Chelsea Green

Foraging Ideas. Cultivating Change.

Spring  2020
 “I declare what we already know: things cannot
carry on as they are. Only a revolution of
society and the state—a similar turn that
Thomas Paine urged the Americans to take
“Our last best chance of into the political unknown—can save us now.”
preventing the great extermi-
nation. . . . [This] will come to —Roger Hallam, author of
be recognized as a classic of Common Sense for the 21st Century
political theory.”
—George Monbiot,
columnist, The Guardian

“Reformism is not enough; too slow, too safe, too

small. Incrementalism is craziness as a strategy
within this climate crisis. I recommend
Common Sense for the 21st Century.”
—Terry Tempest Williams

“This is not just an argument; it is an instruction

manual for ripping through the corruption and
complacency that will destroy our planet.”
—Paul Mason, author of Clear, Bright Future
 CHELSEA
GREEN PUBLISHING
CONTENTS
the politics and practice of sustainable living
A Call to Action on Climate, Farming,
Food, and a Green New Deal 4
Since 1984, Chelsea Green has been the leading publisher
of books about organic farming, gardening, home- Culture, Carnival and Capital in
steading, integrative health, sustainable living, the Aftermath of the Market Economy 5
socially responsible business, and more.
Now employee-owned. Inspirational Reading for an Election Year 6

SPRING 2020, ISSUE 7 Courting the Wild Twin8

Copyright © 2020 by Chelsea Green Publishing All We Need Is Love 9

No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture10

Front cover photograph by Pascal Baudar.
Page 2 photographs (clockwise from top left) by Chris J. Ratcliffe, Saving the Soil, Saving Ourselves 11
Markus Spiske, Joël de Vriend, and Katie Jowett.
Page 3 photograph by Aaron Burden. Wildcrafted Fermentation12
Page 5 photgraph by Jeff Wheeler.
Page 8 photographs by Emergence Magazine.
Page 10 photographs by Bryan O’Hara.
Fermentation and Cultural Revival 13
Page 11 photograph by Fern Bradley.
Page 12 photograph by Pascal Baudar. Inspiration from
Page 15 photograph by Kelly Brown. Masters of Artisan Foods  14
Page 16 photograph by Myriam Riand.
Page 17 photograph by Myriam Riand.
Page 19 photograph by Katherine Maxwell Powers.
A Journey into the Heart
Page 20 photographs by Jamel Mosely-Mel eMedia (top), Paige Green and Soul of Ireland 16
(middle), and Natalie Hampton (bottom).
Page 22 photograph from the National Archives. From What Is to What If17
Page 23 illustration by Ole Schleef; photograph by Christian Metzier.
Back cover photograph by Nick Dunlap.
Burn  18

Oil, Power, and War18

Our Commitment to Green Publishing
Chelsea Green sees publishing as a tool for cultural change and ecolog-
The Deadly Politics of the
ical stewardship. We strive to align our book manufacturing practices Great Game for Oil 19
with our editorial mission and to reduce the impact of our business
enterprise in the environment. We print our books and catalogs on chlo- Growing Community,
rine-free recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks whenever possible.
This magazine was printed on FSC-certified paper supplied by Echo Food, Fiber, and Compost 20
Communications that contains 100% postconsumer recycled fiber.
American Hemp Farmer21

Sign up for our e-newsletter: A History of Electricity and Its Impact

chelseagreen.com/newsletter on Planetary and Human Health 22
facebook.com/chelseagreenpub
It’s All in Your Mouth23
@chelseagreen
@chelseagreenbooks Articles are adapted
from our books.
Chelsea Green Publishing
White River Junction, Vermont
London, UK

TO ORDER:
Call ( 800) 639-4099 or
visit chelseagreen.com
A Call to Action on “This is a book that should be
in the hands of every activist
Climate, Farming, Food, working on food and farming,

and a Green New Deal climate change, and the

Green New Deal.”
An Interview with Ronnie Cummins —Vandana Shiva

As International Director of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), landscape. This has reduced the levels of
Ronnie Cummins works to promote healthy, just, regenerative systems of food, photosynthesis and carbon stored above
farming, and commerce. Grassroots Rising is about solving the climate emergency ground; that’s the root of our problem.
We need to put a priority on fixing these
through the transformation of our broken food system. In this interview, Cummins
lands, especially in the global south
asserts that a Regeneration Movement based on consumer activism, farmer
where plants grow faster and have a tre-
innovation, and revolutionary political change can get the job done. mendous capacity to store carbon. That’s
How is your Regeneration Movement The notion that we can’t afford to fix where the most rapid changes are going
different from the environmental and a situation that’s going to cause the to be taking place.
sustainability movements, and how do you extinction of the human race is an absurd If we move to 50 percent renewable
see it impacting policy decisions in ways past position to take. The World Bank says energy in the next 10 years, we can suck
efforts have not? we’re propping up the fossil fuel industry down the remaining CO2 to reach carbon
with $5.3 trillion a year. We can certainly neutrality by 2030. After 2030, we’ll begin
Until recently, political progressives
afford a couple trillion dollars a year for the net negative emissions, drawing down
and liberals in the US have not been as
a Green New Deal. the excess CO2 that we’ve put up there
involved in the climate discussion as they
People are using outdated concep- over the last 10,000 years. If we can get
should have been, so what we’ve had is
tions of economics, saying, “If you’re back to the level we were at in 1750 at the
a climate movement that is somewhat
going to spend $2 trillion a year to fix onset of the Industrial Revolution—280
apolitical and a political movement that’s
the climate, you’ve got to raise the taxes parts per million—we will have a stable
not well-versed on the climate. We need
on working people by $2 trillion.” That’s climate again.
to break down these walls.
Ever since Roosevelt in the 1930s, our ridiculous. The Green New Deal is not a
deal to spend unlimited amounts of mon- How do you propose we integrate the inter-
secretaries of agriculture have had cor-
ey; it’s to fix a broken economy and a bro- ests of ag, science, tech, and energy under a
porate agribusiness, processed food, and
ken climate. When you make investments common climate mission?
exports at the top of their agenda. We’ve
got to make sure that the next secretary in regeneration, you’re going to get a lot The overwhelming majority of foods
of agriculture understands the connec- of that money back. But the government that we purchase by 2030 will have to be
tions between how we farm and how we needs to pass the necessary legislation. organic and regenerative in the market-
eat and solving the climate crisis. We’re place. The health of the planet depends
subsidizing farmers, ranchers, and land Talk about the role of farming practices upon the way consumers spend their
managers to do the wrong thing. If we in drawing down excess carbon from the money. Most people in the US under-
incentivize people to do the right thing, it atmosphere. stand that climate-friendly food is better.
will make a big difference. Plants take CO2 out of the atmosphere, They don’t buy it all the time because
turn it into oxygen, and send the carbon they can’t afford to. We’ve got to address
Critics say the Green New Deal is too ex- down into the roots and build the upper that problem. The consciousness has
pensive and impossible to achieve in the next portions of the plant. We’ve cut down to be raised, but the obstacles to people
decade. Talk about how the blueprint you lay half the trees on the earth and have 5 doing what they know is best have to be
out in Grassroots Rising responds to those billion acres of degraded lands across reduced or eliminated as well.
critiques. the planet—30 percent of the global The climate movement has been

