered
to withstand higher doses
of a powerful chemical called glyphosate,
which the state of California
has officially labeled as carcinogenic.
The use of glyphosate has risen 10,000% since 1974.
Independent studies confirm contamination
of our food, air and even our rainwater
while extremely low doses have been shown
to cause liver and kidney damage,
with correlation to a host of other side effects.
In spite of public outcry,
the USDA, FDA and EPA require no testing
for the pollution of this chemical in our food supply.
The philosophy of using GMOs and glyphosate
is one of sterilization:
Kill everything except the crop,
the exact opposite of farming in ways
which regenerate soil and biodiversity.
- [Reporter] A worldwide rally
against genetically modified food giant Monsanto
is being held across the globe.
- [Woman] The first speaker is the youngest activist
in Orange County right now.
- [Reporter] Activists are protesting the use
of potentially harmful chemicals in food production,
something Monsanto says is the only way
to feed the globe's growing population.
- [Woman] We'll petition the Girl Scouts
for GMO-free cookies.
(crowd cheering) - Sign up the new
Girl Scouts of America.
Let's show the world what these cookies can really do.
- [Interviewer] I told you I had a special guest,
Alicia Serratos.
Alicia, how old are you?
- Seven.
- There was a newspaper article about it
and that we weren't selling cookies.
So then, that's when the council contacted me and said,
"Hey, let's discuss alternate ideas for fundraising."
Like this is awesome, we did it, you know?
It was like literally an ambush.
They had no intention of hearing any of our ideas.
It was support and promote or step down.
I felt betrayed.
Here I had put so much time into it and now they're saying,
"Sell the cookies or you're done."
- Dear Anna Marie Chavez, please make cookies without GMOs.
Whoever signed my petition, thank you.
- So you're trying to remove GMOs from Girl Scout cookies
and you've got a petition of 10,000 signatures.
- 15,000 signatures!
21,000 signatures.
It's been a year and a half and with your help,
we have 30,000 signatures!
♪ Bum bum bum ♪
- A box of Girl Scout cookies is not a political statement.
It is an investment in a girl and her dreams
and in your local communities
and in the leadership of tomorrow.
♪ Hey hey ♪
♪ Ho ho ♪
♪ GMOs have got to go ♪
♪ Hey hey ♪
(soft intriguing music)
- Part of making this farm a success
is to try to get enough revenue in here
to prove that a farm like this
can support two or three young men workin' on it.
And so we're struggling to find a way to make that work.
(soft intriguing music)
It's very easy to grow food.
It's not easy to grow superior food
and very nutrient-dense food
because you have to treat the soil properly.
But it's very easy to grow food.
And of course, there's always been an influx of food
from all over the planet, which we're competing with,
that was being flown in, you know,
from 1,500 to 5,000 miles away every day.
So for a small micro-farm like ours to compete,
we have to be very special.
(soft intriguing music)
Our total route right now is centered around
a radius of about 10 miles.
From harvest to the time everything's delivered
took about one hour,
truly farm-to-table in minutes.
- You would think that it's such an important part
of everyone's daily life experience that you would think
that people would actually care about what they eat.
Not only do they not know where their food comes from,
but they don't really care that much about it.
They don't think about it.
The trick is, the challenge is
to not only find resilient ways of farming
that build soil as opposed to depleting the soil,
that result in water stewardship and land stewardship,
but that also have an economic return.
If consumers don't actually make purchases
based upon their values,
then these sustainable farming practices
are gonna disappear.
If these farms can't survive, then consumers will have
no opportunity to buy anything based upon their values.
They'll simply have to buy
what the industrial food system gives them.
(soft intriguing music)
- [Rosario] Roughly 2,800 calories
for every human being on the planet
are produced every single day,
more than enough to feed the world right now.
What we have is a distribution problem.
The average bite of food travels over 1,500 miles
to make it to your grocery store.
Yet history shows in times of need,
we can effectively localize our food.
During Word War II, 20 million home gardens
produced 40% of the nation's food.
(soft intriguing music)
Today, demand for local food is on the rise.
US Farmers Markets have more than quadrupled
in the last 20 years.
Every effort, big or small, to localize food
in regenerative urban farms, school
and community gardens or your own backyard
helps displace our reliance
on destructive industrial agriculture.
Even new technologies like indoor vertical farming
help reduce our soil-sabotaging footprint.
Yet instead of supporting these efforts,
30 billion tax dollars artificially lower the price of food
grown in centralized, monocropped,
synthetically-fertilized toxic soils,
contributing to an estimated three trillion dollars
of environmental damage every single year.
