From the Soil Up: Regenerating the Economy
Not everything at DLD this year was on the growing US-European economic and technological divide. There were many speeches on the environment including from heavyweights like Kate Raworth. And I had the opportunity to catch up with my favorite advocate of regenerative agriculture, the managing partner at Acton Capital, Jan-Gisbert Schultze. According to Schultze, today's deepest problem is our spiritual disconnection from nature. We've lost 50% of our soil carbon, he notes, and with it the fertility that sustains us. We can save ourselves, he says, from the soil up — by embracing regenerative agricultural practices that prioritize local community activation and sustainable farming. Schultze is putting this into practice at Lake Constance, Germany's largest lake, where his Regenerate Forum is working to transform an entire county into what he calls a "climate landscape" — retraining farmers, rebuilding soil, and relocalizing the food system.
Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
Charlie Robertson on Curing Global Poverty: More Education, More Electricity
Nandita Dinesh: How Brechtian Theater Can Help Americans Talk to One Another Again
Note to Elon Musk: Stop Wasting Your Billions on Twitter and Invest Them in Curing Cancer
Ian Morris: Why Geography Explains Everything From Brexit to Cuba to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine
Jefferson Morley: Why Watergate Is Intimately Bound Up With the CIA's Role in the JFK Assassination
Samit Basu: Why India, and Not China or the US, Represents the Most Chilling Vision of Our High-Tech Dystopian Future
Abi Morgan: How to Write a Memoir About Personal Catastrophe Without Sounding Pitiful
Victoria Finlay on Fabric: The Hidden History of the Material World
John Allore: How a Brother's Determination to Find His Sister's Killer Lead Him to a Canadian Serial Killer
Ada Ferrer: How the 300-Year-Old Cuba-America Relationship Could Have Been Written By a Latin American Novelist
Bo Seo: How Good Debate Can Save Democracy
Julie Lythcott-Hains: How to Successfully Grow Up and Become an Adult
Peter Wehner: Why a Post-Trump America Remains Very Sick and How to Improve Its Health