Sowing Our Horizons (SOH) Be part of the solution!

Sowing Our Horizons (SOH)

Be part of the food solution!

Have you recently been on a plane or just booked your next flight? Are you worried about your carbon footprint?

>> Invest here and be part of the solution! You’ll help shift our food system from being the single largest contributor to climate change, to becoming a carbon sink … and a great source of wider environmental, social and economic benefits.

This GoFundMe page is a small step toward a larger vision. It’s enabling you to connect the dots between flying (less) and growing and eating (better). Thanks for supporting it and returning to it every time you decide to fly.

Puzzled? Curious? Read on…

There's a lot of positive things about flying; it allows us to visit loved ones overseas and connect across boundaries. Yet we know it has significant and detrimental environmental costs. If we decide to fly, it’s probably the most carbon-intensive thing we do. Many of us struggle with this and don’t know what to do about it.

We’ve all heard of attempts at mitigating the environmental impacts of flying, like tree-planting and carbon off-setting schemes. But these feel distant and are problematic. And while we must reduce our flying as much as possible, when it comes to climate change, our top priority must be to fix our food system (1).

Our food system accounts for over one third of global greenhouse gas emissions (2).

The food system is also the single largest cause of biodiversity loss and of bad human health.

And we eat every day, so how can we connect flying and our food?

Here’s the idea:

If you have to fly, you can donate here and become part of the solution! You’ll be investing in creating carbon sinks through regenerative local food consumed and grown right here in Edinburgh! And it’s not just about the carbon; you’ll also be investing in creating the world you want to see; transforming local neighbourhoods into greener and healthier communities where everyone, humans and non-humans, can flourish. Best of all, you can choose to see it first-hand and directly enjoy the fruit of your investment.

The money raised here** will go to the organisations below to further their work. It will encourage the regenerative food ecosystem that’s burgeoning in North Edinburgh. At this stage, recipients include:

• Lauriston Farm , an agroecological urban farm

• Granton Community Gardeners , a community of food-growing gardeners

• Scran Academy , a catering social enterprise training young people

Please join in to create the world you want to see. Let’s Sow Our Horizons together!

Any investment is welcome, so please don't hesitate, however small a contribution you feel it is. Baby steps can get us far!... If you're curious, based on the emissions of a return economy flight, the carbon cost per person can be estimated to be (see note 3 below):

• Domestic flight: £10

• European: £30

• Intercontinental: £100

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Who’s behind this?

Hi, I’m Marie-Amélie (connectedbynature AT gmail DOT com). I live in Edinburgh, where over the last 10 years, I’ve been inspired by urban food growing projects taking root all over the city. Having worked on environmental and social inequality issues for nearly 30 years, I believe growing food in the city is key to addressing the multiple crises of our times, including climate change.

There are plenty of grassroots initiatives showing the positive power of food that’s good for people and planet. To harness this potential, we need to make deliberate and coherent investments; here’s one way to do this.

I don’t have all the answers, but I know enough to make a start. I am very mindful of the need to avoid building another power structure that distributes money in a top-down way. Instead, I am aiming to create a process to explore and learn together about new ways of doing place-based ecosystem investment. That’s at the heart of this endeavour.

Thank you for your contribution! Please don't forget to leave a comment (the option to do so after you've done the payment). :)

(1) Read Professor Johan Rockström, one of the world’s foremost climate scientists, make this point here .

(2) https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/03/1086822

(3) If you’re travelling Business or First Class, your carbon footprint is much greater (you take more room on the plane!) so consider donating more. Online flight emissions calculators like MyClimate can help understand this better.

** From May, we'll keep 10% back to help cover some of the costs involved in developing this initiative.