We pick food before it's ripe, ship it all over the world,
and eventually a nutrient-depleted, contaminated product
makes it to our plate.
- When people ask me about how to fix our food system,
they always say, "You know, where is the center
"for this whole new food movement in the United States?"
and I always say (chuckles), "There isn't a center.
"It's happening everywhere at the same time."
And they said, "Well who is the figurehead of the movement?"
And I always say, "There is no figurehead.
"Because if you're talking about fixin' our food system
"by makin' it more local, the figurehead,
"the great leader is that person in your community."
(soft chime music) (birds chirping)
- All-in-all, we've now come to the point
after a little over two years
that we have a farm that's been proven out,
that actually could support three jobs,
that is now actually growing.
I mean, our revenues are starting to grow.
The restaurants around here are startin' to take notice
so I feel like we finally hit critical mass
and the critical mass was build it
and they will come for sure, but you gotta build it.
(soft serene music)
We still don't have a guarantee on how long we'll be here,
but it's allowed us a chance to light that fire.
I believe that we needed to light a small fire
and I think this is a very hot, small fire.
- [Reporter] One Orange County farmer
may have found the farm of the future.
Can you describe the taste of that spinach?
- So much flavor.
So much flavor.
Night and day from the bad stuff.
- [Reporter] Really?
- I've never tasted anything like it before.
I'm being perfectly honest
and the best strawberry I've ever tasted.
- Wow. - Okay.
(soft futuristic music)
- [Announcer] HyperSpace is a data visualization
that allows you to be involved in the creation
and translation of your design concepts.
The HyperSpace model uses a style.
- Actual units of HyperSpace Digitizing.
(chuckles softly) The GPH is an eight-sided thing.
This is a six-sided thing,
so we're very much into sacred geometry.
The application for the HyperSpace model,
they were really vast.
It eventually evolved into medical applications
creating models that were more organic-looking,
rather than things that were robotic.
Everybody was using computers
at that time to build spaceships.
And hardly ever you would see you know, a human heart.
It was kind of an interesting time
in the old days.
(soft soothing music)
- He's figured out a way to write code
to talk to nature to have nature tell him
as a system operator what it means
to maximize its gift to us.
I mean, it's brilliant.
It's absolutely brilliant.
And so he's harnessing what nature's doing
and you know, he laughs about it because he's so brilliant.
- Basically all we have to do
is emulate natural systems here and we can accelerate 'em.
So everything we're doing with the sequester of the carbon,
with the digestion of the algae,
those are all natural processes that are in a closed loop
and all we've done is figure out a way to accelerate it.
- I think it's the unique thing.
What I don't see in all the projects
is they don't close the loop.
- [Michael] Nobody closes the loop with the exhausts
and everything recycling, going back in.
- Carbon is our friend.
There's nothing wrong with carbon.
It's in what form it's in is what causes the problems
all the way across the spectrum.
You know, Michael's brilliant on that stuff.
- He just has an extraordinary ability
to synthesize information
from a variety of industries if you will,
agriculture and technology
and bring 'em together in new ways.
He's incredibly talented at that.
He's I think one of the best there is
and the Power House is a demonstration of that.
- We will either save ourselves
with stuff like this or we won't.
And if we don't, we don't deserve to be here.
(soft intriguing music)
- Half of this I believe
has been just downloaded into Michael
and it's bigger than any one of us.
- Michael's a unique individual.
We even had people come here
that wanted to look at the process.
They'd call him the mad scientist.
People ride by here and I'll bet his,
you couldn't even guess what's goin' on in there.
He goes, "I was thinkin' on the way here, Chuck."
I go, "I can tell that." (chuckles)
So you can tell when people's gears turn.
He's doin' multiple gears at a time.
- When you take a walk in the woods,
we watch nature's processes of what's going on
and then you walk through those doors, you know.
- This is where I say, "Welcome to Jurassic Park."
- It's pretty amazing actually.
It's pretty amazing.
It's basically what we're here to do is to work with nature.
I'm not quite sure nature had a partner like that
of anybody listening.
- [Rosario] The Green Power House requires
almost no additional input outside of what is already
being sent to landfills in astronomical amounts.
The GPH maintains an indoor tropical climate,
even growing bananas and pineapples
while Montana winters reach as low as -20 degrees outside,
providing a half acre of vertical grow space.
Plants can thrive in virtually any region on the planet.
Beyond powering 100 homes, the GPH's excess energy
can support dozens of additional greenhouses.
Now imagine GPHs all over the world
processing waste to power communities,
providing fresh local food, reversing climate change
and regenerating soil in virtually any environment.
