This is one of the most important posts ever on WUWT, it will be a top “sticky” post for a few days, and new posts will appear below this one during that time.
People send me stuff.
Imagine, shooting 40,000 elephants to prevent the land in Africa from going to desert because scientists thought the land couldn’t sustain them, only to find the effort was for naught and the idea as to why was totally wrong. That alone was a real eye opener.
Every once in awhile, an idea comes along that makes you ask, “gee why hasn’t anybody seen this before?”. This one of those times. This video below is something I almost didn’t watch, because my concerns were triggered by a few key words in the beginning. But, recommended by a Facebook friend, I stuck with it, and I’m glad I did, because I want every one of you, no matter what side of the climate debate you live in, to watch this and experience that light bulb moment as I did. The key here is to understand that desertification is one of the real climate changes we are witnessing as opposed to some the predicted ones we often fight over.
It is one of those seminal moments where I think a bridge has been created in the climate debate, and I hope you’ll seize the moment and embrace it. This video comes with my strongest possible recommendation, because it speaks to a real problem, with real solutions in plain language, while at the same time offering true hope.
This is a TED talk by Dr. Allan Savory in Los Angeles this past week, attended by our friend Dr. Matt Ridley, whose presentation we’ll look at another time. Sometimes, TED talks are little more that pie in the sky; this one is not. And, it not only offers a solution, it shows the solution in action and presents proof that it works. It makes more sense than anything I’ve seen in a long, long, time. Our friend Dr. Roger Pielke Sr., champion of studying land use change as it affects local and regional climate will understand this, so will our cowboy poet Willis Eschenbach, who grew up on a cattle ranch. I daresay some of our staunchest critics will get it too.
To encapsulate the idea presented, I’ll borrow from a widely used TV commercial and say:
Beef, it’s what’s for climate
You can call me crazy for saying that after you watch this presentation. A BIG hattip to Mark Steward Young for bringing this to my attention.
“Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert,” begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And terrifyingly, it’s happening to about two-thirds of the world’s grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos. Savory has devoted his life to stopping it. He now believes — and his work so far shows — that a surprising factor can protect grasslands and even reclaim degraded land that was once desert.
Published on Mar 4, 2013
There’s a longer version with more detail below, about an hour long. Also worth watching if you want to understand the process in more detail:
Feasta Lecture 2009
Extracts available at vimeo.com/8291896
Allan Savory argued that while livestock may be part of the problem, they can also be an important part of the solution. He has demonstrated time and again in Africa, Australia and North and South America that, properly managed, they are essential to land restoration. With the right techniques, plant growth is lusher, the water table is higher, wildlife thrives, soil carbon increases and, surprisingly, perhaps four times as many cattle can be kept.
feasta.org/events/general/2009_lecture.htm
Recorded 7 November 2009, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
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I’m all for reclaiming desert and creating more food for people, but it would also reduce the albedo of the earth and increase warming.
Whether or not enough carbon would be reclaimed to counter that effect seems like a moot point since I don’t see environmentalists getting behind a program that would encourage meat-eating and negatively impact animals native to the desert.
Nothing new here. Anyone can prove this with a mobile chicken coop on their back lawn. You will soon learn the balance between over grazing and rotation, else your lawn will become desert.
ferd berple says (March 9, 2013 at 2:12 pm, to davidmhoffer): “if you are so certain, why did you not supply the timestamp for that part of the video?”
Check the video at 11:54. After eliminating “resting” and burning as options for maintaining grassland health, he says “There is only one option. I repeat to you, only one option left to climatologists and scientists, and that is to do the UNTHINKABLE.” (he stressed that “unthinkable” part)
Now he may very well know what he’s talking about, but his faith in the CAGW meme and his dogmatic certainty in the truth of his solution (no doubt the same certainty he had about shooting elephants) raised red flags for me, and apparently for some others on this thread. I should explore the subject in more detail, but it’s taken me years just to get semi-literate on the CAGW scam, and there are soooo many video games I haven’t played yet… 🙂
farmerbraun says:
March 9, 2013 at 4:22 pm
Farmer, this is the first I’ve heard about some vague “unsubstantiated comment”. Absent a quotation, that is just unsubstantiated handwaving. Quote my words if you object to them. I haven’t a clue which of my many statements you are claiming is unsubstantiated. So far, you’re just throwing mud at the wall to see if it will stick.
Next, I invited you to provide a link if you were actually interested in making a difference. That way, we could all learn more about what you say is important (and which may indeed be important).
