Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet

Saturday, April 19, 2025
2:00 – 4:00 PM (PDT) – A free event – open to all
In Person at Concord Hall, 1407 Chapala Street, Santa Barbara, CA
Live Webcast (see details below)
Speaker: Nari Miller, PhD

This forum, based on the framework presented in Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet by George Monbiot, will explore how to adjust modern agricultural methods to meet humanity’s need for food and a healthy environment. While modern agriculture produces enough food for everyone, it replaces former wild lands and consumes massive amounts of fertilizers and herbicides. The resources and waste associated with revolutionary food production methods will be discussed in comparison with organic and conventional farming. Reducing the land area required of agriculture and returning it to wilderness would be most influential in improving ecosystem resiliency, and requires systemic changes to the modern system. We will discuss how the necessary scale of food production guides the recommendations presented in Regenesis, and how these proposed solutions may challenge our understanding of “sustainability”.

Nari Miller, Ph.D., is a geomorphologist and educator. As a researcher, she studies how soils develop from eroded bedrock and windblown dust on limestone landscapes. She has quantified long-term rates of chemical erosion and dust accumulation at field sites in Arizona and Spain using soil geochemistry and climate data. She is an advocate of earth science as life enrichment; the geosciences inspire art, encourage exploration of philosophical questions regarding our origin, guide human history, and host the diverse and unusual creatures of our glorious planet.

*Webcast begins at 2:00 PM (PDT). Click here to view the program. A recording of the interview will be available after the program for future viewing at the same link.
If the link does not work, copy the following and paste it into your browser: https://www.youtube.com/@iwcinsantabarbara/streams