Comments on: Greener Pastures

By: Ronda Green

Ronda Green — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 03:12:33 +0000

Australia is a continent that was without hoofed animals until white settlers, roamed instead by large soft-footed marsupials and emus. Overpopulations of sheep and cattle (also feral camels, water buffalo etc.) have done a lot of harm to the native vegetation in arid areas and thus to the wildlife. So this is another place where additional cattle wouldn’t be such a good idea.

By: Greener pastures: How cows could help in the fight against climate change « LEARN FROM NATURE

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 10:05:59 +0000

[...] Conservation: What goes on in the stomachs and under the hooves of cows might be the key to turning deserts back into grasslands. The Guardian’s Judith D Schwartz explains [...]

By: How cows can help in the climate fight

How cows can help in the climate fight — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:49:26 +0000

[...] By Judith D Schwartz for Conservation, part of the Guardian Environment Network How cows and other grazing [...]

By: Erich J. Knight

Erich J. Knight — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 21:19:53 +0000

Black Swan of Biochar

Short a nano material PV / thermoelectrical / ultracapasitating Black swan, What we can do NOW, what I suggested at the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, to the top three EPA officials of north America, A Biochar Black Swan.

Bellow the opening & closing text. A Report on my talk at CEC, and complete text & links are here:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar-policy/message/3233

The Establishment of Soil Carbon as the Universal Measure of Sustainability

The Paleoclimate Record shows agricultural-geo-engineering is responsible for 2/3rds of our excess greenhouse gases. The unintended consequence, the flowering of our civilization. Our science has now realized these consequences and has developed a more encompassing wisdom. Wise land management, afforestation and the thermal conversion of biomass can build back our soil carbon. Pyrolysis, Gasification and Hydro-Thermal Carbonization are known biofuel technologies, What is new are the concomitant benefits of biochars for Soil Carbon Sequestration; building soil biodiversity & nitrogen efficiency, for in situ remediation of toxic agents, and, as a feed supplement cutting the carbon foot print of livestock. Modern systems are closed-loop with no significant emissions. The general life cycle analysis is: every 1 ton of biomass yields 1/3 ton Biochar equal to 1 ton CO2e, plus biofuels equal to 1MWh exported electricity, so each energy cycle is 1/3 carbon negative.

Beyond Rectifying the Carbon Cycle;
Biochar systems Integrate nutrient management, serving the same healing function for the Nitrogen and Phosphorous Cycles.
The Agricultural Soil Carbon Sequestration Standards are the royal road for the GHG Mitigation;

The Bio-Refining Technologies to Harvest Carbon.
The photosynthetic “capture” collectors are up and running all around us, the “storage” sink is in operation just under our feet, conversion reactor are the only infrastructure we need to build out. Carbon, as the center of life, has high value to recapitalize our soils. Yielding nutrient dense foods and Biofuels, Paying Premiums of pollution abatement and toxic remediation and the growing Dividend created by the increasing biomass of a thriving soil community.

Since we have filled the air,
filling the seas to full,
soil is the only beneficial place left.
Carbon to the Soil, the only ubiquitous and economic place to put it.

By: Andy

Andy — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 14:16:05 +0000

Very innovative, simple idea. However the greenhouse gas balance in returning carbon to the soil by this method does not account for the methane emissions (more potent than co2) that come from cattle guts themselves. However, combine this method with very recent work on applying new microbes to cattle rumens to eliminate/reduce methane production ( http://indaily.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/wallabies-key-to-cutting-cattle-methane/ ) and you have yourself a winning system of carbon sinks, land restoration, fire reduction, food production, and a sustainable local source of meat.

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 14:39:04 +0000

Interesting anecdote, but as the author wisely points out towards the end of the article, “bring in the cows” does not apply in many areas.
While cows are native to areas of Africa (where vegetation has evolved with cow grazing pressure), they don’t tread quite as well in the American west- bison, of course, are native grazers, but have have distinct grazing patterns (namely that they roam more and don’t linger in riparian areas). However, perhaps the area of the world where cows are most out of place are the humid tropics, where the vegetation has usually evolved without the presence of any large herbivore, and where the extremely shallow topsoil proves especially precarious to the stomping of heavy hooves.

By: Lee

Lee — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 01:40:04 +0000

Sounds like Savory knows that land management means knowing the current and potential production capacities of the land.

By: Peter Donovan

Peter Donovan — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 00:46:19 +0000

Excellent summary.

Our civilization has enormous “sunk costs” in problem-solving technologies. But the march of events increasingly points us to letting solar-powered biology do the work (force times distance, particularly the chemical work of photosynthesis).

Savory’s work is indeed challenging to the institutions built from “sunk costs” but provides one of the few tested ways forward.