Is our food system the solution to climate change?

The news about climate change seems grim but my guest on this week’s episode of The Doctor’s Farmacy is here to give us hope. Paul Hawken is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, author, and activist who has dedicated his life to environmental sustainability and changing the relationship between business and the environment.

He is one of the environmental movement’s leading voices, and a pioneering architect of corporate reform with respect to ecological practices. His work includes founding successful, ecologically conscious businesses, writing about the impact of commerce on living systems, and consulting with heads of state and CEOs on economic development, industrial ecology, and environmental policy. Paul is Executive Director of Project Drawdown, a non-profit dedicated to researching when and how global warming can be reversed. He is on a mission to present real, already existing solutions to reverse global warming.

In this episode, Paul says, no wonder people don’t want to believe the truth about global warming—it’s depressing. It’s like getting a grim medical diagnosis and being in denial, but Paul says that just like Functional Medicine presents a new, innovative way to treat dis-ease, there are real solutions to global warming, and a lot of it has to do with food. In his book, Drawdown, he outlines the most comprehensive plan to reverse global warming. Food and the way we consume and produce it is a big part of that plan. In fact, the food sector is a big contributor of global warming, but more importantly, it is the number one solution to dealing with climate change. When we change agriculture practices, move away from controlled feeding operations, we not only reduce emissions, we can sequester carbon.

This is revolutionary. No other sector can do this. That means that the choices that we make around food are not only pivotal to maintaining our own health, but they are the most important thing we can do to heal the planet.

I hope you enjoy this fascinating, extended episode of The Doctor’s Farmacy where Paul presents real solutions to a very real problem that we are facing today.