Global warming

so why do you think so many climate scientists are wrong about it then, when they pretty much all agree that human activity is drastically changing weather patterns?

Perhaps not... perhaps it's more complicated than that.

I read the article @Shoog posted above.

I've seen the films referred to in the article, Soil Carbon Cowboys and a documentary on White Oak Pastures. If they were funded by Big Oil, I wasn't aware of the link.

This article states

I think that's a plausible reason for Big Oil to get on board, but while intensive agriculture is reliant on big oil, it's resource intensive and often involves shipping fossil fuel derived inputs (GM feed, fertilizer and sprays) half way around the globe. The farms featured in these films are doing the opposite - they're removing or greatly reducing the reliance on external inputs and fossil fuels.

I would agree that the carbon-credit schemes are being used as an excuse to carry on as normal in other areas. I'm perhaps not as concerned about the carbon element as you are, but I see a lot of our current use of oil as a waste of a valuable and finite resource.

The article then goes on to take a pop at most of the big names in regenerative agriculture, and it seem to read like it's just hit piece against regenerative agriculture.

A quick google shows the author is vegan and describes themselves as an anti-capitalist ecologist who advocates a decolonial, just transition away from animal agriculture and wildlife extraction. It looks like they have their own prejudices, and didn't leave them aside when they wrote this, but you all thanked it because it agreed with yours prejudice against the fact that ruminants could possibly be beneficial, and that Savory could be at least partially or indeed mostly right.

Completely agree with your thoughts on the bugs idea, yes it's speculative and may not have an effect, and I imagine the science to demonstrate a link would be hugely complex, but restoring indigenous microorganisms is a good thing for a host of other reasons.

I agree on the importance of loops too, if we can find positive feedback loops and dampen the negative ones, we stand a chance.

There's an imbalance to how resources are applied for the all the food that's grown. At them moment I think something like 50% of the world's food is produced using 20% of the resources and the other 50% uses the remaining 80%!

I've looked at Korean Natural Farming and it has some good ideas for how to capture and use indigenous microorganisms to restore fertility and reduce external inputs at the same time.

I think we need more people actively managing local habitats and restoring land, and less people dependent on unsustainable resources, hopefully that would leave enough space and resources for us all.

We will have to go towards small mainly local agriculture. Why because at the moment every pound of food takes multiple pounds of fossil fuel to produce. This is at every stage including;

• ploughing
• fertilizers
• Harvesting
• Transport to market
• Water pumping

In a sustainable future there simply will be no substitute for those fossil fuel inputs, especially the fertilizers.

There is also the small matter that meat production is highly inefficient of resources and we eat far to much meat for good health. A proportion of around 10-20% of stock is actually a better amount of meat to eat and is the stocking rate essential for organic systems to function.

Fortunately there is evidence that once organic systems have restored the soil fertility (around thirty years) they can equal the productivity of intensive agribusiness.

The future is different not necessarily worse.

And... where will the world be in 30 years?

I read a book by Steve Solomon who started "Territorial Seed" company in Oregon, later sold it for big $$. He calculated just how much land you'd need to grow enough vegetables, using his techniques, to sustain 1 person for a year. Was around an acre.

In my opinion, where his techniques failed to align with reality, is that his techniques required a lot of inputs, and a lot of labor, and ignored things like how to get the inputs from where they were created, to where they were used (transport, processing, etc. were just waved away.) Oh, and water, and sunlight, and how do you managed pests etc.

Still, it was a nice theory, and the best thing about the book was the N/P/K numbers for garden inputs like chicken manure, seaweed, He'd done some investigations for sure.

TBF it's been ages since I read the book, and he is actively invested in his techniques and is a soil science 'geek'.

George Monbiot makes a good point when he says that manufacturing food is the future. We can make protein in a factory. We already have certain things like quorn. It's healthy and nutritious. And it can be made into loads of different products. And there's other companies making different types of base products.

It uses less land, less water and less power per calorie.

People don't like the idea because there's an aversion to food that's manufactured and not grown, but if we want to be good to the environment, then we should be looking in that direction too.

A big problem there is that a large number of insecure men associate eating meat and driving petrol cars with masculinity and their, possibly, fragile sexuality. Following some podcaster or ‘roided up health guru who tells them eating raw meat is the manliest of pursuits.

Yellowstone's biodiversity loss, due to human activity, was in a great way reversed by the reintroduction of wolves, which actually caused the rivers to change course as the elk, etc. populations were reduced enough for the native vegetation to regrow. Not sure the original loss of wolves was due to climate change.

Yellowstone is certainly changing due to global warming: https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/climate-change.htm#:~:text=Warmer%20temperatures%20are%20accelerating%20the,water%20availability%20in%20some%20regions.

Yellowstone was glorious before 1995. It's better now. The wolves had been gone a long time prior to 1995.

It never looked like the Badlands.

How was the chart data selected?

Global warming is a wholly natural event yes, but so is travelling by motor car and blowing people up with thermonuclear weapons. They are all a product of nature albeit a rather self destructive two legged device that seems to think it's an exceptional species.

Personally even if global warming was fiction, which I don't believe it is, the dwindling energy reserves are only going to ensure that wars become more popular and the future is going to be that much worse for the survivors.

If the fossil fuels are left in the ground for "emergencies", hopefully future generations might have the ability and intelligence to survive on the incoming energy to the planet anyway.

I live in a home that I used in my youth, from birth more or less. Frankly I don't know how we managed without the central heating and duvets. Public transport was better then though.

Anyway approaching my dotage I moved in and despite the warming I would lose the will to live without my "fix" of a few kw/h worth of energy a day.

I guess it's time to make a very serious go of energy reduction although I have cut a lot since arriving back to live here permanently.

I was in the gas industry in 1995. CO2 levels were around 320ppm if I recall. The last time I heard the values quoted was a few years back at 420ppm.

Now that is quite some increase.

I wonder when the stored methane will be released? A bit of positive feedback should at least provide concrete proof to those that still doubt :-)

Of course it's a known cycle. It's the rate, and the fact that the planet's population is higher than its ever been and only growing. It's the impact and timeline that matters, and whether there's anything that can be done now to slow down both.