4 • Chelsea Green Publishing

successful in pushing
banks and investments to
start getting out of fossil
fuels. But investors still feel
comfortable financing the
timber industry, the min-
ing industry, and chemi-
cal-intensive agriculture.
We need a comparable
divestment consciousness
around corporate agri-
business and the military
industrial complex. We’re spending
a trillion dollars a year on endless wars
and armaments unnecessarily. National
security is important, but the threat to
national security is not Russia or China.
It’s the climate emergency. There is no
“Grassroots Rising is one of
the most important books you
will ever read.”
–André Leu, author of The
Myth of Safe Pesticides
long-term profit on a dead planet.
Now is the time to get political as
climate activists and make sure that our
elected leaders understand what the hell
we’re talking about. Who they appoint to
be head of the EPA, Health and Human
Services, Secretary of Agriculture, Secre-
tary of Defense, Secretary of State need
to understand that our number one issue
is the climate emergency. All
other issues—poverty, depop-
ulation of rural areas, fear of
immigrants, the public health
disaster—can only be solved if
we solve the climate crisis.
How do we occupy the space
between the extremes of
paralytic doom and gloom and
outright denial?
We must not downplay the
seriousness of the crisis we’re
facing. Let’s stop calling this climate
change. We have a climate emergency.
Let’s stop talking about political change.
We need a political revolution. There is
no way around this. And yet! A solution
is at hand! We know how to stop putting
greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.
But we’re not going to do it with middle-
of-the-road politicians or so-called
“responsible” investment. And we’re
definitely not going to do it by s​ itting
back and waiting for people to wake up.
We’ve got to get active!
All the innovators are out there.
The solutions we need are already being
worked on. People around the world are
saying, “We’re tired of governments that
don’t represent us. It’s time to take back
the power.” This global rising is going
to increase in momentum and intensity,
and we need to be leading the charge. We
need to open our eyes and realize that we
already have global consensus on what
to do.
nBiz
A Gr e e
“Best
ability
Sustain ”
Book
Culture, Carnival
and Capital in
the Aftermath of
the Market Economy
In a nuanced, “multi-layered, beauti-
fully constructed treatise” (Charlotte
Du Cann, the Dark Mountain Project),
Surviving the Future is a story drawn
from the fertile ground of the late Da-
vid Fleming’s extraordinary Lean Logic:
A Dictionary for the Future and How
to Survive It. The book describes lean
thinking for creating a future economy
as we witness the current industrial
economy decline and government
revenues decrease in the context of
the effects of climate change and other
catastrophic shifts. It lays out a com-
pelling and different economics for a
post-growth world—one that relies
not on taut competitive-
ness and eternal-
ly increasing pro-
ductivity, but on
the play, humor,
conversation,
and reciprocal
obligations of a
richly developed
culture.
“I would unreservedly go so far
as to say that David Fleming
was one of the most original,
brilliant, urgently needed, un-
derrated, and ahead-of-his-time
thinkers of the last 50 years.”
—Rob Hopkins, author of
From What Is to What If
chelseagreen.com • 5
Inspirational
Reading for
an Election Year
The ALL NEW
Don’t Think of
An Elephant
George Lakoff
The definitive, international
best-selling book on political debate
and messaging, The ALL NEW Don’t
Think of an Elephant dives deeper into
how framing works, how framing
has evolved in the past decades, how
to counter propaganda and slogans,
and more. Going beyond the typical
laundry list of policies and programs,
Lakoff presents a clear moral vision
for the country and a guidepost for
developing compassionate, effective
policy that upholds citizens’ well-​
being and freedom.
Mid-Course Correction
Revisited
Ray C. Anderson and
John A. Lanier
The definitive case study for sustainable busi-
ness for the twenty-first century, Mid-Course
Correction is the story of the legendary journey
of industrialist Ray C. Anderson, who in 1994
set out to eliminate the negative impact his
global flooring company, Interface, had on the
environment. Now fully updated and expanded
by Anderson’s grandson, John A. Lanier, Mid-
Course Correction Revisited includes a new
foreword from Paul Hawken, new interviews
with green business greats like Janine Benyus
and Ellen MacArthur, and new thinking on
reversing climate change—making it indispens-
able for business leaders aiming to succeed in
the green economy. With both sage advice and
concrete models, this fresh new look at a
master in corporate and environmental
leadership will inspire.
6 • Chelsea Green Publishing
Rules for Revolutionaries
Becky Bond and Zack Exley
A riveting behind-the-scenes look at how a small
“distributed organizing” team operating on the
fringes of the Bernie Sanders campaign was able
to identify, recruit, train, and activate hundreds of
thousands of volunteers. This book, called “vitally
important” by Naomi Klein, is inspiring progressive
campaigns around the globe.
Doughnut
Economics
Kate Raworth
Simple, playful, and eloquent,
Doughnut Economics offers
game-changing analysis and
inspiration for a new generation of
economic thinkers. The Guardian’s
George Monbiot calls author Kate
Raworth “brilliant, thrilling, and
revolutionary” as she synthesizes
the best emergent ideas—from eco-
logical, feminist, and institutional
economics to complexity thinking
and Earth-systems science—to
address a unique question: How
can we turn economies that need to
grow, whether or not they make us
thrive, into economies that make us
thrive, whether or not they grow?
Inquiries into the Nature
of Slow Money
Woody Tasch
Envisioning an antidote to big agriculture and
inspired in part by the slow food movement,
author Woody Tasch presents a path for
bringing money “back down to earth”—phil-
osophically, pragmatically, and with an entre-
preneurial spirit. Tasch believes we can create
a sustainable food system if we are prepared to
invest a percentage of our own money in local,
sustainable, responsible agriculture. “Slow
money is not for venture capitalists,” Tasch
writes. “[It] is for nurture capitalists.”
“Inequality, it turns out, is not an economic necessity: it is a design failure.
Twenty-first-century economists will recognize that there are many ways to
design economies to be far more distributive of the value that they generate.
It means going beyond redistributing income to exploring ways of
redistributing wealth, particularly the wealth that lies in controlling land,
enterprise, technology, knowledge and the power to create money.”
—Kate Raworth

“The way forward isn’t simply a matter of winning elections—though electing

revolutionaries to office at all levels of government is some of the necessary
work of the revolution. We need deep healing and transformation in every
sphere of our society. This will require organic mass movements in
neighborhoods, towns, cities, and regions.”
—Becky Bond and Zack Exley

“It is vital—for us, for our country, and for the world—that we stay united. It is our
values that unite us. We must learn to articulate those values loud and clear.”
—George Lakoff

“The work of reversing global warming will be the sum total of millions and mil-
lions of choices, actions, and transformations that either pull greenhouse gases
from the atmosphere or stop their emission into it. We will approach success
person by person, company by company, and community by community.”
—John Lanier

chelseagreen.com • 7
Courting the Wild Twin
There is an old legend that says we each have a wild, curious twin that was thrown
out the window the night we were born, taking much of our vitality
with them. “If there was something you were here to do in these few, brief years,
you can be sure that the wild twin is holding the key,” writes Martin Shaw.
Courting the Wild Twin is a radical act of remembering. It invites us to seek out
our estranged, exiled self, invite it back into our consciousness, and in doing so,
more closely examine our broken relationship with the world. By unpacking two
ancient European myths, Shaw challenges us to think boldly, passionately, and in
new ways about ourselves—as individuals and as a collective. The following is an
excerpt from the first chapter entitled “The Condition of Wondering”.

