The earth's climate is dynamic, changing continually. Natural cycles resulting from the earth's tilt, relationship to other planets, their orbits, and earth's position to the all important sun and our moon, have powerful influence on the earth's climate. Thirty years of lecturing by Dr. Art Douglas has left no doubt in my mind on the importance of these cycles.
Our use of fossil fuels probably is contributing to CO2 buildup that so many are claiming to be the major cause of climate change. It's the goto energy source for 7.9b people with an infrastructure that gradually developed over more than a 100 years, and we probably ought to change, --but to what? I hope I'm wrong but it seems that we have taken a hiatus on working out the problems with fusion reaction, and fission waste disposal is a nasty issue. I view wind power as nothing more than a scam, a money pit that has fleeced the public. It is horribly inefficient, extremely high maintenance, and a low life expectancy (It was recently reported that 20yrs is current expectation, down from the original 50yrs), and the eventual removal of these dinosaurs will be equally expensive as when they were installed. Solar Energy holds a lot of potential. It is something that can be built into building construction, and not rely total on huge solar farms. There is also geothermal, wave action, hydrogen fuel cell technology that can be improved and brought into the mix, and, who knows what new technologies the future will hold.
Recently, all the information I access that relates to soil health makes reference to "taking cues from nature in developing farming practices", or "work with nature, not against it". In my striving to learn about soil health I ran across a presentation that was intriguing. It gave a pretty impressive picture and narrative on global desertification and it's implication. DESERTIFICATION by Allen Savory. The pic in this post is from that presentation. Notice the light colored areas contrasted with the green areas. The light colored areas are associated with "desertification". The more I watch this video the more connected I become with the message. The reasoning behind our operations move to a ULD farming system is incorporated in Allen Savory's message, but he goes farther. Being a grain producer, I'm resisting the introduction of livestock into our operation; however, I understand the reasoning, their potential, and it's possible they will show up on our operation sometime in the future.
My statement above, about agriculture worldwide being part of the problem stems from the fact that in any given year we leave a lot of ground in a nonproductive state that is radiating energy instead of capturing energy and converting it through photosynthesis to a crop. Our practice of fallowing is an example of a poor land management practice. The global increase of wild fires, along with the ever increasing number of people and their related spacial needs, are factors that influence desertification. These man caused influences are gradually changing air currents related to high and low air cells across the globe, concentrating energy. This concentrated energy is effecting the strength and location of storms. Each of us, with our relatively small farming operation think that we are insignificant, so, what we do will not have any effect on the climate. I'm beginning to realize that the mismanagement of our tiny amount of global resource combined with millions of other independent operations doing the same thing adds up to be a huge potential impact. We need to rethink our attitude on how we manage our land so as to make a positive contribution to sequestering carbon, and reducing practices that promote desertification!!
