Tag Archive for: Global Warming

A World of Hurt: 2021 Climate Disasters Raise Alarm over Food Security

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  • Human-driven climate change is fueling weather extremes — from record drought to massive floods — that are hammering key agricultural regions around the world.
  • From the grain heartland of Argentina to the tomato belt of California to the pork hub of China, extreme weather events have driven down output and driven up global commodity prices.
  • Shortages of water and food have, in turn, prompted political and social strife in 2021, including food protests in Iran and hunger in Madagascar, and threaten to bring escalating misery, civil unrest and war in coming years.
  • Experts warn the problem will only intensify, even in regions currently unaffected by, or thriving from the high prices caused by scarcity. Global transformational change is urgently needed in agricultural production and consumption patterns, say experts.

In July, a video went viral on social media in Argentina showing people walking across what looks like a desert. But it isn’t a desert. This is the bed of the Paraná River, part of the second-largest river system in South America. Normally the stream rises in Brazil and reaches the sea via the River Plate, draining a vast watershed covering all of Paraguay, southern Brazil and northern Argentina. Normally the water volume flowing to the Atlantic roughly equals that of the Mississippi River.

What’s happening now is not normal. The drying up of large stretches of river comes as the most severe drought since 1944 afflicts the region. No relief is expected in the short term. According to forecasts from Argentina’s Ministry of Public Works, the lack of rain will last for at least another three months.

Besides damaging crops, the drought also means barge-hauled grains can’t get to market cheaply, forcing Argentina to support commodities transport with $10.4 million, and costing the nation’s grain farmers and exporters $315 million. It’s likely consumers will ultimately foot the bill.

The Paraná region is experiencing “a veritable environmental holocaust,” says Rafael Colombo, a member of the Argentinian Association of Environmental Lawyers.

The multiple causes, he states, include “a complex and diversified series of anthropomorphic interventions, associated with the expansion of agro-industrial, ranching, forest, river and mining extractivism over the last 50 years.” Add to that the impact of global human-caused climate change.

Due to lack of rain at the source of the São Francisco River, Brazil’s Sobradinho reservoir is experiencing the worst drought in its history. Image by Marcello Casal Jr/Agência Brasil (CC BY 3.0 BR).

A world of hurt

Extreme weather impacts can be expected to dot various parts of the planet every year, but the Paraná watershed drought isn’t an outlier in 2021. Instead, it represents the new normal as major regional bread baskets around the globe are assaulted by unusually high temperatures that exacerbate simultaneous record droughts, bringing disastrous wildfires. Floods, too, are unprecedented this year: While the Paraná endured record drought, the neighboring Amazon watershed in Manaus, Brazil, was battered by unprecedented June deluges.

These planet-wide events all combined are having a detrimental impact on crops and livestock, and though it is too early to calculate the full cost, the world will likely see significant price hikes in coming months on everything from tomatoes to bread to beef.

“Unprecedented” looks to be the theme best describing 2021’s extreme weather events: In mid-July, China’s Henan province, one of the country’s most populous regions, was hit by a year’s worth of rain — 640 millimeters (more than 2 feet) — in just three days, a phenomenon “unseen in the last 1,000 years.”

At least 71 people died and 1.4 million people fled the floods, even as China braces for more heavy rain. The deluge also impacted 972,000 hectares (2.4 million acres) of cropland, and — while much of that region’s grain crop had been harvested previously — processing, storage and transportation of summer grains could be affected, with floodwaters damaging flour factories.

China isn’t alone. In late July, parts of India saw 594 mm (23 inches) of rain in just days, while Manila and outlying provinces in the Philippines were inundated by torrential rains, causing mass evacuations and crop damage.

Extreme heat waves and drought have smashed records across the U.S. West, from southern California to Nevada and Oregon. As the unprecedented mega drought deepens, California’s water regulators this week took a highly unusual step: forbidding thousands of farmers from extracting water from major rivers and streams for irrigation. The drought is surely going to be bad news for spaghetti lovers: California grows more than 90% of America’s canned tomatoes and a third of the world’s supply. Expect much higher prices and “cue the tomato hoarding.”

Don Pedro Reservoir in California (the brown areas should be covered in water). The deepening unprecedented mega drought there means thousands of farmers who annually extract water from rivers and streams for irrigation will be unable to tap those sources this year. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
As mega fires again burn across the U.S. West in 2021, firefighting resources are being stretched to the limit. Forest Service NW via Twitter.

