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.
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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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farmerbraun says:
March 12, 2013 at 2:06 pm
“an example where somebody has used Allan Savory’s farming techniques and failed?”
….
It might be premature to say this, but the dairy industry in Godzone, which really is the ultimate development of Voisin, is showing a few cracks. …
—
Is Godzone actually a valid example of Savory’s techniques? Because it does not translate directly to “rotational grazing”.
To “qualify” as a proper example,
1. It would need active involvement of every “decision maker” within that particular (clearly defined) whole,
2. ..who would together have created a proper holistic goal (or more presently called holistic context, which covers quality of life, forms of production and future resource base) to support and guide any significant decision making and planning
3. The four ecosystem processes (water and mineral cycles, solar energy flow and community dynamics) would be systematically considered in the making of every goal (including the holistic goal mentioned above) and in every significant decision
4. It would be ensured that ALL the tools available (money and labor, human creativity, rest, grazing, animal impact, fire, living organisms, technology) would be considered, when making plans and decisions concerning managing resources.
5. Every significant decision would be tested using seven filter questions – cause and effect, weak link, marginal reaction, gross profit analysis, energy/money source and use, sustainability, society and culture (these are also called root cause, weak link, comparing options, gross profit analysis, input analysis, vision analysis, and gut check)
6. In general, but especially when dealing with complex living systems, the decisions are anyway assumed to be WRONG, and possible unintended consequences are carefully considered, and earliest indicators to monitor the situation are determined. Decisions and plans are then monitored for earliest signs of change using a feedback loop Plan -> Monitor -> Control (and take action if necessary) -> Replan (if necessary)
– The above list is by no means complete, but without at least these, a system cannot be said to be using Savory’s techniques
Has the dairy industry in Godzone been using these techniques, and if so, for how long?
Re: Jan Kjetil Andersen on March 12, 2013 at 2:07 pm
Could you please provide a some kind of citation/quote that has Savory saying that his solution can be implemented “at almost no cost”? Nowhere have I ever heard/read him claim this.
Re: Galane on March 12, 2013 at 7:12 pm
—
I would perhaps add that there are very powerful economical interests involved, not just personal ideologies. Assuming (for the sake of argument) that Savory’s approach would prove to be feasible, most agribusiness giants would have nothing to gain and a lot to lose should these practices become more widespread. They would (and will) likely use every trick in the bag – regardless of ethics – to resist that kind of development. For example, I know Monsanto has been influencing nutritional recommendations (and even nutritional science itself) in order to create market need for its certain products. I would be very surprised if this kind of influence didn’t extend to law, science, recommendations and policies concerning land use and food production in general. Or perhaps it is merely a coincidence that Joel Salatin has written a book called “Everything I Want To Do Is Illegal” 🙂
Btw, Regarding the elephants, I’m not sure what you meant, but Savory’s story about culling the elephants; that took place in late 50’s and/or early 60’s, and there were way more elephants back then, this incident does not have much to do with their current status.
farmerbraun says:
March 12, 2013 at 2:06 pm
“an example where somebody has used Allan Savory’s farming techniques and failed?”
….
It might be premature to say this, but the dairy industry in Godzone, which really is the ultimate development of Voisin, is showing a few cracks. …
—
Hmm..is Godzone actually a valid example of Savory’s techniques? Because it (even “farming technique”) does not translate directly to “rotational grazing” – that is only one tool in the bag – certainly the most famous one but still just a tool.
Because to “qualify” as a proper “Savory’s technique” example,
1. It would need active involvement of every “decision maker” within that particular (clearly defined) whole,
2. They would together have created a proper holistic goal (or more presently called holistic context, which covers quality of life, forms of production and future resource base) to support and guide any significant decision making and planning
3. The four ecosystem processes (water and mineral cycles, solar energy flow and community dynamics) would be systematically considered in the making of every goal (including the holistic goal mentioned above) and in every significant decision
4. It would be ensured that ALL the tools available (money and labor, human creativity, rest, grazing, animal impact, fire, living organisms, technology) would be considered, when making plans and decisions concerning managing resources.
5. Every significant decision would be tested using seven filter questions – cause and effect, weak link, marginal reaction, gross profit analysis, energy/money source and use, sustainability, society and culture (these are also called root cause, weak link, comparing options, gross profit analysis, input analysis, vision analysis, and gut check)
6. In general, but especially when dealing with complex living systems, the decisions are anyway assumed to be WRONG, and possible unintended consequences are carefully considered, and earliest indicators to monitor the situation are determined. Decisions and plans are then monitored for earliest signs of change using a feedback loop Plan -> Monitor -> Control (and take action if necessary) -> Replan (if necessary)
– The above list (adapted mostly from his book Holistic Decision Making) is by no means complete, but without at least these, a system probably cannot be said to be using “Savory’s techniques”, IMHO.
