00:00:01.003 --> 00:00:04.732
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:11.063 --> 00:00:13.985
[EXPLOSION]

00:00:17.910 --> 00:00:22.130
Since the beginning of
time, of all the planets

00:00:22.130 --> 00:00:26.040
and all the galaxies
of the known universe,

00:00:26.040 --> 00:00:31.230
only one has a living,
breathing skin, called dirt.

00:00:41.667 --> 00:00:44.152
[EXPLOSION]

00:00:48.128 --> 00:00:50.350
All the silicon
and aluminum that

00:00:50.350 --> 00:00:53.000
are the basis of the
framework of the soil, all

00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:56.750
the carbon in the humus,
the magnesium, the sodium,

00:00:56.750 --> 00:01:01.690
the calcium, all of that
is made in stars very

00:01:01.690 --> 00:01:04.239
different from our
star, very far away,

00:01:04.239 --> 00:01:07.540
and has probably been recycled
through dozens of stars

00:01:07.540 --> 00:01:09.540
before it got to us.

00:01:09.540 --> 00:01:13.910
We are made of the same
five basic elements

00:01:13.910 --> 00:01:16.440
that the Earth is made of.

00:01:16.440 --> 00:01:21.600
The living organisms on
Earth have used the very same

00:01:21.600 --> 00:01:24.440
molecules over and over again.

00:01:24.440 --> 00:01:27.670
Not just the same types of
molecules, but the very same

00:01:27.670 --> 00:01:29.240
molecules.

00:01:29.240 --> 00:01:32.210
Dirt is very much alive.

00:01:32.210 --> 00:01:35.640
Probably has in it
all of the kingdoms

00:01:35.640 --> 00:01:39.492
of life, from the tiniest
bacteria to the fungi

00:01:39.492 --> 00:01:42.560
and the algae, the slime molds.

00:01:42.560 --> 00:01:46.170
With the amount of species that
live in a teaspoon of dirt,

00:01:46.170 --> 00:01:48.117
I think it's very
obvious dirt might

00:01:48.117 --> 00:01:49.200
be more alive than we are.

00:02:01.270 --> 00:02:05.300
About 4 and 1/2 billion
years ago, the Earth

00:02:05.300 --> 00:02:10.130
was a fiery ball of molten rock.

00:02:10.130 --> 00:02:13.324
Volcanoes punched
through the surface,

00:02:13.324 --> 00:02:14.990
showering minerals
from the Earth's core

00:02:14.990 --> 00:02:18.621
and spewing water vapor
that turned into rain.

00:02:18.621 --> 00:02:21.076
[THUNDER]

00:02:21.076 --> 00:02:27.050
For millions of years,
rain pounded rock into clay

00:02:27.050 --> 00:02:29.640
and formed the oceans
where life began.

00:02:33.040 --> 00:02:35.750
Microscopic life
oozed from the sea

00:02:35.750 --> 00:02:38.810
and onto the land, where
it mixed with the clay,

00:02:38.810 --> 00:02:41.225
creating the first living dirt.

00:02:48.670 --> 00:02:53.410
Countless cycles of birth and
death, fertility and decay,

00:02:53.410 --> 00:02:57.817
transformed this dirt into
the matrix of life on Earth.

00:03:03.600 --> 00:03:06.890
When humans arrived
two million years ago,

00:03:06.890 --> 00:03:08.600
everything changed for dirt.

00:03:08.600 --> 00:03:13.660
And from that moment on,
the fate of dirt and humans

00:03:13.660 --> 00:03:15.250
has been intimately linked.

00:03:20.190 --> 00:03:24.260
We think that diamonds
are very important, gold

00:03:24.260 --> 00:03:27.575
is very important, all these
minerals are very important.

00:03:27.575 --> 00:03:30.250
We call them precious minerals.

00:03:30.250 --> 00:03:34.060
But they all forms of the soil.

00:03:34.060 --> 00:03:39.410
But that part of this
mineral that is on top,

00:03:39.410 --> 00:03:45.650
like it is the skin
of the Earth, that

00:03:45.650 --> 00:03:49.130
is the most precious
of the commons.

00:03:49.130 --> 00:03:50.760
Our wealth is imaginary.

00:03:50.760 --> 00:03:52.660
It comes from soil.

00:03:52.660 --> 00:03:55.990
If we don't take care of the
soil, which is just the first 5

00:03:55.990 --> 00:04:00.980
centimeter layer of life
that is on the Earth,

00:04:00.980 --> 00:04:04.330
our future is totally condemned.

00:04:04.330 --> 00:04:07.830
We take the soil for
granted, because it's there.

00:04:07.830 --> 00:04:12.240
It's everywhere,
except when all of it

00:04:12.240 --> 00:04:16.089
has been taken by the wind
or by the running water,

00:04:16.089 --> 00:04:20.079
and then you are
left with bare rock.

00:04:20.079 --> 00:04:23.624
And you realize you can't do
very much with the bare rock.

00:04:26.230 --> 00:04:28.660
A lovely mild, sweet aroma.

00:04:28.660 --> 00:04:32.620
And it has so much
diverse life in it.

00:04:32.620 --> 00:04:35.870
A handful of terrestrial
dirt contains

00:04:35.870 --> 00:04:39.560
more organized information
than the surface

00:04:39.560 --> 00:04:41.920
of all the other known planets.

00:04:45.150 --> 00:04:48.400
Contains more
organized information

00:04:48.400 --> 00:04:52.280
than the surface of all
the other known planets.

00:04:52.280 --> 00:04:56.690
This much soil probably
has in it tens of billions

00:04:56.690 --> 00:04:58.480
of microorganisms.

00:04:58.480 --> 00:05:01.205
And they're all living
together, some in cooperation,

00:05:01.205 --> 00:05:02.830
some in competition.

00:05:02.830 --> 00:05:04.880
So they have
tremendous strategies

00:05:04.880 --> 00:05:07.230
for living with each other
and getting rid of each other

00:05:07.230 --> 00:05:08.938
and making their own
space in the ground.

00:05:15.970 --> 00:05:20.430
The idea that they're
just microorganisms,

00:05:20.430 --> 00:05:24.702
just stupid dirt, is stupid.

00:05:24.702 --> 00:05:27.960
What we often call
dirt, the stuff

00:05:27.960 --> 00:05:31.150
we're trying to wash of our
car or wash off your driveways,

00:05:31.150 --> 00:05:32.615
are really the
soils and sediments

00:05:32.615 --> 00:05:36.500
that are vital to keeping
our biosphere healthy, which

00:05:36.500 --> 00:05:38.330
is all about keeping
the plants and animals

00:05:38.330 --> 00:05:40.030
and ourselves alive.

00:05:40.030 --> 00:05:42.110
Dirt is a really
strong, living word.

00:05:42.110 --> 00:05:46.770
It's a word like house,
wrath, feet, [BLEEP].

00:05:46.770 --> 00:05:50.260
It's a word that has
flavor to it in your mouth.

00:05:50.260 --> 00:05:52.400
And it's a word that's
about relationships.

00:05:52.400 --> 00:05:54.830
Kids don't go to
play in the soil.

00:05:54.830 --> 00:05:56.395
They go to play in the dirt.

00:05:56.395 --> 00:06:00.850
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:06:21.640 --> 00:06:23.600
As we walk through
the landscape,

00:06:23.600 --> 00:06:27.120
not only are the birds
aware and the bears and all

00:06:27.120 --> 00:06:28.790
the other animals
in this forest,

00:06:28.790 --> 00:06:31.653
all the microbes in the soil
are aware of our presence.

00:06:42.822 --> 00:06:44.280
We're deep in the
old-growth forest

00:06:44.280 --> 00:06:46.180
at the end of the
trail that's called

00:06:46.180 --> 00:06:47.910
the Trail that Time Forgot.

00:06:47.910 --> 00:06:50.520
And here I sit amongst
these giant spruce trees

00:06:50.520 --> 00:06:52.630
that have grown over the years.

00:06:52.630 --> 00:06:54.830
They're probably 300
to 400 years of age,

00:06:54.830 --> 00:06:57.120
120 to 160 feet high.

00:07:00.010 --> 00:07:01.760
This old-growth forest
comes from the soil

00:07:01.760 --> 00:07:03.870
that's so thin beneath my feet.

00:07:03.870 --> 00:07:06.830
The soil was originated
after the last ice

00:07:06.830 --> 00:07:08.647
age 10,000 years ago.

00:07:08.647 --> 00:07:10.480
When the glaciers
receded, they scraped away

00:07:10.480 --> 00:07:12.550
most of the soil
down to barren rock.

00:07:12.550 --> 00:07:14.130
Small lenses of soil survived.

00:07:14.130 --> 00:07:18.820
And in these lenses, trees and
small shrubs began to grow.

00:07:18.820 --> 00:07:21.470
But the soil was so thin,
they climaxed, they fell over.

00:07:21.470 --> 00:07:23.920
The fungi rotted in the
soil, became a little deeper,

00:07:23.920 --> 00:07:25.780
the lens got a little larger.

00:07:25.780 --> 00:07:27.360
Next succession would occur.

00:07:27.360 --> 00:07:29.480
And again and again
and again, these cycles

00:07:29.480 --> 00:07:33.550
of renewal, decomposition, soil
building, soil becomes thick.

00:07:33.550 --> 00:07:35.550
And as the soil
becomes thicker, it

00:07:35.550 --> 00:07:38.390
increases in its ability
to support biodiversity.

00:07:38.390 --> 00:07:40.150
Let me pull this back.

00:07:43.350 --> 00:07:45.980
You can see the mycelium
is all underneath.

00:07:45.980 --> 00:07:47.665
These are the
interface organisms

00:07:47.665 --> 00:07:48.860
between life and death.

00:07:48.860 --> 00:07:52.390
And as they decompose the
wood, they generate soil.

00:07:52.390 --> 00:07:56.060
This cobwebby growth then
erupts into a mushroom.

00:07:56.060 --> 00:07:59.780
Spores spread, and satellite
communities appear distant

00:07:59.780 --> 00:08:01.700
from the mushroom
from which it sprang.

00:08:01.700 --> 00:08:05.230
This is the way of fungi.

00:08:05.230 --> 00:08:07.530
All soils in the
world are infused

00:08:07.530 --> 00:08:09.500
with these mycelial mats.

00:08:09.500 --> 00:08:12.410
This is what the
entire soil is made of.

00:08:12.410 --> 00:08:13.740
It's made of mycelium.

00:08:13.740 --> 00:08:17.180
And as it decomposes the wood
material and plant material,

00:08:17.180 --> 00:08:18.880
it becomes dirt.

00:08:18.880 --> 00:08:22.400
Mycelium makes dirt.

00:08:22.400 --> 00:08:24.790
Even in the concrete
jungle, dirt

00:08:24.790 --> 00:08:27.110
finds a way to come into being.

00:08:27.110 --> 00:08:29.920
I decided to write a
book about dirt, largely

00:08:29.920 --> 00:08:31.870
because everywhere
I went in New York,

00:08:31.870 --> 00:08:33.800
people didn't seem
to believe in it.

00:08:33.800 --> 00:08:36.880
People didn't seem to believe
that nature existed at all.

00:08:41.010 --> 00:08:42.520
Clyde was a guy I
knew really well.

00:08:42.520 --> 00:08:45.320
He was just a general handyman.

00:08:45.320 --> 00:08:47.120
And one day, he
was asked to clean

00:08:47.120 --> 00:08:48.920
the front of the
cathedral because there

00:08:48.920 --> 00:08:51.500
was a block that was
loose in the top.

00:08:55.490 --> 00:08:57.750
Clyde fell off the scaffold.

00:08:57.750 --> 00:08:59.450
He fell more than 40 feet.

00:09:05.890 --> 00:09:08.260
While he recovered
in the hospital,

00:09:08.260 --> 00:09:12.410
his Chevy pickup sat for
months under a maple tree,

00:09:12.410 --> 00:09:13.600
the motor not running.

00:09:20.100 --> 00:09:23.470
But in the back of the
truck, open to the air

00:09:23.470 --> 00:09:26.350
and the sunlight and
the rain, nature's motor

00:09:26.350 --> 00:09:29.360
was emphatically running,
as fallen leaves,

00:09:29.360 --> 00:09:34.190
Styrofoam cups, Chinese menus,
and pigeon droppings turned

00:09:34.190 --> 00:09:34.990
into a garden.

00:09:40.800 --> 00:09:44.280
The process that turns
garbage into a garden

00:09:44.280 --> 00:09:46.760
is central to our survival.

00:09:46.760 --> 00:09:50.080
We depend on dirt
to purify and heal

00:09:50.080 --> 00:09:51.900
the systems that sustain us.

00:09:54.900 --> 00:09:57.200
As a water doctor,
the repository

00:09:57.200 --> 00:10:02.770
of life that I need to
heal are the organisms

00:10:02.770 --> 00:10:04.190
that are beneath our feet.

00:10:04.190 --> 00:10:09.070
That's the basic machine that
has always recycled our water.

00:10:09.070 --> 00:10:12.262
You know, there is no
new water on the planet

00:10:12.262 --> 00:10:13.470
since the planet was created.