Meanwhile, 91 wildfires are currently raging across the U.S., devastating ecosystems and infrastructure. Three million acres have burned so far this year, with the fire season far from over, while during the same period last year only 2.1 million acres burned. Western U.S. climate change-induced mega fires are also having adverse agricultural commodities impacts, with farmers and ranchers now saddled with skyrocketing fire insurance rates, often increasing by tens of thousands of dollars. “[T]he trend has sent shock waves through California’s agricultural regions,” says online environmental news service Grist. Those exorbitant insurance rates could push some farms out of business, or make agriculture too risky to insure.

Farther east, in Colorado and Utah, cattle ranchers are feeling the pain too. As their drought worsens, many have reluctantly decided to cull their herds. “Everyone is gonna be selling their cows, so it’s probably smarter now to do it, while the price is up, before the market gets flooded,” said Buzz Bates, a rancher from Oab, Utah.

The West’s drought has also created ideal conditions for grasshopper eggs to hatch, leading to widespread infestation and crop loss. “I can only describe grasshoppers in expletives,” said one Oregon farmer. “They are a scourge of the Earth … They just destroy the land, destroy the crops.”

Locust in Indonesia. Major infestations hit Africa last year and the U.S. this year. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

The specter of global hunger

Drought this year is exacerbating hunger in some of Earth’s poorest countries. Southern Madagascar is experiencing its worst drought in four decades. Maliha, 38 years old and a single mother of eight, told Reliefweb: “Since the rain stopped, the children are not eating regularly. I give them whatever I can find, like cactus leaves. With this diet, they have diarrhea and nausea, but we have no choice. At least it doesn’t kill them.”

According to World Food Programme Executive Director David Beasley, the food crisis in Madagascar has been building for years: “There have been back-to-back droughts which have pushed communities right to the very edge of starvation.” More than 1 million Madagascans have been left “food insecure,” without access to “sufficient, safe and nutritious food,” he said.

He’s emphatic as to the reason: “This is not because of war or conflict; this is because of climate change.”

As disaster follows disaster, some evoke tales of the 10 plagues found in the Old Testament, sent by God to punish humanity for its evil. Not even the plague of locusts is missing: Just a year ago, the Greater Horn of Africa and Yemen suffered the largest desert locust outbreak in 25 years, triggered by record rains. In Ethiopia alone more than 356,000 tons of cereals were lost, leaving almost 1 million people food insecure.

Women wait to receive emergency hot meals for their malnourished children in the village of Sihanamaro, Androy region, southern Madagascar. Image courtesy of WFP/Krystyna Kovalenko.
Children eat food distributed by the World Food Programme in the village of Sihanamaro, Androy region, southern Madagascar. Image courtesy of WFP/Krystyna Kovalenko.

Commodities impacted planetwide

Extreme weather continues slamming crops across the world at a time when food prices are already near the highest in a decade. The list goes on: Flooding in China’s key pork-producing region has raised the threat of animal disease. Devastating rains in the EU are raising fears of widespread fungal diseases in grains. And in the High Plains along the U.S.-Canada border, grains and livestock are at risk as predicted deepening drought keeps commodities brokers and farmers on edge. Russia, another global bread basket, is also hot and dry, and wheat crop expectations have fallen.

Brazil is one of the most important agricultural exporters in the world. But prolonged drought there is causing concerns for 2021’s second corn crop. Drought and rare freezing weather are hurting coffee-growing regions too, which are suffering some of their coldest weather in 25 years. On July 29, a wide area of Brazil even saw snow. (Climate chaos, while it produces substantially more heat records, also sometimes generates extreme cold.) The coffee harvest will be damaged. World coffee prices are rising.

Other crops could be impacted, as Brazil is the planet’s biggest exporter of sugar, orange juice and soybeans. “There’s no other country in the world that has that kind of influence on the world market conditions — what happens in Brazil affects everyone,” Michael Sheridan, director of sourcing and shared value at Intelligentsia Coffee, a Chicago-based roaster and retailer, told Bloomberg.

Flooded area in the town of Qingshanqiao in Ningxiang, Hunan, China in 2017. The country is again seeing terrible flooding in 2021 — the future is almost surely to be worse unless greenhouse gas emissions are slashed quickly. Image by Huangdan2060 via Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0).
Drought in parts of India left farmers and livestock owners in desperate conditions for most of this year. Such events did occur in the past, but are now becoming increasingly more frequent, stressing communities and entire nations. Image by srinivasa krishna via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

Feast or famine: Profiting from disaster

As elsewhere, Brazil’s climate disasters are regionalized, only damaging harvests in some places, but not others. In unaffected areas, farmers are doing well, even better than expected because world commodity prices have climbed, partly because of droughts around the planet. And as is so often the case in the commodities market, one farmer benefits from another’s disaster, though the big commodities traders have the versatility and economic power to weather whiplash weather — at least for now.

