Regenerating Life, the Movie: How to cool the planet, feed the world & live happily ever after, with John Feldman

Regenerating Life is a new feature-length documentary that takes a fresh look at solving the climate crisis - and everything else. Internationally acclaimed New York filmmaker John Feldman recently premiered it in the US (where recent podcast guest Judith Schwartz featured on the panel). He’s now about to accompany its premiere in Europe.

The film shifts away from the narrative that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause of the climate crisis – seeing that as just one symptom, significant as it is, of humankind’s relentless destruction of nature as a whole. This is because it’s the vast biodiversity on this planet that regulates and balances the climate. And the key take home? We can and are reversing this destructive process by Regenerating Life.

The film is also a kind of tribute to a much-loved Aussie scientist, Walter Jehne. And John talks here about his own transformation with varied projects and other legends in systemic thinking over the decades. Some feature in this film, like Vandana Shiva, Wes Jackson, Didi Pershouse, Satish Kumar and Naima Penniman. At the close, a special feature, with music made for the film by John’s wife, renowned composer Sheila Silver.

Head here for automatic cues to chapter markers (also available on Apple and some other apps, and the embedded player on the episode web page), and a transcript of this conversation (the transcript is AI generated and imperfect, but hopefully serves to provide greater access to these conversations for those who need or like to read).

Recorded 16 February 2024.

Title slide: John Feldman (supplied).

See more photos on the episode web page, and to see more from behind the scenes, become a member via the Patreon page.

Music:
Green Shoots, by The Nomadics.

Music from the film by Sheila Silver, with piano by Sheila and violin by Emmanuel Vukovich.

The RegenNarration playlist, featuring music chosen by guests (with thanks to podcast member Josie Symons).

Find more:
Regenerating Life website with trailer, more on John, and how you can see and screen the film.

The composition Shooting Ruminants (partly inspired by the Kachana Station story), part of Resilient Earth by Sheila Silver.

My conversation with Tony Rinaudo for episode 64.

Transcript

John: 0:24

The film in some respects is a series of, you know, g-wiz moments, of moments when you say, oh my god, I never thought about that. And the whole point is to start looking at the same old stuff in a new way. And once you start to look at things in a new way, everything else can start to fall into place.

AJ: 1:02

G' day. My name's Anthony James and you're with The RegenNarration, exploring the stories that are changing the story for the regeneration of life on this planet. A nd thanks to listeners like Luca, aka Dr Cat over in Italia, this podcast is not only possible, it's also ad-free and freely available. Thanks, luca, for being a subscribing member of the podcast for a couple of years now. If you're also finding value in all this, I'd love you to join Luca and the great community of supporting listeners for as little as $3 a month or whatever you can and want to contribute. Members get event discounts, including a brilliant one coming up next week that I wish I could get to, along with advance releases and invitations and other things. Just head to the website via the show notes RegenNarration. com forward slash support, and thanks again.

AJ: 1:56

Now a new feature length documentary is coming out that takes a fresh look at solving the climate crisis - and everything else. It's called Regenerating Life. Internationally acclaimed New York filmmaker John Feldman recently premiered it in the US, where recent podcast guest Judith Schwartz featured on the panel. John's now about to accompany its premiere in Europe and its Aussie premiere is on this Wednesday, the 28th of February, at the Epoch Institute in Melbourne, and happily, I think I'll be able to get there for it, as I'm beaming to you from the streets of Melbourne right now. The film shifts away from the narrative

AJ: 2:38

that burning fossil fuels is the primary cause of the climate crisis, seeing that as one symptom, significant as it is, of humankind's relentless destruction of nature as a whole. This is because it's the vast biodiversity on this planet that regulates and balances the climate. A nd the key take home? W e can and are reversing this destructive process by regenerating life. The film is also a kind of tribute to a much loved Aussie scientist, Walter Jehne. A nd John talks here about his own transformation, with varied projects and other legends in systemic thinking over the decades. A nd, at the close, a special feature with some of the music made for the film by John's wife, renowned composer Sheila Silver. John spoke with me last week from a wintry pre-dawn at home with me at dusk in another heat wave back in Western Australia. I started by asking him how he came to be making this film.

John: 3:46

I just finished a film on the Maverick scientist Lynn Margolis, and Lynn developed a Gaia theory with Jim Lovelock, and one of the bases of the Gaia theory is that the system of life on Earth, what's called Gaia regulates its own climate, regulates its own temperature, and that's really a profound thought if you think about it, but it makes a lot of sense. Well, that's all well and good, but since Lynn has passed away, the climate crisis has really accelerated and I couldn't ask her how does life do this? So I decided to investigate it on my own, and it was really a process of going to the people who have been studying this their whole careers which I haven't and asking them the right questions. And so the first questions I began to ask was well, how does life regulate the climate? And once we cover that, then the question is well, what have we humans done to really screw things up? Because we all can acknowledge that something is going to screw you with the climate. And then the third question, of course, is well, what can we do to fix this? And the film really became my journey to discover all this stuff and to figure it out, and you know it was really an eye-opening process Because much of the film I really didn't know.