00:10:13.470 --> 00:10:14.750
It's always been recycled.

00:10:14.750 --> 00:10:17.590
So this notion that
water is pristine?

00:10:17.590 --> 00:10:21.630
It's that community
of soil, of dirt,

00:10:21.630 --> 00:10:24.160
of critters, of
trees and plants.

00:10:24.160 --> 00:10:28.140
It's all of these things,
including the tiniest worms

00:10:28.140 --> 00:10:31.610
in the soil, that do
this transformation.

00:10:31.610 --> 00:10:36.610
Now, thinking about
water, this pristine stuff

00:10:36.610 --> 00:10:43.590
that we're drinking, I just
had a sip of dinosaur pee.

00:10:43.590 --> 00:10:47.310
In our earliest stories,
we've celebrated dirt

00:10:47.310 --> 00:10:50.240
as the source of who we
are and where we come from.

00:10:57.620 --> 00:11:01.340
In the Amazon jungle,
it's said that one day Sun

00:11:01.340 --> 00:11:08.440
curled a stick rattle into
Mother Earth, and out we came.

00:11:15.820 --> 00:11:19.100
Ancient Egyptians believed
that the gods shaped clay

00:11:19.100 --> 00:11:22.250
into humans and put them
in an earthly paradise.

00:11:28.810 --> 00:11:31.970
Jewish, Christian,
and Muslim traditions

00:11:31.970 --> 00:11:34.082
share the story
that God scooped up

00:11:34.082 --> 00:11:39.438
dirt and blew in
the breath of life.

00:11:39.438 --> 00:11:43.265
In Hebrew, the very name
Adam means dirt or clay.

00:11:45.990 --> 00:11:49.102
And Eve means life.

00:11:49.102 --> 00:11:52.710
Dirt in the Garden
of Eden gave them,

00:11:52.710 --> 00:11:57.940
and us, everything
we need to survive.

00:11:57.940 --> 00:12:02.000
In traditional agriculture,
the soil is the mother.

00:12:02.000 --> 00:12:04.860
She's the mother who gives,
to whom you must give back.

00:12:04.860 --> 00:12:07.790
And to treat soil
as the sacred mother

00:12:07.790 --> 00:12:11.760
is the best thing you could
put in your relationship

00:12:11.760 --> 00:12:13.026
with the Earth.

00:12:13.026 --> 00:12:15.390
In traditional
agriculture, soil is

00:12:15.390 --> 00:12:18.410
recognized as the
source of all fertility.

00:12:22.900 --> 00:12:31.740
The sacred cow is such an
important part of sacred soil.

00:12:31.740 --> 00:12:37.840
Because as we feed the cows,
part of the plant that we

00:12:37.840 --> 00:12:44.110
cannot eat, they turn that
into the real life of the soil,

00:12:44.110 --> 00:12:46.240
the cow dung.

00:12:46.240 --> 00:12:49.150
Indian civilization wouldn't
have lasted 10,000 years if it

00:12:49.150 --> 00:12:53.700
hadn't recognized the
worth of what is literally

00:12:53.700 --> 00:12:58.380
the beginning of
dirt, living dirt.

00:12:58.380 --> 00:13:00.230
Whenever interacting
with nature,

00:13:00.230 --> 00:13:03.190
you've got to grow food for
humanity, and at the same time,

00:13:03.190 --> 00:13:04.960
you've got to grow
food for nature.

00:13:04.960 --> 00:13:08.150
Hi, welcome to Cannard Farm.

00:13:08.150 --> 00:13:10.010
Plants get compounds
from the air,

00:13:10.010 --> 00:13:11.850
and they get energy
from the sun,

00:13:11.850 --> 00:13:14.590
and they use their
biological systems

00:13:14.590 --> 00:13:17.880
to fix this stuff
into the sugars.

00:13:17.880 --> 00:13:19.910
They use some of
those sugars to put

00:13:19.910 --> 00:13:22.750
into their fruit for
attraction to spread

00:13:22.750 --> 00:13:24.350
their seed with all us animals.

00:13:24.350 --> 00:13:26.410
It was about half
of those sugars

00:13:26.410 --> 00:13:28.430
they secrete from
their root systems

00:13:28.430 --> 00:13:32.190
and pump those sugars into the
soil to feed the soil biology.

00:13:32.190 --> 00:13:34.130
Plants are absorbing moisture.

00:13:34.130 --> 00:13:37.210
So there's a tide in the
soil coming to the plant.

00:13:37.210 --> 00:13:39.670
While they're alive,
they have been

00:13:39.670 --> 00:13:43.510
utilizing their bodily wastes
to solubilize the mineral

00:13:43.510 --> 00:13:46.870
nutrients from the
raw parent material.

00:13:46.870 --> 00:13:49.340
This is the raw parent
material-- a rock.

00:13:49.340 --> 00:13:50.250
This is planet Earth.

00:13:52.810 --> 00:13:55.860
We're going to have tomato
plants and little baby vetch

00:13:55.860 --> 00:13:57.780
plants growing up
underneath them.

00:13:57.780 --> 00:14:00.340
And we're going to come in
and harvest the tomato plants.

00:14:00.340 --> 00:14:02.640
And then the vetch plants
will have the whole land.

00:14:02.640 --> 00:14:06.260
And it will turn into a tangle
of vetch and other weeds.

00:14:06.260 --> 00:14:09.170
And they'll be allowed
to come to full maturity

00:14:09.170 --> 00:14:11.280
and die of their own volition.

00:14:11.280 --> 00:14:12.800
They're going to
die of maturity.

00:14:12.800 --> 00:14:17.260
They're going to be grandmas
at 93, dying of contentment.

00:14:17.260 --> 00:14:19.960
Then that is going
to offer the soil

00:14:19.960 --> 00:14:23.160
mature, durable organic matter.

00:14:27.640 --> 00:14:30.550
Visionary environmentalist
Pierre Rabhi

00:14:30.550 --> 00:14:33.120
is a farmer without borders.

00:14:33.120 --> 00:14:36.700
He's devoted his
life to healing dirt.

00:14:36.700 --> 00:14:37.570
[SPEAKING FRENCH]

00:15:23.096 --> 00:15:25.380
Dirt that's alive
is a community.

00:15:25.380 --> 00:15:28.582
And that community is trees
and plant, microorganisms

00:15:28.582 --> 00:15:33.070
living in the soil, the
plants that hold it together,

00:15:33.070 --> 00:15:36.180
the mulch that's fed by
all the leaves that come.

00:15:36.180 --> 00:15:38.040
That's an amazing community.

00:15:38.040 --> 00:15:40.430
Add the layer of human
community interaction,

00:15:40.430 --> 00:15:44.610
with us helping feed, helping
water, prune, but also

00:15:44.610 --> 00:15:46.230
exchanging the
oxygen and the carbon

00:15:46.230 --> 00:15:49.990
dioxide, that necessary
community exchange.

00:15:49.990 --> 00:15:51.520
The trees feeding us fruit.

00:15:57.955 --> 00:16:00.925
We live in, potentially,
a Garden of Eden.

00:16:10.860 --> 00:16:11.900
I've got zucchini.

00:16:11.900 --> 00:16:17.930
I've got strawberries, carrots,
yellow beans, purple beans,

00:16:17.930 --> 00:16:19.066
cucumbers.

00:16:19.066 --> 00:16:20.440
I mean, what more
could you want?

00:16:40.735 --> 00:16:42.773
The coconut.

00:16:42.773 --> 00:16:45.200
I eat the ground.

00:16:45.200 --> 00:16:47.980
I will tell you that every
wine-growing region I've ever

00:16:47.980 --> 00:16:50.310
been to, which is a
lot-- Italy and Spain

00:16:50.310 --> 00:16:53.690
and France and Australia and all
these places-- the first thing

00:16:53.690 --> 00:16:56.980
I do is put my hand in
the ground and eat it.

00:16:56.980 --> 00:17:00.510
I don't know what that means, if
I'm crazy, but I'm telling you,

00:17:00.510 --> 00:17:02.710
I always feel a connection.

00:17:02.710 --> 00:17:04.396
The ground is what you taste.

00:17:04.396 --> 00:17:06.520
When you really break it
down, when you're not just

00:17:06.520 --> 00:17:09.349
drinking for casual fun,
when you're nerding it up,

00:17:09.349 --> 00:17:12.406
it's the ground that
really exposes the wine.

00:17:12.406 --> 00:17:13.614
Getting a lot of cranberries.

00:17:13.614 --> 00:17:16.391
I get a little bit of like a
roasted peppers kind of thing

00:17:16.391 --> 00:17:16.890
going on.

00:17:16.890 --> 00:17:19.140
Maybe even a little bit
of cassis in the back end

00:17:19.140 --> 00:17:20.520
of the Sangio.

00:17:20.520 --> 00:17:25.671
Now, when you taste
the grape, you know,

00:17:25.671 --> 00:17:27.420
maybe you're tasting
some of that berries.

00:17:27.420 --> 00:17:30.890
Now, going down this beautiful
vine, you get into the soil.

00:17:30.890 --> 00:17:32.900
And as you dig
into the soil, you

00:17:32.900 --> 00:17:34.644
start-- this is a sandy soil.

00:17:34.644 --> 00:17:35.560
You start smelling it.

00:17:35.560 --> 00:17:38.770
And you're getting that classic
dirtiness, that sand and dirt

00:17:38.770 --> 00:17:39.610
that you get.

00:17:39.610 --> 00:17:44.510
And maybe even a little taste.

00:17:44.510 --> 00:17:49.350
Every piece of land has its
own flavor profile and terroir.

00:17:49.350 --> 00:17:52.130
People understand it's
all about their dirt.

00:17:54.965 --> 00:17:56.840
Listening to the stories
of the people who've

00:17:56.840 --> 00:18:01.600
gone organic, who've gone
from being places that

00:18:01.600 --> 00:18:04.850
put awkward things into
land to being very clean,

00:18:04.850 --> 00:18:08.170
the wine is so much better.

00:18:08.170 --> 00:18:12.941
And healthy vineyards
make healthy wine.

00:18:12.941 --> 00:18:15.170
The people that make the
greatest wines in the world,

00:18:15.170 --> 00:18:16.716
they love their dirt.

00:18:16.716 --> 00:18:17.950
They pick it up.

00:18:17.950 --> 00:18:18.810
They coddle it.

00:18:18.810 --> 00:18:19.480
The kiss it.

00:18:19.480 --> 00:18:21.120
They put it in a
jar, and it sits

00:18:21.120 --> 00:18:23.708
in their mantle in the living
room, because they know.

00:18:23.708 --> 00:18:24.704
They know.

00:18:29.186 --> 00:18:32.672
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:19:23.970 --> 00:19:29.280
Growing up in a country like
India in the period when I did,

00:19:29.280 --> 00:19:32.400
soil literally was your cradle.

00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:35.480
Everything was soil.

00:19:35.480 --> 00:19:38.060
My parents were highly
educated, but my mother

00:19:38.060 --> 00:19:39.980
had chosen to become a farmer.

00:19:39.980 --> 00:19:43.650
And I remember holidays,
coming down to her farm.

00:19:43.650 --> 00:19:48.820
And our most fun thing used
to be the cow dung and soil

00:19:48.820 --> 00:19:51.230
plaster, with which,
on a daily basis,

00:19:51.230 --> 00:19:53.680
the floors would be plastered.

00:19:53.680 --> 00:19:54.960
It was like artwork.

00:19:54.960 --> 00:19:57.450
It was like being a painter.

00:19:57.450 --> 00:20:02.380
And for us, that freedom
to play with dirt,

00:20:02.380 --> 00:20:05.390
I think has been both my
intellectual, emotional,

00:20:05.390 --> 00:20:07.240
and physiological
immunity builder.

00:20:15.820 --> 00:20:19.690
People have been building with
dirt for over 9,000 years.

00:20:19.690 --> 00:20:22.900
Most of the world considers
this a really viable building

00:20:22.900 --> 00:20:23.750
material.

00:20:23.750 --> 00:20:26.749
A third of the world still
lives in earthen structures.

00:20:26.749 --> 00:20:28.290
You can dig it up
right on your site.

00:20:28.290 --> 00:20:29.630
You don't have to transport it.

00:20:29.630 --> 00:20:32.780
To operate heavy machinery, pull
out hundreds of yards of soil,

00:20:32.780 --> 00:20:34.890
then haul it hundreds
of miles away

00:20:34.890 --> 00:20:39.750
to dispose of it like it's
garbage just seemed ludicrous.

00:20:39.750 --> 00:20:44.710
We use the wonderful machine
the horse, in this case,

00:20:44.710 --> 00:20:50.850
to process our straw, an
incredibly fine fiber.

00:20:50.850 --> 00:20:52.400
And in that process,
they're adding

00:20:52.400 --> 00:20:55.670
enzymes and other
proteins to the manure,

00:20:55.670 --> 00:20:57.880
which act as a natural glue.

00:20:57.880 --> 00:21:01.590
So as this dries, it dries
with an incredible hardness.

00:21:01.590 --> 00:21:03.200
And we're just
kicking it old school.

00:21:03.200 --> 00:21:05.690
It's like, oh, this
is how everybody's

00:21:05.690 --> 00:21:07.120
done everything for so long.

