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Desertification/Permanent Drying Out

Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby meemoe_uk » Sat 09 Mar 2013, 22:36:27

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... pTHi7O66pI

This awesome vid explains a vital aspect of environmental change not given enough attention by the mass media. I enjoyed and learnt from it.

Epic!

Wonder what you lot think to it. How does Allans awesomely simple solution fit in with your perma-doom and gloom? What you think to meemoe, who is for many of you, your worst enemy on this forum, showing you a way out of anthropogenic doom?
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Re: Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby careinke » Sun 10 Mar 2013, 14:43:58

OMG! I am actually agreeing with meemoe. I posted this video before in the geoengineering thread, it is awesome. Basically you reverse desertification with large herds of meat, being moved very frequently. The short intensive grazing is the key. This is how the buffalo, (and mastodons before them), maintained the US Prairies.

Joel Salatin incorporates this method on his Polyface Farm with great success. You can increase production by running poultry behind the cattle about ten days after the herd moves through. The chickens eat the maggots and flies in the the manure, and then spread it around for you.

This melds perfectly with permaculture design.
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Re: Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby Quinny » Sun 10 Mar 2013, 20:30:59

Looks good to me!
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Re: Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby meemoe_uk » Sun 10 Mar 2013, 23:52:35

one wonders how much of the world deserts are only desert due to anthropogenic removal of migrating grazing herds, and how much desert can be terraformed back to grassland with the return of such herds. North and south sahara and parts of the now Arabian desert had grasslands around 11,000-4000BC, until the herds were replaced by staple crops fields which turned to desert.
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Re: Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Mon 11 Mar 2013, 02:22:38

Years ago I heard a theory that goat herding caused the desertification of the Biblical "land of milk and honey" and North Africa and the Mideast. I took it sort of seriously because of it's "urban legend" appeal and because I had no personal ambitions in the goatherding profession.

Now it seems this is a pile of shit. Or rather, a pile of shit is the solution to the problem. :?
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Re: Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby SeaGypsy » Mon 11 Mar 2013, 07:55:08

The most radical rethink of ecology I have come across in over 30 years of research. I look forward to following the success of this system. Whether a panacea or less than such, it is awesome that people like Allan are dedicating their lives to such grand scale solutions to the most immediate threats to the entire ecology; bravo!
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Re: Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby dorlomin » Mon 11 Mar 2013, 08:30:39

meemoe_uk wrote: North and south sahara and parts of the now Arabian desert had grasslands around 11,000-4000BC, until the herds were replaced by staple crops fields which turned to desert.

Meemoe is pretty dumb. Here he forgets that the earths climate changes as the axis moves, during the time frame he is talking about the earth was at its closest tot he sun during Northern Hemisphere summer. The 'thermal equator' was much further north and this allowed for a 'North African Monsoon' to bring moist air into the region.

The Sahara swings between desert and grassland regularly. There is very strong evidence for this going back over a million years.

:mrgreen:

North African Climate Cycles have a unique history that can be traced back millions of years. The cyclic climate pattern of the Sahara is characterized by significant shifts in the strength of the North African Monsoon. When the North African Monsoon is at its strongest annual precipitation and subsequent vegetation in the Sahara region increase, resulting in conditions commonly referred to as the “green Sahara”. For a relatively weak North African Monsoon the opposite is true, with decreased annual precipitation and less vegetation resulting in a phase of the Sahara climate cycle known as the “desert Sahara”.[1]
Variations in the climate of the Sahara region can at the simplest level be attributed to the changes in insolation due to slow shifts in Earth’s orbital parameters. These parameters include the precession of the equinoxes, obliquity, and eccentricity as put forth by Milankovitch theory.[2] The procession of the equinoxes is regarded as the most important orbital parameter in the formation of the “green Sahara” and “desert Sahara” cycle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_African_climate_cycles

Wrong again meemster.

He really should start a thread on this thinking about vaccines...... some epic lols to be had.
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Re: Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby Lore » Mon 11 Mar 2013, 11:42:46

Keith_McClary wrote:Years ago I heard a theory that goat herding caused the desertification of the Biblical "land of milk and honey" and North Africa and the Mideast. I took it sort of seriously because of it's "urban legend" appeal and because I had no personal ambitions in the goatherding profession.

Now it seems this is a pile of shit. Or rather, a pile of shit is the solution to the problem. :?


The idea here seems to be promoted by anecdotal evidence related to historical norms of natural climate variability and its traditional relationship to animal migration and numbers. None of which applies when you throw in a new variable to the mix, which is rapid warming due to the large emissions of man made GHGs and all its effects.

Take a step back, this is a theory of which comes first, the chicken or the egg? In this case, the grass or the shit. No grass, no shit Sherlock.

Great story though for fat America and all the burger lovers worried that their super sized meals will someday be in jeopardy and are looking to justify their expanding consumption habits along with their waistlines.

