Demise of family farmers and loss of prime farmland; economic injustices to frontline stewards of the soil fertility that supports life; widespread food insecurity from the effects of industrialized farming and food manufacturing practices; nitrate and herbicide contamination of ground and surface waters; serious public health and nutrition threats from narrowing of our diet to processed foods, limited focus on a handful of cash grains and heavy reliance on meat; non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in concentrated feedlot production; narrowing of biodiversity and heavy reliance on genetic modification - it has all come about from reliance on fossil fuels, accounting for an estimated 14 percent of gasoline and oil consumption in the United States and 8 percent of global warming.

 

Reviving relationships to food producers and farmers addresses all of these problems, and it does so in a way that provides one solution to the larger issue of climate change. Yet few people in the United States have viewed either these problems or their cures as life-or-death issues.

 

The Great Warming opens our eyes in a compelling, convincing and human way to the ramifications of what we are doing, the implications this has on our souls as well as our world, and inspiring solutions that courageous, thoughtful people are devising and utilizing around the world. Very, very few films confront us with vitally important and useful information. The Great Warming does, and it does so in a way that gives us courage to address a whole lot of issues we may have viewed with concern yet delayed immediate response.

 

Watch this film. Maybe it is just what you need to move you into action. Together we just might solve a whole lot of problems before it is too late.

 

Tony Ends, Director

Churches' Center for Land and People