00:21:11.140 --> 00:21:14.030
The mixture of mud and
cow dung in our climate

00:21:14.030 --> 00:21:15.720
has many, many uses.

00:21:15.720 --> 00:21:17.770
The cow dung acts
as an antiseptic,

00:21:17.770 --> 00:21:20.550
so you don't get infestations.

00:21:20.550 --> 00:21:25.580
And mud, compared to cement,
is warm in winter and cool

00:21:25.580 --> 00:21:26.610
in summer.

00:21:26.610 --> 00:21:30.620
So if you go into a house with
a mud plaster in the summer,

00:21:30.620 --> 00:21:31.670
it will be cool.

00:21:31.670 --> 00:21:34.180
You go into a house
with cement plaster

00:21:34.180 --> 00:21:35.880
it will radiate the heat.

00:21:44.410 --> 00:21:45.780
You get the dirt high.

00:21:45.780 --> 00:21:47.940
It's a really
different experience

00:21:47.940 --> 00:21:50.600
than VOCs and petrochemicals.

00:21:50.600 --> 00:21:53.100
And I'd like to think
that it lasts longer.

00:21:53.100 --> 00:21:56.560
Everybody could get it if
they got their hands dirty.

00:21:56.560 --> 00:22:00.320
For us, mud is not
just the matrix

00:22:00.320 --> 00:22:03.880
of life in where you
grow your plants.

00:22:03.880 --> 00:22:06.750
It's a building structure.

00:22:06.750 --> 00:22:09.370
It's our very sense
of who we are.

00:22:09.370 --> 00:22:12.270
Dust to dust and ashes to ashes.

00:22:12.270 --> 00:22:15.120
We are dirt.

00:22:15.120 --> 00:22:16.220
And we're made of it.

00:22:16.220 --> 00:22:18.920
We're made of clay,
and to that we return.

00:22:18.920 --> 00:22:25.300
Everything that we see as our
flesh, our blood, our bones,

00:22:25.300 --> 00:22:28.930
could not be here
without the land.

00:22:28.930 --> 00:22:32.990
The DNA text of a bacterium
has entire paragraphs

00:22:32.990 --> 00:22:37.090
that are identical to our
own genetic instructions.

00:22:37.090 --> 00:22:39.460
So on a physical,
chemical level,

00:22:39.460 --> 00:22:42.970
we're just not all that
different from microorganisms

00:22:42.970 --> 00:22:44.510
as we might think we are.

00:22:44.510 --> 00:22:48.680
To understand, when you look
at the mountains or the lakes

00:22:48.680 --> 00:22:52.670
or the rivers, and to feel
that being a part of it,

00:22:52.670 --> 00:22:55.670
to feel that this flesh
that's standing here

00:22:55.670 --> 00:23:01.370
is that place, that I am that
river, I am that mountain,

00:23:01.370 --> 00:23:02.920
I am that dirt.

00:23:02.920 --> 00:23:05.050
I could pick up a hand
of dirt-- and that's

00:23:05.050 --> 00:23:06.660
what my grandmother used to say.

00:23:06.660 --> 00:23:10.334
She'd pick up a hand of dirt
and she'd say, this is my flesh.

00:23:26.640 --> 00:23:30.120
We're on our way to
get some sacred dirt,

00:23:30.120 --> 00:23:33.240
get our souls right, cleanse.

00:23:33.240 --> 00:23:37.795
Maybe throw some dirt in
our hair or something.

00:23:37.795 --> 00:23:39.280
Have a dirt bath.

00:23:39.280 --> 00:23:40.063
Dirt bath.

00:23:40.063 --> 00:23:44.700
But it's got the holy
dirt here in Chimayo.

00:23:44.700 --> 00:23:46.430
Glad to be New Mexicans.

00:23:46.430 --> 00:23:48.560
Today we walked 22
miles-- me and her did.

00:23:48.560 --> 00:23:50.770
And we do the walk
every year to come over

00:23:50.770 --> 00:23:52.670
here and stand in
the pit of dirt.

00:23:52.670 --> 00:23:54.315
It has healing powers.

00:23:54.315 --> 00:23:57.770
Gives us, like, a good
sense of the Holy Spirit.

00:23:57.770 --> 00:24:00.700
People from all over
the world come here.

00:24:00.700 --> 00:24:06.590
There's a sense that God's
continuing creative action

00:24:06.590 --> 00:24:09.080
is real close here.

00:24:09.080 --> 00:24:12.340
One of the meanings
of Chimayo is

00:24:12.340 --> 00:24:16.260
that our connection to
the earth is still sacred.

00:24:20.470 --> 00:24:23.420
We did the pilgrimage
today for my family.

00:24:23.420 --> 00:24:25.280
My auntie Mary Jane
just passed away,

00:24:25.280 --> 00:24:26.970
so that's what sparked it up.

00:24:26.970 --> 00:24:28.830
The dirt from the
Santuario de Chimayo

00:24:28.830 --> 00:24:30.714
has a specific sparkle to it.

00:24:30.714 --> 00:24:32.880
And whenever we need it,
we'll sprinkle a little bit

00:24:32.880 --> 00:24:33.560
here or there.

00:24:33.560 --> 00:24:34.710
And it does help.

00:24:34.710 --> 00:24:38.230
It's proved true.

00:24:38.230 --> 00:24:42.820
In the past, I was not
paying attention to the dirt.

00:24:42.820 --> 00:24:44.590
But when I came to
this place and I

00:24:44.590 --> 00:24:47.470
met people for whom the
dirt is so important

00:24:47.470 --> 00:24:50.980
because their lives used to
depend on fields and crops

00:24:50.980 --> 00:24:56.000
and harvests, I truly believed
that then my eyes were open.

00:24:56.000 --> 00:24:59.700
And I understood better the
importance of Mother Earth.

00:24:59.700 --> 00:25:01.850
Remember, you are dirt.

00:25:01.850 --> 00:25:03.270
Into dirt you shall return.

00:25:13.396 --> 00:25:16.756
[EXPLOSIONS]

00:25:28.910 --> 00:25:32.460
The demand for natural
resources has completely

00:25:32.460 --> 00:25:35.100
changed our
relationship with dirt.

00:25:35.100 --> 00:25:38.080
This is a fabric of
life being torn apart

00:25:38.080 --> 00:25:40.950
that can never be put
back together again.

00:25:40.950 --> 00:25:43.760
All around the world,
we are destroying dirt

00:25:43.760 --> 00:25:46.230
in pursuit of the
raw materials we

00:25:46.230 --> 00:25:49.280
consider to be more valuable.

00:25:49.280 --> 00:25:51.190
The practice of
coal mining that's

00:25:51.190 --> 00:25:53.760
called mountaintop
removal, it's strip mining

00:25:53.760 --> 00:25:56.200
with a vengeance with
equipment, the scale which

00:25:56.200 --> 00:25:57.190
is difficult to see.

00:26:03.130 --> 00:26:06.350
Mountains are literally
cut off and leveled.

00:26:06.350 --> 00:26:09.875
And they're being destroyed in
the name of cheap electricity.

00:26:09.875 --> 00:26:12.910
It isn't cheap at all.

00:26:12.910 --> 00:26:16.036
It's unbelievably expensive.

00:26:16.036 --> 00:26:17.700
It's the attitude
toward nature that

00:26:17.700 --> 00:26:20.475
says nature is only
resources to be used.

00:26:20.475 --> 00:26:22.210
And not for the
benefit of everyone,

00:26:22.210 --> 00:26:25.670
but for the benefit of a very,
very small number of people

00:26:25.670 --> 00:26:29.435
at a very, very thin slice of
time in this human journey.

00:26:31.995 --> 00:26:33.880
So the coal
companies can come in

00:26:33.880 --> 00:26:35.960
and blast and
remove of one layer

00:26:35.960 --> 00:26:38.740
of what they call overburden.

00:26:38.740 --> 00:26:40.460
The overburden is
a boulder field

00:26:40.460 --> 00:26:42.680
which will have no water table.

00:26:42.680 --> 00:26:44.435
That will support no vegetation.

00:26:44.435 --> 00:26:46.480
And the mountaintops
with all the things

00:26:46.480 --> 00:26:49.280
that are in mountains, the
heavy metals of lead, cadmium,

00:26:49.280 --> 00:26:52.205
selenium, all that now is free
to get out into the watershed.

00:26:58.400 --> 00:27:02.040
I was born and raised here
in Los Angeles in the 1950s.

00:27:02.040 --> 00:27:03.710
In fact, I was
raised in the house

00:27:03.710 --> 00:27:07.970
right there with the
white van in the driveway.

00:27:07.970 --> 00:27:09.990
Urban intensity, but
I got to escape it

00:27:09.990 --> 00:27:12.800
by hiking up here
every day after school.

00:27:12.800 --> 00:27:14.990
I'd come up with my friends.

00:27:14.990 --> 00:27:16.990
We would see the
animals, the snakes.

00:27:16.990 --> 00:27:20.420
We imagine getting
to fish here, hunt.

00:27:20.420 --> 00:27:24.266
But the smog was devastating.

00:27:24.266 --> 00:27:28.070
If you look out,
you see the vastness

00:27:28.070 --> 00:27:31.830
of concrete, asphalt,
homes, buildings, parking

00:27:31.830 --> 00:27:33.410
lots, freeways.

00:27:33.410 --> 00:27:36.220
The city was built
and designed and has

00:27:36.220 --> 00:27:39.360
been managed for over
100 years as a dead piece

00:27:39.360 --> 00:27:40.580
of inert concrete.

00:27:40.580 --> 00:27:45.240
We've put all this asphalt
on top of living dirt.

00:27:54.420 --> 00:27:56.200
We live in this living organism.

00:27:56.200 --> 00:27:58.530
It's dysfunctional,
pathological,

00:27:58.530 --> 00:27:59.790
but it's a living organism.

00:27:59.790 --> 00:28:01.850
It's called the flat city.

00:28:01.850 --> 00:28:04.670
So when you have a area
paved with something black,

00:28:04.670 --> 00:28:06.310
it's going to collect
a lot of heat.

00:28:06.310 --> 00:28:08.820
So you get a very strong
heat island effect

00:28:08.820 --> 00:28:10.680
from building a city
like Los Angeles.

00:28:10.680 --> 00:28:13.880
And then superimposed in this,
of course, come the freeways.

00:28:13.880 --> 00:28:16.890
So the biggest way that the
city as we're building them now

00:28:16.890 --> 00:28:18.870
relate to climate change
is that they put up

00:28:18.870 --> 00:28:20.290
massive amounts of CO2.

00:28:23.880 --> 00:28:26.970
We took the rivers and
encased them in concrete.

00:28:26.970 --> 00:28:29.240
We paved literally
2/3 of Los Angeles,

00:28:29.240 --> 00:28:32.080
so that now when it does rain,
instead of being absorbed

00:28:32.080 --> 00:28:34.010
by the soil, the water runs off.

00:28:34.010 --> 00:28:36.300
And its billions and
billions of gallons.

00:28:36.300 --> 00:28:39.380
The city of Los Angeles itself
spends close to $1 billion

00:28:39.380 --> 00:28:43.990
a year to bring in water from as
far away as Wyoming and Utah--

00:28:43.990 --> 00:28:45.600
all over to bring it here.

00:28:45.600 --> 00:28:46.530
We don't need to.

00:28:46.530 --> 00:28:48.860
We have half the water
following here now.

00:28:48.860 --> 00:28:52.990
But because we've sealed the
dirt and sent the water away,

00:28:52.990 --> 00:28:56.820
20% of our electricity
is to bring water here.

00:28:56.820 --> 00:28:59.199
So when you turn on the tap,
it's a climate change event.

00:29:03.420 --> 00:29:07.040
Without healthy dirt,
it's difficult to survive

00:29:07.040 --> 00:29:12.700
extreme climate events, like
hurricanes, floods, windstorms,

00:29:12.700 --> 00:29:15.540
and drought.

00:29:15.540 --> 00:29:17.345
A large part of
[INAUDIBLE] today

00:29:17.345 --> 00:29:18.890
is suffering from
a very extended

00:29:18.890 --> 00:29:21.270
drought linked to
climate change.

00:29:21.270 --> 00:29:23.670
And this long-term
drought has led

00:29:23.670 --> 00:29:25.820
to crop failure, which
has led to starvation.

00:29:31.570 --> 00:29:34.570
You create deserts
where you are.

00:29:34.570 --> 00:29:37.680
And eventually,
these microdeserts

00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:42.130
form much bigger areas.

00:29:42.130 --> 00:29:45.162
And we can't live very
happily in a desert.

00:29:51.584 --> 00:29:56.300
And so we start fighting
between farming communities

00:29:56.300 --> 00:29:58.968
and nomadic
communities over land

00:29:58.968 --> 00:30:04.440
that is not a desert,
that still has dirt.

00:30:04.440 --> 00:30:07.490
Desertification, or
water degradation,

00:30:07.490 --> 00:30:11.660
is one good way of undermining
security in any country.

00:30:22.340 --> 00:30:27.130
Throughout history, we've seen
civilizations rise and fall

00:30:27.130 --> 00:30:28.580
based on how they treated dirt.

