When the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) land use report
was released by the United Nations in 2000, cities like Copenhagen and
countries like Costa Rica did not have public decrees to become carbon
neutral. You couldn’t yet offset your Lyft ride by a nominal fee,
because there was no such thing as Lyft, or such a thing as mobile
applications – at least not as we understand them today. And Tesla, the
first company to offer a fleet of luxury electric cars, would not be
founded for another three years. As societies, our climate perspectives have changed
considerably since then, when a UN climate report was more or less a
stand-alone warning. Now the world watches as students walk out of
classrooms en masse, calling for better climate policies. Narratives
like An Inconvenient Truth, Drawdown, and Six Degrees have made their way into popular discourse. There’s
still much, much more to be done, of course. But in the past 19 years,
policies have become more rigorous, scientific insights more profound,
consumers more aware, and technologies more advanced. We are also now in a position to leverage one of the most significant carbon sinks available to us: agricultural soils. Regenerative growing practices,
which avoid tilling and minimize soil erosion, have the potential to
store a significant portion of carbon in the soil, while improving the
nutrition in our food. Many farmers are already implementing these practices today. In the United States—which, notably, is the second largest carbon emitter in the world—24% of farmers use diverse crop rotations already. In 2016, 21% of all cultivated US cropland was subject to no-till farming. For other regenerative practices, an estimated 12% of farms practice residue grazing in the country’s corn belt; 8% of US farmers planted cover crops in 2017; 6% use nitrogen management programs. Individually,
each of these practices improve soil health and lead to greater carbon
capture. But for maximum impact, and for regenerative farming to fulfill
its incredible potential, all of these practices should be implemented
simultaneously...MORE
Read entire article to see the costs, benefits and policy implications.
3 comments:
While I fully embrace the right regenerative practices such as cattle grazing.............I never read articles that are a sham........as evidenced by the headline............there is NO Climate Crisis........only agenda driven Climate Hysteria.
I posted the article for 2 reasons 1) Ag is made the scapegoat in so many of the pubs, and here is one saying ag can be the savior, and 2) The policy implications, i.e. gov't mandated production methods.
Thanks Frank.......and I know your intentions are good.........I am just getting frustrated with the terms of climate change and climate crisis........instead of accuracy.........climate hysteria.
Keep posting your good info that I don't see elsewhere.
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