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May 25 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
#RegenesisFact 6: When neonicotinoid pesticides were first used on the farmland surrounding Lake Shinji in Japan, from one year to the next the weight of animal plankton in the lake fell by 83%. The fishing community’s catch then fell by more than 90%.🧵
These pesticides would be better described as biocides, as they can be devastating to entire ecosystems. Unless this trend is stopped, far worse is to come: the global use of pesticides is expected to *triple* across the first 50 years of this century.
Already, one study suggests, mostly as a result of the shift to neonicotinoids, farmland in the US has become 48 times more toxic to bees across 25 years.
Sources: i. Masumi Yamamuro et al., 2019. Neonicotinoids disrupt aquatic food webs and decrease fishery yields. Science, volume 366, issue 6465, pp. 620-623. doi.org/10.1126/scienc…
ii. David Tilman et al., 2001. Forecasting Agriculturally Driven Global Environmental Change. Science, volume 292, issue 5515, pp. 281-284. doi.org/10.1126/scienc…
iii. Michael DiBartolomeis, 2019. An assessment of acute insecticide toxicity loading (AITL) of chemical pesticides used on agricultural land in the United States. PLoS ONE, volume 14, issue 8, e0220029. doi.org/10.1371/journa…

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More from @GeorgeMonbiot

George Monbiot Profile picture
May 26
#RegenesisFact 7: A perennial rice variety developed by @NatureAsMeasure and Yunnan University is now on sale, fulfilling a dream scientists have pursued for a century. It has been harvested 6 times without resowing, with the same yields as annual rice. 🧵
Almost all the grain we eat comes from annual plants, that live and die within one year. Large areas dominated by annual plants are rare in nature. They tend to colonise ground in the wake of catastrophe: fire, flood, landslide or volcanic eruption that exposes bare rock or soil.
In growing annuals, we must keep the land in the catastrophic state they prefer. Every year, we must clear the soil of competing plants, puncture or turn it, and plaster it with the nutrients required to raise a crop from seed to maturity in a few months.
Read 10 tweets
George Monbiot Profile picture
May 26
It’s publication day! In researching Regenesis, I found hope where hope seemed absent. I stumbled across astonishing stories and unimagined possibilities. I pieced together what I see as a plausible future for humanity and the wonderful life with which we share this planet. 🧵 Image
Some of my proposals will at first seem outlandish, but please remember that the themes in Feral went from “this is ridiculous!” to accepted wisdom in just 9 years.
There is always more to the world than we imagine. More horror, but also more hope. More cruelty, but more possibility. Systems we are scarcely aware of, that behave in astonishing ways. Systems that can be changed. We can change course in less time than you might think.
Read 6 tweets
George Monbiot Profile picture
May 25
When Feral was published, it was widely denounced as mad and dangerous. But I've never seen an idea that was so unfamiliar and so vilified so rapidly gain acceptance. Yesterday, the garden designed for the charity we founded, @RewildingB, won Best in Show at Chelsea.
This is the latest sign to suggest that rewilding in the UK has passed a tipping point. In other words, it has exceeded what researchers identify as the crucial social threshold: 25% public acceptance. Once it passes this point, an idea is normalised and treated as common sense.
I felt pretty lonely in 2013, beating the drum for rewilding. I wasn't completely alone of course: others had been trying. But the most common response was "WTAF are you talking about?". It shows how quickly things can change, even in hostile circumstances. This gives me hope.
Read 5 tweets
George Monbiot Profile picture
May 24
#RegenesisFact 5: When healthy soil is air-dried, the relative humidity inside the tiny clumps made by its microbes and small animals remains at 98%. In other words, these clumps are more or less impervious to desiccation: a property that at first sight looks like magic. 🧵
It’s not magic, but nor is it accidental. The vast internal surface area that makes it possible is a feature of biological construction. The little clumps (called aggregates by soil scientists) are not just made within the soil. They are the soil. Without them, it would collapse.
Just as corals and other species are reef-builders, bacteria, fungi and small animals are soil-builders. In making homes for themselves, they build the ecosystem on which almost all terrestrial life depends.
Read 7 tweets
George Monbiot Profile picture
May 23
There are plenty of claims about "regenerative ranching". But regenerative of what? Unless livestock numbers are so low that trees can return to formerly-forested land, it is not regenerative of ecosystems. And if they are that low, food production levels are tiny.
Regenerative ranching, formerly known as ranching.
As for carbon sequestration, many of the claims fall somewhere on the spectrum between bullshit and outright fraud. But these inflated claims are now big business.
science20.com/spencer_robert…
Read 5 tweets
George Monbiot Profile picture
May 23
#RegenesisFact 4. This one will come as a shock to many people. Unless I’ve missed something, there is no major farm product as environmentally damaging as organic, pasture-fed beef.
Here’s the reasoning: 🧵
i. Arguably the most important of all environmental metrics is the amount of land we use. Land used for extractive industries is land that cannot be used for wild ecosystems such as forests, wetlands and savannahs, on which the great majority of terrestrial species depend.
ii. By far the greatest use of land by people is for grazing by livestock – ie pasture. While human habitation occupies 1% of the planet’s surface, and crops occupy 12%, livestock grazing occupies 28%.
This represents a truly massive *ecological opportunity cost*.
Read 23 tweets

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