00:30:34.670 --> 00:30:37.635
The American Midwest was
known as the breadbasket

00:30:37.635 --> 00:30:39.730
of the world.

00:30:39.730 --> 00:30:44.716
Across the prairies, using
modern, industrial machinery,

00:30:44.716 --> 00:30:48.820
farmers removed native
grasses to plant a single crop

00:30:48.820 --> 00:30:51.790
over millions of acres.

00:30:51.790 --> 00:30:56.700
This seemingly efficient system
of farming, called monoculture,

00:30:56.700 --> 00:30:59.140
worked in the short term,
bringing record yields

00:30:59.140 --> 00:30:59.660
and profits.

00:31:02.180 --> 00:31:03.770
Monocultures don't produce more.

00:31:03.770 --> 00:31:05.150
The produce less.

00:31:05.150 --> 00:31:07.700
Monocultures produce
nothing for the soil.

00:31:07.700 --> 00:31:12.560
The idea that we are increasing
soil fertility and agriculture

00:31:12.560 --> 00:31:14.960
productivity through
industrial monocultures

00:31:14.960 --> 00:31:17.670
is one of the biggest lies.

00:31:17.670 --> 00:31:21.410
What farmers didn't
realize was that they

00:31:21.410 --> 00:31:26.520
were killing their dirt by
destroying its root structure.

00:31:26.520 --> 00:31:30.220
After years of severe
drought, fierce winds

00:31:30.220 --> 00:31:32.860
picked up whatever
remained of the topsoil

00:31:32.860 --> 00:31:37.707
and just blew it away, leaving
the Dust Bowl in its wake.

00:31:37.707 --> 00:31:41.116
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:31:50.856 --> 00:31:54.290
The Dust Bowl was in effect
not quite on the same scale,

00:31:54.290 --> 00:31:56.000
but getting up to
comparable to what

00:31:56.000 --> 00:31:57.490
happened after the last ice age.

00:31:57.490 --> 00:32:00.090
We made a really big
change in the landscape

00:32:00.090 --> 00:32:01.500
just by bad farming practices.

00:32:10.884 --> 00:32:15.130
A third of our topsoil we've
lost in the last 100 years.

00:32:15.130 --> 00:32:16.550
It's the problem of agriculture.

00:32:16.550 --> 00:32:20.910
It's the way we do
agriculture now.

00:32:20.910 --> 00:32:22.886
If you look at the
landscapes today,

00:32:22.886 --> 00:32:25.260
we have millions and millions
of hectares of monocultures

00:32:25.260 --> 00:32:29.740
of one variety-- one
species, one variety.

00:32:34.210 --> 00:32:35.689
All these monocultures
are actually

00:32:35.689 --> 00:32:37.730
going to collapse in the
climate change scenario,

00:32:37.730 --> 00:32:40.880
especially in
drought situations.

00:32:40.880 --> 00:32:41.900
[SPEAKING SPANISH]

00:32:53.210 --> 00:32:56.700
The more we grow monocultures,
the more vulnerable

00:32:56.700 --> 00:32:57.900
our systems are.

00:32:57.900 --> 00:32:59.720
So we need to
diversify the systems.

00:32:59.720 --> 00:33:01.870
For example, in the
winter here, sometimes we

00:33:01.870 --> 00:33:03.250
grow broccoli with fava beans.

00:33:03.250 --> 00:33:06.645
If a frost comes, the broccoli
dies, the fava bean remains.

00:33:06.645 --> 00:33:08.610
It's very resistant to frost.

00:33:08.610 --> 00:33:12.600
If you have corn and beans and
sorghum and a drought comes,

00:33:12.600 --> 00:33:13.930
the sorghum will we remain.

00:33:13.930 --> 00:33:15.210
Everything else will collapse.

00:33:15.210 --> 00:33:17.080
So you don't put all
the eggs in one basket.

00:33:20.370 --> 00:33:23.190
We have this one species
planted for miles,

00:33:23.190 --> 00:33:26.430
and it's an all-you-can-eat
restaurant for pests.

00:33:26.430 --> 00:33:28.840
So once a pest learns
to unlock the key

00:33:28.840 --> 00:33:31.610
and get into one kind
of plant, and you've

00:33:31.610 --> 00:33:34.930
got that plant planted
for miles around,

00:33:34.930 --> 00:33:37.010
it can open every single plant.

00:33:37.010 --> 00:33:37.639
OK?

00:33:37.639 --> 00:33:39.430
And so that's how past
epidemics get going.

00:33:39.430 --> 00:33:40.513
So then we add pesticides.

00:33:54.905 --> 00:33:59.040
And those chemicals deplete
the life of the soil.

00:33:59.040 --> 00:34:01.910
They take away the
structure of the soil.

00:34:01.910 --> 00:34:04.015
They take away the
water of the soil.

00:34:04.015 --> 00:34:06.680
They take away
the very organisms

00:34:06.680 --> 00:34:08.030
that make for soil fertility.

00:34:11.850 --> 00:34:14.630
Essentially, insects
and plants are

00:34:14.630 --> 00:34:18.540
so like as physiologically--
you know, cell to cell,

00:34:18.540 --> 00:34:21.350
gene to gene,
protein to protein--

00:34:21.350 --> 00:34:23.550
that if it's going
to kill plants

00:34:23.550 --> 00:34:25.000
and if it's going
to kill insects,

00:34:25.000 --> 00:34:26.480
it's going to kill us, too.

00:34:29.770 --> 00:34:33.730
What this system produces
is food empty of nutrients,

00:34:33.730 --> 00:34:35.780
but loaded with toxics.

00:34:35.780 --> 00:34:40.810
We weren't designed to
eat that kind of diet.

00:34:40.810 --> 00:34:43.400
Industrial farming
practices have

00:34:43.400 --> 00:34:46.330
robbed the soil of its
nutrients and created

00:34:46.330 --> 00:34:50.600
a huge demand for
nitrogen fertilizer.

00:34:50.600 --> 00:34:53.620
When we pump those nitrogen
fertilizers into the soil,

00:34:53.620 --> 00:34:56.719
we're not just killing
the life of the soil.

00:34:56.719 --> 00:34:59.080
This is mobile nitrogen.

00:34:59.080 --> 00:35:02.070
Only about 20% is
taken up by the plants.

00:35:02.070 --> 00:35:04.750
Some of it goes
through water tables,

00:35:04.750 --> 00:35:07.290
and the rest goes into rivers.

00:35:07.290 --> 00:35:10.920
In the American Midwest,
the excess nitrogen

00:35:10.920 --> 00:35:15.320
flows into streams, down
the Mississippi River,

00:35:15.320 --> 00:35:19.000
and into the Gulf of Mexico.

00:35:19.000 --> 00:35:22.750
The nitrogen then feeds
giant blooms of algae

00:35:22.750 --> 00:35:26.020
that suffocate nearly
all marine life,

00:35:26.020 --> 00:35:29.090
creating a massive
dead zone where

00:35:29.090 --> 00:35:30.830
only jellyfish can thrive.

00:35:35.330 --> 00:35:39.720
This mobile nitrogen
also combines with oxygen

00:35:39.720 --> 00:35:42.380
to form nitrous
oxide, which floats up

00:35:42.380 --> 00:35:45.360
to the atmosphere,
accelerating climate change.

00:35:49.180 --> 00:35:52.220
25% of greenhouse
gas emissions are

00:35:52.220 --> 00:35:55.500
coming from an
agriculture that has

00:35:55.500 --> 00:35:59.050
become a war against the soil.

00:35:59.050 --> 00:36:01.710
For two seasons, three seasons,
they'll get a soya harvest.

00:36:01.710 --> 00:36:03.780
Then they'll abandon
it like a desert

00:36:03.780 --> 00:36:20.410
and cut down another
100,000 square miles.

00:36:20.410 --> 00:36:23.820
Trees absorb pollutants,
protect topsoil,

00:36:23.820 --> 00:36:31.120
prevent erosion, sequester
carbon, and release oxygen.

00:36:31.120 --> 00:36:34.050
The entire Brazilian
rainforest is

00:36:34.050 --> 00:36:37.840
being cut down for
expansion of soil.

00:36:37.840 --> 00:36:42.410
We have always cut down forests
to clear land for growing food.

00:36:42.410 --> 00:36:47.310
Now to meet the global demand
for lumber, paper, biofuels,

00:36:47.310 --> 00:36:50.930
and land to graze cattle,
forests around the world

00:36:50.930 --> 00:36:54.650
are being mowed down, and the
dirt beneath them ravaged.

00:36:54.650 --> 00:36:59.070
The government and many
other people see timber,

00:36:59.070 --> 00:37:01.460
they see money.

00:37:01.460 --> 00:37:05.800
But they do not see
the diversity of life

00:37:05.800 --> 00:37:08.820
that is in those forests.

00:37:08.820 --> 00:37:13.420
Each year, 100 million
trees are turned

00:37:13.420 --> 00:37:17.470
into 20 billion
mail order catalogs.

00:37:17.470 --> 00:37:21.150
When I see how much the Congo
forest is being encroached

00:37:21.150 --> 00:37:26.260
upon, how it is being harvested,
how it is being destroyed,

00:37:26.260 --> 00:37:31.550
I know that if the Congo
forest goes, so does Africa.

00:37:31.550 --> 00:37:33.915
Behind me, we have an example
of ecological Armageddon.

00:37:33.915 --> 00:37:36.927
This is a practice currently
employed by the foresters

00:37:36.927 --> 00:37:38.760
and by logging companies,
who, after they've

00:37:38.760 --> 00:37:41.820
cut the old-growth forest,
adding insult upon injury,

00:37:41.820 --> 00:37:45.380
the brush is then set on fire,
sending carbon dioxide as

00:37:45.380 --> 00:37:47.820
well gases into the atmosphere.

00:37:47.820 --> 00:37:50.250
If this wood had been chipped
and left on the ground,

00:37:50.250 --> 00:37:54.360
the fungi would have recycled
it, eventually building soil.

00:37:54.360 --> 00:37:59.570
When it rains, the water
[INAUDIBLE] and carries with it

00:37:59.570 --> 00:38:03.010
wonderful topsoil that
we need to sustain

00:38:03.010 --> 00:38:05.050
vegetation in these forests.

00:38:05.050 --> 00:38:08.960
We do not replenish
the underground water.

00:38:08.960 --> 00:38:11.600
And therefore, eventually
leave us dry up.

00:38:14.260 --> 00:38:17.140
In once productive
farmland, it's

00:38:17.140 --> 00:38:20.330
the farmers who are being
ravaged as they struggle

00:38:20.330 --> 00:38:22.780
to pay for expensive
new technologies

00:38:22.780 --> 00:38:25.660
and equipment they've been
pressured into buying.

00:38:25.660 --> 00:38:29.590
Farmers have been
pushed to buy more seed,

00:38:29.590 --> 00:38:34.390
have more tractors-- been
pushed into the loan economy.

00:38:34.390 --> 00:38:38.980
Now, an activity that was a
zero-cost activity, suddenly

00:38:38.980 --> 00:38:41.440
becomes a 5,000 rupee
activity every year.

00:38:41.440 --> 00:38:45.966
And the farmer is
burdened with debt.

00:38:45.966 --> 00:38:47.090
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

00:39:01.010 --> 00:39:05.160
As farmers around the world
go broke and lose their farms,

00:39:05.160 --> 00:39:09.140
their land is taken over by
international agribusinesses

00:39:09.140 --> 00:39:12.130
that grow genetically
modified, single crops

00:39:12.130 --> 00:39:14.412
for a globalized economy.

00:39:14.412 --> 00:39:15.510
[AUCTIONEERING]

00:39:25.102 --> 00:39:26.550
I just love farming.

00:39:29.690 --> 00:39:35.260
In India alone, the target
is 600 million farmers

00:39:35.260 --> 00:39:38.510
should disappear in an
industrial model of farming.

00:39:38.510 --> 00:39:42.090
No one thinks about
where will the soil

00:39:42.090 --> 00:39:44.760
be, where will the
solid keepers be.

00:39:54.280 --> 00:39:56.930
Saddled with debt,
they are unable to pay.

00:39:56.930 --> 00:40:00.025
Farmers around the world
are committing suicide.

00:40:00.025 --> 00:40:01.150
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

00:40:13.390 --> 00:40:14.515
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

00:40:36.340 --> 00:40:41.810
In India over the last decade,
an estimated 200,000 farmers

00:40:41.810 --> 00:40:44.635
have killed themselves,
many by drinking

00:40:44.635 --> 00:40:48.280
the pesticide they
can no longer afford.

00:40:48.280 --> 00:40:51.495
[MUSIC PLAYING]

00:41:10.550 --> 00:41:11.675
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

00:41:43.720 --> 00:41:45.650
Because of our
activities, we should

00:41:45.650 --> 00:41:48.042
be very concerned
about our future.

00:41:48.042 --> 00:41:53.950
If there was a United
Organization of Organisms,

00:41:53.950 --> 00:41:57.000
and each organism had
the right to vote,

00:41:57.000 --> 00:41:58.590
would we be voted
off the planet?

