ABOUT THE CLIMATE UNDERGROUND 2025
This year’s conference takes place amidst a rapidly shifting landscape for regenerative agriculture in America. Together, we will examine the implications of changes to federal agriculture policy, explore how to overcome the influence of special interests, and debate what the Make America Healthy Again movement means for regenerative agriculture. We will take stock of the latest research on soil carbon sequestration and explore the future of food – from seeds to approaches that let us reduce reliance on unsustainable conventional inputs.
In joining together again this fall at Caney Fork Farms, we will also reflect on the healing power of humanity’s connection to land and how a sense of place, grounded in what grows from the Earth, connects us to one another.
Thank you for joining us.
MEET YOUR HOSTS
Al Gore
Former Vice President Al Gore is the founder and chairman of The Climate Reality Project, a nonprofit devoted to solving the climate crisis, a founding partner and chairman of Generation Investment Management, and a co-founder of Climate TRACE. He is also a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a member of the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees, and a past member of the board of directors at Apple.
Gore was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1976, 1978, 1980, and 1982 and to the U.S. Senate in 1984 and 1990. He was inaugurated as the 45th vice president of the United States on January 20, 1993, and served eight years. In 2007, Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, for “informing the world of the dangers posed by climate change.” Gore is a native Tennessean who currently resides on his farm in Carthage, Tennessee.
Alice Waters
Alice Waters is a chef, author, food activist, and founder of Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley, California. She has been a champion of local organic agriculture for over four decades. In 1995, with a background in Montessori education, she founded the Edible Schoolyard Project at Berkeley’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School. Applying the Montessori philosophy of learning-by-doing, the program uses an organic garden and on-site kitchen classroom to teach all academic subjects. The Edible Schoolyard Project model has been replicated in over 6,000 schools around the world.
In 2015 she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama, proving that eating is a political act. In 2022, she was awarded the inaugural Carver Carson Award for American innovation in environmental protection and agriculture from the Henry Ford Museum. In 2023, she received the No Kid Hungry Humanitarian Award from Share Our Strength in Los Angeles, and in 2024 she was honored to receive the Julia Child Award. Most recently, in October 2025, Alice was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from Heyday Books in Berkeley, CA. Alice is the author of seventeen books including her latest, A School Lunch Revolution.