This Changes Everything

relatively small change in one element of climate led to abrupt changes in the system as a whole

I thought of this advice when I left my hideout and traveled to the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, one of the most exciting living laboratories for cutting-edge, agro-ecological farming methods. Wes Jackson, the founder and president of the center, says that he is trying to solve what he calls “the 10,000-year-old problem of agriculture.”29 That problem, in essence, is that ever since humans started planting seeds and tilling fields, they have been stripping the soil of its fertility.

Carrying a baby is one of the hardest physical tasks we can ask of ourselves, she pointed out, and if our bodies decline the task, it is often a sign that they are facing too many other demands—high-stress work that keeps us in a near constant state of “fight or flight,” perhaps, or the physical stress of having to metabolize toxins or allergens, or just the stresses of modern life (or some combination of all of the above)