These are our 5 main goals and main missions, from top to bottom. We build a community and app, where everyone can make his contribution to achieve these goals.
The goals in detail from bottom to top:
1) Agriculture revolution
This is the basis of our plan. We need the 4th agriculture revolution in history.
The first one was the transition from hunting and gathering to planting and sustaining. The second agricultural revolution increased the productivity through mechanization. The third one was the using of fertilizers and pesticides and involving hybridization and genetic engineering.
A third of our soils worldwide are already sterile and hundreds of species are dying out every day. The reason for all this is the use of artificial fertilizers, pesticides and fungicides and the fact that humans claim every square centimeter of the planet for themselves. We have to switch to an agricultural system that fulfills the following characteristics:
– preserving the soil
– high crop yields without the use of toxins, just with organic farming (permaculture, agroforestry, etc.)
– developing and using new technology which is not bad for the environment and soil
– most important: leave more space to nature and, above all, plant more trees
2) Meat consumption reduction
If you also include the grazing land in the calculation, meat production requires approx. 20 times more area than the cultivation of our remaining food. That is around 5 billion hectares worldwide. In comparison, there are still around 4 billion hectares of forest. If we would plant only 1 billion hectares of the meat production area with trees, we would be CO2 neutral. Our 2nd mission is therefore to reduce meat consumption together in order to get more space for wilderness and trees.
3) Illness healing
“Agriculture revolution” and “Meat consumption reduction” then automatically lead to “Illness healing”.
Our current agriculture makes us chronically ill. The latest scientific findings from the last 10 years show how important our microbiome is for our health. In the last few decades the number of chronic diseases has increased dramatically around the world, apparently “inexplicably”. But none of this is so inexplicable. The reason for all this is an interaction between environmental toxins (pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, heavy metals, etc.), plastic, antibiotics, too much sugar, gluten, etc. One-sided diet without diversity leads to a wrong composition of the microbiome and all the toxins lead to a leaky gut and thereby damage our health. Most of our chronic illnesses today can ultimately be traced back to it.
All these poisons not only make our intestines and ultimately us sick, but above all they ensure that the sixth great mass extinction on earth is in full swing. The first man-made. The natural interplay of bacteria and microorganisms in the soil, via insects and birds, is completely destroyed and leads to the mass extinction of thousands of species.
“Agriculture revolution“ und „Meat consumption reduction” führen dann automatisch zu “Illness healing“.
4) Living environment protection
If we manage to complete the above 3 missions, this automatically leads to “Living environment protection”.
Due to our highly toxic agriculture and, above all, the enormous use of land and resources for meat production, more and more natural habitats full of incredible diversity are being destroyed forever. The situation in the Amazon rainforest is particularly dramatic. In the shadow of the corona pandemic, trees are currently being felled and burned at record speed. Scientists have been pointing out for years that we are on the verge of a tipping point in the Amazon. If a certain degree of deforestation is exceeded, the rainforest cannot sustain itself and sooner or later the Amazon becomes a savannah. Due to the direct destruction of nature and also the indirect one via global warming, numerous other human and animal habitats are severely threatened or are in the process of collapse.
5) Carbon Offset
If we manage the first 4 missions, we could also get the CO2 out of the atmosphere and bind it and finally stop global warming. Of course, it is important to turn off our CO2 sources and switch to renewable energies as soon as possible. Climatree, however, would like to highlight the potential of CO2 sinks. Creatures, soils and, above all, trees have a huge potential to get CO2 out of the air. Agriculture is held responsible for around 15% of CO2 emissions worldwide. We should rather ask ourselves how much potential real agriculture and a different land use (less meat, more trees) would have as a CO2 sink. There is a big difference between cause and potential. Trees require space, and we would get space if we switched our diet to less meat and less animal products. As I said, if we would plant 1 billion hectares with the right (fast-growing) trees, our entire annual CO2 emissions could be offset. And that is exactly the ultimate goal of Climatree.