- We're disrupting, which is kind of a scary concept,
but they're disrupting food, fuel and fertilizer
all in one little powerhouse, which to me,
represents the ultimate paradigm shift in agriculture.
I mean imagine now if these powerhouses could supply
local communities with 50, 60 greenhouses worth of produce
and they're all off-grid and they're all carbon negative.
I mean it just completely changes the way everything works.
It ultimately leads to energy independence,
food security, food independence.
I mean we the people are now taking it back
and I think that's an exciting proposition.
(soft serene music)
(birds chirping)
We just heard a rumor that there is a possibility
that we might lose our farm.
There's some talk about possibly putting in
some ice skating rinks or developing this area here
and that would be a real shame.
We just got it to the point where it's working
and spent a lotta money in quite a few years building it
and designing it.
I hope it doesn't happen,
but it happens a lot around here.
So it's probably one of the greatest problems
that farmers face is that land is too expensive
for them to buy and so you're not sure whether or not
you're gonna be moved off next year, next month or whatever.
So it's very hard where farmers are trying to grow food
on land that they don't own.
The city would make the call,
raise the priority to develop you know,
more access to local food or is it to build more condos?
And 'course in Orange County,
we've seen the answer to that story very clearly.
It's build more condos.
So we're sitting on pins and needles right now.
We're not sure what's gonna happen to our farm.
(soft serene music)
Well I've always grown my own food.
When I first started the Alegria Farm,
I started it here actually at the house.
I had 22 vertical towers here stacked all over the house.
We were raised on just amazingly fresh food.
My mother was the one who always taught me
that food was medicine.
And back then, I mean you know when you look back,
you realize that our food supply
actually hadn't been quite so tainted 40 years ago.
So that's part of what's goin' on now
is that we are dealing with much poorer soils
than we had 40 years ago
and hence the decrease in quality of the food.
- A soil is not inert.
It is a living colony, so complex organisms.
And as we lose habitats, biodiversity will go below
the threshold heretofore not yet known
where then the ecosystem begins to unravel.
- When you're deeply aware
of how the bees and the butterflies
are vital for your pollination,
when you're deeply aware
of how many soil organisms feed us,
you don't spray poisons that'll kill them.
- You can kick the can down the road
and you can put off those external costs,
which is what they're called;
costs that aren't factored into
the price that you see in the shelf.
You can push those external costs down the road.
But ultimately, that can comes to a stop.
These are nontrivial impacts
of the real costs of cheap food.
- We produce all that food, we get at the market.
We go in, we buy it, we take it home,
we refrigerate it until we throw it away.
And we throw it away rather than putting it in compost.
I mean at least we put it into compost,
you know, we could ameliorate some of that.
It's almost a sin.
(soft intriguing music)
- [Rosario] Over 97% of food waste ends up in landfills,
disconnecting the soil's natural nutrient cycle.
Millions of tons of organic matter rotting away
emitting greenhouse gases
like CO2, methane and nitrous oxide.
But what if something we literally treat as trash
became one of the planet's
most applicable resource solutions?
Composting can turn that food waste into new soil
but less than 3% of this resource is currently being used.
With backyard compost piles
or utilizing your city's green waste collection,
anyone and everyone can participate
to help store huge amounts of water, carbon
and returning vital nutrients to our soils
without the use of chemical fertilizers.
- Recycling's been taken place for a lotta years.
People know about recycling an aluminum can.
But when I was just a little girl,
my father told me, "It oughta be a crime
"to landfill anything organic."
Our soil is starving for organic matter.
What I love about what Erik is doing at Alegria Farms
is it's demonstrating what we know we can do
in a small space and it's a huge concentration
of organic material in the socks.
The fact that you can concentrate this amount of activity,
life in the soil around the roots of the plant
and then the plants can grow huge.
I mean who can't love a guy that makes a salad
right at the farm's table
that tastes better than anything you've ever had?
And by dinner time you're not hungry, why?
'Cause of the density of the nutrients.
- If we start refocusing some of our energies
on the importance of soil
and how soil can mitigate just about everything
including water quality and climate change,
that to me should become a curriculum
that should be as important in any science class in school
as anything else we're teaching.
(chuckles) You guys, this is fully-composted soil.
But look at that, anybody wanna smell this
and smell how good it smells?
- No. - Eww.
- No. - No, smell it.
- Eww.
- Smells good, doesn't it? - Yeah.
- What does it smell like?
- Just dirt.
- Like a forest?
- Yeah. - Can I smell?
- Smell it.
It smells fresh, doesn't it? - A roly-poly.
