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was what to do with the surpluses

engendered by modern agriculture.

But toxic pesticides

seeped into the air,

soil, plants,

animals, rivers and oceans.

They penetrated the heart of cells

similar to the mother cell

shared by all forms of life.

Are they harmful to the humans

they released from hunger?

These farmers

in their yellow protective suits

probably have a good idea.

Then came fertilizers,

another petrochemical discovery.

They produced unprecedented results

on plots of land thus far ignored.

Crops adapted to soils and climates

gave way to the most productive

varieties and easiest to transport.

And so, in the last century,

three-quarters of the varieties

developed by farmers

over thousands of years

have been wiped out.

As far as the eye can see,

fertilizer below, plastic on top.

The greenhouses of Almeria, Spain,

are Europe's vegetable garden.

A city of uniformly sized vegetables

waits every day

for hundreds of trucks to take them

to the continent's supermarkets.

The more a country develops,

the more meat its inhabitants consume.

How can growing worldwide demand

be satisfied without recourse

to concentration camp-style

cattle farms?

Faster and faster.

Like the life cycle of livestock,

which may never see a meadow.

Manufacturing meat faster than

the animal has become a daily routine.

In these vast foodlots,

trampled by millions of cattle,

not a blade of grass grows.

A fleet of trucks from every corner

of the country brings tons of grain,

soy meal and protein-rich granules

that will become tons of meat.

The result is that

it takes 100 liters of water

to produce 1 kilogram of potatoes,

and 13,000 liters for 1 kilo of beef.

Not to mention the oil guzzled

in the production process and transport.

Our agriculture

has become oil-powered.

It feeds

twice as many humans on Earth,

but has replaced diversity

with standardization.

It gives many of us comforts

we could only dream of,

but it makes our way of life

totally dependent on oil.

This is the new measure of time.

Our world's clock now beats

to the rhythm of indefatigable machines

tapping into the pocket of sunlight.

The whole planet is attentive

to these metronomes

of our hopes and illusions.

The same hopes and illusions

that proliferate along with our needs,

increasingly insatiable desires

and profligacy.

We know that the end of cheap oil

is imminent,

but we refuse to believe it.

For many of us,

the American dream is embodied

by a legendary name.

Los Angeles.

In this city

that stretches over 100 kilometers,

the number of cars is almost equal

to the number of inhabitants.

Here, energy puts on a fantastic show

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