John: 5:24

You know, when you start a film, I mean, for me, I've got to learn something when I make a film, and the more I learn the better it is. And for my last two films I developed the idea of using my narrative, of learning to explain things to the audience. The film, in some respects, is a series of, you know, g-wiz moments, of moments when you say, oh my God, I never thought about that. And the whole point is to start looking at the same old stuff in a new way. And once you start to look at things in a new way, everything else can start to fall into place. You know, and I find that when audiences look at the film, I don't know, you know at what point they're going to say, oh my God, I never thought about that. But once they hit that point, then they really are on this path of starting to think differently.

AJ: 6:20

It's so well said and there's so much in that response, I think, like the fact that you yourself don't have a prescribed thing you're trying to lob across to convince other people of it's an inquiry, so you share the inquiry together. I think that's a really powerful precept. And then, of course, so much about what you've found and yes, I'd like to come back to Lynn actually, if we might a bit later but so much of what you found really does shift the lens completely. That in turn, shifts all the opportunities, or the sense of opportunity. In fact, I love your opener. I took particular note of it because it was this great story, the reductionist progression of the understanding of the climate crisis, and you had this line, something along the lines of in turn, that reductionism reduces our agency and the solutions available to us, and I thought that was such a profound encapsulation in itself to launch from that. It's not only the problems come from that reductionist lens, but our limitations to addressing them come from that reductionist lens.

AJ: 7:32

So hearing, you then it sounds like you're going to be able to do that, and hearing you then it sounds like that, indeed, was a dawning revelation for you. I mean, it's something you obviously had the grounding of from the project with the Lynn. So I'm curious then how did you arrive there? How did you arrive at doing a film with Lynn? Maybe is the question what took you to that point.

John: 7:53

I think, to the point where I realized you know, the reason we haven't been able to solve climate change is because we're looking at the wrong solutions. That was a gradual process. It really was, and I think those people in my position who have to describe the film and to talk to other activists in the field I was very wary of saying that it's not about the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And I went through a gradual progression of saying you know well, yes, it's about the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but we have to look at other things. And you know when I'm at the point now where I'm saying you know, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a very small part of the problem. We've got to now really get over that and start to look at other things. So that's that first question. The second question about how did I get into this in the first place? It's obviously like everything, a long story.

John: 9:09

Yes, I made a film about evolution called Evo. It's an educational film which is used in in high schools in the US and a few other countries and I interviewed Lynn for that film. I interviewed a lot of evolutionary biologists and I interviewed Lynn and when I finished the film and showed it to Lynn. She got back to me and she said, John, this is really very good, this is really very good, but now I want you to tell the real story, and that was a challenge that I couldn't not accept. So that got me into learning about evolution and learning about Lynn, and so forth.

AJ: 9:50

So it's worth giving people a bit more background on Lynn, and I don't know what strikes me still and how instructive this is too, how she persisted through rejection after rejection, after rejection by the, if I just call it, the establishment, the institutions as they were at the time, because they couldn't come at what she was presenting. And sure, that contest is probably still alive to a degree, but largely it's through the door. The understanding of Gaia is self-organizing system. There's still a plethora of people who aren't aware of it, but it's understood as an acceptable explanation for the way the world works. But it wasn't so when she was pushing it and, as a woman in the field, was so, so, very marginalized. Perhaps you can give us, breathe us into the project you did with her in that sense and what you gleaned from her story.

John: 10:46

Lynn's primary contribution was about evolution and, in brief, it's about that evolution is not so much about individuals competing and that the winner becomes a survivor, but rather about organismisms cooperating with one another and through their collective strength they become the next stage of evolution. And her research was in microbiology mostly. And what she demonstrated and which later was proved pretty thoroughly to the world was that when we take a cell, we look at a complex cell. It has little organelles in it and we're mostly familiar with the chloroplasts and the mitochondria and those little organelles which, if you look at them, are little circles inside a bigger circle. Those were at one time preexisting bacteria, individual bacteria, and they joined into another bacteria and became the organelle in there.

John: 12:01

And that's a huge theme. And in the film, you know, I really take that theme all the way because in our current society, virtually globally, we've taken the idea that to succeed in life you have to win in competitive struggle and you know, whether it's school or law or business or government or economics or whatever, it's all about competing with our fellow students or whatever lawyers to win, and that, I think, has gotten us into a lot of problems. Well.

John: 12:40

Lynn's real key was well, I'm right, you know, she just refused to get down to the point where she had to debate the subject. I mean, she did debate it, but she didn't really think there was any reason to debate because she knew she was right. It was a kind of arrogance, but you know, it doesn't matter. She knew she was right and she was right. But the main thing that's really important to understand about Lynn she was a real scientist and there's a lot of things going wrong with science these days.