I wonder if the dairy industry in Godzone has been in fact using these techniques, and if so, for how long?
re: Macbeth on March 12, 2013 at 11:51 pm
—
He certainly does NOT refer to carbon, because he mentions carbon separately – here’s the exact quote: “.. To prevent that, we have traditionally used fire. But fire also leaves the soil bare, releasing carbon, and worse than that, burning one hectare of grassland gives off more, and more damaging, pollutants than 6,000 cars. And we are burning in Africa, every single year, more than one billion hectares of grasslands, and almost nobody is talking about it.”
Yes, it’s annoyingly vague, but I think he refers to 6000 cars when compared side by side with the burning grass, for example 1 ha of burning grass compared with 6000 cars in a traffic jam in a large city. So the duration is not a year, or ten years, but the duration of the fire – which I would guess would be measured in hours?
Let’s assume a figure of 3 hours for the fire (per hectare) to get some ballpark figures. So that would translate to 18000 car-hours. A typical european car consumes about 1l/hr in traffic jam conditions, so let’s use that. This would mean about 18000 liters (about 14000kg) of gasoline consumed – I’m excluding diesel engines for simplicity’s sake.
In this link:
http://www.farmersweekly.co.za/article.aspx?id=33151&h=-Blazing-or-grazing-%E2%80%93-the-great-fire-debate
Prof Winston Trollope says that “a grass fuel load of >4 000 kg/ha has sufficient fuel for a fire”, so I’m using 4000kg of grass fuel to compare this against.
So Savory’s claim would then become: “4000kg of grass fuel, burned in an open fire over an area of hectare, gives off more, and more damaging, pollutants than burning 14000kg of gasoline in 6000 car combustion engines”. That seems quite possible – at least the figures are in the same ballpark.
“I wonder if the dairy industry in Godzone has been in fact using these techniques, and if so, for how long?”
What is the “dairy industry”?
The individual discrete resource units, commonly known as farms , where the unique expression of each locality/eco-niche/ soil-plant-animal-human association occurs?
In that case , yes, and for a very long time; these were (exclusively) pastoral farms where the rotational grazing aspects of Voisin’s/Savory’s work were refined in the 1950s and 1960s.
The monolithic “cooperative” controlling 90% of the milk in Godzone?
Obviously not; FB doubts that this kind of top-down control, either by central government planning or by board of directors edict , was what Savory envisaged as the entity which would practice wholistic resource management (although of course it is not prevented from doing so). How would the great diversity of geographic situations be managed wholistically by central control?
FB admits that he did read Savory a very long time ago. Perhaps he misread it.
Re: Anssi V. on March 13, 2013 at 2:40 am
Re: Jan Kjetil Andersen on March 12, 2013 at 2:07 pm
Could you please provide a some kind of citation/quote that has Savory saying that his solution can be implemented “at almost no cost”? Nowhere have I ever heard/read him claim this
…
To me it seems pretty obvious that a solution based on the simple means he describes will have a very low cost. The herding technique can be done by local people with minimal investment and training. This could even be cheaper than to feed cattle with harvest from fertilized cropland.
Of course will even an eventual very small cost for each farmer add up to a substantial sum when the entire globe is concerned, but I cannot imagine otherwise than that the cost for this has to be negligible in comparison to other cost estimates on for instance CO2 reduction.
And, no, he does not say with his own words that this can be implemented at almost no cost, as well as he does not say with his own words that he can save the planet either; that was my interpretation.
@Anssi.V @3.10 am
It is possible that a small subset of the Godzone dairy farmers, who are practising sustainable agriculture (USDA NOP Certified farmers) satisfy your criteria (especially your point 2.) for adherence to “Savory” doctrine in that they have as their basic principles the items that I posted earlier (which so upset Geoff Sherrington). Here again are the offending principles:
‘To work as much as possible within a closed system, and draw upon local resources.
To maintain the long-term fertility of soils.
To avoid all forms of pollution that may result from agricultural techniques.
To produce foodstuffs of high nutritional quality and sufficient quantity.
To reduce the use of fossil energy in agricultural practice to a minimum.
To give livestock conditions of life that conform to their physiological needs and to humanitarian
principles.
To make it possible for agricultural producers to earn a living through their work and develop
their potentialities as human beings.
“Savory’s technique . . . does not translate directly to “rotational grazing”.
That is accepted.
