What U.S. Farming Can Do to Stop Climate Change

The Green New Deal is the only U.S. policy initiative that promises policy reform on a scale that matches the scale of the climate emergency. However, for the Green New Deal to accomplish its climate goals, it must spur two large-scale transitions: the transition away from fossil fuel use toward renewable energy, and the transition away from industrial agriculture, a huge polluter and greenhouse gas emitter in its own right, toward organic regenerative practices that draw down and sequester carbon.

The latter transition would have the added benefit of reducing emissions associated with industrial agriculture, which among other things, include the enormous nitrous oxide and methane emissions from factory farms and synthetic fertilizer production and use.

The potential for regenerative agriculture to reverse global warming is huge—but only if these practices are adopted, rapidly, on a large scale. We can’t address global warming, one small farm or hobby farm at a time.

Read the Yes! magazine story by Ronnie Cummins - “What U.S. Farming Can Do to Stop Climate Change.”