John: 13:17

And she basically said you know, the model of science that is most people use, including scientists, is that it's a building up of knowledge. So if I'm a scientist and I'm working on some particular thing, I'm adding a layer, adding a fact up here, adding, you know, doing an investigation up here based on the work of all these other scientists. And she would say no, if you're going to investigate something, you've got to go back to the point where you have certainty yourself, where you know yourself, and then you have to recreate the work of these other scientists maybe not literally recreated, but certainly recreated intellectually until you get to the point where you can add and that's a real fundamental point that leads to new ways of thinking to new paradigms.

AJ: 14:16

Indeed, it's amazing, yeah, and so terrific. You did the film with her as well. What a moment in time, I wonder. On the previous point about evolution not being in competition, primarily Right, I wonder what you take from that in the context of the broader sharing of this sort of a message and hoping to turn things around with climate and the diminishment of living systems, if there's not an enemy, we're trying to vanquish or compete with a narrative, even we're trying to compete with. How do you view it when you're putting your stories forward?

John: 14:58

Well, that's a very good question. You know, I so frankly I'm not good at arguing with people and entering into real debate where the purpose is to win. I basically believe that if I could just explain to somebody clearly enough so that they understand something, then they will get it, they'll see in a new way and they'll figure out how to deal with what they used to think in their own way. And in the film I try to do this. I spend a long time once the introduction is finished. I spend a long time explaining how the climate works, and I'm hoping to get that into people's head so that when we come to the discussion of carbon dioxide which is really the end of the second part of the film so two thirds in it becomes clear to people that carbon dioxide is just a small part of this whole picture of the mechanisms of climate. So I guess my feeling is that through education people will change their lens and I don't have to force it upon them through clever argument.

AJ: 16:24

Yeah, that's really interesting. Certainly, when I observe your work, I think one of the key aspects of it for me is that it is your story, it's first person narrative, so that's engaging from the get go. It's that inquiry point where sharing a journey with you and a story with you and in that sense, because it's not seeking to beat another narrative or necessarily convince me of anything, I view that as some of the attraction, I think, of how you go about your work and how it fits, if you like, but it makes me curious. I'm also assuming, then, john, that it's part of how you view your own transformation. Was it at all difficult for you, as you came to these understandings, to make that shift? Or, if it wasn't, was there something that predisposed you at the time, like your upbringing, or something that happened on the way that made the last skip? When you met Linnan? Did this whole exposition a relatively easy one, where for other people clearly it's not so straightforward?

John: 17:33

Well, I've always been a naturalist. When I was a child, I was the little nature boy. You know who'd be outside with my binoculars watching birds when my friends were inside listening to the Beatles. So I've always really been in touch with nature in that regard, and I think that's number one. And I think that I've always had an inclination to examine everything. I've always been a skeptic, a skeptic leaning towards a cynic, and being a skeptic is a scientific position in a way.

John: 18:22

So I, when I was involved in making a film years ago about renewable energy and this was right after, really, the energy crisis, the global energy crisis, but it wasn't really. It wasn't after the global energy crisis, it was during the global energy crisis, when everybody was talking about renewable energy, climate change wasn't really on the table yet. Then I began to see that all the stuff we had worked on at that time things like the carbon footprint idea was very interesting. The idea of the carbon footprint made a lot of sense when we were dealing with, say, food. If I could buy local food and that food didn't have to be transported all the way from California, that was essentially reducing the carbon footprint of that food and therefore me if I ate that food or if I could travel less. I had a lower carbon footprint and that was very important as I was trying to figure out how to use less energy.

John: 19:32

But then that carbon footprint idea transferred to the climate conversation and for many years that really puzzled me and at that time I totally believed in the whole. Carbon dioxide was causing the problem thing. In fact it's in this renewable energy film briefly, but I was really puzzled about well, how does my carbon use relate to climate really? So it was that skepticism and it got me kind of to that point.

AJ: 20:06

So, on that bigger picture that you discovered, there's a person that features significantly in the first part of your film, who's an Australian, a loved local legend here, walter Yenna, who when I mentioned this to you about how much he's loved here in one of our exchanges you said in a way this is homage to him, this film and a lot of his work and obviously what he's been presenting to us over a period of time now is where the film starts around the water story essentially. So maybe bring us into the thinking of how you came to connect with Walter and decide to run out of the gates with that water story.

John: 20:49

So I'm not quite sure how it originally happened.

John: 20:53

My film Symbiotic Earth was playing and I befriended a couple people and I befriended a woman author, judy Schwartz, who I think you know and I befriended I think it was Jim Laurie who's in the film a biologist and we were both talking about Lynn and so forth, and they introduced me to the organization Biodiversity for a Livable Climate and I went to their website and I saw a video by Walter, an hour long presentation.

John: 21:32

He had given very much about the first part of the film and I really was blown away by this. I just opened my eyes so much and that I think it was Judy who said well, you know, walter is going to be in town or Walter is in town, that's what it was Walter is in town. And so I scrambled and I learned about a woman, dede Peer Perseus, who was traveling with Walter through the states. So I went to a talk he was giving I think it was for the NOFA, the Organic Food Association of the Northeast, and I went and I met him and I heard his lecture and I audio recorded it and I really just was enamored with what he was saying and so I began to study it at that point, and then, not long later, I set it up with him that the next time he came to the states we would work together.

