This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well fires burning across Europe and right now in California, catastrophic flooding in Kentucky, unprecedented heat wave in the UK. These are just a sample of the extreme weather that we've covered here in recent weeks. The big picture, though, is our planet is at steak. We've got a great voice on this. He
writes a column each week for The Guardian. He's written quite a few books, including Heat, How we Can stop the planet from burning, and his newest is ReGenesis, Feeding the World without devouring the planet. George Monbio is joining us now. He's a columnist at The Guardian, joining us via zoom this afternoon. George, it's really good to have you with us. How are you, thanks Tim, yet doing
all right despite the stage of the planet. Yeah, Well, that's what I want to talk to you about, because this new book that you wrote is all about environmental destruction that we don't necessar really talk about a lot. It's not about the fossil fuels that you know, go into the atmosphere as a result of us commuting. It's it's not about poisoning rivers, you know, with with chemicals as a result of manufacturing. It's about how we survive,
how we eat. Talk to us about that. Yes, so the food industry, we don't really want to go there. You know. We much prefer to criticize fossil fuels. But actually, I'm sorry to say that the most destructive industry on Earth is farming. It's the biggest cause of habitat destruction, the biggest cause of species loss, of extinction of land, use of water, use of soil, erosion of one of the biggest causes of water pollution, of air pollution, and
one of the biggest causes of climate breakdown. Now, obviously we need farming and we need to eat, but we need a long, hard and realistic conversation about the devastating effects that the way we farm is having on the living planet on which we also depend. Well, I guess this is where I'm curious about the government here, because in the United States, I believe most of farming is subsidized by the US government. So where what is their
role in all of this? Thanks? Pretty well, worldwide government suspending half a trillion dollars on farm subsidies five hundred billion dollars, and almost all those subsidies are destructive environmentally,
that they are subsidizing damaging practices. Now we could radically repurpose those subsidies and pay farmers to be protecting the planet and in some places to stop farming, because there's certain kinds of farming, and I'm afraid the kinds of farming which has a lot of myths and warmth towards which has extensive livestock farming ranching in other words, which are peculiarly damaging. I mean, they exert a far greater
impact than the amount of food they produce warrant. And so to be paying farmers to getting to get out of that farming all together and to restore the land instead, that would make a really massive contribution towards protecting our life support systems. George, let's continue with solutions here, And I want to talk about this on a governmental level,
but also want a personal level. And I always want to know when I talk to people like you, who put so much work into writing a book like this, and all the work that you've done over your career, personal steps that we can take when we're in the supermarket, when we're buying food, what should we be doing at the personal level. Well, the first thing to say is that we're much more effective as citizens than we are
as consumers. And a lot of the changes which need to take place are political, but we also do have power in our choices, and one of those when it comes to food. The biggest change we can make of all is to switch away from eating meat and milk and eggs animal products towards the plant based diet. And I know that's doesn't play very well in the United States, but I'm not in the business of telling people what they want to hear. I'm in the business of retailing.
Just so I understand it. Completely eradicate meat. That would be the best thing you can possibly do for the living world. It's a big ask for everybody. I mean, there are a lot of people who don't wrong I'm a vegetarian, but for a lot of exactly yeah, um, well,
let's let's start there. Then. How much of a case do you think you'd have to make for for people to get on board to actually care about the the destruction that the environmental destruction at a time, By the way, when food scarcity is a major issue in food prices. I think it record has it is, And one of the reasons for that is that a great deal of the food that we produce goes to feeding animals rather
than feeding humans. And that's actually a really inefficient way of feeding us, because a lot of that food value is lost when it passes through the animals. So that is actually another very powerful reason to be moved being towards a plant based diet. You know, we we can't afford it either as human beings off as far as the rest of the living world is concerned. We can't afforward to keep eating these animal heavy diets. And now actually we have some very good substitutes coming forward, not
least in the shape of this precision fermentation. It's basically an enhanced form of brewing, and it produces protein rich and fat rich foods. It will soon be very cheaply and there'll be much better than a lot of the plant based substitutes that we're seeing at the moment. So I think we're on the verge of a big food
revolution which will help people make the right choices. Well, some people, I think would argue that part of that food revolution includes different agricultural methods, and I'm wondering where you fall on vertical farming because it's really hot right now here in the US. But there's been a lot of pushback on the environmental impact of it. So in the last minute and a half that we have with you, talk to us about that. Well, I've seen a lot of investors lose their shirts and and I think they'll
continue to do so. And this isn't an environmental argument, this is a business argument. They they're going head to head with horizontal farming, which doesn't require those big infrastructure costs, those load bearing structures which are required, and also of course doesn't require the artificial light which is needed in vertical farming because horizontal farmers get their sunlight for free.
So I just don't think it's economically viable and I think the entrepreneurs investing in it will continue to see their businesses fold. George, in the last forty sconds we have with you leave us with one thing, apart from not eating meat, that kind of gives you hope for the switch towards perennial grain crops, grain crops where the plants last from one year to another and you can
keep harvesting. These are being pioneered by the Land Institute in Selena, Kansas, and it's really inspiring to see what they're doing because this causes far less damage, and those crops are which more resilient to climate shocks and other environmental disasters too. They could be one of the formulas for for helping us survive the terrible impacts that we're seeing at the beginning of this century. George, you've given us a lot to think about. We really appreciate it.
You're staying up late in Oxford, England and taking the time to join us on Bloomberg Business Week. George Monbiau, the author of ReGenesis Feeding the world without devouring the planet, that is going to do it for this edition of Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg Radio.