00:42:04.660 --> 00:42:06.890
Given that our bodies
reject viruses,

00:42:06.890 --> 00:42:09.410
the analogy that the Earth
could reject the human species

00:42:09.410 --> 00:42:13.340
as a virus is very apropos and
has good biological precedent.

00:42:19.590 --> 00:42:23.730
Over the course of 30 years
taking and editing photographs,

00:42:23.730 --> 00:42:27.410
Sebastiao and Leila
Salgado have documented

00:42:27.410 --> 00:42:31.750
environmental and human
devastation around the world.

00:42:31.750 --> 00:42:33.550
When you do human
photography, when

00:42:33.550 --> 00:42:39.870
you do this kind of photography,
you must live with people.

00:42:43.816 --> 00:42:45.190
Living with people,
you have time

00:42:45.190 --> 00:42:48.350
to see what happens
around you, and you

00:42:48.350 --> 00:42:51.430
start to see that there is
a very strong correlation

00:42:51.430 --> 00:42:55.360
between human degradation and
environmental degradation.

00:43:07.100 --> 00:43:12.460
This picture, it's-- you
now, when we see all dry,

00:43:12.460 --> 00:43:16.740
and the people, they're
asking for rain, and why.

00:43:16.740 --> 00:43:20.980
It's because we have no
more trees, no more forest,

00:43:20.980 --> 00:43:22.140
and the people suffer.

00:43:24.710 --> 00:43:26.050
This is Mali.

00:43:26.050 --> 00:43:28.500
No more water
inside of this lake.

00:43:28.500 --> 00:43:31.050
And here I have a
picture of the people

00:43:31.050 --> 00:43:32.925
walking inside
what was the lake.

00:43:32.925 --> 00:43:34.620
And that's become a desert.

00:43:38.480 --> 00:43:42.040
People who live on degraded
lands become very poor .

00:43:42.040 --> 00:43:44.640
Often, they will
abandon the land

00:43:44.640 --> 00:43:46.600
and they will go
to cities, looking

00:43:46.600 --> 00:43:48.810
for jobs that are not available.

00:43:48.810 --> 00:43:52.006
And they will end up in slums.

00:43:52.006 --> 00:43:54.590
For the first time
in human history,

00:43:54.590 --> 00:43:59.360
more people live in cities
than in the countryside.

00:43:59.360 --> 00:44:02.980
In the developing world,
nearly 80% of city dwellers

00:44:02.980 --> 00:44:05.670
now live in slums.

00:44:05.670 --> 00:44:08.910
They are displaced people
who've been separated

00:44:08.910 --> 00:44:10.975
from the dirt that
sustained them.

00:44:22.500 --> 00:44:25.870
It's lunchtime in one of
Haiti's most desperate slums.

00:44:25.870 --> 00:44:27.720
But because of
rising food prices,

00:44:27.720 --> 00:44:30.860
this mother and her toddler now
rely on a traditional Haitian

00:44:30.860 --> 00:44:33.230
remedy for hunger
pangs-- cookies made

00:44:33.230 --> 00:44:34.610
of dried yellow dirt.

00:44:46.430 --> 00:44:51.590
Across the planet, hungry
people are rioting over food.

00:44:55.210 --> 00:44:57.740
The food riots are
a direct consequence

00:44:57.740 --> 00:44:59.490
of the industrial
model of agriculture,

00:44:59.490 --> 00:45:03.000
the failure of the
industrial agriculture model.

00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:05.760
Deadly conflicts
and outright wars

00:45:05.760 --> 00:45:08.530
are breaking out over
our dwindling supply

00:45:08.530 --> 00:45:09.450
of fertile soil.

00:45:15.590 --> 00:45:20.165
The conflict in Sudan is
really a conflict over dirt.

00:45:23.920 --> 00:45:27.540
For the first time,
you have corporations

00:45:27.540 --> 00:45:29.980
that are going to be dictating
the future of the soil

00:45:29.980 --> 00:45:31.850
and the future of
the landscapes.

00:45:31.850 --> 00:45:36.590
Floods, drought, and
climate change, even war

00:45:36.590 --> 00:45:41.450
are all directly related to
the way we are treating dirt.

00:45:41.450 --> 00:45:43.990
We as a human species
are facing, first,

00:45:43.990 --> 00:45:47.320
the problem of ecological
non-sustainability

00:45:47.320 --> 00:45:50.340
that we have
created-- toxic load,

00:45:50.340 --> 00:45:52.170
we've created climate change.

00:45:52.170 --> 00:45:54.290
Each of these
problems individually

00:45:54.290 --> 00:45:56.400
could push the human
species to extinction.

00:45:56.400 --> 00:45:58.420
Collectively, we
can be absolutely

00:45:58.420 --> 00:46:00.200
sure we don't have
too much time.

00:46:00.200 --> 00:46:05.760
Here's this 120-year window
in which we find ourselves.

00:46:05.760 --> 00:46:10.580
And it's probably the
most important window

00:46:10.580 --> 00:46:13.240
in the history of Homo sapien.

00:46:13.240 --> 00:46:16.060
I think it's this
period that's the most

00:46:16.060 --> 00:46:18.930
important since our
walk out of Africa,

00:46:18.930 --> 00:46:22.910
because we've now got to come
to the end of the extractive

00:46:22.910 --> 00:46:25.430
economy and figure out how
to live within our means.

00:46:40.744 --> 00:46:44.570
We are constantly being
bombarded by problems

00:46:44.570 --> 00:46:46.220
that we face.

00:46:46.220 --> 00:46:50.572
And sometimes we can get
completely overwhelmed.

00:46:50.572 --> 00:46:54.540
The story of the hummingbird
is about this huge forest

00:46:54.540 --> 00:46:57.690
being consumed by a fire.

00:46:57.690 --> 00:47:00.470
All the animals in
the forest come out

00:47:00.470 --> 00:47:06.120
and they are transfixed as
they watch the forest burning.

00:47:06.120 --> 00:47:11.580
And they feel very
overwhelmed, very powerless,

00:47:11.580 --> 00:47:14.300
except this little hummingbird.

00:47:14.300 --> 00:47:17.370
It says, I am going to do
something about the fire.

00:47:17.370 --> 00:47:21.195
So it flies to the nearest
stream, takes a drop of water,

00:47:21.195 --> 00:47:24.920
and puts it on the fire,
and goes up and down,

00:47:24.920 --> 00:47:28.550
up and down, up and
down as fast as it can.

00:47:28.550 --> 00:47:31.450
In the meantime, all the other
animals, much bigger animals,

00:47:31.450 --> 00:47:34.340
like the elephant
with a big trunk,

00:47:34.340 --> 00:47:37.440
could bring much more water,
they are standing there,

00:47:37.440 --> 00:47:38.080
helpless.

00:47:38.080 --> 00:47:40.875
And they are saying
to the hummingbird,

00:47:40.875 --> 00:47:43.203
what do you think you can do?

00:47:43.203 --> 00:47:44.150
You're too little.

00:47:44.150 --> 00:47:45.810
This fire's too big.

00:47:45.810 --> 00:47:48.010
Your wings are too little.

00:47:48.010 --> 00:47:50.235
And you, being so
small, you can only

00:47:50.235 --> 00:47:53.470
bring a small drop
of water at a time.

00:47:53.470 --> 00:47:56.220
But as they continue
to discourage it,

00:47:56.220 --> 00:48:01.083
it turns to them without wasting
any time, and tells them,

00:48:01.083 --> 00:48:05.638
I am doing the best I can.

00:48:05.638 --> 00:48:10.440
And that to me is what
all of us should do.

00:48:10.440 --> 00:48:12.540
We should always feel
like a hummingbird.

00:48:15.670 --> 00:48:19.550
After years of bearing witness
to environmental degradation,

00:48:19.550 --> 00:48:23.625
the Salgados knew they could no
longer simply remain observers.

00:48:27.140 --> 00:48:29.570
They had to do something.

00:48:29.570 --> 00:48:35.502
Why not plant a forest, the
forest we had before here?

00:48:35.502 --> 00:48:40.690
The first plantation we
did, we did here and there.

00:48:40.690 --> 00:48:44.250
When you come to
Instituto Terra,

00:48:44.250 --> 00:48:46.700
you see one million
trees together.

00:48:46.700 --> 00:48:48.710
And now big trees
that you can embrace.

00:48:56.130 --> 00:48:57.600
You see the birds.

00:48:57.600 --> 00:49:01.290
We have so many birds now.

00:49:01.290 --> 00:49:03.340
In all this land
around this planet,

00:49:03.340 --> 00:49:05.680
if we start to
replant, in 10 years

00:49:05.680 --> 00:49:08.660
there will be no more dead land.

00:49:08.660 --> 00:49:13.592
When Pierre Rabhi looks at
a desert, he sees an oasis.

00:49:13.592 --> 00:49:14.300
[SPEAKING FRENCH]

00:49:28.430 --> 00:49:30.870
His lifelong work
in Africa has been

00:49:30.870 --> 00:49:35.982
to promote agroecology, an
organic, biodiverse agriculture

00:49:35.982 --> 00:49:38.450
that combines
scientific knowledge

00:49:38.450 --> 00:49:39.485
with traditional wisdom.

00:49:43.470 --> 00:49:45.050
[SPEAKING FRENCH]

00:49:59.110 --> 00:50:04.090
It wasn't long ago that Native
Americans were living off

00:50:04.090 --> 00:50:06.130
this arrangement.

00:50:06.130 --> 00:50:08.200
They ate the prairie turnip.

00:50:08.200 --> 00:50:10.290
Of course, they ate
things out of the streams.

00:50:10.290 --> 00:50:13.570
And they also ate bison
and the prairie elk.

00:50:13.570 --> 00:50:17.320
Here was what we might call
an original relationship

00:50:17.320 --> 00:50:20.050
with the universe.

00:50:20.050 --> 00:50:26.995
To build an agriculture as
sustainable as the ecosystems

00:50:26.995 --> 00:50:32.850
we have destroyed is
necessary and possible.

00:50:32.850 --> 00:50:35.260
What we're trying to
do is build agriculture

00:50:35.260 --> 00:50:39.320
based on the way the ecosystems
were 10,000 years ago.

00:50:39.320 --> 00:50:42.630
This prairie would
be our library.

00:50:48.050 --> 00:50:51.330
What the soil scientists
here are trying to do

00:50:51.330 --> 00:50:58.460
is to understand those
dynamics below the surface that

00:50:58.460 --> 00:51:03.050
sustain what we harvest above.

00:51:03.050 --> 00:51:05.190
Just to show you,
in one plant, some

00:51:05.190 --> 00:51:08.320
of the diversity of root
systems that we have.

00:51:08.320 --> 00:51:11.120
With a perennial,
it allows this plant

00:51:11.120 --> 00:51:13.240
to come back each year
from its root system.

00:51:13.240 --> 00:51:15.980
It doesn't have to be
started each year from seed,

00:51:15.980 --> 00:51:18.590
and it doesn't have to grow
its root system each year

00:51:18.590 --> 00:51:21.280
like an annual plant
would have to do.

00:51:21.280 --> 00:51:25.540
Our annual crops, such as
this native annual wheat,

00:51:25.540 --> 00:51:27.910
its root systems are
much more shallow.

00:51:27.910 --> 00:51:31.810
So if it rains, carrying with
it nitrogen, and that nitrogen

00:51:31.810 --> 00:51:34.950
inside 10 feet down, this
wheat plant can't get it.

00:51:34.950 --> 00:51:37.200
So we have to put
on more nitrogen.

00:51:37.200 --> 00:51:43.030
That native perennial at
10 feet is able to grab it.

00:51:43.030 --> 00:51:43.960
This ain't doing it.

00:51:43.960 --> 00:51:45.196
This is.

00:51:45.196 --> 00:51:49.530
This root diversity
below ground,

00:51:49.530 --> 00:51:52.990
green diversity
above the surface,

00:51:52.990 --> 00:51:55.750
is going to be
far more resilient

00:51:55.750 --> 00:52:00.110
to a change in the climate
than the annual monocultures.

00:52:00.110 --> 00:52:03.050
A lot of what we're talking
about is going on below ground.

00:52:03.050 --> 00:52:06.190
So let's just go below ground.

00:52:06.190 --> 00:52:07.950
So here we have a nice soil pit.

00:52:07.950 --> 00:52:11.955
It's roughly 6 feet from
the bottom of the pit

00:52:11.955 --> 00:52:14.220
up to the soil surface.

00:52:14.220 --> 00:52:17.230
Now, not all soils are
this deep, obviously.

00:52:17.230 --> 00:52:20.770
But the thinner the
soil-- now, let's

00:52:20.770 --> 00:52:22.469
say we have bedrock right here.

00:52:22.469 --> 00:52:24.135
The thinner the soil,
the more important

00:52:24.135 --> 00:52:27.920
it is to have the perennial
roots to protect that soil.

00:52:27.920 --> 00:52:31.400
If you only have this much soil
in which to grow your food,

00:52:31.400 --> 00:52:33.870
and you lose several
inches every other year,

00:52:33.870 --> 00:52:36.450
it's not too many years and
you are growing nothing.

00:52:36.450 --> 00:52:42.350
Our goal is to have
soil erosion go to zero.