AJ: 22:30

And that's how this originated yeah pretty much, pretty much.

John: 22:34

I mean, I had already started on this project but I didn't know where it was going Because, as I said, it's a real learning process. So he just opened up so many doors. I mean, he's a lot like Lin in some respects in that he started from his own discoveries as a biologist, meteorologist and so forth and put together the story afresh and was committed unlike Lin, was committed to helping people like me get it straight. When I shot with him in Vermont which is what you were saying a lot in the beginning of the film the commitment that he had to explain it to me, to go over it with me, to make the recordings right, to make sure he got it right, to really be a teacher and help in that regard was astounding.

John: 23:32

I interviewed lots of people, lots of scientists, and a lot of them are teachers, university teachers and they want to explain what they're doing, because that's why I'm there. But Walter has a really different mission. He wants to shift the world's understanding of the basic system of the climate Amazing man. And he does it with such generosity, giving and giving and giving until it reaches you.

AJ: 24:01

In a sense, he's humor, isn't it true? I was just about to say his presentations are legendary with his whiteboard, right, it's always with him, so I assume it's how you saw it as well, right? And there are videos online that show this as well, in various instances, short and long. But wow, to encapsulate it in this manner, john again was just outstanding, and because we know that he's not been well for a while and there are some we'll get more to this later. There's going to be some screenings through Australia shortly and we are so hoping he'd be at one to be able to give him a tribute of sorts. He won't be able to, and we're sending him all our love around and through here right now but to have that experience and be able to share it with the world as part of your film, it just takes on, I guess, like Lin's, just another layer of being so special, so let's follow the thread.

AJ: 25:01

So the first part in the film is called Water Cools the Planet, and I remember when I was talking with Paul Hawken about this a while ago maybe when Regeneration came out, I can't remember and I was saying when I first was presented with that myself, and it might have been through Walter and perhaps some others, at a particular time in my life. And it just seemed, when you heard it, so obvious that water should be a cooling property. And then, of course, your film's called Regenerating Life, and if the thesis is that, indeed, climate and greenhouse gases, that dysfunction is a symptom of broader systemic dysfunction, that water again should be the source of life. It seems so obvious, yet it is still being missed. So again, perhaps, and for those who aren't as far in the tent, haven't seen your film yet, how would you broach them in to the story of the film? How would you broach your understanding that you glean from Walter as an entry point for people?

John: 25:57

Of course, a lot of this goes beyond Walter but I think we have to kind of step back and try to visualize a forest or even the human body or any system, and think about how the water flows through that. Imagine that in your mind's eye. We know that the water flows up trees and it flows through plants, flows through us, and we all know every school kid knows that we're, whatever the number is, 90% water in our bodies or I don't know, maybe 70%, 70, yeah, yeah, we all hear that and we all know that and we all know we have to drink water and we all know we pee, and so just kind of this, this is a very, very important thing.

John: 26:45

And so just kind of visualize that the water is flowing through everything, we have a water-cooled and warmed planet. And as you begin to think about that, you then have to add something that we all, again, all know intuitively, and that is that sweat cools us when we sweat. That's a process of cooling. We've all experienced that. Luckily, it works very well. And then we have to add a little, a little science in there, which people may have forgotten from their school days, which is that in order for that to happen, in order for water to evaporate off a surface, off your skin, off a leaf, it goes through a phase change. It changes from liquid to vapor, and that change requires energy, it requires heat, it requires a specific amount of heat, and that heat comes from the environment. And that's why that's when we sweat, it cools us off. That's why, when we have a body of water like the ocean, the water evaporates, goes up into the air as water vapor and then condenses. And when it condenses that water, it does a phase change again. It goes from vapor back to liquid, because the water in the air that we can see is liquid mists and clouds and everything that's liquid and so when it goes from the vapor back to the liquid, it releases that energy, the same amount of energy, and if it's high enough, the high clouds, and elsewhere, if it's high enough, that energy escapes into outer space. So that process of evaporation, which we all take for granted and we all know it happens, that's really at the heart of how the earth cools itself. It's phenomenal, it's amazing.

John: 28:49

One thing we don't all know, or again, that we might have forgotten from school, is that plants sweat too, and plants use the water for photosynthesis and for all other metabolic processes, just like we do. And then they sweat it out, which is called transpiration, out of their leaves and that cools the area around the leaf and it's another cooling process. So now think of a tree. Think of a great big tree in all the surface area of all the leaves. It's tremendous, the surface area of the leaves. I'm sure someone has calculated how big it is. So a tree is a real air conditioner.

John: 29:32

And there are people who have said a big tree is like four room air conditioners or whatever. So that is an incredible cooling process on the earth and it all has to do with the flow of water and the flow of water through living systems. And then you have to ask the question well, ok, that sounds wonderful, but what does that have to do with the biology of the plants? I mean, yes, the water goes through us and it goes through the trees, but how does the actual living system make that happen? And this is where it's totally cool that every little drop of mist and every rain drop is associated with small particles in the air. These are called aerosols and they're all over the place and we can't see them, but they're there, we smell them.