Instead of wanting to make a difference, however, it appears you’re more interested in parading your admittedly impressive resume, and in being right.
Fair enough.
I’m just saying your tactics as a spokesperson for VRSS are … mmm … well, not all that effective. I won’t be looking up your pet idea for a while, for example. I may get to it, got nothing against it … but right now it’s nowhere near interesting enough or easy enough to tempt me.
Regards,
w.
As I suspected, you pretty much missed what I was getting at just as you missed the main thrust of what Allan Savory was getting at.
You have instead replied with your dogmatic shibboleth. Carry on.
Max Hugoson says:
March 9, 2013 at 4:16 pm
I have no idea what he means by “changed” so I can’t say how much is “changed”.
Here’s the breakdown by current LU/LC (land use / land cover):
w.
Four or so years ago, my wife and I visited a copper mine south of Tucson, AZ. The mine was, of course, open pit, so there was a very large overburden storage area carefully leveled and terraced. The overburden area was being reclaimed by exactly the techniques identified in the subject video. Grass was planted and was being grazed in rotation by beef creating fertilizer spreaders.
I presume in many cases you could change land by changing the land adjacent to it.
Addendum to my last comment:
Or for that matter, per Allan Savory’s thesis, by changing the number of or migratory pattern of predators or herds of prey.
Rotational grazing (on/off) and continuous grazing (set stocking) can both satisfy the grazing principles already established as critical for productivity, viz
1) Chronic, intensive grazing is detrimental to plant growth and survival;
2) Primary productivity can be increased by lenient grazing and decreased by severe grazing;
What rotational grazing achieves by having(variable) rest periods (grazing interval or rotation length) between grazings, and by leaving a suitable aftermath of the sward (residual dry-matter), continuous grazing can achieve by removing/replacing some but not all of the animals(grazing-pressure) for varying periods of time.
Both systems require that the areas grazed be contained cells so that control is possible.
Pretty basic stuff really. Apparently Voisin observed some Scottish sheep farmers doing this in the 18th century.
Sorry but it seems they did not publish their findings 🙂
Yes Willis! Right on as usual. You have a good reference for “general land use”. Now what I think about is something along these lines – Fly over the USA. We have about 2/5ths of our land which has been turned into FARMLAND.
About 2/5 ths is “Wilderness” which is really..UNTOUCHED from pioneer days.
Maybe 20% is FOREST LAND which has been cut, but replanted (And that may be an extreme exaggeration.
If we look at the LAND MASS of RUSSIA, Siberia, Alaska…90% unchanged.
I think South America and Africa, again probably about 60% unchanged. PUT IT ALL TOGETHER I believe if one talks about the AREAS OF THE GLOBE WHICH MAN HAS CHANGED, it would amount to about 30 to 35%.
Nothing as the number cited by the presenter. HIS MICRO ECOLOGICAL EXAMPLES are perhaps, quite good. And point to a “stunning revelation” destroying the common conceptions.
BUT I’d like to have more precision on the broad claim for the massive land shifts that he presents at the beginning of the talk.
When did the LANDSAT Sattelites start? Don’t we still have data from them? Can we NOT find a true progression or number to put on “desertfication” from those observations?
If you are impressed with this unsavory Savory, just from one crafted video, then you must ask why you are impressed. Is it because he killed 40,000 elephants (think polar bears), or is it because he is slim/lean, articulate, resonate voice, soft-speaking, urbane, and sophisticated?
(I’m saying nothing about the “science” of cows, I’m talking about the illusion of “messiah”. Get a clue folks.)
Unwavering faith in the free market is just as misplaced as is unwavering faith in the government. Since we’re on the topic of agriculture, I give you the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration. http://econet.ca/sk_enviro_champions/pfra.html Large chunks of Saskatchewan would now be desert without the efforts of the PFRA.
As many other posters have pointed out, much/most of what Dr. Savory advocates is standard operating practice in the prairies thanks largely to the PFRA.
lol geran
He’s a good speaker. What of it?
He’s lived outdoors much of his life as a working biologist. Why wouldn’t he be lean?
There’s more to it than just any personal appeal he might have. And no, his killing 40,000 elephants, in error, doesn’t impress me. His owning up to it does.
Hey Willis , I quoted your comment to which I was referring
in my first post , and then you re-posted it in your reply.