T his, now, is mostly an era of

spell making. Of tacit enchant-
ment, of stultified imaginations
down from the Moon Palace, but we have
to keep our eyes open as we descend. If
we are unconscious, we become spiders
market square of life. Relatedness is the
way back, but doing it with awareness.
So. I want to know if the earth will
and loins inflamed by so much factory- that cause webs to trap everyone around still reveal its secret names to us. The
fodder lust our relationships malfunction us. In other words, we cast spells. only way we can know is if we as a culture
in their millions. We are on the island of take those three steps.
the Lotus Eaters, curled up in the warm This is a book that makes a case for a
sleepy breeze of a Russian fairy tale as the
By unpacking two ancient world that still seeks our eyes on it. Our
robber steals away the Firebird. How do European myths, Shaw chal- admiration. Our care. Our artfulness. And
we wake up?
lenges us to think boldly, from that comes a particular kind of hope.
I will give you a little plot-spoiler
right here. Sounds so very deceptively passionately, and in new ways
simple. The secret is relatedness. about ourselves—as individuals Martin Shaw, PhD, is an acclaimed scholar of
Relatedness. Relatedness breeds myth and author of the award-winning Mythteller
love, and love can excavate conscience. and as a collective. trilogy, The Night Wages, and Life Cycle. Shaw
Conscience changes the way we behave. created the Oral Tradition and Mythic Life
Relatedness is how we wake up. But I courses at Stanford University and is the director
The three steps down from the Moon of the Westcountry School of Myth in the UK. He
am going to take a long and sometimes Palace are instigated by longing to con- has been a wilderness rites of passage guide for
diffuse route to say it in the fashion that nect, for heat, opinion, passion, the dusty twenty years.
such a notion deserves. As I will repeat
before the end of this book, be skeptical
of the quick route. It’s truly what’s got us
into a thousand unruly messes. And not
the kind the poets praise.
There are stories about living without
relatedness. They don’t tend to end well.
Without relatedness we dwell in a place
the Inuit call the Moon Palace. The Moon
Palace is a place that appears perfectly
safe: we have a great view of the earth
and its goings on, but we touch nothing.
We can spend years and years up there.
Heartbreak will get us there. The cool
of the Moon Palace is a very dangerous
place to be. Likely there comes a point
where you want to come back down. The
old ones say the earth is only three steps

8 • Chelsea Green Publishing


Praise for
Courting the Wild Twin
“Terrifically strange and thrilling.
One for all you storytellers.”
—Melissa Harrison, author of
All Among the Barley
“Courting the Wild Twin revels in
the fabulous; the alchemy of
story, primaeval nouse and
narrative. A thrilling exploration
of ancient ambiguity, this book
digs deep into the miraculous
mulch of myth.”
—Dan Richards,
author of Outpost
“A book that comprehends the
forests of the soul, written with
fierce courage and audacious
wildness.”
—Jay Griffiths,
author of Wild
“Courting the Wild Twin beckons
us to step through the doorway
that stories create, and reveals
a pathway to awakening our
relationship with the world
around—and with ourselves.”
—Dee Dee Chainey,
author of A Treasury of
British Folklore
ALL WE NEED IS LOVE
Matter and Desire
“Without attachments, no life. From cell
division to child rearing, we can understand
all processes in the biosphere as processes of
relationship,” says biologist, eco-philosopher,
and author of Matter and Desire, Dr. Andreas
Weber. He weaves his considerable scientific
knowledge with a poetic sensibility, illustrating
our human relationship with the natural world
and reflecting on ecology, philosophy, and
spirituality. As one reviewer put it, “At its core is
one big idea: that being alive is always a practice
of love. We touch the world and are touched by
it in return.”
Being Salmon, Being Human
In Being Salmon, Being Human, naturalist, phi-
losopher, and storyteller Martin Mueller takes
us on a journey between matters ecological and
philosophical. In what Permaculture Magazine
describes as “a powerful book about what it
means to be human in the ‘more-than-human’
world,” Mueller’s topics range from the global
salmon industry to indigenous worldviews, all
while considering work by Descartes, Heideg-
ger, and David Abram, to name just a few. The
end result? “A remarkable work that doubles
as poetic treatise and environmental critique.”
(Publishers Weekly)
Mesquite
Award-winning nature writer, agricultural
ecologist, and ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan
offers up a blend of scholarship and rollicking
humor in this deep-dive of a singular species:
the mesquite. In Nabhan’s skilled hands, it
becomes an icon, a foodstuff, a seasoning, a
medicine, an antiseptic, and a source of fiber
and fuel. “I was hell-bent on becoming one
with/of the mesquites,” Nabhan says, “[and] on
the chance that I could not fully be transformed
into a tree, at least I could dwell among other
Now in Paperback! treehuggers who would not be put off at all by
my obsession with this woody legume.”
chelseagreen.com • 9
No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture
In No-Till Intensive Vegetable Culture, renowned organic grower Bryan O’Hara
describes the methods he developed during a multi-year transition of his
Connecticut vegetable farm to a no-till system. His resilient crops are testaments
to the value of letting the inherent biological functions in soil do their work.
The following excerpt discusses reestablishing balance among microbes, plants,
and people for long-term disease resistance.

It is important to remember that we
are not alone in our efforts to rebalance
growing systems. Nature has many
mechanisms for reestablishing balance,
providing growers with many allies. If an
imbalance brings multitudes of caterpil-
lars, nature in time establishes animals
and insects in proper proportion to con-
sume this new potential food source of
caterpillars. Similarly, if imbalance brings
hordes of rodents, nature will supply the
rodent eaters. If disease wipes out 99 per-
cent of a crop, the 1 percent left will yield
future plants that are more resilient.
As growers, we can do much to assist
nature in this effort to reestablish balance,
leaving us in an ever-stronger position. It
is important not to overreact when the
wave of imbalance is upon you. Growers
commonly attempt to counteract the dam-
age, getting in the way of nature’s efforts.
A simple example of this: employing an
insecticide when insect pest populations
have already reached high levels and are One early indicator at Tobacco Road
causing severe damage to a crop. When Farm that gave us a dramatic insight
pest populations (escalate), this is often the into how plants naturally resist insect
Paperback • $24.95
point at which beneficial insects are estab- assault was flea beetles on brassica crops.
lishing as well. The insecticide can destroy When brassica crops were fall-sown and
both prey and predator, thus leaving the overwintered, they would be flea-beetle-
cycle to continue without natural con- free through their entire life cycle. We
trol ever building up. Over time, we have decided to run a trial, seeding the same
seen many pest imbalances wash over our variety of brassicas in the spring next
region. Though the infestations were cer- to the overwintered ones. The spring-
tainly damaging at the time, it was uplifting sown seedlings became heavily infested,
to witness the response of nature, and to yet the neighboring fall-sown planting
be of assistance in the natural rebalancing remained completely flea-beetle-free. The
process provides hope for the future. fall-sown crop was at a different stage of
“In an era when common sense is anything but common and
character an almost forgotten attribute, O’Hara’s deep
ecological philosophy resonates and his richly detailed
methodology teaches and connects.”
—CR Lawn, founder, Fedco Seeds