- There becomes a thing I think when you teach children
when they're young that it becomes a nurturing instinct
and everybody's got it.
If you don't learn it when you're young,
then it's kind of intimidating when you get older.
To have access to great food requires us
to take care of the resources that produce that food
and to teach kids how important it is to rebuild and compost
and understand the connection to nature and how soil works
to create their food supply.
It all is connected together.
Thank you, all right?
You keep teachin' everybody 'bout food, okay?
You be the spokesman, all right.
(soft serene music)
(car horns honking)
(soft rock music)
- [Alicia] We're tryin' to change Girl Scout cookies,
so they're healthier.
And right now, we have at least 45,000 signatures.
- I tried to schedule a meeting with Girl Scouts.
They ended up saying, "Yes, we'll meet you."
You know, she got excited when I said,
"Oh, they're gonna meet with us."
Maybe she doesn't know the gravity of her actions
and maybe she doesn't really understand
how big a deal it is.
It was just inspiring to me.
- Juliette Low said, "Right is right,
"even if no one else does it."
So that's why I'm here today delivering my petition.
GMOs are genetically modified organisms.
There has been no long-term testing done
and they could be harmful.
It's time to do the right thing
and get GMOs out of the cookies.
Thank you.
- You did really good.
I'm proud of you. (smooches)
And then last minute,
they decided that they weren't gonna meet us.
They said that the representative
that was gonna be meeting us was going to be in a meeting.
(soft intriguing music)
- At Girl Scouts, we stand for giving girls
the opportunity to develop into strong,
confident, courageous adults
who are committed to making the world a better place.
- [Monica] Everything kind of had to be focused
around this one meeting, that now wasn't happening.
She said, "Well, that's okay.
"We can go anyway."
(soft intriguing music)
Hi, we wanted to come up to the Shop.
Monica Serratos.
I mean, they obviously knew about the petition.
They know who Alicia is.
We've sent a lotta letters.
- Excuse me.
You need the phone?
- I'm on hold for Girl Scouts.
- Well you'll just have to (speaks faintly).
- They hung up on me.
They were expecting us,
so they know what our intentions were.
Hi, I just called.
We're tryin' to go up to the Shop.
That's okay.
Okay.
Oh perfect.
Okay, thanks.
You wanna hold onto that.
It's heavy, I know.
And then that is your gift for Anna Maria-Chavez.
- Mama, you know what? - What?
- They coulda seen out the window.
- Oh, maybe.
- They took your name? - Yes.
- [Man] Okay, go over there and give him your name
and he's going to give you a pass.
- Okay. - Then you'll go up.
- I know, it gets heavy.
Girl Scout Shop.
- Last name? - Serottos.
- You just called, right? - Yeah.
- [Man] You're not on their list.
- Okay.
So close.
I have to wait.
They didn't put my name on there.
It's a big part of my daughter's childhood.
It would've been a cool experience
to go up and see what happens at headquarters.
But unfortunately, we were denied that privilege.
Do you think they're gonna send somebody down?
- [Woman] No, she called it right.
They saw you out the window and they've sized it up.
They're just gonna freeze you out.
- For them not to take the time to listen to my daughter,
it's heartbreaking.
Here I am representing Girl Scouts
and then to be denied, even to get up into the Shop
or to have someone sit down
and listen to one of their own Girl Scouts.
It is, it's heartbreaking and it's frustrating.
I don't know,
it makes me question the organization sometimes.
(somber cello music)
And you know, I have a lot of friends that say you know,
"They're not doing what you feel is right nutritionally
"with selling the cookies
"or not listening to your daughter."
"Why don't you find another organization or start your own?"
And for me, there's so many things about Girl Scouts
that I do like that I think are beneficial for all girls.
And instead of walking away from it,
I feel like I can set an example for my kids
and my Girl Scouts by staying in it
and trying to make a change just like Alicia's doing.
(sirens wailing)
- [Man] It's the 24th of January, 2015,
12:41 p.m..
I'm out at the GPH, which caught on fire this morning
at proximate four a.m.
and the GPH was a total loss.
- Adam de Yong, chief operating officer
of Algae Aqua-Culture Technologies.
- [Man] Are we good to continue?
- The GPH has been completely lost.
Hopefully we'll be able to salvage the foundation,
but the rest of the structure is gone
as you can see in the background behind me.
You know, we were makin' a really hard push.
We had a six-month goal to support all of our own salaries
and operations here so it'd be self-sustaining
and then continue to try and sell the technology.
But really prove the value of the products
that we're producing,
which have proven to be very valuable in trials
where everybody's tried 'em.