The Brazilian government’s statistics authority, IBGE, is expecting a “record-breaking harvest of grains, cereals and oilseeds in 2021.” Agribusiness outside the drought-affected Paraná region is jubilant. Maurilio Biagi Filho, whose family owns vast sugar plantations, says that it is “very rare” for high agricultural prices to coincide with record production. “When that happens, it’s extraordinary,” he adds.

A similar phenomenon is evident in the U.S., where the fortunes of two very different corn belts have emerged. The U.S. Southeast is experiencing “great summer weather” (cool and wet), while the Northwest is facing “a terrible drought” (hot/dry weather). “The crux of the matter is the crop is being damaged in the West, and improving in the East,” comments one farming media source.

Maurílio Biagi Filho, one of Brazil’s largest agribusiness magnates, is expecting a big boost in income this year due to a hike in world commodity prices caused by the nation’s droughts. Image courtesy of JornalCana.

This mixed economic picture comes with a caveat: As 2021 unfolds and the global climate crisis deepens year-on-year, forecasts say fewer and fewer farmers may benefit, with extreme weather disasters and failed harvests proliferating.

In the 1990s, a Woods Hole Research Center scientist, describing impending climate chaos, put it this way: “Think of a pot of cool water on the stove. Add heat to the pot and keep adding it. The water will start to move, swirling in increasingly erratic and intensifying patterns. Small bubbles arise, then bigger bubbles appear as you add energy to the system, until you’re at a rolling boil. That’s a good metaphor for global climate change: as emissions rise, extreme weather events pop up more often, randomly and unpredictably everywhere.”

Climate chaos breeds food insecurity and political instability

The downside to the current hike in commodity prices is already becoming clear for many: With millions of poor people hit by climate disasters, governments in financially strapped countries are having to provide food relief. “Food inflation is the last thing governments need right now,” Carlos Mera, an analyst at Rabobank, told the Financial Times.

Higher food prices often generate political unrest, even in countries where dissent is firmly repressed. In early July, protesters took to the streets in southwestern Iran, chanting anti-regime slogans and demanding greater access to water for drinking, for farmlands and their cattle.

But the climate crisis shows no sign of easing: On June 22, Nuwaiseeb, Kuwait, recorded temperatures of 53.2° Celsius (127.7° Fahrenheit). In neighboring Iraq and Iran, temperatures didn’t lag far behind. All-time records were broken in Turkey too (where wildfires are incinerating farm animals), and in both Northern Ireland and northern Japan. Moscow was hit by a historic heat wave in June, with temperatures soaring to 34°C (93°F), a 120-year record. These heat waves are bad news for global food supplies and prices — and for national security.

High food prices, caused partly by climate change-driven drought, are believed to have been a key factor behind the unrest that spread across a swath of the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, generating the Arab Spring.

Prescient journalist Ross Gelbspan, writing in 1997, warned the world of the perpetual “coming state of emergency,” a deepening and disruptive climate change abyss — an extreme weather maelstrom into which food production systems, whole populations, governments and countries would fall and fail, bringing hunger, human misery, civil unrest and war.

Carlos Mera, a senior analyst at Rabobank, a Dutch banking and financial services company, on a trip to Brazil to analyze the coffee harvest, dialing in to a teleconference in 2019. Image via Twitter.

Climate breakdown

The consensus is growing: Today, almost all scientists and policymakers (besides the politicians aligned with fossil fuel interests) agree that the underlying cause of the current climate crisis is a hundred years — less than a nanosecond in the planet’s history — of human activity, pumping billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Recently, a draft report by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), scheduled to be published at the beginning of next year, was obtained by the AFP news agency. AFP says the report reads as “by far, the most comprehensive catalogue ever assembled of how climate change is upending our world.” The IPCC warns that the devastating impacts of global warming will be painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30.

Just like Rafael Colombo, the Argentine environmental lawyer, the IPCC points to a witch’s brew of anthropomorphic influences: greenhouse gas emissions, degradation of land under intensive agriculture, deforestation, overuse of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, overgrazing, and over extraction of water for farming and other uses. But still, emissions rise along with population and the reckless use of resources.

Soy plantation abutting tropical forest in Brazil. Deforestation and land degradation due to aggressive agribusiness expansion are among anthropomorphic impacts in the Amazon region — impacts that also include increasing drought brought by climate change. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
Global droughts are undermining centuries of human progress, denying water for crops, livelihoods, and for survival. Image courtesy Petterik Wiggers / UN WFP.