10 • Chelsea Green Publishing

maturity than the spring-sown, but that
Saving the Soil, Saving Ourselves
state of maturity alone did not explain the
total absence of flea beetles, because the
spring-sown crop was still assaulted by
flea beetles later in the season when it had
reached the later stage of maturity. What
this stunning example showed is that the
influence of growing conditions can lead
to complete resistance in an otherwise
susceptible crop.
We have observed many other exam-
ples of crop resistance, particularly when
crops were grown in balanced conditions.
As our soils have developed and improved,
especially since the shift to no-till tech-
niques, many insects and diseases that
were previously damaging to crops are no
longer problematic. We can direct seed
cucumbers, melons, and squashes in the
field without any significant damage from
cucumber beetles and other beetles or
bugs that commonly plague these crops.
Radishes, turnips, and rutabagas frequent-
ly show no symptoms of root maggots or
black rot. Stem rot of garlic is almost zero
out of the 20,000 plants we harvest annu-
ally. Flea beetles now are often completely
absent, or we find only slight damage. Ba-
sil downy mildew does not damage crops
until well into September. These are just a
few examples of the many.
It may take some time for growing
conditions to improve sufficiently on a
farm to bring about such remarkable levels
of insect and disease resistance. However,
it is important for growers to carefully look
for even small reductions in insect and
disease pressure, as these yield indications
of what grower actions might be inducing
improvement. Trials and actions can then
be developed and further observed.
Dirt to Soil
“In healthy, living soils covered with green plants for
much of the year, the carbon supply for beneficial soil
microbes can be nearly endless. I cannot emphasize
this enough: This process is absolutely key! According
to soil ecologist Dr. Christine Jones, the formation of
fertile topsoil can be breathtakingly rapid once the
biological dots have been joined. The sun’s energy,
captured in photosynthesis and channeled from above
ground to below ground as liquid carbon, fuels the
microbes that solubilize minerals. A portion of the
newly released minerals enable rapid humification in
deep layers of soil, while others are returned to plant
leaves, facilitating an elevated rate of photosynthesis
and increased production of plant sugars. This positive
feedback loop makes soil-building somewhat akin to
perpetual motion.” —Gabe Brown
Call of the Reed Warbler
“Regenerative agriculture implies more than just sustain-
ing something but rather an active rebuilding or regen-
eration of existing systems towards full health. It also
implies an open-ended process of ongoing improvement
and positive transformation. This can encompass the
rebuilding or regeneration of soil itself and of biodiver-
sity more widely; the reduction of toxins and pollutants;
the recharging of aquifers; the production of healthier
food, clean water and air; the replacement of exter-
nal inputs; and the enhancement of social capital and
ecological knowledge. In addition to improved physical
and mental human health, what this aspect also entails
is the promotion of vital, coherent rural cultures and the
encouragement of values of stewardship, self-reliance,
and humility.” —Charles Massy
Farming on the Wild Side
“At our farm, we want to be purveyors of life, not death,
and promoters of biodiversity, not the sterility of the
monoculture mind-set. The founding principle for
organic has been to ‘feed the soil.’ While special interests
and Big Food may have usurped the term ‘organic’ and
are eroding its fundamental tenets, we will continue to
march to the beat of ecological, regenerative, and biodi-
verse agriculture with special consideration for taking
care of the living soil that we are a part of, and that is a
part of us. Whether we’ve focused on raising vegetables,
animals, or, as we do now, fruit, it’s always been about
the soil.” —Nancy and John Hayden
chelseagreen.com • 11
Wildcrafted Fermentation
In his new book Wildcrafted Fermentation, professional forager Pascal Baudar
combines his curiosity, research, and in-depth understanding of terroir to explore
new and surprising uses for wild ingredients through fermentation.

Springtime offers an abundance of delicious and tender wild greens such as chickweed, miner’s
lettuce, wild chervil, tender young grass (foxtail), watercress, bitter cress, and countless others.
Eating a freshly foraged salad is truly an epiphany of green flavors in your mouth: earthy, a
punch of chlorophyll, grassy, the perfect balance of sweet and bitter. You cannot even approach
those flavors with ingredients purchased at the store. And they can be preserved for use year-
round in the form of pastes.

SPICY FOREST PASTE Procedure

The total weight was around 8 ounces (227 g). I used 1 teaspoon
I usually serve this paste on top of my acorn and wild
(5.5 g) of salt.
seeds crackers, but it will work nicely on eggs, grilled
Process the jalapeños, forest herbs, lemon basil, cilantro,
steaks, and even fish. If your diet is plant-based, I would
garlic, and starter in a blender until you get a smooth paste. Place
spread the paste on vegan pizza or simply use it as a sa-
this in a bowl, and add the spices, stirring to combine. Mix the salt
vory side condiment.
with the paste and transfer to a jar.
Close the lid and stir the ferment a couple of times daily until
Ingredients for a ½-pint jar (236 ml) the fermentation gases subside, usually 7 to 10 days. You’ll need to
2 large jalapeño peppers, seeds removed, cut into large pieces burp as necessary. When done, store the jar in the fridge. I like to
2½ cups (75 g) minced forest herbs (I use 60 percent age this kind of ferment for at least a month before enjoying it.
chickweed, 20 percent chervil, 10 percent miner’s lettuce,
10 percent others)
1 cup (30 g) lemon basil
1 cup (30 g) cilantro
7 garlic cloves, peeled
2 tablespoons (30 ml) Culture Starter
4½ tablespoons (27 g) paprika
2 tablespoons (15 g) Korean chili flakes
¾ teaspoon (2 g) ground coriander
1 teaspoon (2.5 g) chile morita or spicy chili flakes
¾ teaspoon (1 g) ground cumin
2 teaspoons (4 g) ginger powder or
1 tablespoon (5 g) grated fresh gingerroot
1 teaspoon (3 g) garlic powder
½ teaspoon (1.5 g) ground
black peppercorns
1 teaspoon (2 g) turmeric
Salt

12 • Chelsea Green Publishing

 Fermentation
and Cultural Revival

“Sandor Katz is a rock

star of the American
food scene.”
“Pascal Baudar —New York Times
is a culinary
Prior to The Art of Fermentation’s release in 2012,
visionary. Michael Pollan said he fully expected that “like a
particularly vibrant microbial culture, this book will
Get ready to spawn thousands of new fermentos.”
New York Times Best Seller
be inspired.”
How right he was.
The Art of Fermentation quickly became a New
2013 James Beard Foundation
—Sandor Katz York Times best seller and regularly sells tens of
thousands of copies a year. Now considered the Book Award Winner
gold standard—and most comprehensive guide to
The IACP Cookbook Awards
DIY home fermentation ever published—it contin-
Finalist
Also by Pascal Baudar ues to inspire and educate.
In 2017, the New York Times asked Katz about the explo-
sion of all things fermentation. “People are recognizing that this important biodiver-
sity inside of us has been diminished and [they] are seeking strategies to restore it for
immune function, digestion, mental health and everything else,” he said. “So people are
seeking out bacteria-rich foods. . . . It’s not just happening in New York, San Francisco
and Portland.”
The Art of Fermentation goes beyond simple recipes on fermenting vegetables—​
although it has plenty of those, too—and includes information on meads, wines, sour
tonic beverages, milk, grains, beans, seeds, nuts, fish, meat, eggs, and
more! It also expertly contextualizes fermentation in
terms of biological and cultural evolution, health
and nutrition, and even economics.
As Katz writes, “Fermentation is culture. Fer-
mentation relates to culture in many different ways,
corresponding with the many layers of meaning
embedded in this important word, from its literal
and specific meanings in the context of microbiol-
ogy to its broadest connotations. Reclaiming our
food and our participation in cultivation is a means
of cultural revival, taking action to break out of the
confining and infantilizing dependency of the role
of user, and taking back our dignity and power by
becoming producers and creators. . . . Relocalizing
food means a renewal not only of agriculture but
also of the processes used to transform and preserve
the products of agriculture into the things that
people eat and drink every day.”