But that's no longer feasible.
(poignant piano music)
(fire crackling)
(ax cracking)
- One night last Friday,
fitful sleep; I couldn't sleep.
I'm laying there.
I'm half going in and out.
And around four, 4:30 a.m., the telephone rings
and I knew it could not be good news.
It happened to be the manager of the mill
and he was on the phone.
He goes, "Oh Michael, I'm so sorry."
You know, "But the Green Power House has burned down.
"It's a total loss."
And I was like you know,
shock.
You know, you feel the physical shock.
You actually feel the numbness in your hands
and you're going how could that possibly be
that we could've lost this thing?
Because it was such a you know, vibrant dynamic thing.
For me, it was difficult thinking
well, what in there is combustible, you know?
I'm going you know, what could possibly burn in there?
(poignant piano music)
Still unclear on how the fire got started, you know?
I don't wanna say that we saw people
running around in the field with coveralls on.
(laughs) You know?
I'm sorry, cut that out.
You know, what actually was burning in there?
That was the question I have.
(poignant piano music)
There's a possibility, you know?
There are people that don't necessarily
wanna see bioenergy be successful,
but I can't say you know, there was anybody involved.
So
hopefully
(sighs) we'll recover from this.
(poignant piano music)
I'm not one for conspiracy theories, you know?
And that's not where I like to go.
I always like to think there's a good scientific explanation
for everything.
But right now, I can't see the scientific explanation
behind what happened.
(poignant piano music)
Oh my god.
Look at that.
The remnants of the GBH.
The dragon in the dragon's lair, that's perfectly fine.
The one thing that you would think would burn
(chuckles) because of the heat.
- [Man] Yeah, I'm gonna need your name.
- [Michael] My name is Michael Smith.
- [Man] Hey Brad, he says his name is Michael Smith.
- [Brad] Nice.
I know the name.
- [Man] I was the one that saw the fire, that noticed it.
- You turned it in? - Yup, yeah.
I saw the flames comin' up in a perfect square.
I say, "Call the fire department.
"It's a structure fire.
"It looks like the AACT building is on fire."
They had a lotta water on this fire really quick.
They did a good job.
- But obviously they couldn't save any of the structure.
- Right.
It had come through the roof of the building
and when it vented air in, it just took off after that.
- Wow. - Yup.
- Okay, well thank you for your time.
("Someone You'd Admire" by Fleet Foxes)
♪ After ♪
- It's like a person who's died in your life.
You called her.
You talked to every day and now that person is unavailable.
It was more than just a building
that represented sort of an ecological system.
And when it went away it was like,
well what am I gonna do today?
Oh man, I remember you know, every beam.
Every piece of that unistrut going up, all of that.
It is unbelievable.
There's nothing salvageable here other than the concepts.
The official report is that
you know, it had to do with some biochar
that was not completely extinguished.
It was on the outside.
But
you know looking at the BTU rating
of charcoal versus the devastation we're looking here
and the amount of heat that needed to be generated,
I'm a little suspicious.
♪ One of them ♪
♪ Wants only to be someone ♪
♪ You'd admire ♪
♪ One would as soon ♪
♪ Just throw you on the fire ♪
- Wow, look at this.
This is a device that's meant to withstand
the combustion of a car engine.
Look what's happened to the metal in there.
It's completely melted,
so we know the heat in there got to be pretty intense.
I kept feeling like there's a block about going forward
and now that roadblock is gone, but the road is also gone.
So now we can go straight up if we want.
(singers vocalizing)
(snow crunching)
- "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger."
That old saying (chuckles) is comin' pretty true right now.
(soft guitar music)
We just got notice they are going to replace our farm
with skating rinks.
Two professional NHL skating rinks and two community rinks.
So we're gonna freeze water
and provide more entertainment for people
and we're gonna get rid of the farm.
(soft guitar music) (birds chirping)
And you know, we live in such an entitled region.
And I think you know,
most of the time when it comes to technology,
California's way ahead.
But I think we're sorely behind the country
when it comes to this movement
and it's because people think they're safe out here.
You look at the big picture, nobody's safe.
A small earthquake that splits the 5 freeway
here in Orange County one inch,
the trucks don't roll for two months.
Every city has about four days food supply.
Where's the food gonna come from?
And there's really not a lot of education
or people wanting to do the research.
They really don't wanna know the answer.
It's kinda like ignorance is bliss.
Yeah, I am a little frustrated
and that's part of what drives me.
But it's not a frustration, I'm not angry.
I'm very much a realist.
I knew goin' in that this was fighting up a river.