An urgent need for ‘transformational change’

The draft IPCC report states: “We need transformational change operating on processes and behaviors at all levels: individual, communities, business, institutions and governments. We must redefine our way of life and consumption.”

Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, associate professor at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University, says vastly improved farming techniques are the way forward. He told Mongabay there must be “greater investments in R&D and ‘climate-smart’ agriculture … to compensate for the climate change ‘headwind.’” He emphasized, “These investments need to be done now — or yesterday.” Generating higher output from “climate-smart plants” would allow humanity to “sustain historical growth rates in [crop] production without having to increase inputs.”

Colleen Doherty, an associate professor of biochemistry at North Carolina University, takes a similar approach, suggesting that “climate-smart” agriculture could be achieved partly by creating far more resilient plants. “We have to breed crops for conditions that we don’t even know right now what they are going to be. Things are changing so rapidly that we need to be able to anticipate what the problems are before they happen,” she said, adding with cautious optimism: “We’ve barely touched the potential of plants.”

If such an approach is to work, it must deliver much more than improved technology has achieved in the last couple of decades. A recent paper, “Anthropogenic climate change has slowed global agricultural productivity growth,” shows that climate change has wiped out seven years of improvements in agricultural productivity over the past 60 years. Ortiz-Bobea, the paper’s lead author, said that “the slowdown effect” may well intensify, as “global agriculture is growing increasingly vulnerable to climate change” and “global warming is accelerating.”

A very different method for confronting the crisis is laid out by the regenerative agriculture movement. Its proponents are skeptical of scientists’ capacity to breed more resilient plants. “Despite billions of dollars being spent on research and media hype there is not one major crop that has benefited from genetically engineered modifications to make them significantly more resilient to drought,” André Leu, international director of Regeneration International, told Mongabay, though biotechnology companies and researchers do claim some progress in that field of development.

Woman stands outside her home destroyed by floods in Kenya. Image © Greenpeace.
Aerial view of flooded villages and farmland in Kenya. In May, 40,000 people were displaced, hundreds of lives lost, crops destroyed and livestock drowned. Extreme weather events, including floods and droughts are becoming more frequent and more intense as the climate crisis deepens. With the current COVID-19 crisis and locusts invasion, flooding exacerbates the food security situation in the country. Image © Greenpeace.

Answers will not emerge from laboratories, he argues, but by working with rural communities who have acquired an unrivaled knowledge of local ecosystems through centuries of experience. “There are numerous published studies showing that increasing agro-biodiversity through a mix of crop species and varieties, along with farmer-led participatory breeding, increases drought and extreme climate weather resilience,” he said. “These systems are now working globally on every arable continent.” Moreover, advocates say regenerative agriculture can “substantially mitigate climate change” by sequestering significant greenhouse gas emissions.

As yet, neither approach is translating into the “transformational change” that the draft IPCC report calls for, largely because governments worldwide have yet to act aggressively to address the scale of the catastrophe unfolding planetwide at breakneck speed. And few analysts hold out much hope this will change at the vital COP26 climate summit this November in Scotland.

Meanwhile, the situation continues to deteriorate: Forecasts released this month by the International Energy Agency predict the world will record “the highest levels of carbon dioxide output in human history” this year.

Many scientists and policymakers fear that the very survival of the human species is now at risk. The draft IPCC report warns: “Life on Earth can recover from a drastic climate shift by evolving into new species and creating new ecosystems. Humans cannot.”

Dried-out rice fields in the Anosy region of southern Madagascar. As food insecurity worsens globally, national security could be threatened in many countries. Image courtesy of Daniel Wood/SEED Madagascar.

Reposted with permission from Mongabay

La sequía que abrasa México, una tragedia predecible y devastadora

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La sequía que azota México es un fenómeno recurrente que con cada visita deja una estela de emergencias y daños. El 84% del territorio sufre sequía en diferentes intensidades, agravada por la falta de lluvias de los últimos meses, según se desprende del Monitor, el organismo de Conagua que la vigila. Pese a que estaba previsto y la evolución histórica del clima en el país lo contemplaba, la sequía sorprendió a Ermenegildo Martínez, un pescador de Veracruz que ha visto como en los últimos ocho meses la laguna donde pescaba se ha secado. “Medía 13 metros de profundidad y ahora apenas le quedan 10 centímetros, en menos de una semana la habremos perdido del todo”, describe. A 1.300 kilómetros de allí, en Sinaloa, el agricultor Gumaro López se contagia del pesar del pescador. Al igual que Martínez tendrá pérdidas en su producción y alerta de que subirán los precios. Ya pasó en 2011 y 1996, los otros dos episodios de sequía extrema que golpearon a México y de los que, ha quedado claro, no se ha aprendido lo suficiente.

