Get Carbon Back in Soil
Fundamentally agriculture is not just about crop production. It is production of food and fiber from the world's land and water, and as such represents fully 70% of all new raw materials wealth production each year in the United States. Without agriculture we would not have computers, cell phones, churches, universities, or any of the trappings of civilization. Agriculture has made all that possible, but the manner in which we approach agriculture makes it the most destructive industry we have - more destructive than any extractive mining project - or anything else. Various forms of "regenerative agriculture" and particularly holistic grazing management is the ONLY solution to righting the health, environmental, and climate crises we all must face.
Warning: Injecting liquid carbon into the soil is extremely dangerous and useless. SEE Carbon Pipelines: A Disaster Waiting to Happen
Our Monetary System and agriculture:
Constitutional reform of our monetary system should be of crucial importance for all of us but it is absolutely central to affecting real changes in the way we do agriculture. The farm parity (par exchange) concept plays a key role. OUT with the old paradigm where we pay the doctor to (hopefully) make us better. IN with the new paradigm where we pay the farmer to keep us - and our planet - healthy! For more on how Farm Parity can create an economy that is good for everyone, please see this introduction.
Some groups involved in restoring carbon rich, climate cooling humus to our soils:
Land and Leadership Initiative
MOSES Organic New midwestern group seeking "to serve as the foundation for transitioning five core sectors of the food and agriculture system from the current industrial model to a regenerative model."
Regeneration Northeast Affiliate of Regeneration Midwest above with the goal to regenerate a bountiful food system without expensive toxic inputs, GMO seeds, or disruptive land management. We understand that we must protect and nourish the soils and the extraordinary creatures that live underfoot. Their mantra: The most critical task for humans is to regenerate abundant lands and waters. Everywhere.
South Dakota Soil Health Coalition
Kansas Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Alternative Crops.
Advancing Eco-agriculture "focuses on creating regenerative agricultural systems that help farmers grow disease-and-insect resistant crops with complete nutrition. These regenerative models are based on integrated sciences from multiple disciplines and focus on improving plant health and quality. As quality increases, you can't stop the yields from improving." Lots of wonderfully informative videos.
These regenerative models are based on integrated sciences from multiple disciplines. Center for Regenerative Agriculture and Resilient Systems, California State University. "Because there is no Planet B"
Biodiversity for a Livable Planet. The main objective is one of "Restoring ecosystems to reverse global warming." An organization with global impact, promoting biodiversity, eco-restoration, regenerative agriculture, self-sufficient communities, justice and paths to a livable climate.
Clarity on Parity website by George and Pattie Naylor, with blog, because without parity for agriculture regenerate agriculture will be doomed to fail.
Brad Wilson at ZWriter offers a series of excellent articles that put agribusiness to shame, and helps demystify the difference between farm parity and farm subsidy.
And at least one activist group led by Magenta Ceiba called Bloom Network dedicated to creating a regenerative social network.
What the future of agriculture needs to look like.
Some key videos
8 minute must watch mini-documetary titled appropriately "A Regenerative Secret" that breaks the thinking that cows are the problem.
7 Minute video describing how to reverse desertification (and climate change).
The Good Carbon Story Scientist explains in clear, simple language in just 20 minutes how and why we must get carbon back in the soil.
17 minute video explaining why small farmers can save the world - and the climate - by getting carbon back in soil, using fifth grade science and the hard-won wisdom of small farmers. (Unfortunately they, like most others, miss the need to reform the monetary system - not just "fair trade" projects.)
12 minute documentary titled Soil Is a Living Organism, shows why standard use of nitrogen fertilizer means MORE CO2 entering the atmosphere, yet CO2 as soil carbon is ESSENTIAL to soil and plant health.
Six minute video on soil subsidence (sinking) due to draw down of ground water via industrial agriculture.
Series of educational podcasts with John Kempf of Advancing EcoAgriculture mentioned above. This is a presentation titled "Why insects Do Not (and can not) Attack Healthy Plants by Dr. Thomas Dysktra hosted by John Kemp. Confirms the work of Dr. William Albrecht.
