Please see this curated collection of videos, articles, and technical papers to help you get started on the exciting path of understanding the promise of soil as a climate mitigation solution.
Professor William Moomaw Calling for Soils to be Included in Climate Negotiations
“I urge you to join the movement to make soils a more central part of the climate action agenda.” Professor William Moomaw of Tufts University calling for soils to be included in the climate negotiations in Paris.
“Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert,” begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And 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.
Soil Solutions to Climate Problems – Narrated by Michael Pollan
Rattan Lal – Soil Carbon, Regenerative Agriculture
Hope for a Livable Climate
The Promise of Restorative Grazing & Other Ecological Innovations to Regenerate Soil, Secure Food & Water, Revive Rural Economies and Reverse Global Warming Cambridge, Massachusetts, Nov 20, 2013. Event featured Precious Phiri, Training Facilitator at the Africa Center for Holistic Management in Zimbabwe; Judith Schwartz, author of “Cows Save the Planet: And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth”, published on Chelsea Green, and Seth Itzkan, environmental futurist.
Soil Carbon Challenge, Vermont Kickoff Presentation, Waitsfield, Vermont. October 21-21, 2011. Video by Seth J. Itzkan
Seth Itzkan Presentations & Interviews – Climate, Soil, Futures, Regenerative Ag, Holistic Management
Elaine Ingham – Soil Food Web
Soil Carbon Cowboys
Meet Allen Williams, Gabe Brown and Neil Dennis – climate heroes and innovators! These ranchers now know how to regenerate their soils while making their animals healthier and their operations more profitable. They are turning ON their soils, enabling rainwater to sink into the earth rather than run off. And these turned ON soils retain that water, so the ranches are much more resilient in drought. It’s an amazing story that has just begun.
Soil Carbon Curious
Adaptive Multi-Paddock grazing (AMP grazing) is regenerating soils around the world, producing healthy grass-finished beef. But the science on AMP grazing is sparse, to say the least. Now, a group of leading soil, rangeland, bug and social scientists are setting out to fill the science gap. Led by Dr. Richard Teague of Texas A&M, and convened by filmmaker Peter Byck of Arizona State University, the ASU-Soil Carbon Nation Whole Systems Science Team is positioned to do large scale science that’s never been done before.
The Soil Story video
by Kiss The Ground
“Soil Carbon: Putting Carbon Back Where It Belongs: In the Earth”
Tony Lovell at TEDxDubbo
Lovell explains the reasoning behind how more green growing plants means more captured carbon dioxide — more water — more production — more biodiversity — more profit. Did you know that a 1% change in soil organic matter across just one-quarter of the World’s land area could sequester 300 billion tonnes of physical CO2?
Humus – The Essential Ingredient
Graeme Sait at TEDxNoosa
90-degree heat torches the Heartland in mid-February, firenado ignited (VIDEO) – The Washington Post
Voluntary Pledges Aren’t Enough: Glaciologist Jason Box Says Nonbinding Emission Reductions Won’t Cut It
In this December 2015 interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, Box twice stresses the need for grassland restoration to draw down excess atmospheric carbon and store it in soil. (8-minute)
In Episode 2, “Plains,” of the National Geographic documentary series “Earth – A New Wild” (2015), eminent conservation biologist M. Sanjayan, former lead scientist of The Nature Conservancy, travels to Zimbabwe to meet with Allan Savory, then explains how regenerative, high-density grazing reverses desertification and restores wildlife habitat even during a time of drought, calling the results “spectacular.”
Articles & White Papers
February 2016’s shocking global warming temperature record
Parts of the Arctic were more than 16 degrees Celsius (29 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than “normal” for the month of February, bringing them a few degrees above freezing, on par with typical June levels, in what is typically the coldest month of the year.
Dispatch From COP21: The Convenient Truth About Soil
S.O.S. – Save Our Soils
Interview with Christine Jones, PhD, whose worked has helped elucidate the Liquid Carbon Pathway, the primary way plants transfer atmospheric carbon into soil.
The Drought Fighter
by Todd Oppenheimer
Could a controversial farmer in California have found the most effective way to grow food in a warming world?
Rodale White Paper
Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change: A Down-to-Earth Solution to Global Warming
How Universal Principles and Patterns Will Shape Our New Economy, by John Fullerton, Capital Institute
Nature Conservancy Magazine
The Only Way to Have a Cow
by Bill McKibben, 350.org
Why George Monbiot is wrong: grazing livestock can save the world by Hunter Lovins
California billionaire Tom Steyer, one of America’s best-known climate activists as funder of the Keystone XL pipeline protest, raises cattle to heal land and drawdown carbon to reverse the climate crisis. “We would continue raising cattle even if no one ever ate another steak,” said [Steyer’s wife, Kat] Taylor. That’s how beneficial she and Steyer think these large farm animals can be. They want the cows to mimic the ancient migratory patterns of wild ungulates and naturally fertilize and aerate soil to reverse the mass erosion believed to be accelerating climate change.
March/April 2016 vol. 71 no. 2 156-164
Owing to the methane (CH4) produced by rumen fermentation, ruminants are a source of greenhouse gas (GHG) and are perceived as a problem. We propose that with appropriate regenerative crop and grazing management, ruminants not only reduce overall GHG emissions, but also facilitate provision of essential ecosystem services, increase soil carbon (C) sequestration, and reduce environmental damage.
Teague 2015 – GHG Mitigation Potential of Different Grazing Strategies in the United States Southern Great Plains
Teague 2013 – RealClimate: Cows, Carbon and the Anthropocene: Commentary on Savory TED Video
Teague 2013 – Multi-paddock grazing on rangelands: Why the perceptual dichotomy between research results and rancher experience?
Teague 2011 – Grazing management impacts on vegetation, soil biota and soil chemical, physical and hydrological properties in tall grass prairie