chelseagreen.com • 13
Inspiration from
Masters of
Artisan Foods
Fasting and Feasting
Adam Federman
A New York Times Notable Book, this
widely praised biography tells the
remarkable life story of Patience Gray,
author of the much-loved, classic
cookbook Honey from a Weed. From
her privileged English upbringing to
her trials as a single mother during
World War II to her career working
as a designer, editor, translator, and
author to her culinary adventures in
later years (including life in a remote
area of Puglia), Patience is revealed as
a fascinating and spirited woman, who
was very much a part of her time, and
very clearly ahead of it.
Brew Beer Like a Yeti
Jereme Zimmerman
Experimentation, mystery, resource-
fulness, and above all, fun—these are
the hallmarks of brewing beer like a
Yeti. This book showcases a range of
ancient ales (before hops was king),
gruits, braggots, and more, with recipes
inspired by traditions around the globe,
including sahti, gotlandsdricka, oak
bark and mushroom ale, wassail, paw-
paw wheat, chicha de muko, and even
Neolithic “stone” beers. A must for any
home brewer.
14 • Chelsea Green Publishing
Forage, Harvest, Feast
Marie Viljoen
Celebrated New York City forager,
cook, kitchen gardener, and writer
Marie Viljoen incorporates wild
ingredients into everyday and special
occasion fare to create a collection of
nearly 500 wild food recipes. Perfect to
motivate spring foraging, Viljoen offers
deliciously compelling recipes for ev-
erything from cocktails and snacks to
appetizers, main courses, and desserts,
as well as breads, preserves, sauces,
syrups, ferments, spices, and salts.
The Art of Natural
Cheesemaking
David Asher
David Asher demonstrates a traditional
way of making cheese, showcasing more
than 35 step-by-step recipes (see facing
page for one!) that are natural and intu-
itive, grounded in ecological principles
and biological science. The book explores
classes of cheese from kefir and paneer to
washed-rind and alpine styles—a perfect
manual for home and small-scale com-
mercial cheesemakers.
Make Mead Like a Viking
Jereme Zimmerman
Homesteader, fermentation enthusiast, and
self-described “Appalachian Yeti Viking” Jereme
Zimmerman demonstrates how homebrewing
mead can be uncomplicated, fun, and delicious.
Armed with wild-yeast-bearing totem sticks,
readers will learn techniques for brewing sweet,
semi-sweet, and dry meads, melomels (fruit
meads), metheglins (spiced meads), Ethiopian
t’ej, flower and herbal meads, braggots, honey
beers, country wines, and even Viking grog.
Junket
Ingredients
1 quart (1 l) good milk, raw or pasteurized but not homogenized
1 tablespoon (15 ml) active kefir or whey (optional if using raw milk)
Sugar or any other sweetener to taste (1⁄4–1 cup [60–240 ml], or none at all)
1⁄4 teaspoon (1 ml) salt
1 teaspoon (5 ml) ground cinnamon
1⁄2 teaspoon (2 ml) ground nutmeg
1⁄2 teaspoon (2 ml) ground cardamom
Regular dose rennet (I use 1⁄16 tablet WalcoRen rennet for 1 quart milk)

Procedure
Warm your milk to baby-bottle-warm, about 90°F (32°C).
Culture your milk (optional for raw milk) by adding the kefir or whey to
the warm milk. Leave the pot to incubate for 1 hour, to help the bacterial
cultures flourish.
Mix the sugar, salt, and spices into the milk well.
Add the rennet: Dissolve the rennet in 1⁄4 cup (60 ml) of water, then add it to
the milk. Mix the rennet in with a gentle stirring.
Pour the renneted milk into individual cups immediately after adding the
rennet. This way, the curd will form a firm set in the cups.
Let the pudding set, covered, at room temperature for 1 to 2 hours until
firm. Junket is best as soon as it has set but can also be kept refrigerated for
several days.

chelseagreen.com • 15
A Journey into the Heart
and Soul of Ireland
An Interview with Ruairí McKiernan

What does the future have in store if politicians aren’t beholden to the people, if honesty there that isn’t always given space.
the pace of development is compromising mental health, and if so-called progress
is triggering ecological collapse? Ruairí McKiernan set out to answer these ques- How did being face-to-face with people in
tions, but in order to do so honestly and authentically, he stepped out of his life as a more vulnerable way impact the kind of
information people were willing to share?
an award-winning social innovator, pioneering youth charity founder, and appoin-
tee to Ireland’s Council of State straight onto the open road. Hitching for Hope Vulnerability is part of life, but it’s
tells his story. In this conversation with Chelsea Green, McKiernan reflects on his something we go out of our way to avoid.
commitment to giving voice to the multitudes that so often go unheard. When you enter someone’s car, you enter
their personal space. They have a cer-
In the years following Ireland’s 2008 reces- worry about the future urgently, but if we tain amount of power. But I also think
sion, what made you stay? spend all our time doing that, we’re effec- something has led that person to pick
At that particular time in Ireland, there tively destroying the present. you up—a curiosity or story they want to
was a lot of turmoil. I suppose I was so Another big one is to answer the call share, I suspect unconsciously. Sometimes
invested that at that point in terms of to adventure when it comes. Look at what it’s nostalgia, a yearning for that freedom
creating community change and wanting the mythologist Joseph Campbell calls the that they maybe once had when life was a
to be part of the future and feeling a deep, Hero’s Journey; it’s playing a role outside little bit freer, a little bit wilder.
soulful, heartfelt connection and commit- of yourself, adventures in serving human- Sometimes there are vulnerabilities
ment to making a difference. Emigration ity. Capitalism, consumerism—they’re like for the driver, too. Being honest and
was part of my family story. It’s in the Irish religions that pull you in, and before you explaining what I’m doing gives them per-
DNA, but at an instinctual gut level, I felt know it, you’ve lost a little bit of yourself mission to open up about the difficulties
called to stay. and the sense of where you want to be in their lives. There’s something beautiful
going. Hitchhiking reminds us that there’s in that. Many people are suffering, feeling
When you set out on your hitchhiking odys- still a desire to give, to care, to uplift each anger, injustice. Often, they just want to
sey, did you have an agenda? other. And when I say uplift, I mean like be heard. Despite all the bad stuff in the
I’m not sure I had any clear agenda other physically lift somebody off the road and world, the kindness underpinning our
than a sense of hope—a sense that there bring them in your car. There’s a level of society is massive. If anything, it just
had to be a better way of understanding
where the world was at. These questions
weren’t just particular for me or for Ire-
land; they’re global questions. Increasingly,
we live in a globalized world. Issues like
climate change remind us of the intercon-
nectivity of the weather, the water, the
food supplies. The questions were also
existential, like what does it mean to be
happy in the modern world? Is it possible
to create fairness and sustainability?