CONTINUE LEYENDO EN EL PAÍS

The Long-Term Disaster Far Worse than the COVID-19 Pandemic

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There is a long-term disaster far worse than the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic will end in a few years; however, the world will lose many millions more to sickness, hunger, poverty and catastrophic weather events because of the unprecedented climate emergency.

The world reached a record of 417.2 parts per million of carbon dioxide (ppm CO2)  in the atmosphere in May 2020 – the most in over 3 million years.

A study published in May 2019 shows that if we don’t succeed in radically reducing emissions, civilization could collapse by 2050. As reported by the New York Post, the authors of the report say: 

“This scenario provides a glimpse into a world of ‘outright chaos’ on a path to the end of human civilization and modern society as we have known it, in which the challenges to global security are simply overwhelming and political panic becomes the norm.”

The good news is that we can turn this around by scaling up regenerative agriculture.

Why regenerative agriculture?

Regenerative agriculture is based on a range of food and farming systems that use the photosynthesis of plants to capture carbon dioxide and store it in the soil. The soil holds almost three times the amount of carbon than the atmosphere and biomass (forests and plants) combined. 

Why is it so important to dramatically reduce the current rate of CO2 emissions?

If emissions are not reduced soon, we will be going into catastrophic climate change. This is because it will take centuries to get the heat out of our oceans. Ocean heat is a significant driver of our weather. The oceans and the atmosphere are already more than 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius) warmer than the industrial revolution.

The energy needed to heat the atmosphere and the ocean by 1.8 degrees is equivalent to billions of atomic bombs. I am using this violent metaphor so that people can understand how much energy is being released into our atmosphere and oceans and why we will get more extreme weather events wreaking havoc on our communities and environment.

This extra energy is already violently fueling and disrupting our weather systems. It is causing weather events to be far more intense. Winter storms are becoming colder and can be pushed further south and north than normal due to this energy, bringing damaging snowstorms and intense floods. 

Similarly, summer storms, especially hurricanes, tornadoes, tropical lows etc. are far more frequent and intense with deluging destructive rainfall and floods. Droughts and heat waves are more common and are resulting in more crop failures. They are also fueling damaging forest and grass fires that are burning out whole communities and changing regional ecologies due to not allowing time for recovery before the next fires.

The frequency and intensity of these types of events will only get exponentially worse when the world warms to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) which is the upper limit of the Paris climate agreement. We are on track to shoot far past this goal.

Managing climate change is a major issue that we have to deal with now

Atmospheric CO2 levels have been increasing at 2 parts per million (ppm) per year. The level of CO2  reached a new record of 400 ppm in May 2016. However, despite all the commitments countries made in Paris in December 2015, the levels of CO2 increased by 3.3 ppm in 2016 creating a record. It increased by 3.3 ppm from 2018 to set a new record of 415.3 ppm in May 2019. 

Despite the global economic shut down as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic CO2 levels still set a new record of 417.2 ppm in May 2020. This is a massive increase in emissions per year since the Paris Agreement and shows the reality is that most countries are not even close to meeting their Paris reduction commitments and many must be cheating on or ignoring their obligations.

According to peer reviewed research published by Rohling et al. in the scientific journal, Nature Geoscience, the last time the world had 380 ppm, was 3.0–3.5 Million years ago. Temperatures were between 5 to 16 C warmer (9 – 28.8 F) and sea levels were 20 to 30 meters higher (65 to 100 ft) There was a mass extinction event around that period.

Even if the world transitioned to 100 percent renewable energy tomorrow, this will not stop the temperature and sea level rises. The world will continue to heat up because it will take more than 100 years for the CO2 levels to drop naturally.

Global sea level rise will cause the atoll island countries, large parts of Bangladesh, Netherlands, coastal USA, New York, New Orleans, Miami, London, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Manila, Bangkok, Jakarta, Shanghai, Singapore, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Dar es Salam and other low-lying cities and regions to go underwater. 

According to the latest report by Spratt and Dunlop, sea level rise and droughts and floods will cause a huge crisis for over a billion people by 2050, throwing our civilization into chaos. A peer-reviewed paper by Kulp et al. Nature Communications shows that sea level rises will cause a huge refugee crisis for 340 million people by 2050.

The world cannot cope with a few million refugees from Africa, Central America and the Middle East. How do we cope with hundreds of millions of climate change refugees? There will be widespread conflict over food, water and land.

