writeaboutwarming

April 27, 2014 – A report that makes a very thorough assessment of the environmental gains to be made by reshaping our farming methods was issued last Friday. The study was authored by scientists at two consulting firms: Climate Focus (CF) and California Environmental Associates (CEA).   It was funded by the Climate and Land Use Alliance, a coalition of major U.S. foundations.   Strategies studied were numerous; they include managing soil nutrients, halting deforestation, reductions in animal husbandry, using less fertilizer, storing carbon in croplands, and converting manure into compost and biogas through anaerobic digestion.   Consumers, for their part, need to eat less meat and reduce food waste.   A “demitarian” – a term I’d never heard before - is someone who cuts their consumption of red meat in half. Countries poised to make the biggest contributions in this area are, no surprise, big ones: Brazil, China, India, the EU, and the United States. ...

October 31, 2011 - I learned about something that's a real game changer last week. It's called Holistic Management (HM), and it has to do with the way grasslands are managed. The fact is, HM was developed for the express purpose of changing the way ranchers and farmers do business. Allan Savory, a Rhodesian (Zimbabwe was called Rhodesia decades ago) biologist, game ranger, politician, farmer and rancher, saw the need to repair grasslands in his native country nearly fifty years ago. What was it he saw? Livestock Raising was being managed in much the same way all over the world at that time. Sedentary livestock was easier to keep track of than animals that were allowed to roam, so ranchlands had gradually been fenced off. Once cattle were confined, ranchers figured their lives had been made a whole lot easier. The land degradation that resulted from the continual scuffing of cows' hooves across a relatively small area was easily corrected: cattle were simply moved to another...

July 26, 2010 – Isn’t it extremely odd, now that BP has drilled to within inches of the Gulf well, that it is revisiting the idea of killing the well with mud? What about the relief well has suddenly gone awry? Has this all been a charade, a performance intended to mute the endless barrage of questions? What – as usual – are we not being told? This whole thing, start to finish, stinks to high heaven. CNN reported last week that 38 million Chine se people have been evacuated, either temporarily or permanently, becau se of flooding this year. Their website reports that 30,000 Pakistani’s are currently dealing with a similar fate. Back here in the Midwest, Milwaukee ’s airport was clo se d becau se of two feet of standing water, which, incidentally, cau se d a sinkhole to open up and swallow an SUV. The driver was not hurt. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The good people at the Rodale Institute have be...