Did you arrive at any answers? Anything that

surprised you?
One of the fundamental lessons I learned
is to spend more time in the present mo-
ment. It’s a big juxtaposition in the world
right now because of course we have to

16 • Chelsea Green Publishing

 needs to be given
more attention.
Your book is a
commentary on
the political, so-
cial, and economic
climate of Ireland.
It’s also deeply
personal. Can you
talk about the
intersection of
public and private
life, and how living well necessitates a conver-
sation between the two?
If you take any politician or policymaker,
they’re first and foremost an individual
informed by their own experiences and
hardships and weaknesses and desires. So,
the public and the private are always at play
together. They really can’t be separated.
The trip in itself had a kind of public im-
pulse, but really it was my own questioning
that lead to it. As Gandhi taught us, if we
want to change society, we need to openly
start with ourselves: How do I behave?
What’s my relationship to the planet?
Individual responsibility and choice can
feel small in the face of gargantuan global
issues, but you stepped out on the road and
stuck out your thumb and people started
paying attention.
For people to give me their eyes and their
ears was a great privilege. The experience
of this book is a very modest sharing.
There’s nothing that dramatic or radical
about it. It’s a story, and there are many
other stories in the world. Much bigger,
braver stories. In many ways, it’s an invi-
tation to reflect on what your story is and
to listen to the stories around you and be
part of this kind of rising—this neces-
sary rising where voices come out of the
shadows. So many of the stories and voices
we hear now are the same voices and the
same stories. And they don’t necessarily
represent us or the diversity of the world.
How do you feel your book contributes to the
broader conversation about social justice in
Ireland and more broadly around the world?
In many ways, it’s a love story about
Ireland, but it’s also a planetary story
about elevating voices—those of struggle,
hardship, and injustice. But also the voices
of hope, possibility, and solutions. The
voices of people who continue to stand
up and speak out every day. It’s about all
of us together waking up and speaking up
and doing what we can, how we can. The
overarching narrative is that we’re at a
turning point, and it is truly historic.
In that, we have a fundamental
choice: One option is fear, division,
hatred, and otherness. The other is love,
unity, connection, and kindness. That’s
really the dominant story that comes out
of this book—the story of active hope and
agency in troubled times. One of the big
ingredients is courage. It’s not a passive
thing. It’s something you create, some-
thing you cultivate. More courage, more
choice, more action. And action breeds
hope. You can make it in the next 60
seconds if you want it.
From What Is
to WHAT IF
In From What Is to What If, Rob
Hopkins challenges all of us to ask
better questions. As he points out,
“Most of the institutions shaping the
world today are incapable of imagining
anything other than their everlasting
existence. And so things carry on, no
matter how
toxic, how
ridiculous, or
how contrary to
values that most
people share.”
He follows
this by asking
some critical
questions of his
own: “What if
our leaders cared
about harness-
ing the collective imagination to solve
our greatest challenges, signaled a real
commitment to it, and demonstrated
it in their own policymaking and
political maneuverings? What if they
understood that our survival depends
on being able to focus our full atten-
tion and imagination on the challenges
confronting us and upon our ability to
reimagine most aspects of how society
works? What if they valued imagina-
tion in policymaking, education, public
life, planning, development, democracy
and economics? What if they nurtured
conditions and real, boots-on-the-
ground public policy that enabled the
imagination of all to flourish—
knowing that unleashing the public
imagination is our best route to solving
the world’s many problems? I know
how absurd this sounds, given our
current state of affairs.
But let’s go there anyway. What if?
And why not? How would our models
of democracy need to change?
“Big ideas that just might
save the world.”
—The Guardian
chelseagreen.com • 17
Igniting a New Carbon Drawdown
Economy to End the Climate Crisis
The problem isn’t carbon, it’s that we’ve
altered the natural carbon cycle, and
“have allowed ourselves to get disastrous-
ly out of balance with it.” In fact, as the
authors tell us in myriad ways throughout
the book, carbon is the answer:
Once we understand carbon—and how,
in particular, we can go from squander-
ing carbon to banking it in a virtuous
cycle of improvement we refer to as
“carbon cascades”—we can begin to see
the massive opportunities it presents,
rather than only the threat of planetary
proportions we’ve all been focused on.
Most people believe that silicon is the
element that will drive the future, but as
the authors note, silicon “has never been
known to form the basis of life.” That is
the sole purview of carbon, and potential-
ly a reconstructed carbon economy. The
solution, according to Bates and Draper,
is “low-tech, easily sourced, sustainably
NOW IN PAPERBACK!
Oil, Power, and War
Oil is the historical foundation of US
power, and the agents of this power
demonstrated in Iraq in 2003 what they
can do when they feel threatened.
If the crisis of 2008 was indeed—as
seems plausible to me—the first great
crisis stemming from the physical limits
to growth, what does that say of current
times? There has been no gulf between
“Auzanneau has created a
towering telling of dark and
dangerous addiction.”
—Nature
the world of 2008 and the world of today.
In particular, quantitative easing created
a bubble of expensive oil, in the form of
shale oil, that partially popped at the end
18 • Chelsea Green Publishing
address it—indeed the ways some already
are, because these solutions are viable and
profitable. “Civilizations are living enti-
ties,” write Bates and Draper, “with regular
cycles of birth, growth, and death.” It’s
time to turn the carbon paradigm on its
produced biomass.” A primary repository head, time to create a new, virtuous cycle
of that carbon will be biochar. of growth so that the one we’re on doesn’t
The authors explain how, while it has bring about the death of our civilization.
most widely been put to agricultural uses
in the past, “evidence is rapidly mounting Adapted from a review by Dylan Schleicher on the
that the potential of harnessing carbon to Porchlight blog.
reverse climate change extends far beyond
agriculture.”
They make the case for an alternative,
presenting what is no less than a glimpse
of “an eco-civilization retooled to reverse
climate change.” We could literally rebuild
the infrastructure of our economy as a
carbon sink.
The only way to endow the future with
a chance of reversing climate change is
to transition as rapidly as possible to a
habitation pattern (an economy) that
does not push carbon into the atmo-
sphere and oceans but draws it in.
The book encompasses a civilizational A Porchlight Books “Editor’s Choice”
challenge, and the operational ways we can
power: the growth that demands energy;
the energy that demands growth; and
the complexity born of, and also feeding,
both. It’s a cycle that grows more turbu-
of quantitative easing in 2014. A bubble
lent, more vicious as it evolves. Breaking
that Donald Trump, or what he embod-
free of it would require a fundamental
ies, seems ready to do anything to keep
shift. But to devise a more sober society is
afloat—whether that’s condemning the
to devise a more robust society.
Paris Agreement, eviscerating the Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency, rolling back
numerous regulations that were “con-
straining” the oil industry, opening refuges
and vast tracts of coastline to drilling,
or eventually venturing deep into the
territory of negative interest rates. It’s as
if the regime perpetuating thermo-indus-
trial power has all kinds of spontaneous
immune systems, and it’s a gigantic and
perilous conundrum.
Let’s imagine that, in the absence
of sufficient extractable reserves, US oil
production or Chinese coal production
begin to decline (which is quite possible).
Voluntarily or forcibly, we would need
2019 Catholic Herald Book Awards Finalist
to confront the drivers that perpetuate A Geographical “Best Book of 2019”
The Deadly Politics of whole world. It would help firmly establish
the United States as a global superpower.