The United Nations Paris Agreement proposes net CO2 neutrality by 2050. The evidence shows this will be too late to stop the enormous damage of catastrophic climate change. At the current rate of emissions there would be close to 500 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere.

The fact is we are in a serious climate emergency now. We must speed up the transition to renewable energy, stop the clearing of all forests and we have to make a great effort to drawdown CO2  in the atmosphere to the pre industrial level of 280 ppm.

Reversing climate change

Four hundred and seventeen ppm is way past the Paris objective of limiting the temperature increase to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius).

In order to stabilize atmospheric CO2 levels, regenerative agricultural systems would have to draw down the current emissions of 3.3 ppm of CO2 per year. Using the accepted formula that 1 ppm CO2 = 7.76 Gt CO2 means that 25.61 gigatons (Gt) of CO2 per year needs to be drawn down from the atmosphere. We have to draw down more than this to reduce the levels of CO2 in order to regenerate our climate and prevent a catastrophic climate emergency.

The potential of three best-practice regenerative agriculture systems

There are numerous regenerative farming systems that can sequester CO2  from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, and turn it into soil organic matter through the actions of the roots and soil biology or the soil microbiome. 

We don’t have time to waste on farming systems that only sequester small amounts of CO2. We need to concentrate on scaling up systems that can achieve high levels of sequestration. The simple back of the envelope calculations used for the three examples below are a good exercise to show the considerable potential of these best-practice regenerative systems to reverse the climate emergency.

Biologically Enhanced Agricultural Management (BEAM)

BEAM (Biologically Enhanced Agricultural Management), developed by Dr. David Johnson of New Mexico State University, produces compost with a high diversity of soil microorganisms. 

Multiple crops grown with BEAM have achieved very high levels of sequestration and yields. 

Research published by Dr. Johnson and colleagues show: 

“. . . a 4.5 year agricultural field study promoted annual average capture and storage of 10.27 metric tons soil C ha-1 year -1 while increasing soil macro-, meso- and micro-nutrient availability offering a robust, cost effective carbon sequestration mechanism within a more productive and long-term sustainable agriculture management approach.” 

These results are currently being replicated in other trials.

These figures mean that BEAM can sequester 37,700 kilos of CO2 per hectare per year which is approximately 37,000 pounds of CO2 per acre.

BEAM can be used in all soil-based food production systems including annual crops, permanent crops and grazing systems, including arid and semi arid regions. If BEAM was extrapolated globally across agricultural lands it would sequester 185 Gt of CO2 per year.

The Johnson-Su composting method creates compost teeming with microorganisms that improve soil health and plant growth and increase the soil’s potential to sequester carbon.

 

Potential of “No Kill No Till”

Singing Frogs Farm is a highly productive “No Kill No Till” richly biodiverse organic, agro-ecological horticulture farm on three acres. The key to their no-till system is to cover the planting beds with mulch and compost instead of plowing them or using herbicides, and planting directly into the compost, along with a high biodiversity of cash and cover crops that are continuously rotated to break weed, disease and pest cycles.

According to Chico State University, they have increased the soil organic matter (SOM) levels by 400 percent in six years. The Kaisers have increased their SOM from 2.4 percent to an optimal 7-8 percent with an average increase of about 3/4 of a percentage point per year. This farming system is applicable to more than 80 percent of farmers around the world as the majority of farmers have less than two hectares or five acres. 

If the Singing Frog farm was extrapolated globally across arable and permanent crop lands it would sequester 179 Gt of CO2 per year.

The potential of regenerative grazing

The Savory Institute and many others have been scaling up holistic managed grazing systems on every arable continent. There is now a considerable body of published science and evidence based practices showing these systems regenerate degraded lands, improve productivity, water holding capacity and soil carbon levels.

Around 68 percent of the world’s agricultural lands are used for grazing. The published evidence shows that correctly managed pastures can build up soil carbon faster than many other agricultural systems and this is stored deeper in the soil.

Research by published Machmuller et al. 2015 found: 

“In a region of extensive soil degradation in the southeastern United States, we evaluated soil C accumulation for 3 years across a 7-year chronosequence of three farms converted to management-intensive grazing. Here we show that these farms accumulated C at 8.0 Mg ha−1 yr−1, increasing cation exchange and water holding capacity by 95% and 34%, respectively.”

That means they have sequestered 29,360 kilos of CO2 per hectare per year. This is approximately 29,000 pounds of CO2  per acre. If these regenerative grazing practices were implemented on the world’s grazing lands they would sequester 98.6 Gt of CO2 per year.