00:52:42.350 --> 00:52:46.120
That's the first important
step, as I see it,

00:52:46.120 --> 00:52:52.395
to begin the reconciliation for
us as a species out of context.

00:52:56.140 --> 00:52:58.780
When I started
Navdanya with concern

00:52:58.780 --> 00:53:01.740
for the seed and its
renewability and fertility,

00:53:01.740 --> 00:53:04.570
I started it as my
personal commitment,

00:53:04.570 --> 00:53:06.690
not knowing how many
would join, no matter

00:53:06.690 --> 00:53:09.610
how long I would be able
to continue this commitment

00:53:09.610 --> 00:53:13.730
in practicing farming that is
first a service to the soil.

00:53:13.730 --> 00:53:16.550
What Vandana Shiva and
her colleagues do here

00:53:16.550 --> 00:53:19.530
is to collect and preserve
the seed varieties

00:53:19.530 --> 00:53:21.980
to share them with the
surrounding farmers.

00:53:21.980 --> 00:53:22.970
This is sorghum.

00:53:22.970 --> 00:53:27.300
So that the entire
agricultural region

00:53:27.300 --> 00:53:31.020
regains biodiversity
and is revitalized.

00:53:31.020 --> 00:53:35.460
The only quality food
that we can ever produce

00:53:35.460 --> 00:53:39.620
is food that is a byproduct of
our relationship with the soil.

00:53:39.620 --> 00:53:40.620
We will use vetch.

00:53:40.620 --> 00:53:42.450
We will use clover.

00:53:42.450 --> 00:53:45.280
And I'm going to
broadcast them by hand.

00:53:45.280 --> 00:53:47.940
And while I'm
broadcasting them by hand,

00:53:47.940 --> 00:53:53.960
I'm going to give each seed
all of the energy of my soul

00:53:53.960 --> 00:53:57.435
and connect with all of
my plants in my soil.

00:53:57.435 --> 00:54:00.930
It's so very important
that we recognize

00:54:00.930 --> 00:54:03.826
that we're not separate
from all of it.

00:54:07.210 --> 00:54:10.500
What's happening here
dictates what happens up here.

00:54:10.500 --> 00:54:12.610
And what happens up
here also dictates

00:54:12.610 --> 00:54:14.090
what happens down here.

00:54:14.090 --> 00:54:15.200
They're totally connected.

00:54:15.200 --> 00:54:17.400
They below ground
and above ground

00:54:17.400 --> 00:54:20.090
are totally connected
ecologically.

00:54:20.090 --> 00:54:24.035
A new generation is finding ways
to change their relationship

00:54:24.035 --> 00:54:25.950
to dirt.

00:54:25.950 --> 00:54:29.950
One group of young city
dwellers moved from Brooklyn

00:54:29.950 --> 00:54:33.310
to upstate New York
to put down new roots.

00:54:33.310 --> 00:54:36.950
We grow $20,000 per acre
per year of vegetables,

00:54:36.950 --> 00:54:40.140
feeding thousands of people
on what was a hayfield.

00:54:40.140 --> 00:54:43.690
And there's tons more of these
fields all over this region.

00:54:43.690 --> 00:54:47.590
We have been working
together for two years now.

00:54:47.590 --> 00:54:50.880
This is such
small-time, small-scale

00:54:50.880 --> 00:54:52.930
compared to most of the farms.

00:54:52.930 --> 00:54:56.865
But we're preserving the
soil by doing it organically.

00:55:02.040 --> 00:55:04.801
It's pretty amazing to have
your hands in this matter right

00:55:04.801 --> 00:55:05.300
here.

00:55:05.300 --> 00:55:06.130
And it's all alive.

00:55:06.130 --> 00:55:08.910
Add a little water,
add a little sunlight,

00:55:08.910 --> 00:55:11.450
and tend it a little bit.

00:55:11.450 --> 00:55:13.410
At this point, we have
about 500 families

00:55:13.410 --> 00:55:15.790
who we supply vegetables
to on a weekly basis.

00:55:18.530 --> 00:55:21.070
Miriam and Benjamin
have figured a way

00:55:21.070 --> 00:55:23.770
to make it work for
themselves and for us.

00:55:23.770 --> 00:55:26.080
We have health care,
which is pretty amazing.

00:55:26.080 --> 00:55:27.915
I mean, I have health care.

00:55:27.915 --> 00:55:31.030
I haven't had health
care in a while.

00:55:31.030 --> 00:55:33.820
First drop off is in Bay
Ridge, and then we make it over

00:55:33.820 --> 00:55:35.730
to Greenwood Heights.

00:55:35.730 --> 00:55:38.730
Then we make it over to the
Red Shed community garden.

00:55:38.730 --> 00:55:41.780
Giving food, the food you grew
to people, it's pretty awesome.

00:55:45.140 --> 00:55:48.580
Community supported
agriculture, or CSAs,

00:55:48.580 --> 00:55:52.270
provide fresh produce
to subscribers.

00:55:52.270 --> 00:55:54.770
In exchange for us providing
them produce every week,

00:55:54.770 --> 00:55:58.020
they pay us a yearly
subscription fee.

00:55:58.020 --> 00:56:00.310
And that money allows
us to grow the food,

00:56:00.310 --> 00:56:02.550
buy seeds, buy equipment,
take care of ourselves.

00:56:06.587 --> 00:56:08.920
I think there are a lot of
people trying to make efforts

00:56:08.920 --> 00:56:10.800
doing things like,
trying to give us

00:56:10.800 --> 00:56:14.350
a natural niche in a place
that's pretty much concrete.

00:56:14.350 --> 00:56:17.520
You know, you do what you can.

00:56:17.520 --> 00:56:20.437
These are going to be going
to Brownsville, Brooklyn.

00:56:20.437 --> 00:56:22.145
There's a lot of less
fortunate families.

00:56:22.145 --> 00:56:24.480
It would be really a
good thing in the future

00:56:24.480 --> 00:56:26.200
if some off the
families could actually

00:56:26.200 --> 00:56:28.680
come here and see the
whole dirt process.

00:56:28.680 --> 00:56:31.717
Because a lot of times in a
city, there's actually no dirt.

00:56:31.717 --> 00:56:33.300
You see everything
is pretty concrete.

00:56:43.752 --> 00:56:45.585
You don't have move out
of your neighborhood

00:56:45.585 --> 00:56:47.126
to live in a better
one, but you sure

00:56:47.126 --> 00:56:49.330
do have to fight
as hell if you want

00:56:49.330 --> 00:56:54.400
to reconnect your life
into a more natural state

00:56:54.400 --> 00:56:56.550
that actually includes
poor people and poor people

00:56:56.550 --> 00:56:57.400
of color.

00:56:57.400 --> 00:56:59.680
So we work to create
opportunities--

00:56:59.680 --> 00:57:02.840
do tree planting, to
work on creating parks.

00:57:05.810 --> 00:57:07.680
The presence of
trees in open space

00:57:07.680 --> 00:57:12.440
actually has a positive impact
on people's mental well-being.

00:57:12.440 --> 00:57:15.720
We're in the South Bronx on top
of the house that I live in.

00:57:15.720 --> 00:57:17.400
And what we're
standing on right now

00:57:17.400 --> 00:57:22.385
is the green roof that we
planted about seven months ago.

00:57:22.385 --> 00:57:25.130
A green roof is a sustainable
building technique.

00:57:25.130 --> 00:57:29.930
And it's really simply
soil and living plants.

00:57:29.930 --> 00:57:33.310
But it has some really
amazing properties,

00:57:33.310 --> 00:57:34.640
such as stormwater management.

00:57:34.640 --> 00:57:37.690
It actually retains
about between 70 to 95%

00:57:37.690 --> 00:57:40.100
of the water that falls on it.

00:57:40.100 --> 00:57:43.070
Energy conservation-- it
provides an insulating layer

00:57:43.070 --> 00:57:44.930
to the floor underneath it.

00:57:44.930 --> 00:57:47.140
They protect a roof
from sun damage,

00:57:47.140 --> 00:57:48.960
so they actually
last up to five times

00:57:48.960 --> 00:57:50.420
longer than a traditional roof.

00:57:50.420 --> 00:57:52.115
And it actually cleans
the air as well.

00:57:52.115 --> 00:57:53.080
Isn't that beautiful?

00:57:56.750 --> 00:58:01.000
Up here, that's the down spout
that goes from our green roof.

00:58:01.000 --> 00:58:03.070
So all the excess
water goes down

00:58:03.070 --> 00:58:05.660
and then it's carried over
into this rain barrel.

00:58:05.660 --> 00:58:10.310
And that's connected to a drip
irrigation hose, which nicely

00:58:10.310 --> 00:58:14.090
waters our tomato plants
and our lovely pear tree,

00:58:14.090 --> 00:58:16.020
and the rose bushes.

00:58:16.020 --> 00:58:18.810
And there's cauliflower.

00:58:18.810 --> 00:58:20.890
So this is our compost bin.

00:58:20.890 --> 00:58:24.150
So remember all the weeds that
I pulled up off our green roof?

00:58:24.150 --> 00:58:26.320
They're going to
go right in here.

00:58:26.320 --> 00:58:30.100
And we found some earth with
a lot of clay content in it.

00:58:30.100 --> 00:58:32.020
And it's really
been nice to have

00:58:32.020 --> 00:58:34.940
it amended with the compost.

00:58:34.940 --> 00:58:36.260
Look at that.

00:58:36.260 --> 00:58:38.170
Isn't that beautiful?

00:58:38.170 --> 00:58:43.020
What we want to do is green as
many areas of our urban areas

00:58:43.020 --> 00:58:46.290
as possible, to kind of
mimic what nature has already

00:58:46.290 --> 00:58:47.420
stated works.

00:58:47.420 --> 00:58:52.792
So many of us feel overwhelmed
by the problems we encounter.

00:58:52.792 --> 00:58:57.700
And sometimes you feel like, so
what can I do, me, little me?

00:58:57.700 --> 00:58:59.250
It was 1970.

00:58:59.250 --> 00:59:00.330
I was 15.

00:59:00.330 --> 00:59:02.840
And the Forest Service
told us that smog

00:59:02.840 --> 00:59:04.664
was killing the forest.

00:59:04.664 --> 00:59:06.830
They said they found that
there were some trees that

00:59:06.830 --> 00:59:10.420
were smog tolerant, but
no one was planting them.

00:59:10.420 --> 00:59:14.940
And it was up to us kids if we
were going to save the forest.

00:59:14.940 --> 00:59:17.960
So what we did was take
a piece of our camp

00:59:17.960 --> 00:59:19.880
that had been turned
into a parking lot.

00:59:19.880 --> 00:59:25.021
We peeled back a 4-inch
layer of tar and oil.

00:59:25.021 --> 00:59:27.190
Let the dirt come back to life.

00:59:27.190 --> 00:59:30.337
We were really just
talking about your concern

00:59:30.337 --> 00:59:31.920
for what was happening
with the trees.

00:59:31.920 --> 00:59:34.720
And it kind of grew, and
the volunteers joined.

00:59:34.720 --> 00:59:37.540
And other people who thought
it was a good idea joined in.

00:59:37.540 --> 00:59:39.490
Tens of thousands
of young people

00:59:39.490 --> 00:59:43.790
come here to learn about
how nature worked in cycles.

00:59:43.790 --> 00:59:45.290
And they learn how
those cycles were

00:59:45.290 --> 00:59:47.830
broken, causing damage
to the ecosystem.

00:59:47.830 --> 00:59:52.460
They learn their profound
power and their role

00:59:52.460 --> 00:59:55.200
as the healers of that cycle.

00:59:55.200 --> 00:59:58.280
How long would that take
to grow, with proper care,

00:59:58.280 --> 01:00:01.630
to a fairly good
size, 4 or 5 feet?

01:00:01.630 --> 01:00:02.684
Two, three years.

01:00:02.684 --> 01:00:04.100
And this is going
to be a redwood?

01:00:04.100 --> 01:00:05.720
It's already a redwood.

01:00:05.720 --> 01:00:06.716
Oh, excuse me.

01:00:11.700 --> 01:00:14.170
You look across any
schoolyard in Los Angeles,

01:00:14.170 --> 01:00:16.420
mostly it looks
like a parking lot.

01:00:16.420 --> 01:00:20.860
That very same process of
attacking a parking lot

01:00:20.860 --> 01:00:23.070
is what's happening on
schoolyards in neighborhoods

01:00:23.070 --> 01:00:23.570
all over.

01:00:27.200 --> 01:00:28.980
The prominent
reporter said, well,

01:00:28.980 --> 01:00:31.802
if you remove the asphalt,
where are they going to play?

01:00:31.802 --> 01:00:33.540
I went, whoa.

01:00:33.540 --> 01:00:38.410
That really reveals how
far we've come from nature.

01:01:05.020 --> 01:01:08.440
It's really amazing what started
happening as students started

01:01:08.440 --> 01:01:11.145
to remove the asphalt
and green their campuses.

01:01:15.300 --> 01:01:18.700
This place used to
be all concrete, just

01:01:18.700 --> 01:01:21.430
like down there at
the basketball court.

