No jobs, no economy, and a dead planet

Bren Smith said that on RNZ today. So what did he mean, and what is it to be a “climate farmer” in this era? Coming from aquaculture, meant to be one of the answers to the world’s food problems in the 1990s, Smith’s experience is that aquaculture took the wrong steps – it was like factory farming at sea. On 100 acres he raised oysters but storms wiped out most of his crops two years in a row. He realised this was the new normal. He faced questions like how am I going to feed my family if climate change has arrived 100 years too early? The crisis has arrived. Smith is trying to find solutions. Right now Hurricane Matthew is slamming into Florida and other heavily populated areas. We are on the front lines of a crisis that really has arrived. Smith believes it’s a mistake from an environmental perspective to think these matters are an environmental issue. It’s an economic issue. Hurricane Sandy wiped out 83,000 jobs in New York city, Smith said, in 2012.

This is what he means by saying there will be no jobs, there will be no economy, and a dead planet, if we persist with faulty framing of climate change, or simply continue the plunder as the captains of industry do. They think short term, Smith says – catching fish down to the last one. He’s now a pioneer of “3D ocean farming” at the Thimble Island Oyster Co – farming the depth of the ocean column for diversity, even harvesting salt within a 20 acre area. All the species are restorative, such as kelp that soaks up carbon – “the culinary equivalent of the electric car”. The whole farm functions as a reef system, with the plants attracting species to create a thriving ecosystem. It’s a model that requires zero inputs so it’s economically amazing – you don’t need to feed or fertilise – everything just grows naturally. It’s simple and affordable zero-input food that’s also delicious: with ten thousand edible plants in the ocean it’s the beginning of a really exciting time for food. Chefs see an incredible horizon of new cuisines rather than limitations.

Smith argues the economics will drive us this way. Ocean farming will produce the most affordable foods in the supermarket. You can get incredible volumes of food from small areas, and so feed the world – it’s the ocean as the next frontier of food cultivation. He is also about lifting communities out of poverty – the new face of environmentalism. He believes in protecting the beautiful pristine oceans; not privatising the seas but creating community spaces – almost like an underwater community garden at the same time. In this “new face of environmentalism” Smith sees all sorts of people experimenting with things like urban gardens.

It's good to hear someone talking “yes”, there are solutions. Yes, we will build zero impact ways of sustaining human habitation. In NZ we talk about climate change but do nothing of any consequence to address it. It’s central to global crisis but New Zealand has the luxury of assuming it's safe from - or can turn its head away from - the fallout.

Quartz Weekend Edition recently published a succinct statement about climate change that seems to nail the whole thing. “The [big] problems facing the planet… are climate change and refugees”, says Quartz, bringing together two doomsday topics. The context is the urgency of nations ratifying the Paris agreement, but says “cutting carbon emissions enough to halt the worst of global warming…probably won’t be enough to prevent widespread weather disasters, climate-related conflicts—and, consequently, mass migrations”. That’s it, right there. Climate change, which we are causing, is also causing these incendiary political consequences. Globally, displaced people are at an all-time high. This is about people’s homes and livelihoods becoming precarious, world-wide. It’s also about inequality – rich countries are not welcoming refugees but becoming more isolationist. The biggest threats to human habitation on the planet are here brought into a single set of equations.

It’s time for a politics of yes rather than no. Sure, we need to stop doing a range of things that are clearly a threat to our children’s future, but what do we create, what’s our vision? Where is New Zealand’s action and world-leading innovation for a sustainable economic model? We have so much to offer here. It’s cold, wildly wet and stormy this week, well into Spring. Climate change is here. This is our new normal. What are we doing, people?