Regenerative grazing systems regenerate degraded lands, improve productivity, water holding capacity and soil carbon levels.

Ending the climate emergency

Transitioning a small proportion of global agricultural production to these evidence based, best-practice, regenerative systems will sequester enough CO2 to reverse climate change and restore the global climate.

Ten percent of agricultural lands under BEAM could sequester 18.5 Gt of CO2 per year.

Ten percent of smallholder farms across arable and permanent crop lands using Singing Frog Farm’s “No Kill No Till” systems could sequester 18 Gt of CO2 per year.

And a further 10 percent of grasslands under regenerative grazing could sequester 10 Gt of CO2 per year.

This would result in 46.5 Gt of CO2 per year being sequestered into the soil which is more than the amount of sequestration needed to draw down the 25.61 Gt of CO2 that is currently being emitted.

These back-of-the-envelope calculations are designed to show the considerable potential of scaling up proven high-performing regenerative systems. The examples are “shovel ready” solutions, as they are based on existing practices. 

There is no need to invest in expensive, potentially dangerous and unproven technologies such as carbon capture and storage or geo-engineering.

We are in a climate emergency and we need every tool in the toolbox to fix this problem. We don’t have the luxury of wasting precious time on intellectual arguments about whether this is possible or to convince skeptics and land managers unwilling to change.

It is time to get on with drawing down the excess CO2 by scaling up existing regenerative agriculture practices. This is very doable and achievable. It would require minimal financial costs to fund existing institutions, training organizations and relevant NGOs to run courses and workshops. 

Most importantly, this needs to be scaled up through proven farmer-to-farmer training systems. The evidence shows that these types of peer-to-peer systems are the most effective way to increase adoption of best practices.

The widespread adoption of best-practice regenerative agriculture systems should be the highest priority for farmers, ranchers, governments, international organizations, elected representatives, industry, training organizations, educational institutions and climate change organizations. 

We owe this to future generations and to all the rich biodiversity on our precious living planet.

 References/sources:

Johnson D, Ellington J and Eaton W, (2015)  Development of soil microbial communities for promoting sustainability in agriculture and a global carbon fix, PeerJ PrePrints | CC-BY 4.0 Open Access | rec: 13 Jan 2015, publ: 13 Jan 2015

Jones C, (2009) Adapting farming to climate variability, Amazing Carbon.

Lal R (2008). Sequestration of atmospheric CO2 in global carbon pools. Energy and Environmental Science, 1: 86–100.

Kulp SA & Strauss BH (2019), New elevation data triple estimates of global vulnerability to sea-level rise and coastal flooding, Nature Communications, (2019)10:4844.

McCosker, T. (2000). “Cell Grazing – The First 10 Years in Australia,” Tropical Grasslands. 34:  207-218.

Machmuller MB, Kramer MG, Cyle TK, Hill N, Hancock D & Thompson A (2014). Emerging land use practices rapidly increase soil organic matter, Nature Communications 6, Article number: 6995 doi:10.1038/ncomms7995, Received 21 June 2014 Accepted 20 March 2015 Published 30 April 2015

NOAS (2017). National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (US)

https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/how-much-will-earth-warm-if-carbon-dioxide-doubles-pre-industrial-levels, Accessed Jan 30 2017

Rohling EJ, K. Grant, M. Bolshaw, A. P. Roberts, M. Siddall, Ch. Hemleben and M. Kucera (2009) Antarctic temperature and global sea level closely coupled over the past five glacial cycles, Nature Geoscience, advance online publication.

Spratt D and Dunlop I, 2019, Existential climate-related security risk: A scenario approach,  Breakthrough – National Centre for Climate Restoration, Melbourne, Australia, May 2019 Updated 11 June 2019

Tong W, Teague W R, Park C S and Bevers S, 2015, GHG Mitigation Potential of Different Grazing Strategies in the United States Southern Great Plains, Sustainability 2015, 7, 13500-13521; doi:10.3390/su71013500, ISSN 2071-1050

Global Agricultural Land Figures

United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO),  FAOSTAT data on land use, retrieved December 4, 2015

The total amount of land used to produce food is 4,911,622,700 Hectares (18,963,881 square miles).

 This is divided into: Arable/Crop land: 1,396,374,300 Hectares (5,391,431 square miles)

Permanent pastures: 3,358,567,600 Hectares (12,967,502 square miles)

Permanent crops: 153,733,800 Hectares (593,570 square miles)

 BEAM Calculations

A basic calculation shows the potential of scaling up this simple technology across the global agricultural lands. Soil Organic Carbon x 3.67 = CO2 which means that 10.27 metric tons soil carbon = 37.7 metric tons of CO2 per hectare per year (t CO2/ha/yr). This means BEAM can sequester 37.7 tons of CO2 per hectare which is approximately 38,000 pounds of CO2 per acre.

