The Nature of Nature: The Metabolic Disorder of Climate Change

Four billion years ago the earth was a hot, lifeless planet. Through evolution, the earth and her biodiversity reduced the carbon rich atmosphere of the planet from 4,000 ppm to 250 ppm; and her temperature from290°C, without life, to 13°C, with biodiversity. And 200,000 years ago, she created the conditions for our species to evolve.

In an age of climate catastrophes and extinction, we need to turn to the earth and to plants to learn, once again, how to live sustainably on earth, and sow the seeds of hope, the seeds of the future. Proposals put forward by Big Ag and Big Tech to solve the intertwined climate and food crises will exacerbate both, says the acclaimed environmental thinker, activist and writer, Vandana Shiva. Her detailed unpacking of the promises made by technology-oriented, lab-intensive digital agriculture reveals the dangers posed by fake and ultra-ultra-processed foods—to the environment; to increasing greenhouse gas emissions; to the health of animals; and to our health and food security.

Food is the currency of life. The food web weaves the web of life, in co-operation and mutuality with the earth and nature. When this interdependence is ruptured the conditions for what the author calls the ‘metabolic disorder’ for climate change come into being. Shiva argues powerfully for a food and climate future based on the regeneration of biodiversity, in partnership with the biosphere.