Climate change is the most significant problem in our time. Every day we hear dire warnings about the state of our planet as natural disasters sweep across the globe. The news is terrifying, but Kiss The Ground, a documentary on Netflix, offers a possible solution: save the soil, and we might be able to save ourselves.
Cast With A Conscience
The doc is narrated by Woody Harrelson, who admits he’s fearful of where the world is heading and has just about given up hope of fixing what we’ve done. I think we can all relate to how he’s feeling.
Other celebrities with environmental consciences join Harrelson, like Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen, Jason Mraz, and more. But the real stars of the show are the slew of experts, farmers, and regenerative ranchers who are dedicating their lives to ensure a future for our children.
Ray Archuleta is a conservation agronomist who travels across the United States, meeting farmers. He believes that social problems and a lack of education are blocking us from solving environmental issues. For example, Archuleta says our major food producers don’t understand soil.
Education Is Key
Soil contains microorganisms, an entire universe of life right underneath our feet. That universe works to sequester carbon.
But after years of tilling the earth and spraying it with chemicals to grow food crops, the soil can no longer absorb moisture and carbon, releasing it into the atmosphere instead. Soil erodes and turns into dust, a process called “desertification.”
Every year, 40 million people are forced off their land because their soil is no longer adequate. By 2050, one billion people will be refugees of soil desertification.
And the United Nations estimates we only have about six decades of topsoil left. Kiss The Ground puts it simply: we only have 60 harvests left. After that, we’re done.
Scared Yet?
There is a way out, and the documentary introduces us to real people working in genuine ways to reverse climate change. People like regenerative ranchers raising cattle responsibly, practicing rotational grazing and permaculture. Or farmers who understand the value of cover crops and the need for a radical reduction in pesticides, GMOs, and other synthetic inputs.
The documentary helps viewers understand that renewable energies and electric vehicles will help balance the climate, but those efforts aren’t enough.
Soil regeneration is the solution. Making the earth healthy again will lead to annual reductions in carbon in the upper atmosphere. Then what do we get? Global cooling. Imagine that?
It’s Up To Us
We can achieve regeneration in our lifetimes. We don’t have any other choice.
Watch Kiss The Ground on Netflix and then tell your friends and family to do the same. We can’t depend on governments to do it for us. We need to lead the way.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Need To Grow is another excellent documentary explaining the urgent need for soil regeneration.