I also knew that it was worth everything
I could do to throw it at it.
It's sad in a way,
but it's good because it's a reality check.
Where are we headed?
I mean, where are we really goin'?
And I think that's gonna be defined by the political will
and it's gonna be defined even more
by where we set our priorities.
'Bout 2010, my brother's young boy Aiden
had an autoimmune disease pop up
and this was a really tough one.
Both kidneys were about on the verge of failure
and they were dumping proteins into the blood.
And there's no question that I believe
that is was a poor food, poor diet.
Too much salt, oil and sugar in the diet.
They were just eating too much garbage.
And so this little boy's immune system just collapsed
and next time I saw him, he was in a hospital
all hooked up with pipes.
I mean, I actually was pissed.
I mean, I have to admit that was the feeling.
I was mad.
And I thought, mad at my brother.
And of course my brother and I didn't talk for a year
'cause he knew I blamed him for it.
But I was also mad at myself because I said you know,
I gotta get out there now
and start teaching people how to do this
'cause I know how to do it and that was the moment
that triggered me to do it.
You know, a lotta people talk about it.
But you gotta go out and do it
and that's really how it all started.
(poignant piano music)
- And being up here now and being part of this company
and all the work that's gone into it is
it's doing something that I believe in
and I know that everyone that I'm working with believes in.
It's doing something that I think can change the world.
(guests whistling and chattering)
(bottles clinking)
- [Robin] The vision for tonight
was to just connect and share you know,
your memories and impressions about
what the GBH meant to you.
(guests applauding)
- I just wanted to say that I remember very well
all of those days lifting panels, soldering,
welding and I'm going hey, I'm a computer scientist.
- Everybody, even today.
We gave so much conversation here today about the future.
- The phoenix is rising.
We're on a big ride.
You know, we're still a small pore.
But you know, I think we're just ready to expand
and take things to the next level.
(somber piano music)
- And I personally invite you to help us save the future
for the next one that we build.
- So that we're all able to realize that
and see the next one, so thank you all.
(guests applauding)
- If you know the history,
we got grants from the Department of Agriculture.
I actually think that's what's held us up.
I mean, these are you know, feds
that are supposed to be wantin' to do this
and there was no followup and kinda wondered
where'd they go and why?
Everybody's in the same game,
then you put this in and it threatens the game.
They were doing economic development for the Pacific Rim.
So they threw an expo of technologies
that would affect that.
'Course every technology applied.
All the new stuff was out there and you know,
we just put an application in.
I mean, we were picked out of you know, thousands.
That unto itself speaks volumes.
Okay so put everybody's cards on the table
and then you pick the ones
that you want to see change the world and you're one of 'em.
You have to say somebody got it.
Everybody just was crazy about it
and that just never went anywhere.
And once again, the feds were involved.
(chuckles) You know what I mean?
So just sayin' when you get the big boys involved,
somewhere in a board meeting
somebody's goin', "Free energy?"
Yeah, maybe.
You know, free fuel.
(chuckles) You know what I mean?
This isn't gonna work.
This won't help us and they think that's true.
- You know, thinking about the fire.
If it was arson and I'm not saying that it is.
If it was, that sucks.
However, he's hit about every challenge I can conceive
and I'm sure there's tons that are out there
that I can't conceive, but he just keeps goin'.
(soft intriguing music)
- Six years of my life has just been
you know I can't say wasted, but
it's gone.
- You know, it was depressing.
But then
you know, what we have is each other.
- Michael and I have put everything they make into it.
I mean she's recyclin' and takin' the recycle money
and puttin' back into it, so you know what I mean?
It's really that.
- It was hard to go out there.
I didn't go out there for three months.
There's no way I could just go look at the rubble.
- Yeah, here's some old GPH scrap here.
- When we saw that this project was gonna consume our lives,
it's like we nicknamed it our energy baby.
He's just got this spirit that you see in his eyes.
It was a love-at-first-sight kinda thing.
- It puts stress on a relationship.
Occasionally we lose our minds,
start screaming top of our lungs running off into the woods.
Just you know, why are we doing this, you know?
Anybody else would've given up by now.
Suddenly our source of revenue,
our revenue stream just disappeared on us
and that put a lot of undue pressure on the company.
Until we get the system up and running again,
it's gonna be quite a struggle to make this all work.
♪ We all dream ♪
♪ The same dream ♪
♪ We all ♪
- Our society as a whole has a need of a soul healing.
This is the reason I think we have so many problems
in society today is that we have these souls that yearn.
In 1985, I was completely bereft.
It was a February day and it was raining.