Understandable then why Watts made this post stickier then the jelly donut he had this morning.
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Re: Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby dohboi » Mon 11 Mar 2013, 12:11:22

What lore said.

I'd just add that, even more important than grass, you need water.

The grass needs some of it.

The grazers need lots of it.

But it is exactly water that will be in shorter and shorter supply.

Something like this is still a good idea to try in many areas. It's just not going to be quite the panacea some think.
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Re: Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby careinke » Mon 11 Mar 2013, 12:51:06

dohboi wrote:What lore said.

I'd just add that, even more important than grass, you need water.

The grass needs some of it.

The grazers need lots of it.

But it is exactly water that will be in shorter and shorter supply.

Something like this is still a good idea to try in many areas. It's just not going to be quite the panacea some think.


I'm guessing, based on your comments, that you and Lore did not watch the video. Watch the lecture, and come back when you can discuss this with a little better background on the subject.
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Re: Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby Lore » Mon 11 Mar 2013, 12:59:23

careinke wrote:
dohboi wrote:What lore said.

I'd just add that, even more important than grass, you need water.

The grass needs some of it.

The grazers need lots of it.

But it is exactly water that will be in shorter and shorter supply.

Something like this is still a good idea to try in many areas. It's just not going to be quite the panacea some think.


I'm guessing, based on your comments, that you and Lore did not watch the video. Watch the lecture, and come back when you can discuss this with a little better background on the subject.


I watched it.
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Re: Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby dohboi » Mon 11 Mar 2013, 13:22:24

I have not watched it yet, but I have known about, read about, taught about, and watched videos about this technique for years.

As I said, it is very promising in a number of contexts. It cannot, however, by itself overcome permanent gw-caused drought and desertification.

I wish it could.
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Re: Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby Lore » Mon 11 Mar 2013, 14:06:16

I personally don't disagree with the theory and pockets of results, but as a practical matter populating the planets desert regions with large herds of cattle, little methane bombs in themselves, is not exactly mimicking nature. It also doesn't overcome a warming planet with increasing evaporation rates even though you may retain more soil moisture in those pockets. I'm also curious on how he assumes that all this would somehow counterbalance our exorbitant use of burning fossil fuels.

Cattle are not going to stop melting icecaps, glaciers and the runoff either or a growing and hotter equatorial belt.

We had an estimated herd of 30 million bison roaming the western regions before the horse came. A lot of that arable land has been put to other domestic uses for crops like corn going to feed livestock and for use as ethanol. Much of it being produced on pumped aquifer water and chemical fertilizers to feed and run a growing world population. I don't expect you'll see it turned to pasture for your Angus beef anytime soon. And I very much doubt the desert lands of the great SW will see anyone investing in skinny beef scrubbing out an existence there where naturally no water flows or does now with dammed up rivers.
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Re: Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby Quinny » Mon 11 Mar 2013, 16:23:31

Although the examples shown may seem anecdotal, they do seem to indicate that over grazing is not quite the villain it is made out to be.

I am skeptical of the claims that cattle were grazed where not a blade of grass was found, but my limited experience of gardening/permaculture makes me feel that somehow the theory feels right. Would like some more details before proclaiming it as a panacea but IMHO it looks promising.
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Re: Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby ennui2 » Mon 11 Mar 2013, 20:37:12

This reminds me of the infamous greening of the desert permaculture videos. They give you a sense of hope, but then you reenter the real world.

I think if we're going to approach things from a geoengineering perspective, we should use natural processes like this. The problem is that we, as a species, do not walk in lock-step, and when we do, we tend to eventually settle on quick-payback strategies that are unsustainable in the long-term.

I also think that notions of property ownership and land-use make it very hard to service this problem. If someone owns a huge tract of marginal land, it's his own private property. You can't get to a utopia unless all the individuals who own all this land agree all to do the same thing. And think of all the prior agricultural land that was bought up and turned into exurbs, and land-owners selling-out to fracking. There just is no central planning going on, and culturally people associate that with communist dictatorships, so there never will be any. We have a large block of voters in this country that sees the EPA as an oppressive arm of the Democratic party and an enemy of economic growth.

These ideas, no matter how promising, all become pie-in-the-sky because the rubber never meets the road. Experimental proofs of concept are worthless if they never scale up.
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Re: Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby Revi » Mon 11 Mar 2013, 22:06:48

I watched it and agree with it. Unfortunately the problem is bigger than that. We are going to be about 4 degrees C hotter and that will tip more land into desert. It's not going to be pretty. I think we can keep more of the earth with his methods, but we're all going to see the effects of climate change anyway.
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Re: Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby Revi » Mon 11 Mar 2013, 22:07:11

It's an awesome idea. We are going to need it even in parts of the US that don't seem like desert now.
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Re: Epic eco-principle to prevent desertification

Unread postby Keith_McClary » Tue 12 Mar 2013, 00:26:47

Why are
Lore wrote:herds of cattle, little methane bombs
but not their bison relatives?
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