Woody Harrelson hosts a Netflix documentary that doesn’t just say we can stop climate change, it says we can reverse it
Story tiller: “This is the story of a simple solution,” says actor/activist Woody Harrelson at the start of Kiss the Ground. Insight ensues. Photo by Big Picture Ranch
By Chuck Thompson. September 23, 2020. Last week we published a story about the no-till farming movement and a Washington company called Shepherd’s Grain. This week we’re watching a new documentary about the global no-till movement. Its message isn’t just compelling—it’s necessary
Hosted by Woody Harrelson, Kiss the Ground premiered Tuesday on Netflix. A big-budget, fast-paced documentary that whips viewers from Paris to China to Zimbabwe to Half Moon Bay, it’s an inspiring work that shows how the key to saving the planet resides in the planet itself—more specifically in its soil.
The opening argument is simple. Modern agriculture is ruining the ground, depleting it of natural nutrients and its ability to store a planet’s worth of carbon. As a result, carbon dioxide is escaping into the atmosphere at the terrifying rates with which we’ve all become familiar.
Its biggest beef is with the ancient farming practice of tilling, which over time turns rich soil to useless dirt, leading eventually desertification. The fall of great civilizations can be tied to soil erosion.
Ground breaking not breaking ground: The documentary debuted on Netflix this week. Photo by Big Picture Ranch
MORE: Where no-till is king in the Columbia River Basin
Thanks to industrial agriculture—which has its origins in the synthetic poisons created in Nazi German laboratories—soil erosion is accelerating almost beyond comprehension. According to the film, a third of the earth’s topsoil has been lost since the 1970s. At current rates, the rest of it will be gone in 60 years.
“Poor land leads to poor people,” the film concludes.
But there’s hope. And a solid plan.
It’s not just possible to stop the degradation of our soil and endless release of atmospheric carbon dioxide. It’s surprisingly easy, say experts, to reverse the process through a practice called regenerative farming. Get a majority of farms and ranches in the world on board, says one scientist, and within a generation we could not only bring global temperatures back down but reverse lots of other problems associated with climate change.
“If we get the soil right we can solve a lot of our issues,” says U.S. government conservation agronomist Ray Archuleta, one of the leading lights in the movement.
Over a long career, Harrelson has played everything from hayseed bartender to seedy detective. Narrating Kiss the Ground he comes off like the cool high school science teacher you wish you’d had.
Presumably to pull in the masses required to make the movement work, the documentary includes drop-ins by a handful of concerned celebs: quarterback Tom Brady and model wife Gisele Bündchen, actors Patricia Arquette and Rosario Dawson, musician Jason Mraz, others.
But the real stars are the obscure scientists, farmers, ranchers, government workers, activists, authors and others trying to get the world to see that the best solution to the climate crisis is right under our feet.
View the Kiss the Ground trailer here.
Chuck Thompson is the editor of Columbia Insight.
I teach Biology and Environmental Systems Science at Hamilton HS in Chandler, AZ. This film inspired me to make a composting lesson in collaboration with our Agriculture and Culinary Arts Departments to help solve the problem with food waste and Arizona’s poor soil quality. We’re in the process of gathering data from the different compost piles and I’m hoping to eventually share the data with policy makers from Arizona to help alleviate the problem with our “High Pollution Advisories”, growing population, 21 million acres of farmland throughout the state, and food waste. The sequestering of carbon into the soil is a way to improve our economy as 3 of our 5 C’s of the state economy reside in cotton, citrus, and cattle. I am in contact with Ray Archuleta who is giving us advice on sustainable farming and compost.
Feel free to reach out to me to see how the science project is going!
Brian Sears
Brian
Thank you for your comments. After a showing of Kiss the Ground I was inspired to share it with the attendees of our upcoming convention for the Grand Canyon Synod Womens ministries that will be held Nov 10-12 in Mesa.