Almost a decade ago I quit my job as a PhD researcher at a cancer therapeutics company to dedicate my life to climate. Everything I learned about biology and cancer gave me the tools to recognize a planet in peril, infected by a virus of endless growth. I knew there had to be possibilities beyond the dead-end vision capitalism was selling, so my husband and I went looking.

In the process, we grew Solar Punk Farms from a degraded dirt lot, and I wrote a book, As If We Were Staying, to document the process. This book contains everything I’ve learned from a lifetime as a biologist, a decade as a climate activist, and all the challenges and joys of creating a farm as a metaphor for the regenerative capacity of a community with a vision.