01:01:21.430 --> 01:01:25.084
We planted an edible landscape.

01:01:25.084 --> 01:01:26.956
Want to see?

01:01:26.956 --> 01:01:28.300
Oh, that's really good.

01:01:28.300 --> 01:01:33.270
If the experience in nature is
so comforting to these kids who

01:01:33.270 --> 01:01:36.660
have never had their hands
in the ground before,

01:01:36.660 --> 01:01:38.490
they just need to be here.

01:01:38.490 --> 01:01:40.350
They want to be in the garden.

01:01:40.350 --> 01:01:43.780
I think we should all get
our hands in the dirt,

01:01:43.780 --> 01:01:46.150
and pick the
vegetables ourselves,

01:01:46.150 --> 01:01:48.970
and bring them into the
kitchen and make them

01:01:48.970 --> 01:01:50.880
into these beautiful soups.

01:01:50.880 --> 01:01:51.195
[MUSIC - BANANA SLUG
STRING BAND, "DIRT,

01:01:51.195 --> 01:01:51.986
YOU MADE MY LUNCH"]

01:01:54.880 --> 01:01:55.880
Thank you.

01:01:55.880 --> 01:01:58.576
Our whole lunch is
actually made out of dirt.

01:01:58.576 --> 01:01:59.560
Thank you, dirt.

01:01:59.560 --> 01:02:03.004
Thanks so much for
salad, for salad.

01:02:03.004 --> 01:02:04.855
Salad, sandwich,
milk, and lunch.

01:02:04.855 --> 01:02:07.262
Then it goes dirt,
you made my lunch.

01:02:07.262 --> 01:02:09.677
Yes, dirt you made my lunch.

01:02:13.480 --> 01:02:15.730
All our praying,
our ancient prayers

01:02:15.730 --> 01:02:18.190
from the beginning of
the agricultural season,

01:02:18.190 --> 01:02:21.260
begin with, I know I have
to take something from you,

01:02:21.260 --> 01:02:24.580
Mother Earth, to feed
myself, to feed my family.

01:02:24.580 --> 01:02:28.380
But I promise I will
return as much as I can.

01:02:28.380 --> 01:02:30.306
This is compost.

01:02:30.306 --> 01:02:34.470
We just cultivated a bed, so
we put compost all over it,

01:02:34.470 --> 01:02:38.160
then layered it with
some newer soil.

01:02:38.160 --> 01:02:43.960
There's no such thing as
waste, until it's wasted.

01:02:43.960 --> 01:02:48.470
Compost is the black gold
that keeps dirt healthy.

01:02:48.470 --> 01:02:51.250
I really think of this compost
pile as giant casserole,

01:02:51.250 --> 01:02:52.670
or, say, a lasagna.

01:02:52.670 --> 01:02:55.450
Because all these things
are going to start cooking.

01:02:55.450 --> 01:02:56.840
That's the way compost works.

01:02:56.840 --> 01:02:58.190
You basically need two things.

01:02:58.190 --> 01:03:01.225
You need stems of
plants, or chopped up

01:03:01.225 --> 01:03:02.600
leaves, something like that.

01:03:02.600 --> 01:03:05.040
And then you have the
moist green ingredients.

01:03:05.040 --> 01:03:10.170
And that's things like weeds
or old cucumbers, or anything

01:03:10.170 --> 01:03:12.750
like that that's leafy matter.

01:03:12.750 --> 01:03:15.320
And the dried brown is the fuel.

01:03:15.320 --> 01:03:16.930
The moist green is the fire.

01:03:16.930 --> 01:03:19.310
When you add nitrogen
and carbon together,

01:03:19.310 --> 01:03:21.380
you get this
wonderful combustion,

01:03:21.380 --> 01:03:23.150
aided by our little
friends the bacteria

01:03:23.150 --> 01:03:26.170
and the fungi that are in
here making it all work.

01:03:26.170 --> 01:03:28.220
And it turns into
something resembling

01:03:28.220 --> 01:03:30.010
the best soil you ever saw.

01:03:34.150 --> 01:03:35.880
We got a call from
the state of Maine

01:03:35.880 --> 01:03:38.010
that they had a
fish waste crisis.

01:03:38.010 --> 01:03:40.080
They were dumping
fish waste out at sea

01:03:40.080 --> 01:03:42.150
and EPA was beginning
to crack down.

01:03:42.150 --> 01:03:44.740
And I said, let's bring
all the waste onto shore

01:03:44.740 --> 01:03:46.142
and compost it.

01:03:46.142 --> 01:03:47.600
But guess what we
had to deal with.

01:03:47.600 --> 01:03:50.020
We had this kind
of material here.

01:03:50.020 --> 01:03:52.160
Take a whiff of that.

01:03:52.160 --> 01:03:52.660
Holy!

01:03:56.100 --> 01:03:56.650
That's--

01:03:56.650 --> 01:03:58.086
That's pretty strong, isn't it?

01:03:58.086 --> 01:03:58.960
That's pretty strong.

01:03:58.960 --> 01:03:59.590
Yeah.

01:03:59.590 --> 01:04:01.820
As soon as we started
composting, everybody said,

01:04:01.820 --> 01:04:03.590
oh that's what the
Indians used to do.

01:04:03.590 --> 01:04:06.605
We're combining it
with a carbon source.

01:04:06.605 --> 01:04:09.540
And the traditional carbon
source for making compost

01:04:09.540 --> 01:04:11.710
is soft-wood sawdust.

01:04:11.710 --> 01:04:15.730
But this is step one.

01:04:15.730 --> 01:04:16.510
Not bad.

01:04:16.510 --> 01:04:18.225
This is about one
turn too early.

01:04:18.225 --> 01:04:20.290
You can pick up a slight
ammonia smell with this.

01:04:20.290 --> 01:04:21.956
And that kind of gives
me away, that I'm

01:04:21.956 --> 01:04:24.660
rushing this just a little bit.

01:04:24.660 --> 01:04:27.740
The next step up, we've
turned it four more times.

01:04:27.740 --> 01:04:30.260
At this point, you can smell it.

01:04:30.260 --> 01:04:31.880
No ammonia smell at all.

01:04:31.880 --> 01:04:33.240
That's a good sign.

01:04:33.240 --> 01:04:35.650
That's a real good sign
that we're right on track.

01:04:35.650 --> 01:04:37.570
It has a real earthy smell.

01:04:37.570 --> 01:04:40.670
Smells just like dirt right out
of your garden at this point.

01:04:40.670 --> 01:04:42.590
And this is their final product.

01:04:42.590 --> 01:04:43.150
Look at that.

01:04:43.150 --> 01:04:45.180
Whoa.

01:04:45.180 --> 01:04:48.240
All it took was about
eight months of composting.

01:04:48.240 --> 01:04:48.970
It's beautiful.

01:04:59.940 --> 01:05:02.560
There was a neighbor no more
than a couple of miles away

01:05:02.560 --> 01:05:06.050
who had a business
shucking clams.

01:05:06.050 --> 01:05:08.080
And if we turned
up at his operation

01:05:08.080 --> 01:05:10.700
at 3:30 when he quit
work every afternoon,

01:05:10.700 --> 01:05:13.450
he would dump all these
barrels of clam shells

01:05:13.450 --> 01:05:15.110
into the back of my trailer.

01:05:15.110 --> 01:05:17.580
We would bring them back
and spread them on the field

01:05:17.580 --> 01:05:19.430
and rototill them in.

01:05:19.430 --> 01:05:20.930
And it was a very
interesting thing,

01:05:20.930 --> 01:05:23.490
because the local extension
agent came by one day

01:05:23.490 --> 01:05:24.770
when I was doing that.

01:05:24.770 --> 01:05:26.500
And he looked at this,
and he said, well,

01:05:26.500 --> 01:05:27.600
that's foolish, Elliott.

01:05:27.600 --> 01:05:29.470
They won't break
down for 100 years.

01:05:29.470 --> 01:05:31.150
And I said, great.

01:05:31.150 --> 01:05:33.900
You mean I have a steady supply
of calcium for the next 100

01:05:33.900 --> 01:05:34.400
years?

01:05:34.400 --> 01:05:36.830
And it was just these two
ways of looking at it.

01:05:36.830 --> 01:05:38.530
He wanted it today.

01:05:38.530 --> 01:05:41.150
I was thinking of long-term
fertility and something that

01:05:41.150 --> 01:05:43.100
would be there for the future.

01:05:43.100 --> 01:05:45.902
As of late, people are realizing
that soils and sediments

01:05:45.902 --> 01:05:47.610
actually contain a
fair amount of energy.

01:05:47.610 --> 01:05:51.160
And energy that you find is
tied up as organic matter.

01:05:51.160 --> 01:05:53.510
So soils and
sediments, waste water,

01:05:53.510 --> 01:05:55.610
the things that
you may throw out

01:05:55.610 --> 01:05:58.760
of your kitchen as food scraps,
or the tremendous amount

01:05:58.760 --> 01:06:01.810
of organic-rich waste that
comes out of an industry,

01:06:01.810 --> 01:06:03.894
we would just dump that
somewhere and ignore it.

01:06:03.894 --> 01:06:06.310
Now, we're beginning to realize
that we can harness energy

01:06:06.310 --> 01:06:07.310
from it.

01:06:07.310 --> 01:06:09.940
To that end, we've been looking
a lot at these microbial fuel

01:06:09.940 --> 01:06:12.570
cells, which are devices
that harness energy

01:06:12.570 --> 01:06:15.160
from the naturally
occurring cycles that

01:06:15.160 --> 01:06:17.180
take place in soils.

01:06:17.180 --> 01:06:19.750
The basic premise is
that you have microbes

01:06:19.750 --> 01:06:21.380
that live in soils
and sediments.

01:06:21.380 --> 01:06:24.240
And they eat the organic
matter in the soil.

01:06:24.240 --> 01:06:26.040
And to generate
energy from that,

01:06:26.040 --> 01:06:27.810
they have to move
electrons off of that

01:06:27.810 --> 01:06:29.226
through their
biochemical pathways

01:06:29.226 --> 01:06:31.350
and stick those
electrons onto something.

01:06:31.350 --> 01:06:33.270
By using a microbial
fuel cell that you

01:06:33.270 --> 01:06:35.160
would put into the
soil, you can do

01:06:35.160 --> 01:06:38.390
things like turn this
landscape light on.

01:06:38.390 --> 01:06:40.720
So what you see here
is a landscape light

01:06:40.720 --> 01:06:43.579
being powered by energy that
we harness from microbes, which

01:06:43.579 --> 01:06:45.495
you could have in your
home, in your backyard,

01:06:45.495 --> 01:06:47.180
or we could use
these to illuminate

01:06:47.180 --> 01:06:48.700
parks and public spaces.

01:06:48.700 --> 01:06:50.880
And our hope is that
we'll be able to find

01:06:50.880 --> 01:06:53.767
ways to use microbial
fuel cells to power maybe

01:06:53.767 --> 01:06:55.850
outdoor landscaping lighting,
or even bring lights

01:06:55.850 --> 01:06:57.760
to rural or remote
regions of the US.

01:06:57.760 --> 01:07:00.260
And, of course, to help those
people in the developing world

01:07:00.260 --> 01:07:03.710
improve their quality of life.

01:07:03.710 --> 01:07:07.580
Rikers Island in New York
City, one of the largest prison

01:07:07.580 --> 01:07:11.720
complexes in the world,
offers inmates the opportunity

01:07:11.720 --> 01:07:14.350
to work in the
greenhouse program.

01:07:14.350 --> 01:07:18.260
When we talk about dirt, we're
not just talking about dirt.

01:07:18.260 --> 01:07:23.170
We're talking about the
spiritual as well as

01:07:23.170 --> 01:07:25.295
the physical attributes
of one's life.

01:07:29.110 --> 01:07:31.120
And I think that's
what people relate dirt

01:07:31.120 --> 01:07:35.210
to after they come from
jail into the gardens.

01:07:35.210 --> 01:07:36.916
It's no longer dirt.

01:07:36.916 --> 01:07:40.120
It's a Metaphor
for a healthy life.

01:07:40.120 --> 01:07:41.690
I grew up in Brooklyn, New York.

01:07:41.690 --> 01:07:43.520
I have a three-year-old.

01:07:43.520 --> 01:07:45.530
I actually had my
20th birthday here.

01:07:45.530 --> 01:07:48.470
A fight brought me here.

01:07:48.470 --> 01:07:51.670
Reality smacked me in
my face, being here.

01:07:51.670 --> 01:07:56.160
And at the same time, I
found something I like to do.

01:07:56.160 --> 01:07:58.150
I notice when people
come through the gate,

01:07:58.150 --> 01:08:00.920
they're hunched over,
they're feeling the impact

01:08:00.920 --> 01:08:02.690
of what it's like
being locked up.

01:08:02.690 --> 01:08:05.330
All of a sudden, as they start
moving through the garden,

01:08:05.330 --> 01:08:07.815
I kind of almost see
their chest cavity expand

01:08:07.815 --> 01:08:09.560
and their shoulders go out.

01:08:09.560 --> 01:08:12.860
Yeah, when I come out the door,
I say, wow, it's so beautiful.