2 hour and fifteen minute workshop/documentary by soil microbiologist and climate scientist Walter Jehne titled Restoring Water Cycles to Naturally Cool Climates and Reverse Global Warming which begins with the fact that NINETY-FIVE PERCENT of the global heat dynamics of our planet is governed by water, not CO2 which is about four percent. The capacity of the soil to hold water is fundamental in regulating the heat dynamics of this planet. This three minute video on "weird water" provides (more or less) background material for Dr. Jehne's lecture.
15 minute talk by Gail Fuller about disease and agriculture. We learn, among other things that a visit to the Soybean website will not tell us what we need to know!
Continuation of talk by Gail Fuller. Go to minute 36, where he starts talking about the REAL cost of soil loss, not to us so much as for future generations - and the related cost of disease connected to nutrient poor food.
Talk by Zach Bush, MD before the Kansas Center for Sustainable Agriculture and Alternative Crops on the relationship between current agriculture, especially the use of glyphosate, and illness, and how that can and needs to be changed. Be sure to watch the last 20 minutes or so.
57 minute video titled How Monsanto and Weather Modification are Really Related, or How we broke the water cycle.
Some relevant studies:
The Role of Ruminants in Reducing Agriculture's Carbon Footprint in North American
Case Studies of Holistic Resource Management Practitioners in the United Stated.
Emerging Land Use Practices Rapidly Increase Soil Organic Matter
Grazing Management that regenerates ecosystem function and grazingland livelihoods.
The effect of holistic planned grazing on African Rangelands: a case study from Zimbabwe.
Desert Dust Suppressing Precipitation: A Possible Feedback Loop
A Large Increase of methane emissions over the last decade are coming from fracking not livestock.
Carbon Sequestration Potential of Agroforestry Systems. A multi-authored volume containing peer-reviewed chapters from the world’s leading researchers and professionals in this topic. It is a compendium of original research articles, case studies, and regional overviews and summarizes the current state of knowledge on carbon sequestration potential of agroforestry systems.
Articles and news features:
Regenerative Agriculture: how it works on the ground.
Savory Institute responds to the 2019 Impact Report which attempts to discredit regenerative agriculture. "This is not the first, nor will it be the last, attempt to discredit Holistic Management. . . Claims that our work has been “debunked” disregard not just the millions of acres that have been regenerated globally and the tens of thousands of farmers, ranchers, and pastoralist communities who have stewarded this land transformation and witnessed it firsthand, but they also overlook the growing body of peer-reviewed evidence documenting that properly-managed livestock can be a net positive for grassland ecosystems, carbon drawdown, wildlife habitat, and rural communities."
Holistic Management Resources. Article about Grass, The Forgiveness of Nature, a book by the late Charles Walters of Acres USA
April 2019 article titled Climate Change being fueled by soil damage - report.
Importance of carbon-rich humus
ABC News Regenerative Agriculture has helped transform the landscape of dry properties.
Regenerative Agriculture can make farmers stewards of the land again.
Here's a four minute lesson filmed by Regenerative Agriculture showing how farmers in Myanmar can avoid pesticides which have not only negatively impacted health but also put farmers into debt. Though specific to Myanmar, the message is the same for farmers everywhere.
Only 60 years of farming left if soil degradation continues.
80% of water Pollution (also called marine pollution) originates on land — whether along the coast or far inland... Not only is the agricultural sector the biggest consumer of global freshwater resources, with farming (primarily industrial-style row crops like soy and wheat) and livestock production (primarily Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations] using about 70 percent of the earth’s surface water supplies, but it’s also a serious water polluter. Around the world, agriculture is the leading cause of water degradation. In the United States, agricultural pollution is the top source of contamination in rivers and streams, the second-biggest source in wetlands, and the third main source in lakes. It’s also a major contributor of contamination to estuaries and groundwater. Every time it rains, fertilizers, pesticides, and animal waste from farms and livestock operations (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) wash nutrients and pathogens—such bacteria and viruses—into our waterways."
From a Desert to a Paridise Regenerative Agriculture finds a solid backing.
Regnerative agriculture in Cenral Valley, California.