the Great Game for Oil During a brief visit to Washington,

DC, following the death of Franklin D.
Roosevelt in 1945, my father revealed to
In 1947, Daniel Dennett, America’s sole master spy in the Middle East (code a family friend that his life was in dan-
name “Carat”), was dispatched to Saudi Arabia to study the route of the proposed ger. As he boarded a plane for Beirut, he
Trans-Arabian Pipeline. The plane carrying him to Ethiopia went down, killing turned to his friend and soberly com-
everyone on board. In The Crash of Flight 3804, investigative journalist Charlotte mented, “I may not come home alive.
Dennett, digs into the mystery of her father’s death, uncovering a covert struggle Please look after my wife and children in
case that happens.”
among superpower intelligence networks, military, and Big Oil that has shaped the
It is that three-way nexus (of intelli-
Middle East. In the following excerpt, Dennett contends with the shifting sands
gence, military power, and Big Oil) that
of post-World War II alliances as a new battle over competing sources of energy my father was beginning to catalyze,
flared up around Carat and his counterintelligence work. wittingly or not. That dictum still guides
US foreign policy in the Middle East,
except the stakes are even larger now.
all German agents had been “cleaned With equally huge oil and gas fields being
My parents’ letters home in 1946 and early
up.” Instead, he soon found himself in discovered in Yemen, the
1947 clearly indicated that [my father]
the middle of a covert battle for cultural, Persian Gulf, the
saw Soviet Russia as the United States’
political, and economic influence in the Levantine Basin,
biggest enemy in the postwar Middle
Middle East, pitting him against America’s Egypt, and pos-
East. But as declassified Office of Strategic
wartime allies—the British, the French, sibly the Golan
Services (OSS) documents at the National
and the Russians. The State Department Heights, the US
Archives would soon reveal, Great Britain
had warned him that he would find a militarization
and France (both resentful over America’s
veritable “free-for-all” among the allies as of the Eastern
displacement of their colonial influence in
the war began to wind down, but he was Mediterranean
the Middle East) were not above suspi-
still shocked (Anglophile that he was) to and the Gulf has
cion. And lying at the heart of intensifying
discover that the British were the biggest reached unprece-
postwar rivalries among former allies was
danger among the three allies when he dented levels.
the Trans-Arabian Pipeline.
first arrived. In his first report to his OSS
superior, Turner McBaine, on May 12,
“The most extraordinary historical 1944, Dennett described how, while “living
account of pipeline politics ever his cover” as the cultural attaché, he
written. . . . Urgent reading for anyone learned that the British were fully engaged
looking to understand who and what in cultural warfare against the Americans
brought us into the War on Terror era.” in their efforts to penetrate the Ameri-
—Kristina Borjesson, author of Feet to can University of Beirut and the Aleppo
the Fire: The Media After 9/11 College of Syria with British teachers and
propaganda. . . . Whether Dennett knew it
or not, McBaine also served as chief coun-
The very survival of Western capi- sel to Standard Oil of California (Socal,
talism seemed to depend on the success later Chevron), one of the main partners
Charlotte Dennett is a former Middle East
of this pipeline, forcing my father, as the in Aramco, which held the exclusive oil
reporter, investigative journalist, and attorney.
top diplomat-spy in the Middle East, to concession in Saudi Arabia. She is author of Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of
become an expert in the intrigues of what From the time of its announce- the Amazon, an exposé of Nelson Rockefeller and
I call the Great Game for Oil. ment to the press in February 1944, the evangelism in the age of oil, which the Washington
When the OSS sent Daniel Dennett Trans-Arabian Pipeline loomed large in Post called “a persuasive history of how American
to Beirut, Lebanon, in the spring of 1944, the consciousness of every Arab leader and business and strategic interests interacted to
bolster a generation of Latin American dictator-
his mission was to engage in counterin- every foreign diplomat and spy stationed
ships.” Dennett’s brother, Daniel C. Dennett III,
telligence work. That meant protecting in Lebanon, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. Its famed philosopher and author of From Bacteria
American and Allied intelligence opera- construction, completed in 1950, would to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds and
tions against infiltration by the Germans. change the balance of power in the whole Consciousness Explained, wrote the foreword to
But when he arrived, he discovered that Middle East and, for that matter, the The Crash of Flight 3804.

chelseagreen.com • 19
Growing Community,
Food, Fiber, and Compost
“Stewarding our own land, growing our own food, educat-
ing our own youth, participating in our own healthcare
and justice systems, this is the source of real dignity.”
—Leah Penniman, author of Farming While Black
Choice Reviews, Outstanding Academic Title
Black Caucus of the American Library Association,
Winner, Outstanding Contribution to Publishing Citation
Foreword INDIES Gold, Winner, Multicultural Category
The Readable Feast, Winner, Socially Conscious Category

“One of the profound lessons I have learned is that when we

empower our communities to ground their livelihoods in that
which is grown, processed, and utilized from their regional
soils and in honor of the existing human cultural heritage,
the strategies for how we design and implement solutions for
many of our most pressing global challenges—including
climate change and wealth inequality—become more
precise and effective.”
—Rebecca Burgess, author of Fibershed

“Students, often, are the catalysts to school-based, community

vermicomposting, asking, ‘Why is food being thrown away?
Can’t we recycle it, like we do with paper, cans, and bottles?’
A rapidly growing trend is for schools, from preschools
through colleges, to maintain gardens onsite. Students learn
how plants grow and harvest vegetables and fruits that are
then consumed in the lunchroom. It’s a natural connection to
compost or vermicompost the food residuals and use the
products to nourish the plants to grow more food.”
—Rhonda Sherman, author of
The Worm Farmer’s Handbook
20 • Chelsea Green Publishing
American Hemp Farmer
An Interview with Doug Fine

Investigative journalist, farmer, and goat herder Doug Fine has been writing about
hemp for 26 years. Author of Hemp Bound and Too High to Fail, he believes that
hemp can lead the way toward a new, regenerative economy. In this interview with
Chelsea Green, Fine gives us the straight dope on one of the world’s most fasci-
nating and lucrative crops and explains why you should start growing it, too.

Since Hemp Bound in 2014, how has the
hemp landscape changed? What’s so special
about the plant at this moment?
The publication of Hemp Bound coincided
with the first federal legalization of hemp
in the 2014 farm bill. Now we’re bookend-
ing it with American Hemp Farmer as the
industry is exploding exponentially. It’s no
exaggeration to say that the re-emergence
of the cannabis hemp industry is the
biggest social and economic phenomenon
since the emergence of Silicon Valley and
our digital age economy. There was steel
and the automobile industry. There was
high tech. Now there is cannabis hemp.
The potential for independent farmers
and struggling rural communities to ben-
efit is greater than it’s been for a century.
Why did you decide to start growing it?
As a journalist who’s been covering hemp
since 1994, I believe it’s too important a
phenomenon to the economy, to society,
and most importantly, to the climate
change mitigation effort not to partici-
pate in it. It’s not just me who feels that
way. This is a genuine movement. The
book talks about how we create lucrative
livings for farmers who are going to be
building soil and sequestering carbon
as they go about their entrepreneurial
efforts. It’s a win-win for humanity.
What makes hemp a good
twenty-first-century crop?
Mitigating climate change is obviously
essential if we want our kids to survive.
But to ask economically struggling farm-
ers to put all their time, energy, and sav-
ings into this, it has to have the potential
to have a consistent, long-term payoff.
And hemp does. There are so many
aspects of the plant that are promising,
and so many ways to be entrepreneurial.
What we’ll learn
in the book,
largely through
the humorous
misadventures of
my own projects,
is that it involves
a lot of hard
work, but the
potential is there,
especially if we
can educate cus-
tomers to seek
out regenerative,
farmer-con-
trolled entities.
Talk about your vision for how the hemp
economy should work.
My slogan these days is, “This time the
farmers are in charge.” We were a nation
of 90 percent farmers in the founding
fathers’ time, 30 percent farmers when
cannabis prohibition began in 1937, and 1
percent farmers now. If we play this right
from the regenerative entrepreneurial
standpoint, we actually have a chance to
get back to that 30 percent. The key is to
figure out the formula that works in the
modern financial world.
American Hemp Farmer proposes a
regional, farm-to-table approach that
starts with soil building. The end game
is not cashing in on the Stock Exchange;
it’s vibrant, regenerative communities.
A product that is cultivated, prepared,
packaged, and marketed regionally can be
very lucrative. It’s not diluted.
How can we go beyond the CBD craze and
avoid a boom and bust market scenario?
The correction to the wild west markets
in that one segment of the hemp industry
has already started. In every gold rush, it’s
the prospectors who tend to get hurt the
most. But hemp has 111 known cannabi-
noids, and the boom is based on only one
component of the flower of the plant.
Rather than thinking of it as a pharma-
ceutical with chemicals to be isolated, we
should look at hemp entrepreneurialism
from a whole-plant, top-shelf, vintage
perspective. The craft side of cultivation
will help us weather the vicissitudes of the
many coming gold rushes.