Voisin , should , if anybody other than some 18th century Scottish sheep farmers, be credited with the description of “rotational grazing”
It is doubtful that Savory’s description of wholistic resource management was any thing other than a modern information science description of the way that all true farmers (up until about 60 years ago i.e. post WW2) have always operated, but it was useful none the less.
Re: farmerbraun on March 13, 2013 at 11:52 am
–
FB says:
“these were (exclusively) pastoral farms where the rotational grazing aspects of Voisin’s/Savory’s work were refined in the 1950s and 1960s.”
That would then have to be asked from Savory himself, though he has mentioned specifically – I think it was in that Feasta lecture linked by Anthony – that his earlier work (before 1984 or so) included both spectacular successes and spectacular failures, and that only after refining the holistic Decision Management concept enough, did he start to get consistent results. So his opinion about Godzone would need to be asked from him in person (I mentioned in an earlier comment that it would be a good idea anyway to invite him over to answer questions 🙂
FB says:
“How would the great diversity of geographic situations be managed wholistically by central control?”
I’m not sure what exactly you mean by “central control”, but his solution to manage diversity would be to define “wholes within wholes”, i.e. smaller, more manageable wholes within a greater whole.
Quoting Savory’s own words (page 65 in his book Holistic Management – A New Framework for Decision Making): “If the group of people you have included in the first part of your whole is very large, and if the enterprises engaged in are very diverse, or if members are separated from each other geographically, it often becomes impractical to manage the entity as a single whole. One reason why is that it becomes more difficult to make the holistic goal specific enough, even over time, to inspire the degree of commitment needed by everyone to bring it about. In these cases, it makes more sense to create smaller, more manageable wholes within the greater whole.”
Each of the smaller wholes would need to satisfy certain “minimum whole requirements”, such as 1) an identifiable resource base, 2) money available and/or money that can be generated from the resource base, 3) includes people who are directly responsible for making management decisions.
In Godzone’s case, obvious wholes would be the individual farms, perhaps some families might be managed as wholes (slightly overlapping with the family business, i.e. the family farm whole), then the cooperative could be managed as one whole, or as a set of smaller wholes within a greater whole – the farms would be contained by this larger whole, or largely overlapping.
Generally speaking, a whole can be as small as an individual or a family, as big as a whole nation, or pretty much anything in between. Wholes can overlap, and/or contain smaller wholes and/or be contained by a larger whole. “Central control” in the traditional sense does not exist as such in his model, but instead appropriate care would be taken, again quoting Savory’s own words, “that core values and cohesion are maintained within the holistic goals formed in each whole.”
Savory further discusses the advantages of this approach: “If having these smaller wholes managed by their own eases management of the greater whole and leads to people having greater motivation and greater freedom for creativity, it would only make sense to create this opportunity, as many quality-conscious corporations have already found. Although the organizational structure would not be radically different from that of most well-run companies, the attitudes and commitment of the people would be.”
Obviously I am leaving out many important details; there are many guidelines and advice on dealing with specific situations and avoiding common pitfalls. It takes some time (days) to really get a grasp on his model, but I personally think it is well worth it.
It is now over for the climate folks – water will be flowing to the arid sections of the planet and C02 will be in short supply as the earth greens and the rains increase – oh my God what will they do?
http://www.thedailybell.com/28826/Shocker-Desalinization-Breakthrough-as-Memes-Fall-One-by-One
Re: farmerbraun on March 13, 2013 at 1:33 pm
—
Thanks, an interesting set of principles, and I think I could personally agree with most of them.
Some of those could fit very well into a “Savory-style” holistic goal, some could be included with minor tweaks, and some would be against the basic forming guidelines. For example, “reducing fossil fuel use to a minimum” principle would/should not go into a holistic goal, because it would go against at least these two guidelines:
– “Do make your holistic goal 100 percent what you want and have to produce, and 0 percent how it is going to be achieved.”
– “Don’t allow any prejudices against future tools or actions to appear in the holistic goal.”
Moreover, a holistic goal always includes
1) A quality of life statement, i.e. how you want your life to be in the whole you have defined (can include e.g. statements about financial well-being, physical well-being, relationships, challenge, growth and purpose),
2) Forms of production, to meet the needs for the stated quality of life and stated purpose
3) Future resource base – a long term vision that almost always includes the land (its health and its use), and often includes the people, the community one lives and works in, and the services available within this/these communities.
Perhaps the most important defining aspect is that one actually USES the goal, i.e. tests significant decisions using the goal (point 5.) and monitors the decisions (point 6.). Obviously, if the goal is not actually used, then it is not going to be very useful (a rather common situation with corporations listing their “values” and “principles” – more often than not they are crafted by the marketing deparment..:)
So while it’s actually very interesting what these farmers are doing, I wouldn’t necessarily see their possible difficulties as speaking against Savory’s (current) model. I do wish the best for them.