Article summarizing the presentation given by author, Peter Ballersteadt, Ph.D., at the 2012 Ancestral Health Symposium held at the Harvard Law School August 9-11. Excerpt:
CONCLUSION:
Excerpt of Fake Meat Has a REAL Problem Click link at bottom for full article.
Long but well done article on the money power ties to the fake meat/plant-based/vegan narratives and the related ecological issues, titled Big Veganism Is Coming for You: the meat indusry is bankrolling the movement.
Yet another excellent, if unsettling article along the same lines: Vegan Backfire: The Truth Behind the Anti-Meat Agenda.
More articles:
If you're eating vegetarian. . . Excerpt:
Article with links: Giving Up Meat Won't Save the Planet - or You N.B. Author needs to learn about regenerative agriculture, within which properly managed livestock play an essential role. Hopefully some of her commenters are pointing her in the right direction.
Also see: 22 (health-related) Reasons NOT to go Vegetarian
Another article offered as "food for thought": Thinking of Going Vegan for the New Year - Think Again
Issues with Electric Cars:
This article discusses a German Study that shows that electric vehicles emit more CO2 than diesel ones.
While admittedly a function of the money system another problem with electric cars (as with ALL energy systems) has to do with mining and disposal of materials. In the case of electric cars, mining for cobalt used in batteries is a huge issue that should concern everyone - if they just knew about it. This article explains more about how children as young as 4 are being used to mine cobalt, which is the key ingredient needed for the batteries that power electric cars.
Significant and real issues with Wind and Solar, in addition to unreliability and the inordinate amounts of land needed. For example it seems that large "wind farms" can actually CAUSE Climate Change. Also see Could Windmills Alter the Weather? Also see this research paper on "inadvertent" weather modification of wind farms.
New joint study by Feds and the fishing industry shows that wind farms have significant impact on fish and marine life. See also this.
Despite what industry propaganda would have you believe, there is mounting opposition. (So far however, "money talks"):
The Effect of Wind Turbines on Human Health. Also see articles here.
Wind Turbine Syndrome and Vibroacoustic Disease.
The Negative Impact of Noise from Industrial Wind Turbines: The Evidence.
SOME environmental and public health issues associated with wind turbines: here. Also this fact sheet on the raw materials needed for production of wind turbines.
SOME environmental impacts of wind and solar: here . Also here and here. California landfills filling up with toxic solar panels.
Problems with recycling e-wast from old solar panels
Organizations against windfarms here. Also, this list of 2200 groups against wind turbines here. Another list of anti-wind farm groups under the banner of STOP THESE THINGS here. And yet another list of groups under the banner of North American Platform Against Windpower here.
Poland recently banned wind farms in the face of strong opposition to windfarms by rural voters, all to be gone by 2035. Ontario, Canada still working on ban. Oklahoma to pause wind farm work to avoid potential law suit.
Wind farms (like solar "farms") can affect local weather patterns. This article about wind farms. This study about large solar plants. Stats show that wind and solar are not "more reliable" than coal & gas.
Hydropower and Earthquakes
Geothermal and Earthquakes
Geothermal Power Facility Induces Earthquakes, Study Finds
How Does Geothermal Drilling Trigger Earthquakes?
Renewables Can't Save the Planet
17 minute Tedx talk with a plethora of facts on why so-called renewables can't save the planet covering mush of the same material as appeared in Climate Change, Land Use and Monetary Policy.
But Instead of Nuclear as the above TEDx Talk Suggests --
What about "New" Energy?
Here is one company discussed in Climate Change, Land Use and Monetary Policy, now known as Vortex Hydro Energy and traded on the stock exchange. Here is an article covering Blacklight, now Brilliant Power, also discussed in Climate Change and here is their website. Also discussed in Climate Change is how non-industrial hemp, processed in specific ways, could 1) provide a significant, renewable portion of our energy needs, 2) be used to produce biodegradable plastics and 3) fine fabric for clothing - all while improving soil via its exceptionally deep roots system.
Here is a Reuter's clip of a Japanese water powered car, rolled out by Genepax over ten years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrxfMz2eDME
Article with video documentaries of Two Scientists Who Stumbled Upon the Formation of Microscopic Galaxies, Black Holes, and Stars - Revolutionary Implications