So, to stop the planet from getting substantially warmer, we need breakthroughs in many sectors of our economy, including how we grow food.

所以為了防止地球持續大幅度地暖化，我們必須在我們經濟中的許多環節有所突破，包含我們如何種植作物。

Pivot Bio has a clean alternative to chemical fertilizer that could help transform farming and reduce climate change.

Pivot Bio 採用另一個乾淨的方法去製作可以幫助農業轉型和減少氣候變遷的化學肥料。

It takes four things to grow a plant: sun, water, carbon dioxide, and nitrogen.

種植一株植物需要四樣東西：陽光、水、二氧化碳和氮。

A plant is really good at getting the first three of those.

一株植物很容易就能取得前三樣。

But it can't make its own nitrogen.

但是它無法自己合成氮。

Fertilizer is primarily nitrogen.

肥料的成分大多是氮。

And it's really what fuels and makes our food system possible.

而它正是推進和使我們的糧食系統有辦法運作的東西。

It's because nitrogen is ultimately a building block of life.

那是因為氮是建構生命的基礎材料。

Fertilizer's done all these great things, but it also has a lot of negative side effects.

肥料成就了這些很棒的事，但它也帶來許多負面的副作用。

Making fertilizer creates a lot of pollution and using fertilizer creates a lot of pollution as well.

製作肥料的過程產生了許多汙染，而使用肥料的過程也製造了很多的汙染。

One of those forms of pollution is nitrous oxide, a gas that's 300 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

那些汙染的其中一種型態是氧化亞氮，作為一種溫室氣體，它比二氧化碳還濃三百倍。

If we stopped using fertilizer tomorrow, we wouldn't be able to produce half of the world's food supply.

如果我們明天就停止使用肥料，我們將無法製造出全世界一半的食物供給量。

But there's a possible replacement and it lies in the soil beneath our feet.

但是有一個可能的替代方式，而那藏在我們腳下的土壤中。

Microbes in the soil can also produce nitrogen for the crop.

土壤中的微生物同樣也可以為作物製造氮。

Before we had fertilizer, microbes played that role.

在我們使用肥料以前，微生物扮演了那個角色。

So when we started breeding plants so that every harvest would produce more yield, we needed more nitrogen than the microbe in the soil could provide.

所以當我們開始培育作物，好讓每一次收成都有更多產量時，我們需要比土壤中的微生物所能提供的氮還多的氮。

And so we invented fertilizer and we've caused those microbes in the soil to go into hibernation.

因此我們發明了肥料，而我們致使那些在土壤中的微生物進入休眠期。

We founded Pivot Bio with one mission in mind: How do we reinvent what it means to provide nitrogen to our crops?

我們懷著一個使命創建了 Pivot Bio：我們該如何再創造出能夠提供氮給我們的作物的東西？

So, if you pull a seedling out of the ground, attached to the roots are thousands and thousands of microbes.

所以，假設你從地上拔起一株秧苗，附著在其根部的是數以千計的微生物。

We can extract the microbes off the roots, sequence their DNA and understand which ones have baked into their genome this ability to produce nitrogen for the plant.

我們可以從根部提煉出那些微生物，測定它們的 DNA 序列並了解哪一個 DNA 序列使它們的基因組擁有從植物體製造出氮的能力。

We know how to turn those genes back on and these microbes can start making nitrogen again.

我們知道如何把那些基因找回來，而這些微生物可以重新再開始製造氮。

If we can start drawing down fertilizer use, little by little we'll make an entire switch away from fertilizer.

如果我們可以開始減少使用肥料，一點一滴地，我們將完全替代掉肥料。

That's just the kind of new solution we need in the face of a changing climate.

那正是我們面對一個變遷的氣候時，所需要的一種新的解方。