Grassroots Rising: A Call to Action on Climate, Farming, Food, and a Green New Deal

by Ronnie Cummins

“This is a book that should be in the hands of every activist working on food and farming and climate change.”—Vandana Shiva

A practical, shovel-ready plan for anyone wondering what they can do to help address the global climate crisis

Grassroots Rising is a passionate call to action for the global body politic, providing practical solutions for how to survive—and thrive—in catastrophic times. Author Ronnie Cummins, founder and director of the Organic Consumers Association, aims to educate and inspire citizens worldwide to organize and become active participants in preventing ecological collapse.

This book offers a blueprint for building and supercharging a grassroots Regeneration Movement based

Consumer activismFarmer innovationPolitical changeRegenerative financeCummins asserts that the solution lies right beneath our feet and at the end of our forks through the transformation of our broken food system. Using regenerative agriculture practices that restore our agricultural and grazing lands, we can sequester massive amounts of carbon in the soil. Coupled with an aggressive transition toward renewables, he argues that we have the power to not only mitigate and slow down climate change, but actually reverse global warming by strengthening our infrastructure.

Grassroots Rising shows that a properly organized and executed Regeneration Revolution can indeed offer realistic climate solutions while also meeting our everyday needs.

“This is a ‘good news’ instructional book for Regeneration, a plan of action for the United States and the world to transition to climate stability, peace, justice, health, prosperity, cooperation, and participatory democracy.”—Ronnie Cummins

Genres: Environment, Science, Food

187 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 11, 2020

Reviews

[Marissa Nicholas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book that contains resources and actions items that can be implemented to save our dooms day food system climate catastrophe. No surprise the solution resolves in our soil. “We don’t need to invent new techniques. We simply need to identify, publicize, replicate, and scale up currently existing beat practices...” Reads like a “shovel-ready instruction manual” and explains science/ policy in a more digestible way. Wished there was a section that could go a little deeper on how one can sequester carbon in the soil themselves, but I guess I now need to read a “how to become a regenerative farmer/rancher” manual or read some science books... Overall inspiring read that makes you want to get up and do something and not sulk in how terrible it all really is.

[Elizabeth Burton · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're unfamiliar to the concept of regenerative agriculture, this short, if painfully repetitive, manifesto can be a useful introduction. Essentially, it explains how we can not only slow climate change induced by excess atmospheric carbon but actually reverse it. At the same time, areas of the world damaged and even destroyed can be mended and perhaps even completely restored. It's already been done in China and is underway in Africa and elsewhere.

If you tend to fall into despair when considering climate change, I suggest finding a copy.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually listened to the audiobook version of this book and I thought it was effective in this form. The writing seemed to be intended to be presented and the structure was like a persuasive speech. The broadness of topics covered was good, and especially good covering sustainable agriculture and land management, from the point of view of the small farmer. It covered a lot of the general issues and overall reasons for moving toward the goals of the Green New Deal right away. The depth of coverage on some of the topics aside from agriculture, food and land use was not as in depth, but I don't think this was the intention of the book. My main criticism was that the author expressed blanket dismissal of technologies related to genetic modification of crops, use of big data techniques to help with monitoring of field crops, and technical developments with non-field carbon sequestration. Just because there are some companies who are "bad players" in these fields who have abused these new technologies for profit does not mean the whole categories of developments are to be ignored as bonafide solutions. Many of the potential solutions are still in academic labs and have yet to be tested on a larger scale. In my opinion, the author also overrates the potential of cannabis, almost like a savior, to be a big source of funding for other endeavors.

[Robert Wymer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Adequate CO2 required for life.

Full of childish untrue unscientific Babel. CO2, 400+ parts per million, or 0.04% of the atmosphere is historically low, very low. If it gets much below .02 % or less, all life will end, as all plants die if CO2 is too low. Everything we produce and eat as humans is due to adequate plant life. Look at the ice core records of temperature and CO2, there is absolutely no correlation between the two, and when there are parallel lines, the temperature rises first then 1000 years later The CO2 rises. Thank God for fossil fuels, the greatest energy battery that the earth has provided for us.

[Anna Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Doesn't try to hide his bias- the first half of the book was incredibly repetitive and I would assume matches very closely to the speeches he might give for his organization. The last half of the book was much better, although his argument that "they can just print more money" as a solution to budgeting constraints just absolutely destroyed any credibility he might have gained back.

[Ben · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've thought a lot about how this book happened. And I think I've worked it out.

Autocomplete.

There is no way a person could string meaningless cliches together, so consistently, into fully formed sentences.

[Meilin · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's written like a college student was reaching their thesis deadline and wrote it with 12 hours left.

[Jason Flatt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t know who the target audience for this book is but I guess maybe it’s not me? I was anticipating this book as I thought it was going to explain the co tents of the Green New Deal, educate me on how to defend and organize around its components, and give sample of large-scale movement towards those ends. It kind if does some of this? But not really?

I will say, if you’re a complete novice to climate activism and it’s related issues, this book does well to break down some bigger concepts. So perhaps if you are just starting to learn about the issues, this book will be valuable for you.

However, it basically felt like a resume of the author’s life as it related to various topics relevant to the GND. It was informative, but kind of meandering. It also got way way too scientific in most sections, although I do appreciate that should I ever need to find those references I will have them on hand.

Ultimately, the book is valuable as an amalgam of important considerations for reversing climate change, but it failed, at least me, in serving as a guide for how to move forward in ways I’m not already aware of.

Of course I certainly welcome any assistance in finding what I’ve seemed to miss in this book.

[Connor Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

This should be a must read for every activist and concerned citizen. Ronnie Cummins does a terrific job of explaining regenerative practices in simple terms, and how we can use them in the development of the Green New Deal to not only stop but reverse climate change. He breaks down the complexities of the science in a way that inspires readers to action and provides hope that it can be done, while also not sugarcoating the dire situation we're in. An absolute must read, and must do.