~Wes Jackson, Ph.D. - President of The Land Institute

Excerpt from Program:
"Taken one way, the title is a silly question. The ecosphere cannot be killed by humans. Even an asteroid could not do that. Taken another way, from a selfish point of view, we humans cannot continue for long to feature extractive economies for our livelihoods, especially in this era of climate change, without widespread disruption. We have to recognize the limits and figure out ways to down-power even as we create more renewable ways of living.

"Five exhaustible pools of energy-rich carbon have sponsored our livelihoods since we began agriculture ten to twelve thousand years ago, when our break with nature, our fall, occurred. It is fitting, therefore, that the healing process begin with better ways to get food from the landscape. The Quivira Coalition's emphasis on nature's ecosystems features perennials in mixtures, polycultures. Perennial mixtures were the reality nearly everywhere until agriculture came along featuring annual monocultures. The work of The Land Institute is devoted to perennializing the major crops such as wheat, corn, sunflowers, plus domesticating a few wild perennials to be placed in mixtures. The farmer and the cowman or woman are then on the same page when it comes to protecting our soil and waters!"