AJ: 30:25

Indeed.

John: 30:26

Those are aerosols that we smell but we can't see them, and it's often described that a rain drop has a nucleus and the water has condensed around that nucleus, which is some type of aerosol. And many not all, but many of those aerosols, whether for mists or clouds of rain, are generated by biological systems. They're often the smells that we get from a plant. I didn't go into this in the film, but many of them are bacteria which are released from the stomata of plants. Stomata are these little holes in the leaves of plants, and when it releases water vapor or water, it also releases these bacteria. And the bacteria go up into the air and they become the nuclei for rain. And another are certain salts and salt.

John: 31:28

When I say salt, don't think of like table salt, think of a certain type of chemical that is released by plants and animals. They go up into the air and they're pretty big molecules actually, and they become the nuclei for clouds, because something has to take that water vapor and allow it to condense onto something, to form a cloud, and then those rain drops get bigger and they come down to the earth and so the water has to keep circling. In that way I mean one of the cool things that I learned from Walter, and then I learned again everything I learned from Walter and learned from scientists. I'm continually learning from other people Beyond, beyond. Who's another scientist said very much the same things, and there's a group of scientists who wrote a paper Water for the Recovery of the Climate a new water paradigm which I learned a lot from.

John: 32:23

When you're doing an investigation like this, especially when you find something that blows your mind, you want to get somebody else to say the same thing. But one of the cool things in the film is about in the oceans, algae produce a salt that goes into the air and forms clouds, and Walter describes that whale poop, which is you know, think about it for a moment. There's a lot of stuff right Feeds the algae and feeds huge ecosystems, and that algae then produces the salts that go into the atmosphere to form the rains. So it's an amazing process. But life is intrinsically involved in the production of these aerosols that are necessary for mists, clouds, rain and so forth.

AJ: 33:21

It is mind blowing and I remember having my mind blown by it too, and again in your film, really, because you do depict it so well with graphics and so forth. It is amazing and of course it all depends on how much those structures of living systems on Earth and in ocean remain, which is, of course, the punchline of it and so relates to so many other parts of my experience with the podcast. And obviously you mentioned Judy Schwartz before her writing and in the film. Indeed, I'll raise another Australian wave the flag. Tony Rinaldo, that incredible story out of Africa. It's so symbolic in another way too, because it says that the ability to regenerate this, to regenerate life and these cycles, remains with us despite the degradation From the life left. It can be regenerated remarkably quickly wherever we are. It's a powerful message that comes through his story. I gather that's part of what struck you Totally and when.

John: 34:26

I heard Tony's story. I had to meet him and although I didn't go to visit him, we had a couple Zoom conversations and he was very, very helpful. And, just briefly, his amazing but obvious discovery but not obvious if he hadn't had done it was that an area that has been deforested, the roots remain. We all know that if you have a tree stump out there, trees been cut down and there's a tree stump, for the first several years you'll see these little sprouts coming up and if pruned properly, those sprouts will grow into a tree, if given a chance, and it can happen quite fast, because they already have their roots. They already have this incredible support system and all those roots need is a little that photosynthetic sugar is to help them stay alive. And so it's a remarkable discovery and people are very attuned right now to the fact that we have been destroying the forests, and particularly the Amazon. But of course there are forests everywhere and the forests across the northern part of the country, all the way around Canada, russia and so forth. The boreal forests are also being destroyed at a very rapid rate. They don't get all the attention of the Amazon, but they're being destroyed and they play a tremendous role in the climate and cooling the planet and building ecosystems, and we have to rebuild those.

John: 36:06

But a forest is not just a bunch of trees. A forest is a very complicated thing. So how do we do that? I mean, tony had a great idea that works, but my feeling is that if we're going to rebuild a forest, you don't start with nothing and start planting trees although that would work but you'd really have to plant a lot more than trees to get it going. And there are people who are doing that, who are building whole little ecosystems of forests. But rather, where you have a forest, you can start enlarging it from the edges outward, because the Michael Rize, the bacteria, the birds, the insects, they'll all go out with you and so the ecosystem will grow out with you. I mean, the basic idea of regeneration is that life is a regenerative process. Life is, it grows. I mean it does it all by itself with the sun.

John: 37:05

We don't have to help it really, but nowadays we should give it a hand. But it grows. A tree is sustainable. A tree is a sustainable thing and it'll grow and grow, and even a dead tree is an ecosystem, yes, so it's really powerful to just think about that. That's what's going to have. To save us is the fact that life is this regenerative process.

AJ: 37:30

Yes, and to tend that it is full circle to live in a way. And the guy hypothesis and the rest of it. And this is how Canon does play out. And just to think again, mind blow about what you see above ground is just a fraction of the life. There's everything underground too. We're learning so much more about that and, terrific. There are first nations folk here in Australia who will say don't plant the trees, set the conditions up and nature will plant the trees precisely where they should be. And it's an extension of what you've gleaned and what you've just said as well. And it brings me to Tony's story. Too right, because it was so much about the farmers. It's called, what's it called in that whole method Farm and Manage Natural Regeneration. Isn't it?