March 2013 Holistic Management research portfolio:
http://www.savoryinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Savory_Inst_HM_Research_Portfolio_March2013.pdf
For example, “reducing fossil fuel use to a minimum” principle would/should not go into a holistic goal, because it would go against at least these two guidelines:
– “Do make your holistic goal 100 percent what you want and have to produce, and 0 percent how it is going to be achieved.”
– “Don’t allow any prejudices against future tools or actions to appear in the holistic goal.”
FB says : that is not immediately obvious. Farmers produce hydrogenated carbons , let us say.
It improves efficiency to use as few hydrogenated carbons in that process as is possible. No more than that needs to read into the idea of ” reducing fossil fuel use to a minimum”.
It is simply good economics , is it not?
re Godzone dairy industry.
Anssi V. says; ” I wouldn’t necessarily see their possible difficulties as speaking against Savory’s (current) model.”
FB says: quite so. The gradual disintegration of the whole is the inevitable consequence of joining together some disparate interests , some of those interests (about 50% in most cases) having voted against a merged whole , and then being subjected to hostile take over, or being pressured into acceptance for the “greater good”. Now the process is reversing.
Richrd G over at Maggies Farm nailed Allen Savory’s logic problem:
On the whole very good. Never the less, at 50:30 of the longer (not TED)film Savory is explaining the Holistic Framework, culminating in the statement “and then we assume we are wrong and we complete the feedback”. Advice to Allan Savory: listen to your own advice. You need one more epiphany.
CO2 is the chemical feedstock of all biological growth starting with plants. Carbon sequestration is so wrong headed it makes my head hurt. Desertification was happening long before the industrial age and the carbon scare. CO2 is not the problem, it is a part (holistic) of the solution. If more plant growth is desired, more CO2 is needed. The results of numerous FACE (Free Air CO2 Enrichment) experiments prove that the benefits of increased CO2 across the botanical spectrum include increased biomass crop production and increased water use efficiency (drought tolerance). I guess being shunned for heretical views about animal husbandry was traumatizing. Who wants to be banished again over CO2 heresy. To quote the film again: “birth, growth, death, decay.” CO2 is recycled through the ecosystem. Hooray for decomposers.
Re: farmerbraun onMarch 13, 2013 at 5:24 pm
FB says : that is not immediately obvious. Farmers produce hydrogenated carbons , let us say.
It improves efficiency to use as few hydrogenated carbons in that process as is possible. No more than that needs to read into the idea of ” reducing fossil fuel use to a minimum”.
It is simply good economics , is it not?
—
That is all quite correct. I was just explaining some of the principles and guidelines involved, when forming the holistic goal. In Savory’s system, the “hows” are excluded because their proper place is in the decisions to be tested. The end result will likely be exactly the same, but the holistic goal will be much cleaner, and therefore easier to use with wide variety of decisions – some of which might have nothing to do with, say, fossil fuels (for example related to some social aspect of the whole).
Maybe an elaboration of that guideline I mentioned will clarify:
Savory wrote:
“- Don’t allow any prejudices against future tools or actions to appear in the holistic goal. You wouldn’t, for example, mention “organic farming” in your holistic goal because it is a prejudice against chemicals. There may come a time when the only way to save the situation is through the use of a chemical and thus the use of any chemicals should be left where it belongs–in the testing of decisions. It is perfectly all right, however, even necessary, to reflect how you want to live based on the values expressed in the word organic, such as clean air, water, and food, healthy bodies, or land that is rich in biological diversity.”
Re: gad-fly on March 13, 2013 at 9:38 pm
—
Yes, carbon sequestration (AWAY from the atmosphere) for its own sake is admittedly one of the dumbest things being actively promoted by the “environmental” crowds, one that shifts attention away from real issues.
However one of those “real” issues is precisely that carbon sequestration (INTO the soil) is in many cases actually essential for soil health and productivity. Healthy growth needs carbon both in the soil (in the form of decomposing organic matter, to maintain the crumb structure and to hold nutrients) AND in the air (as CO2).
Environmental crowds are, IMHO, doing a huge disservice to their cause by emphasizing the away-from-the-atmosphere aspect. And Savory, I’m sad to say, by staying in that bandwagon (the away-from-the-atmosphere one) is shooting himself in the foot with a SA80 assault rifle. His ideas do not NEED any of that, it’s simply a marketing strategy (trying to ride the wave of the CO2 scare), and one that is quite possibly doomed to failure, if he does not distance himself from it in good time.