chelseagreen.com • 21
A History of Electricity and Its Impact on
Planetary and Human Health
The story of the invention and use of electricity has been told before, but never the health of millennials who were 34 to
from an environmental point of view. An assumption of safety, and the conviction 36 years old in 2017 to the health of Gen
that electricity has no negative impact on life, are by now so entrenched in the Xers who were 34 to 36 years old in 2014.
At the same age, millennials in 2017 had
human psyche that new research and testimony by those who’ve been injured are
37 percent more hyperactivity, 19 percent
not enough to change the course society has set. In the following excerpt from
more diabetes, 18 percent more major de-
The Invisible Rainbow, Arthur Firstenberg cites troubling findings that underscore pression, 15 percent more Crohn’s disease
the direct relationship between disease and cell phone use on developing brains and ulcerative colitis, 12 percent more
and bodies. substance use disorder, 10 percent more
hypertension, and 7 percent more high
The mountain of truth confronting every as compared with 2014. Major depres-
cholesterol than Gen Xers had in 2014.
cell phone user has only grown larger. sion increased 31 percent. Hyperactivity
When the researchers looked at all
Millennials—the generation born be- increased 29 percent. Type II diabetes
health conditions, they found that 34- to
tween 1981 and 1996 and the first to grow increased 22 percent. Hypertension
36-year-olds in 2017 had a 21 percent
up using cell phones—are experiencing increased 16 percent. Psychoses increased
increase in cardiovascular conditions, a
an unprecedented decline in their health 15 percent. High cholesterol increased 12
15 percent increase in endocrine condi-
when they reach their late twenties. On percent. Crohn’s disease and ulcerative
tions, and an 8 percent increase in other
April 24, 2019, the American health in- colitis increased 10 percent. Sub-
physical conditions compared to 34- to
surance company Blue Cross Blue Shield stance use disorder
36-year-olds in 2014.
released a report titled “The Health of increased 10
The only reasonable explanation for
Millennials.” It showed not only that the percent.
the alarming decline in health of the mil-
health of this generation takes a sharp de- The decline
lennial generation is the life-long irradia-
cline beginning at age 27, but also that the in millennials’
tion of their brains and bodies from their
prevalence of many medical conditions health from
cell phones. Cell phones did not work in
had risen precipitously among millennials 2014 to 2017 was
most of the United States until 1997, and
in just three years. not due to their
their use was not prevalent among teen-
The prevalence of eight of the top being three years
agers until 2000. Millennials are the first
ten conditions among all millennials older. The report
generation that began using cell phones
showed a double-digit increase in 2017 also compared
in their teenage years or earlier, when
their brains and bodies were still devel-
oping. People who were 34 to 36 years old
in 2017 were 17 to 19 years old in 2000.
People who were 34 to 36 years old in 2014
were 20 to 22 years old in 2000. No other
environmental factor changed so radically
in just three years. Microwave radiation
is responsible for the tragic state of the
millennial generation’s health compared
to the health of every other generation
that preceded them.

Arthur Firstenberg is a scientist and journalist at

the forefront of a global movement to examine
the effects of electromagnetic radiation on human
and environmental health. A veteran researcher,
consultant, and lecturer on the topic, he is also
the author of Microwaving Our Planet: The Envi-
ronmental Impact of the Wireless Revolution.

22 • Chelsea Green Publishing

It’s All in Your Mouth

Did you know that many common chronic conditions—including obesity, more knowledge
inflammation, stroke, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and cancer, among about integrative
others—often have their origins in the mouth? Dr. Dominik Nischwitz is an expert concepts. I dream
of a medicine
on the mouth’s vital role in the body’s microbiome. His groundbreaking book,
that trains both
It’s All in Your Mouth, presents a necessary new approach to natural immunity to
patients and
chronic disease. In the excerpt that follows, Nischwitz makes his case for doctors to understand our organism
integrating dental hygiene into whole body health. as a whole. A medicine that understands
what causes disruption, but also how the
Conventional medicine still turns to body can regenerate and heal. A progres-
sive form of medicine, oriented toward
the old paradigms for diseases of the “This book is biological dentistry
twenty-first century, sometimes because health issues people are facing today,
the health care system doesn’t allow for
at its absolute best.” needs to do more than dole out diagnoses
anything else. On average, a doctor has —Tim Gray, founder, Health and treatments. It should give people all
the information and tools they need to
just less than seven minutes to see each Optimisation Summit
patient. Ninety percent of appointments integrate health concepts into their daily
are spent talking about symptoms and lives so that they can take their life and
related medications. Medicine today has right precautions to take, in terms of pure health into their own hands instead of
standard treatments for diseases with dif- detail work, modern dentistry is restricted fatefully having to accept illnesses. I am
ferent causes. The focus is always on the primarily to its traditional working envi- firmly convinced that this is the right way
disease, rather than the person’s health. ronment: the mouth. Modern dentistry to respond to the medical challenges of
Rarely does medicine offer tailor-made can and should look far beyond this area. the twenty-first century—and if need be,
solutions—though there are some. Most A new dentistry should broaden its focus this path will be led by dentistry. This may
illnesses people are suffering from today to involve the rest of the body. Research sound unimaginable today, but tomor-
did not simply break out like an infection. has already clearly shown us the way: row we might just start getting used to
They are mostly acquired as a result of The connections between disease in the the idea. In the not-too-distant future,
our modern lifestyles. This is mouth and chronic disease my hope is that this way of thinking will
why we also need other, elsewhere in the body become completely normal.
new ways of dealing are unambiguous, and Let the healing begin!
with them. gradually new the-
It might seem ories are paving the
an unusual choice way in our minds and
to start this process textbooks.
in the mouth—some Biological dentistry
people even laugh at the does not aim to act as a
thought or try to down- supplement or alternative to
play the importance of oral traditional dentistry, but as
hygiene. But dentistry is an extension. It’s about jump-
changing, too. It has done ing over holes rather than
valuable and considerable digging them deeper. It aims
work as a repair medicine. to bring disciplines together
Whereas not so long ago, the rather than disrupt them. I
only possible treatment was dream of a world where den- Dr. Dominik Nischwitz is a licensed dentist,
natural health practitioner, and nutritionist. He
tooth extraction, today there are tistry and general medicine do
cofounded DNA Health and Aesthetics, Center
other options available that are not not form separate spheres, but work for Biological Dentistry with his father in Tübin-
only tolerable but also aesthetically hand in hand. I dream of a medicine gen, Germany. A pioneer in the field of holistic
perfect. Although we now know a lot that rejects the idea of separating the odontology, Dr. Nischwitz regularly gives lectures
more about techniques, materials, and the body into sections and instead acquires at science conferences around the world.

chelseagreen.com • 23
 “So, for a moment, I ask us to entertain possibil-
ities, that’s all. Put down the podcast or latest
gut-churning piece of will-draining bad news,
and let’s crouch by the fire in the old way that is
forever new. Somebody wants to talk to you.”
—Martin Shaw, Courting the Wild Twin

CHELSEA
GREEN PUBLISHING POSTAGE REQUIRED
Visit chelseagreen.com
Call ( 800) 639-4099

the politics and practice of sustainable living

85 North Main Street
Suite 120
White River Junction, VT 05001

Sign up for our e-newsletter:

chelseagreen.com/newsletter
facebook.com/chelseagreenpub
@chelseagreen
@chelseagreenbooks