I had gone to a job interview and been turned down again.
And I was in a suit.
I really felt as though society
had deemed me a marginal person
and wandered fruitlessly.
I knew I had to change, but I didn't know what was changing.
I didn't know how it was gonna change.
And I had parked in a parking lot for a community garden.
(soft piano music)
I got out of the car in the rain
and walked through that garden.
There was a feeling of such hopelessness and despair
that there was no reason to continue.
There was no reason to go on.
And yet walking through that garden
somehow reaffirmed my worth because I knew these plants
and these plants were talking to me.
♪ We all dream ♪
♪ The same dream ♪
(singers vocalizing)
♪ We all dream ♪
♪ The same dream ♪
- I reached out to the Girl Scouts
and they still haven't gotten back to me.
You never know what could be happening there.
What trouble could be happening.
They're either busy or they're just not listening,
but we're still gonna keep trying.
- Hi, Alicia.
How you doin'?
Cannot have food security if you cannot be seed-secure.
- I met David King and he talked to me about
how seeds are really important.
- These people are telling us
that they're gonna feed the world, right?
With less diversity than what we had before.
And that's not the way towards abundance,
that's the way towards starvation.
- Some seeds have already gone extinct
because people aren't saving 'em.
And if we don't save seeds and all of 'em are gone,
we won't have food.
- Anytime you engage nature in a fight, you're losing.
You're going to lose sooner or later.
And look it, we got super weeds now.
We've got super insects now.
These people inventing these GMOs, were they creationists?
Did they think that the bugs and the insects
weren't going to change?
Good grief, no.
That's why I think having a seed library
where the seeds are growin' out
year after year, they respond.
There's a dance in nature where the plant gets better,
the weeds get better, insects get better.
The plant gets better, the weeds get better,
the insects get better and that evolution is important
and it's important for our food.
It's important for the entire balance of things.
- The amount of extension that's going on
in seed variety is unprecedented.
Now that's the source of our agricultural diversity.
That's the source of our food security.
Especially the time of global climate change.
If the biotech industry has their way,
they eliminate that diversity
and put the entire food security at risk for greater profit.
- So we are creating a food scarcity system
in the name of providing food.
My own work is at the level of ecological science.
I look at farming systems as a whole,
how biodiversity produces more nutrition
when you save the seeds and grow the foods.
- What do you think?
You wanna start a seed library at your school?
- Mm-hmm. - Is that something
you think you could be in charge of?
- Yeah. - Yeah?
- [Vandana] You can destroy everything.
You can take away our books and our writings
and destroy our cultures.
You can kill every tree 'til no bird,
no insect can find a place to hide.
You can do that and more.
I do not fear your tyranny.
I do not despair ever because I saved one seed
which I will sow and plant again.
- Everybody thinks water's the biggest problem we have
and oil, right?
That's what you always hear.
We got big energy problems.
Well what's the most important energy
that you guys are dealing with every day?
The most important, what is it called?
Food.
So what's the problem with our food today?
Anybody know?
Okay, it's not healthy.
That's a really great answer.
It travels so far most of the time that it's dead.
You guys are all young and you guys are being subjected
to a food supply that's in bags
and you know, it's not natural.
You're hardly ever eating food that you just pick
you know, right out of a good clean soil
that has high nutrition in it,
so this system actually allows you to do that.
So we can lay these out over the top of cement.
We can put 'em on a parking lot.
There's about 40 square miles
of unused land in Orange County
and Los Angeles County right now.
Unused.
- The whole idea for the garden I think came from
just wanting access to better nutrition.
I just thought school garden would be cool.
- Rather than selling Girl Scout cookies,
they had raised money already
for a future school garden.
- I drew some examples of what we should get with the money.
So when it was grass,
we had to figure out where the the bed would go.
- The suggestion of the city of Mission Viejo
was let's just spray it with Roundup.
And so obviously we said,
"That's not gonna work for our organic garden."
We're able to break ground and got some beds in there
and little-by-little it's just kinda grown.
- [Erik] What are the things that plants need?
- Air. - Air,
sun,
water and what's the last one?
Nutrients, you just hit it.
And by the way, four things that our own bodies need, right?
So look at this soil and pretend it's your blood.
Whatever's in that soil,
soon as you eat that plant, it's in your blood.
We're goin' to teach you to fish.
We're not gonna give you a fish and guess what?
When you guys learn this, you're gonna be independent.
You're gonna be safe, kay?
That's total security when you guys know
how to grow your own food.
- And then now, we have the garden.
People are having a good experience with it.
