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Climate Part 4: Soil, farming, and change. [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-07-18
Sequestration: the action of sequestering or isolating a substance……preferably for carbon a long time.
Caveat 1: IANACS (I am not a climate scientist); I do understand science and the scientific method though.
Sorry been busy with projects and fell behind on this, hopefully, more positive view of what we can do to slow down, reduce, and reverse Anthropogenic Rapid Climate Change ( global warming).
Oh and if you already know enough and only want to bring up minutiae and obscure anti-science screed, authors, and alternate “facts” don’t bother….I will just ignore you….now thoughtful intelligent questions I respond time as time and summer reading allow (grinding through “The Price of Time by Edward Chancellor”)
Now one of the important things to note about climate change is sequestration of carbon, or often the reverse which we are doing…..carbon capture actually can be done without massive tech or using radical new methods.
One area that has traditionally, naturally, sequestered carbon is soil, buildup of carbon through proper soil care is well known and what nature has done since, well forever.
Sadly our modern, chemical, mono crop big-agricultural systems are degrading our soils instead of building them up…..we would be well advised to change course.
We can do of course with simple changes and using fewer artificial fertilizers, which DOW and other chemical giants will object to I suspect.
A nice site to catch some knowledge is Grist;grist.org/…
“Farming techniques that improve long-term fertility and yields can also help to store more carbon in soils but are often ignored in favor of intensive techniques using large amounts of artificial fertilizer, much of it wasted, that can increase greenhouse gas emissions.”
Now shifting over is costly, short term, and we will suffer lower yields as the soil recovers (much of modern ag soil is dead due to all the chemicals applied). Yet in the long run yields would improve.
”Arable farmers could sequester more carbon within their soils by changing their crop rotation, planting cover crops such as clover, or using direct drilling, which allows crops to be planted without the need for ploughing. Livestock farmers could improve their soils by growing more native grasses.“
Other things to do are of course changing from mono culture to mixed crops, changeover from disking/beating the soil to dust and using seed drill techniques (caveats aplenty there both from cost, yields short term, etc.), and changing what we grow where (really cotton and alfalfa in the desert?).
Soil sequestration is a good, natural, and reasonable thing to do…..but again it will cost money, time, and the most rare of elements…..political will.
Just a quick diary this time…..next time though.
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