01:08:12.860 --> 01:08:16.490
And the first thing I
see is my friend, Donald.

01:08:16.490 --> 01:08:18.950
And the guinea fowl
are my favorite birds.

01:08:18.950 --> 01:08:20.790
And I love them to death.

01:08:20.790 --> 01:08:23.700
They're so serene and beautiful.

01:08:23.700 --> 01:08:25.835
It's something
that a person would

01:08:25.835 --> 01:08:28.279
have to feel for themselves.

01:08:28.279 --> 01:08:30.689
That's behind
those closed doors.

01:08:30.689 --> 01:08:35.470
In the period of time it takes
to mix soil, to dig into soil,

01:08:35.470 --> 01:08:38.080
I see this transformation.

01:08:38.080 --> 01:08:42.590
And it really comes with
that first exploration

01:08:42.590 --> 01:08:45.970
into the world of dirt.

01:08:45.970 --> 01:08:49.240
It's really amazing what started
happening as students started

01:08:49.240 --> 01:08:53.300
to remove the asphalt
and green their campuses.

01:08:53.300 --> 01:08:55.520
Principals have
reported that kids

01:08:55.520 --> 01:09:00.160
are playing more cooperative
games, and less aggressive.

01:09:00.160 --> 01:09:01.130
That's really cool.

01:09:06.529 --> 01:09:08.479
Digging is magical.

01:09:08.479 --> 01:09:09.984
Everybody loves digging.

01:09:09.984 --> 01:09:11.760
You have to get on
your knees, and you

01:09:11.760 --> 01:09:13.490
have to dig through that dirt.

01:09:13.490 --> 01:09:16.740
Living things work together
to make life a better place.

01:09:16.740 --> 01:09:17.640
It's a good thing.

01:09:17.640 --> 01:09:20.238
God made dirt, and
dirt don't hurt.

01:09:20.238 --> 01:09:21.339
The dirt program's great.

01:09:21.339 --> 01:09:23.255
It's just another way
to give back to society.

01:09:23.255 --> 01:09:26.380
I'm actually helping people,
feeding the homeless.

01:09:26.380 --> 01:09:29.279
I would love to work
with flowers and dirt.

01:09:29.279 --> 01:09:31.045
Now that I conquered
my fear, I'm

01:09:31.045 --> 01:09:33.210
not scared what comes from it.

01:09:33.210 --> 01:09:35.810
At some point, they fall in
love with the whole thing.

01:09:35.810 --> 01:09:38.040
And it can either
be an activity or it

01:09:38.040 --> 01:09:41.200
can be a plant they connect
to, but they connect.

01:09:41.200 --> 01:09:42.640
l like the cactus.

01:09:42.640 --> 01:09:43.529
I really do.

01:09:43.529 --> 01:09:45.372
Things might want to
come and eat of it,

01:09:45.372 --> 01:09:47.359
but it can't, because
it's tough on the outside

01:09:47.359 --> 01:09:48.950
and it protects itself.

01:09:48.950 --> 01:09:50.225
It's sweet inside.

01:09:52.899 --> 01:09:55.030
I would say this is me.

01:09:55.030 --> 01:09:57.580
When you've got a prison
industrial complex, and one

01:09:57.580 --> 01:10:01.190
that supports our GDP as
much as this one does, then

01:10:01.190 --> 01:10:02.830
if you build a jail,
it will be filled.

01:10:02.830 --> 01:10:05.580
What we wanted to do is show
that there is another way.

01:10:05.580 --> 01:10:07.870
If you've got a bunch
of guys and gals

01:10:07.870 --> 01:10:10.860
who are planting trees, who
are installing green roofs,

01:10:10.860 --> 01:10:12.500
those are actually
paying the city back

01:10:12.500 --> 01:10:14.710
in terms of stormwater
management costs,

01:10:14.710 --> 01:10:16.690
in terms of energy
conservation cost.

01:10:19.402 --> 01:10:24.080
The Green Team is an opportunity
for inmates leaving Rikers

01:10:24.080 --> 01:10:26.260
to continue building
the skills they learned.

01:10:26.260 --> 01:10:29.846
And it also offers
them a way to get paid.

01:10:29.846 --> 01:10:32.191
When I came out, I started
working the next week.

01:10:32.191 --> 01:10:34.815
I didn't want to get back in any
trouble or anything like that.

01:10:34.815 --> 01:10:37.230
I felt that if I kept
continued programming positive,

01:10:37.230 --> 01:10:38.625
I'd stay out.

01:10:38.625 --> 01:10:42.940
Our reconviction rates of
people who join the Green Team

01:10:42.940 --> 01:10:44.350
are extremely low.

01:10:44.350 --> 01:10:47.830
You've got to get
your wire first.

01:10:47.830 --> 01:10:50.730
And these green collar jobs are
jobs that can't be outsourced.

01:10:50.730 --> 01:10:52.727
So when you're working
to restore wetland,

01:10:52.727 --> 01:10:54.310
you're working to
put on a green roof,

01:10:54.310 --> 01:10:55.957
even putting on
solar panels, you're

01:10:55.957 --> 01:10:58.290
not going to send your house
to China to have that done.

01:11:02.358 --> 01:11:04.740
It really is a nice
way to bring together

01:11:04.740 --> 01:11:08.280
the three traditional parts of
a person-- their physical moving

01:11:08.280 --> 01:11:11.942
part, and their intellectual
part, and their emotional part.

01:11:11.942 --> 01:11:13.525
People getting their
hands in the dirt

01:11:13.525 --> 01:11:15.430
and actually knowing
the power that they

01:11:15.430 --> 01:11:19.210
have to tend to something,
another living thing, that's

01:11:19.210 --> 01:11:21.800
really powerful to folks
who have been told all

01:11:21.800 --> 01:11:24.450
of their lives that they
have nothing to contribute.

01:11:24.450 --> 01:11:25.980
Guide it in.

01:11:25.980 --> 01:11:27.805
It's a lot about
team building, too.

01:11:27.805 --> 01:11:30.406
And these projects benefit
the whole community.

01:11:30.406 --> 01:11:33.271
All of this concrete and
stuff don't need to be here.

01:11:33.271 --> 01:11:35.395
It don't have to be the
concrete jungle that it is.

01:11:35.395 --> 01:11:37.782
A lot of people, they're
ashamed to touch the dirt

01:11:37.782 --> 01:11:39.610
and get their hands dirty.

01:11:39.610 --> 01:11:44.340
But dirt is what you're
made of, so it's good.

01:11:44.340 --> 01:11:47.732
Kids really get their
power when they're learning

01:11:47.732 --> 01:11:48.940
and they're dreaming combine.

01:11:51.404 --> 01:11:52.820
In a number of
neighborhoods where

01:11:52.820 --> 01:11:54.486
we've given the kids
those sledgehammers

01:11:54.486 --> 01:11:57.700
and they've busted the concrete,
many of were gang kids.

01:11:57.700 --> 01:12:00.960
After they got done
with planting the trees,

01:12:00.960 --> 01:12:05.380
they voluntarily went and
painted out the graffiti.

01:12:05.380 --> 01:12:09.480
There's nothing more moving
to see tough kids have

01:12:09.480 --> 01:12:13.562
their hearts open because
they did the work.

01:12:13.562 --> 01:12:16.470
And they learn where
the real difference is.

01:12:16.470 --> 01:12:19.708
And they see and feel the
real difference they make.

01:12:19.708 --> 01:12:22.490
My grandma used to always
say, the dirt is alive.

01:12:22.490 --> 01:12:25.155
And I'd be like, it's
just dirt, Grandma.

01:12:25.155 --> 01:12:26.580
Dirt ain't alive.

01:12:26.580 --> 01:12:31.669
She goes, it has oxygen and
everything in it, and minerals,

01:12:31.669 --> 01:12:32.210
and vitamins.

01:12:32.210 --> 01:12:34.765
And how do you think
the plants grow?

01:12:34.765 --> 01:12:36.540
And the food is good.

01:12:36.540 --> 01:12:38.800
And when you're little,
it goes in one ear,

01:12:38.800 --> 01:12:40.220
it come out the other.

01:12:40.220 --> 01:12:42.550
But now that I'm
older, I understand

01:12:42.550 --> 01:12:46.070
more how it's very important
to help the environment.

01:12:46.070 --> 01:12:48.420
Because sooner or later,
if people don't really

01:12:48.420 --> 01:12:51.450
wake up and see what's
going on with global warming

01:12:51.450 --> 01:12:53.980
and all of this, it's
going to be too late.

01:12:53.980 --> 01:12:56.300
It's going to be
really too late.

01:13:00.665 --> 01:13:02.450
Even though what
you are doing may

01:13:02.450 --> 01:13:06.491
be very small, may be
very insignificant as

01:13:06.491 --> 01:13:13.210
far as your concerned,
collectively, if so many of us

01:13:13.210 --> 01:13:19.570
were doing the same thing,
we would accomplish a lot.

01:13:19.570 --> 01:13:21.270
It really does start at home.

01:13:21.270 --> 01:13:23.920
Sometimes we can't change
things on the grandest scale.

01:13:23.920 --> 01:13:25.770
But if you start
the change yourself,

01:13:25.770 --> 01:13:28.450
and your friend starts it,
and your friends starts it,

01:13:28.450 --> 01:13:30.870
pretty soon a lot of people
are doing something different.

01:13:30.870 --> 01:13:34.920
The good news is that we don't
need to start from scratch.

01:13:34.920 --> 01:13:37.930
We can learn a lot
of valuable lessons

01:13:37.930 --> 01:13:39.830
from the wisdom of nature.

01:13:39.830 --> 01:13:47.994
Put on the skin a dress,
a green dress, like trees,

01:13:47.994 --> 01:13:48.660
like vegetation.

01:13:51.710 --> 01:13:56.780
And then when the earth
is covered with green,

01:13:56.780 --> 01:14:01.546
with vegetation with
trees, with the forest,

01:14:01.546 --> 01:14:02.546
it looks very beautiful.

01:14:05.610 --> 01:14:07.840
And in this age
of climate change,

01:14:07.840 --> 01:14:11.060
can you imagine how happy
the planet would be?

01:14:18.730 --> 01:14:21.570
What we give to the soil,
what we give back to the soil,

01:14:21.570 --> 01:14:24.670
how we recycle our waste
back into the soil,

01:14:24.670 --> 01:14:26.230
is what's going to sustain us.

01:14:26.230 --> 01:14:27.860
We have great friends out there.

01:14:27.860 --> 01:14:29.620
We have biological allies.

01:14:29.620 --> 01:14:32.629
Underneath, in the
soil, are soil builders,

01:14:32.629 --> 01:14:33.670
which are the earthworms.

01:14:33.670 --> 01:14:34.610
We're selling worms.

01:14:34.610 --> 01:14:36.590
You can get worms to go.

01:14:36.590 --> 01:14:40.000
Darwin said, at the end
of evolution's history,

01:14:40.000 --> 01:14:44.310
they will be recognized as
the most important species.

01:14:44.310 --> 01:14:46.070
Because they build the soil.

01:14:46.070 --> 01:14:46.820
Oh, there's one.

01:14:46.820 --> 01:14:47.370
Right there.

01:14:47.370 --> 01:14:48.060
See him?

01:14:48.060 --> 01:14:49.700
Go get him.

01:14:49.700 --> 01:14:54.240
What we've destroyed,
we can heal.

01:14:54.240 --> 01:14:57.070
When we have the trees like
this going, going, going.

01:14:57.070 --> 01:14:57.820
We say, no.

01:14:57.820 --> 01:14:58.735
We can do more.

01:15:04.270 --> 01:15:06.500
I may feel insignificant.

01:15:06.500 --> 01:15:10.370
But I certainly don't want
to be the animals watching

01:15:10.370 --> 01:15:12.630
as the planet goes
down the drain.

01:15:12.630 --> 01:15:14.180
I will be a hummingbird.

01:15:14.180 --> 01:15:17.575
I will do the best I can.

01:15:54.720 --> 01:15:55.720
Oh, that smells so good.

01:15:55.720 --> 01:15:56.516
It really does.

01:15:56.516 --> 01:15:57.914
God made dirt.

01:15:57.914 --> 01:15:58.850
Dirt don't hurt.

01:15:58.850 --> 01:16:01.682
Put it in your mouth
and let it work.

01:16:01.682 --> 01:16:03.100
Dirt.

01:16:03.100 --> 01:16:06.550
When nature works on her own,
she only creates living soils.

01:16:06.550 --> 01:16:09.320
But the moment the
human being enters,

01:16:09.320 --> 01:16:13.640
they can either work
like nature and rebuild

01:16:13.640 --> 01:16:17.900
the life of the soil with
every action, or take it away.

01:16:17.900 --> 01:16:21.190
The choice is
desertification or fertile

01:16:21.190 --> 01:16:22.810
and living soils that feed us.

01:16:26.840 --> 01:16:29.550
Of the billions of planets
in all the galaxies

01:16:29.550 --> 01:16:34.440
of the known universe,
only one has a living,

01:16:34.440 --> 01:16:36.610
breathing skin called dirt.

01:16:49.035 --> 01:20:27.081
[MUSIC PLAYING]