Preface

There is no way in which we can win the battle against climate change unless we recognise the central role which agriculture must play. Net Zero is not just a matter of radically reducing our emissions. There can’t be human or animal life without emissions. Zero has therefore never been on the cards. However, before the Industrial revolution, the earth – through oceans, soil, and trees – sequestered enough of those emissions to maintain the climate patterns which made human life possible. That was the balance of nature with which we have interfered both by massively increasing our emissions and by reducing the earth’s capacity to sequester. We have cut down our forests, polluted our oceans, and degraded our soils.