AJ: 38:19

It's so much about the people. Once he noticed, observed the phenomenon and then it became okay, what does it matter to you people? And should we do this? And look, if we do that, what happens? And it went from there.

AJ: 38:32

So there was a whole social cultural Aspect to it which is become a phenomenon itself around the world and this was some part of your film to that I found really powerful and really goes to somewhere necessary and that we're broaching more. But I think clearly we need more still and I want to lead into it with a comment by Vanda Shiva. When she says outright that agriculture In the world today is a sort of an artifact of racial violence is the word she uses. But that's also the way out of the problem is to be going through that prism. And so Tony was doing it in Africa in a way like how they got into that situation, coming out through their own cultural practices and how they wanted to Regenerate life in their places and develop their farm enterprises and so forth. But the incredible, powerful story, a one of in your film, is around Booker T Wotley as the founder of the community supported agriculture model.

AJ: 39:34

I had no idea about this. I know a fair bit about CSI. I've seen a practice that's been featured on the podcast. I knew increasingly about the African American, the regeneration, really, of their part in the agricultural heritage in North America, but I didn't realize it was so explicit in this way back then. Tell me about your learning journey on that path. How much did you know before? How much surprised you I didn't know about him.

John: 40:05

I knew of some other African Americans who were instrumental in the agricultural movement, but I didn't know about him and I think you know again. He was a person who was solving a particular problem local problem and economic problem and took a different position of everybody else. He was a very enterprising man and he developed the idea that you know how can farmers make money? And today it's even the same that for farmers to make money they need to be able to sell what they grow directly to consumers. Yeah, maybe there's a little farm market between them and the consumer, but basically I was just talking to some friends about this over a couple days ago that when farmers can grow, can sell their food or sell their milk or their cheeses directly to the consumer, they get most of the money. You know they could get it all if they're out there on the street selling it, but it doesn't matter. You know whether it's.

John: 41:18

You know and that's what we kind of realized that A small farmer should grow their food and sell it to people who need the food and everybody benefits. He benefits and the people benefit because they get good, nutritious, well grown food and in a way, it doesn't have to be a huge farm. It doesn't have to be a great big enterprise in order to make money. It just has to be a direct way to sell the stuff to the consumers. And then you know, he was obviously really smart guy. He developed the idea that, well, what if you know? Okay, but how do you get started? And what if the customers contributed money a little ahead of time so I could buy my seeds and in exchange for that they would get some food and right, it's way better than a loan from the bank and it's way better than a loan from the bank and that's kind of the model of the CSA. Yes, you know the sport.

AJ: 42:17

There's so much to that story, yeah, yeah, and I loved where that went in the film to. I loved how you featured Karen Washington from Ryzen root farm and what she had to say. I'm going to leave listeners to watch it with these people. They can go on with it. But also it's extraordinary watching an organization like via compass in, for example, grow so fast as well.

AJ: 42:41

More of this evidence of just the Well, the grassroots under the surface of this incumbent, giant, systemic way of doing things, all these stories rising and these different models rising, and what I want to make express mention of before we sign off John, is another part of the film that blew me away that I had no idea about, and that is that after the dust bowl the infamous dust bowl in the states of the 1930s, a precursor to so much of what we see too much of these days, but this was so bad and the first instance of it at this scale Right, that actually instigated a lot of what we would love to see today, including at official federal levels, the whole machinery, if you will, of government got behind regenerative agriculture and the like. At that time I had no idea.

John: 43:38

Yes, it's an amazing story and it really is a case in which government you know Can help on a big scale.

John: 43:51

And as I say in the film, you know, it was at that point after the dust bowl, that Roosevelt and others instigated the precursor of what we have in the states, which is called the farm bill. And the farm bill is a big bill in the states, complicated, but it is a vehicle for government money to go to farms. To go to the farm bill in the states is behind the school lunch programs, you know, all sorts of stuff and food stamps. But unfortunately what happened is that got changed into supporting industrialism and into supporting commodity crops. And the agony of commodity crops is that they're not really food and that they're grown in monocultures and that they're grown with lots of chemicals because they're monocultures and then because the government is supporting a lot of commodity crops in a complicated way, but supporting the commodity crops in the states, those commodity crops can be sold overseas cheaper than the country could grow their own commodity crops and so that's really hurting the local farm community.

John: 45:13

But it looks incredible on our government's balance sheet. So it's a really vicious cycle that's destroying a lot. But anyway, getting back to your point, I think the real point is that they're coming out of the dust bowl. Was that we have the knowledge? We have all of this stuff? We've had it since the 30s. They knew all of.