“Savory wrote:
“- Don’t allow any prejudices against future tools or actions to appear in the holistic goal. You wouldn’t, for example, mention “organic farming” in your holistic goal because it is a prejudice against chemicals.”
FB chortles ; that’s quite funny. A prejudice against “organic” farming. A method of farming which utilises all manner of elements and compounds of a chemical nature. Never let the facts get in the way of your prejudice , right. Savory’s foot has got to be hurting from that one.
Still this thread has demonstrated that Savory is not alone in knowing virtually nothing about the practices of farmers who have USDA NOP certification, or any other of the national “organic” certifications which all REQUIRE the use of a variety of “chemicals” for both soil and animal treatments.
It is always better to ask some armchair theoretician who has never stepped onto a real farm, than it is to actually go and see what the farmer does ; if one wants to maintain one’s prejudice, that is.
The fact is that there is some good basic science behind sustainable agriculture. But nobody needs to do anything about unsustainable agriculture because , in the fullness of time, it goes away all by itself. That’s a truism.
Re: farmerbraun on March 14, 2013 at 11:55 am
—
FB, I think there was some serious word-twisting in what you wrote. The context of that quote was how to create a holistic goal. The point, which I tried to elaborate by example, was “don’t allow prejudices against future tools or actions to appear in the holistic goal.” Another way of saying this is “only define WHAT needs to be done, not HOW it is going to be achieved.” And the reasoning behind that is, that one should not restrict one’s future options needlessly.
Is your chosen interpretation of “chemicals” correct in this context? Savory was NOT talking specifically about USDA NOP farmers, he was talking about “organic farming” which has several definitions and interpretations. For example EU has its own definition, so do many individual countries. Here’s the EU definition – I chose to link the simple bullet-point presentation, not the official definition (but you can find that in those pages too): http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/organic/organic-farming/what-organic_en
Therefore, in the context of “organic farming”, I think that most people would interpret “chemicals” referring to synthetic pesticides, synthetic fertilisers, synthetic antibiotics and food additives – which are all heavily restricted in most organic standards that I know of (and I believe this was Savory’s interpretation too). Your interpretation of what Savory refers to appears to be instead “all manner of elements and compounds of a chemical nature” – an interpretation that is more common to eco-hippies who are ignorant of even basic chemistry. So are you trying make Savory appear as an ignorant eco-hippie, or what was your motivation behind this interpretation?
Indeed there is some good basic science behind sustainable agriculture. And there is no doubt that, by definition, in the fullness of time, “unsustainable agriculture” will go away all by itself. However I think one might reasonably ask, what else will go away with it.
” I think that most people would interpret “chemicals” referring to synthetic pesticides, synthetic fertilisers, synthetic antibiotics and food additives – which are all heavily restricted in most organic standards that I know of “.
That might be true, but misses the point-
1. these things are increasingly restricted in “conventional” agriculture
2. these things are used in “organic ” agriculture when necessary or no substitute is available
FB is familiar with all organic standards , and they are all very similar.
The difference is what happens to the soil/plant/animal after the “chemical” has been used. The “organic” protocols all have strict quarantine/isolation/retirement procedures to contain the possible side-effects of the “chemical” .
And of course the traceability documentation is rigorously enforced to avoid “contamination ” scares.
The difference between “conventional” and “organic” is essentially about quality assurance and traceability, and secondly the intent to farm sustainably, according to those principles above -mentioned.
Great post. I had not heard of Allan Savory’s work and was glad to learn about it here. Building topsoil is win-win. It has manifold benefits for climate and other issues. I can think of no downsides. Allan Savory has some great ideas on HOW to build topsoil. For another discussion of WHY building topsoil is a good idea for the climate see Freeman Dyson’s comments here:
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dysonf07/dysonf07_index.html
One short quote: “To stop the carbon in the atmosphere from increasing, we only need to grow the biomass in the soil by a hundredth of an inch per year. Good topsoil contains about ten percent biomass, [Schlesinger, 1977], so a hundredth of an inch of biomass growth means about a tenth of an inch of topsoil.” As noted in other comments, Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm in Virginia has been able to grow as much as an inch of topsoil per year using intensive livestock farming.
Another quote from Dyson: “I conclude from this calculation that the problem of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a problem of land management, not a problem of meteorology. No computer model of atmosphere and ocean can hope to predict the way we shall manage our land.” If you aren’t familiar with Freeman Dyson, the New York Times Magazine had a long and fascinating article about him in 2009:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/magazine/29Dyson-t.html?pagewanted=all