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Wednesday, 18 September 2019, 7:00pm
Walter Jehne — Cooling the Climate
Something is wrong. Everyone knows this.
The climate is getting hotter.
Every year we have millions more people to feed.
Every year our own country gets hotter and dryer.
The rains are sparse.
Bushfires are getting worse.
Ask any farmer.
We don't have a lot of time to turn things around.
What can we do?
We can work with the most important greenhouse gas: water vapour. We've been ignoring this one for decades.
At the same time we must return to the permanently productive regenerative agriculture and forestry used by our ancestors.
If we do all this we make it possible to —
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retain water in the landscape
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restore rainfall
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heal the soil
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cool the country
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cool the planet
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capture huge amounts of carbon.
Come and hear Canberra scientist Walter Jehne tell us how soil, water, vegetation and the climate are linked.
If you can't come to the live lecture, view one of his video lectures instead.
Thursday, 11 October 2018, 7:00pm
Fair Food Week film screening – In Our Hands : Seeding Change
The Food Co-op Shop, Kingsley St, Acton
From the UK, this is an inspiring documentary about re-localising our food.
The film explores the daily reality of nine real life farmers who refuse to be ground down by the machinery of big agribusiness and are proving, every day, that an alternative is not only possible - it's profitable as well.
The UK's 2016 Brexit referendum provided the context for a re-think of food and agriculture policy. However, the themes of ruinous farm-gate prices, corporate domination of food from soil and seed through to our plates, and the shift from food sovereignty to a system run on capital and chemicals are equally relevant to Australia and to our local region. And the examples of taking food back into our own hands are inspiring.
Check out the trailer on Vimeo here.
Produced by the Land Workers Alliance, UK https://landworkersalliance.org.uk/ and Black Bark Films: http://www.blackbarkfilms.com/
Thursday, 18 October 2018, 7:00pm
Public forum : Bringing Together People, Food and Planet: a better food system
Renewables Innovation Hub, Moore St, Turner
in collaboration with the Canberra Environment Centre
Join us for an evening of thought-provoking discussion with Lyneham Commons, Dr Charles Massy and Dr Eric Holt-Gimenez.
You may have heard people say "our food system is broken". But is it - or is it, in fact, performing entirely to specifications - albeit at great environmental, social and cultural cost ? We are spending less on food than earlier generations - but that food is making us obese and sick. Control over the food system has concentrated into fewer hands, generating great wealth for a few but dislocation and poverty for many. Our soils are being degraded at an alarming rate. But new ideas, like regenerative farming, show a path to a better food future.
Hear interesting perspectives at local, national and international level about a new future for food and farming, challenging the assumptions and models of the 'industrial' food system.
Lyneham Commons is a local Canberra community group who have developed a ‘food forest’ on unleased public land in inner north Canberra. But maybe even more importantly, they have embedded the act of growing healthy food from healthy soil back into the local community.
Charles Massy is a farmer, author and advocate for regenerative farming and a better food system. Charles is known to many of us as the author of Call of the Reed Warbler, which describes his journey from ‘industrial’ farming to regenerative agriculture.
Eric Holt-Gimenez (bio here) is Executive Director of Food First (California) – a non-government institute that works, through research, education and action, to end the injustices that cause hunger. An author, academic and food systems activist, Eric brings a broad perspective as an advocate for ‘farmer to farmer’ learning and local food systems, as well as recognition of the economic and political structures that dominate our current food system.