John: 45:37

I was surprised, I, of that book that I feature in the film Agriculture on handbook DD Pierce House showed me it covers everything. All this stuff like we're just learning Michael Ryze, and all these things that we're learning about the soil and cover crops. And you know, we think all this is new, you know. But no, it's been around for a long time and I'm sure that, in their own way, that many indigenous people knew all this stuff. In fact, one of the things I like to constantly remind ourselves it's not so much that we're learning these all these great things is that we lost it. Western culture, my culture, we lost this knowledge and it's only been recently that we probably lost it. You know, by recently, I mean 150, 200 years or so, and we have to essentially, you know, relearn it. Yeah, and a lot of that does go back to indigenous people, will not just indigenous people, but there is a lot of knowledge out there. A lot of knowledge. A lot of farmers, indigenous or otherwise, have this knowledge. But if it's not passed on, if we, you know that we continue to lose it. And by that I'm thinking about.

John: 46:48

You know the United States used to be used to be that, you know, large percentage of the population were farmers. Yeah, so the whole expansion of the country was farmers and many countries, the large percentage were farmers. But when industrial farming came along and so forth and so on, and the farmers gave up their farms, the moved into the cities, went into industry of all sorts, you know, got jobs and sweatshops, but not then the knowledge about the soil, that knowledge about, you know this is going to bring a good harvest. That was lost and so we have, we have sources, but we have to kind of relearn it and kind of get back on track.

John: 47:33

You know so many things that I think one of the big discoveries for me was that food and food systems are huge win win situation. Sometimes people ask me you know what can I do? You know at home, as it were, about the climate thing, and you know I answer and they don't always get it. You know, eat good local food and plants and plants. Those little simple things can make a big difference, because it's through the food that we contact the soil, and it's a soil that holds the water full circle we get the nutrition and we get the health benefits of good food.

John: 48:14

I mean, we have a huge health problem all over the world, especially in the states, and it's because we eat healthy food. Yeah, we ate local, nutritious food. You know what's up with health problems and soil problems.

AJ: 48:29

Indeed, another symptom isn't it exactly and it is full circle to the regenerating life hypothesis really is that Farmers tend so much of it and still indigenous stewards tend so much of it, and if and that's when we need to look for the knowledge but also that they're there on the ground thankfully still some of them and we need more and we need them to be recognized for it. So I come back to the way you were talking before about CSA, and it's not just this good food they're growing for us. Now we're charging them with Regenerating the basis of life itself. So that needs a valuing and and a recompense, adequate livelihood and respect as well, as there's a paradigm that shifts in behind it.

John: 49:10

but hell of an opportunity right it is, and you know. Just remind me of something I learned. You know that Industry only values a tree when it's been cut down. Yeah, I think Judy Schwartz told me that and taught me that, and that's the same as you know so many things. You know industry only values A field when it's been plowed and is growing. You know wheat monoculture wheat, you know. Then you got something because that's money in your hands right as a commodity and it's kind of backwards.

AJ: 49:50

Is it so backwards when you destroy the value that exists there already and then call what you get out of it value? At best? It's only half the story and it does come back to the, that colonial aspect, that, that racial violence, that van done a that language, she used it, the colonial expansion we're also referring to. So it's all tied in and how we relate back to that. But they're all ways through, and when we're struggling for ways through it's we lost the threat of that story, as you, as you said, john, and I think it does speak to the power of what you've produced here the threat of the story is being picked up. So, on that note, let's talk about how people can watch it. You've premiered in North America and you're about to do it in Europe, and not in person, but still in Australia. Is that right? That's correct.

John: 50:43

I mean we decided to do a grass roots distribution program. I do have a distributor here in the states and we work hand in hand.

John: 50:56

They're called bullfrog films terrific yeah, we decided that the way to get the film out there was to be in touch with the groups whose mission aligned with the mission of the film, like you and like there's so many people who are, who are on the same page.

John: 51:17

Yeah, they're water groups, forest saving groups, you know, there are food groups, agriculture and so forth. There's lots of groups like that, and there are climate change activist groups to, and so our idea was to get the film to them so that they can use it for outreach, education and to support their mission, and so that the film would be pulled out instead of having to push it out the way the general marketing system. We're hoping that people will be able to use the film for their own reasons and people will get a lot out of it so that they will pass it on and keep pulling it, pulling it out, and so we're starting. We started here in the states and now we're we're just had an amazing deal I don't know if I told you an amazing deal where French cinemas are going to be showing it through a French distributor, which really blows my mind.

John: 52:19

It's congratulations and then we just had a screening in Bangalore and you know we hope to get it out in that way. So we'll see. And it is available. You can. You can go to hummingbird films and there are links that take you to how you can. You can watch it on Vimeo for 499 or no, I think it's 599 US and but also, if you're, if any group who wants to show it, it's very reasonable the prices for showing it, for streaming it, streaming it, your live, streaming it, yes, to groups. The prices are very reasonable because you know we're trying to develop something of a sharing system, although you know we need to get some money back to us and here at the back end, yeah, storytellers need livelihood to write so and it's a slow process.

John: 53:16

You know, I'm at the moment, you know, just continually frustrated with how do we get this To the mainstream media and the mainstream politicians, who are continually, you know, exacerbating the problem, buy this incredible belief that technology is going to be what solves our problem and are continually forsaking life, and it's. You know, there was something I read the other day you know about they want to build this great, big shields To to shave the earth, and outer space is huge shields. It's ridiculous.