Whatever. Here it is again.
farmerbraun says:
March 9, 2013 at 3:17 pm
Willis says;
“Call me crazy, but as a man who grew up on a cattle ranch, I’ll lay long odds that that system would beat continuous grazing …”
Just what “that system” that you were referring to was , may be my error ; I took it that you were comparing continuous grazing with rotational grazing.
““Call me crazy, but as a man who grew up on a cattle ranch, I’ll lay long odds that that system would beat continuous grazing …
All the best,
w.”
FB says; Sometime , when you are bored , you might like to read up on variable- rate set-stocking. You may be surprised.
#################
Framer braun. The funny thing is in your first comment you did quote willis exactly only later to be instructed in how you should respond. oy vey.
Anyway, thanks for the hint to look at Variable rate, set stocking. a smidgen of curiousity and google was all it took. 35 years of doing this and not retiring gave you a deeper understanding. Kudos.
Christoff Dollis;
And no, his killing 40,000 elephants, in error, doesn’t impress me. His owning up to it does.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yeah, but he didn’t really own up to it. He admitted his mistake then went out of his way to explain that committees of other people reviewed his work and agreed with it, and made the final decision to kill the elephants. In just a few sentences he spreads the blame around and absolves himself of the actual decision. He then makes all manner of claims (like 6,000 cars co2 production being offset by a single hectare of grassland) and promotes techniques that have been practiced for centuries as if they were new and “his”.
Will he next invent fire and speak at TED about that?
@Willis.
O.K. I’ll concede that the following is not an unsubstantiated comment-
” I’ll lay long odds that that system would beat continuous grazing …”
As for this one of yours –
“Instead of wanting to make a difference, however, it appears you’re more interested in parading your admittedly impressive resume, and in being right.”
Lay off 🙂 . 35 years of pastoral dairy farming? Impressive resume?
You might be overdoing it a bit.
Steven Mosher says:
March 9, 2013 at 6:30 pm
FB says ; thanks for that. nice to know that someone was reading my effort, such as it was.
Correction: This is one of the most embarrassing posts ever on WUWT. Un-sticky it ASAP.
At one point, Savory says that no-one NO ONE, mind you, ever refers to time, always to land area. Oh, what is an animal unit month, then? In one slide, we see a watering hole in an arid(-season?) landscape, in the “after” (I suppose) slide, a lush hillside and no watering hole. What happened, did a herd of cattle get in, drink up the water, and then pee and poo it all out with a good mixture of short- and tall-grass prairies seed? In another slide, he contrasts a foreground vegetated flat area with a steep, eroded hillside in the background. Duh now.
Very timely! I was just describing Allen Savory’s methods to someone at work the other day.
“Geoff Sherrington says:
March 9, 2013 at 2:32 am
There is a strong push here, with the national broadcaster the ABC strongly involved, for a silly idea called ‘organic farming’. I’ve formally complained about objectivity in this pseudo-science by the ABC and been treated badly.”
On the main islands down under organic farming is known as a type of sustainable agriculture.
“Organic” because it arose from a concern for conservation of soil carbon , or organic matter.
If you don’t mind me asking Geoff, what exactly is the problem that you have with that?
Thanks to Jens Jensen and Willis Eschenbach for an interesting interchange.
davidmhoffer wrote: Once the grassland is in a healthy state, it sequesters precisely zero co2. The new growth each year is off set by decomposition (even if it is further up the food chain due to the grass being eaten by animals, it still eventually decomposes at about the same rate it is being produced).
That depends on the grass. Some varieties continue to build up the “carbon” in the soil year after year, eventually producing much thicker and richer soil than was there at the start. In the American Great Plains, the buffalo ate the grass at a rate slightly lower than the grass grew, and the soil became extremely thick. As someone else wrote, you do have to be careful not to have animals eating the roots.
In this video, Savory seems to have changed from one devotional discipline to another, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he is wrong.
Roughly speaking, the cattle are the method of irrigation, carrying fluid from the rivers and ponds to the countryside. The fertilizing effect of the manure merely recycles the nitrogenous compounds synthesized by the grasses and legumes.
From a video above than ended was this find.
Pretty impressive stuff.
Were this approach to counter desertification employed on much of the available land surface, I’m thinking the annual gyration in atmospheric CO2 would be much larger than what we now see. And the contribution from the burning of fossil fuels to the available pool of CO2 would undoubtedly add to the efficacy. Another reason sequestration of CO2 is a bad idea–it (CO2) is there; utilize it!