(soft vocal music)
- When I see our garden space,
it makes me think like this is just a mini little world
that we created here on campus
when I see the butterflies flying around
or when I see a hummingbird or the bee,
it's just a whole completely different picture
than just growing food.
There's nothing that's ever gonna compare to like
saying your child or you helped plant a seed
and you watched it grow and I ate it.
Nothing really compares to that.
That's something that money can't buy.
We give to the plants and the plants give to us
and I think it's remembering that cycle and remembering that
it's not the world and nature and then us.
We have to mutually live together.
Because the fact is if we forget that,
there's gonna come a point in time
where we're gonna destroy that.
(singers vocalizing)
(soft soothing music)
- We have to keep goin'.
We have to keep pushing forward on this, you know?
You can see right now, the planetary systems are in trouble.
At this point in my life, I kinda look at it
and I go, wow I can't imagine doing anything else.
Tell you the truth.
So you're like what, I'm gonna go back and make video games?
I mean, how meaningful is that?
(chuckles) Right?
Let's go make a whole bunch of money.
How meaningful is that when you can't eat
or there's no water, you know?
It's crazy.
(soft intriguing music)
- There's hard work that needs to be done
and it's not pretty, but it needs to be done.
Those alert enough among us are obligated to help.
You don't get points for doin' the right thing
and that's the right thing.
Just have to do it.
- Many cases, it's just as simple as
becoming more connected to your community,
thinking more locally
and realizing that every community has assets,
whether it's people or organizations
or even resources that they can draw on
to find solutions.
- So what's happening now with Internet
and with independent media
is people are realizing that they're not alone
and that these fantastic values community-based
and proper agriculture, et cetera, et cetera.
They're all actually on the rise
enormously around the planet.
- The rule of evolution is those organisms
that are gonna adapt to change, triumph.
Listen, all hands on deck.
Not only just of humans,
but it's very important that we preserve biodiversity
because biodiversity is biosecurity.
So keeping that all in balance is the eloquent dance
that we have to be involved in
as we dance across the landscapes through our lives.
- [Rosario] The future of our food system is in our hands.
Agriculture can either erode our planet
to the point of no return
or it can become a regenerative force to heal our soils,
restore ecosystems and create true food security.
The actions taken within the next few years
will have ramifications lasting for generations.
- In life, the phrase "It's too late," doesn't work.
Life is about renewal.
Life is about healing.
Life is about bursting forth again and again and again.
(inspirational orchestral music)
- [David] I look around I see children
and I think that we got to try for them.
- Take a couple.
- You know and the
honest truth is that as long as
I can breathe, there's a reason to try.
If it can be averted or even partially averted,
what comes after me?
I owe that to them.
- [Rosario] Solutions and opportunities
are happening everywhere.
People from all walks of life are shopping organic,
supporting local regenerative farmers
and even growing some of their own food.
Whether you have lots of land,
a small backyard or even just a balcony,
solutions like vertical farming,
composting,
biochar,
seed saving
and school gardens are all ways
to protect and support our planet's soils.
- [Erik] I'm lookin' at the connection
of soil health equals human health equals planet health.
(soft inspirational music)
The solution is access to nutrient-dense food.
But there are very few places
where people can actually see, taste, feel, participate
in interactive farm if you will, that makes that connection.
- [Alicia] I just wanted the world to be a better place
and it's kind of exciting to see that stuff is changing.
(soft inspirational music)
- [Michael] What else do we have to do
that's of any importance?
Now what kind of legacy do we wanna leave behind
for the future generations?
- [Rosario] With only 60 years of farmable soil remaining,
how to feed the world without destroying the earth
is truly the issue of our time.
To say that we care about the future of this planet,
to say that we care about the survival of our species
and to not take action is simply no longer an option.
As active participants in our interconnected food ecosystem,
we each have the power
to help heal this planet we call home.
Everybody eats and everybody can be part of the solution.
- [Michael] It was never about this one system.
It was about demonstrating an example
of how we can take care of ourselves and the planet.
("Saeglopur" by Sigur Ros)
(singer singing foreign language)
It's really about presenting a way of thinking
in terms of closed-loop renewable systems.
We need energy, we need food
and we can live in harmony with the planet.
I believe we can.
There is an urgency to the situation
we're facing on this planet.
A lot of us can see it.
We know it, we feel it,
but it seems like it's overwhelming.
But we can solve these problems.
It's not too late.
We can do much better.
(soft inspirational music)
(singers vocalizing)
(intriguing orchestral music)
♪ We all dream ♪
♪ The same dream ♪
♪ We all dream ♪
♪ The same dream ♪
(intriguing piano music)