AJ: 53:59

I mean it's not regenerating life, is it? It's a whole other kid. Yeah, should be increasingly self evident to people. But you're right, there is a Issue there with how these stories do get out. But I think, like CSI in a way, we can just do it ourselves and many respects, and still, most farmers are small holders around the world to most of the world is fed through small holders. We are still doing it ourselves in a way that big agriculture story and others like it smoke and mirrors in a way that have you believe that we're dependent on them and the world operates that way and needs to. But, yeah, not so.

AJ: 54:35

So my humble effort, john, to spread this word through Australia. I'm, I'm looking forward to the screenings that might emerge and, yes, hopefully Walter gets to hear this to hey and can get a little boost from it as well. To sign off, I gave you little heads up. We talk about a piece of music, did not? I might be preempting unfairly, but I certainly want to make mention, listeners, that the soundtrack to the film, and perhaps others to, was done by your wife. Is that right, right?

John: 55:06

that's right. Share us over. Yes, yes, we work together and she's a concert and opera composer but she does do my film, she does some popular music, which is my film. I love that and we have a wonderful working relationship. And the film, you know, does have a lot of emotional resonance with people, I'm happy to say, when they watch it, and of course the music does a lot to bring that up. And it was tricky.

AJ: 55:38

It was tricky music because it's, you know, it can't be too upbeat and joyous because word yeah, but it has to be hopeful, I'm, even if it's coming from a dark space yeah, it's really well said, and Judy actually sent me a link to a piece that some listeners might like to hear about by Sheila, called shooting ruminants, which was actually hardly inspired, I believe, by the story Stories like that it could change station here which Judy's written up to win in the rain do you quit right, it was inspired by Judy's book.

John: 56:15

Yeah, there you go.

AJ: 56:16

So yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, so we've been up to that place in in the Kimberly that she wrote about as well, that station there where they're shooting the donkeys. I'll put the link obviously to the film and also to this piece of music because it comes with Outstanding visuals to in the show notes for people. But yeah, john, I don't want to assume that that's the music you were going to talk about. Is there another piece of music that's been transformative to you? The?

John: 56:41

music in the film that I would I love and which I would play if I had it right in front of me is a little piece of Americana that Sheila wrote. It's in the title sequence, the credits, the tail credits sequence. But it's also in a part of the film where we show the devastation of the hills outside San Francisco which are now bear, where there was were once giant forest, a lot of redwoods giant forest, and so it has this irony that happens in the film with this, you know America idea of the growth of the country and the beauty of the country and everything and watching these bear, life was hills, so yeah, yeah well, john, we can patch it in later for release.

AJ: 57:34

If you can send me a clip, I'll be able to put it in. Okay, yeah, that'd be awesome. Yeah Well, john, I can't thank you enough for getting up I mean, you get up early anyway, but for getting straight online when you got up early this morning. This is home in New York, this is home in New York.

John: 57:50

You can. You can see out the window there. The sun is just coming up. We had an inch of snow last night, wow, so is not risen yet. We still got. We still have another 45 minutes or so before the sun comes up. But yeah, I get up every morning. I like to watch this sunrise every morning. I made a promise to myself years ago that I would try to watch the sunrise every morning, and I do a lot of times.

AJ: 58:16

You know you're not the first person who said that to me in recent times. That's very good practice. We're on the west coast here in Australia, so I sort of have the same ethos with the sunset over the ocean. Yeah, and there's a lot to be said for it, hey. Yeah, yeah, well the sun is everything right. The sun is everything, life itself right, right, right. Well, john, thanks a lot. I really appreciate it. It's been terrific meeting you and having this conversation. Thanks for spending time with me.

John: 58:39

Well, thank you so much for reaching out to do this and, you know, I hope one day we can meet AJ: Great John. Good luck in Europe.

AJ: 58:46

JOHN: Thanks so much, Anthony yeah. AJ: That was ac claimed New York filmmaker, John Feldman. For more on John, the film and how to see or screen it, see the links in the show notes. I hope to see you at the Aussie premiere on Wednesday, the 28th of February. It's free entry at the Epoch Institute in South Melbourne at 6 30 pm. I'll probably be there a bit earlier. A nd heads up, I believe legendary systems thinker Fritjof Capra is John's next biopic.

AJ: 59:18

This episode, too, is dedicated to Walter Jehne, with thanks, as ever, to the generous listeners supporting the podcast. If you've been thinking about becoming a member or other kind of supporter, I'd love you to join us. Just head to the website or the show notes and follow the prompts. Thank you. Thanks also for sharing the podcast with friends and, of course, continuing to rate it on your preferred app or, again, any app you can get your hands on. The music you're hearing is from the film - composed by Sheila Silver, who also plays the piano for it, while the violin is played by Emmanuel Vukovic. And at the top you heard Green Shoots by The Nomadics. My name's Anthony James. Thanks for listening.