 If BEAM was extrapolated globally across agricultural lands it would sequester 185 Gt of CO2/yr.

(37.7 t CO2/ha/yr X 4,911,622,700 ha = 185,168,175,790t CO2/ha/yr) 

Singing Frogs Farm Calculations

The Kaisers have managed to increase their soil organic matter from 2.4% to an optimal 7-8% in just six years, an average increase of about 3/4 of a percentage point per year (Elizabeth Kaiser Pers. Com. 2018 and Chico State University https://www.csuchico.edu/regenerativeagriculture/demos/singing-frogs.shtml)

“An increase of 1% in the level of soil carbon in the 0-30cm soil profile equates to

sequestration of 154 tCO2/ha if an average bulk density of 1.4 g/cm3” (Jones C. 2009)

3/4 % OM = 115.5 metric tons of CO2 per hectare (115,500 pounds an acre per year)

This system can be used on arable and permanent crop lands. Arable/Crop land: 1,396,374,300 Hectares plus Permanent crops: 153,733,800 Hectares = 1,550,108,100 Hectares

Extrapolated globally across arable and permanent crop lands it would sequester 179 Gt of CO2/yr (1,550,108,100 Hectares x 115.5 metric tons of CO2 per hectare = 179,037,485,550 metric tons)

Regenerative Grazing Calculations

To explain the significance of Machmuller’s figures: 8.0 Mg ha−1 yr−1 = 8,000 kgs of carbon being stored in the soil per hectare per year. Soil Organic Carbon x 3.67 = CO2, which means that these grazing systems have sequestered 29,360 kgs (29.36 metric tons) of CO2/ha/yr. This is approximately 30,000 pounds of CO2 per acre.

If these regenerative grazing practices were implemented on the world’s grazing lands they would sequester 98.6 Gt CO2/yr.

(29.36t CO2/ha/yr X 3,358,567,600 ha = 98,607,544,736t CO2/ha/yr)

Peatlands Keep a Lot of Carbon out of Earth’s Atmosphere, but That Could End with Warming and Development

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But that might not be true for much longer. Warming temperatures and human actions, such as draining bogs and converting them for agriculture, threaten to turn the world’s peatlands from carbon reservoirs to carbon sources.

In a newly published study, our multidisciplinary team of 70 scientists from around the world analyzed existing research and surveyed 44 leading experts to identify factors that could change peatlands’ carbon balance now and in the future. We found that permafrost degradation, warming temperatures, rising sea levels and drought are causing many peatlands around the world to lose some of their stored carbon. This is in addition to rapid degradation caused by human activity. And unless steps are taken to protect peatlands, carbon loss could accelerate.

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Agro-Eco Philippines Helps Transition Filipino Farmers to Agroecological and Organic Regenerative Practices

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DAVAO, PHILIPPINES – Nearly one year ago today, Regeneration International (RI) signed the “Regeneration Philippines” pact, a Memorandum of Understanding between the Filipino League of Organic Municipalities Cities and Provinces (LOAMCP) and RI. 

Fast forward to today and we are blessed to have reconnected virtually with our friends in the Philippines, this time, through the addition of a new RI partner, Agro-Eco Philippines (AEP), an organization dedicated to “building resilient farming communities and sustainable economies.”

AEP began its work with small farmers in Mindanao or the Southern Philippines in 1991. Today, the non-profit government organization (NGO) works with 4,000 individual farmers in 300 farmers’ organizations in Mindanao, eastern Visayas and eastern Luzon. 

Its mission is to advocate for Filipino’s right to healthy food, alleviate hunger in poverty-stricken farming communities and teach farmers organic regenerative and agroecological practices that produce healthy food, increase the socio-economic livelihood of farmers, and build resilience against the effects of climate change. 

AEP also invests in the development of local markets through community-led research to help boost profits for smallholder farmers.

AEP and its work transitioning conventional Filipino farmers to agroecological and organic regenerative agriculture practices is showcased in our “Trails of Regeneration” video series, which highlights stories of regeneration throughout the globe. 

In our latest episode, “Agro-Eco Philippines Helps Farmers Go Organic,” AEP’s Executive Director Geonathan Barro discusses how the NGO has trained an impressive number of farmers on organic practices. Barro told us in a Zoom interview:

“So far, we have trained roughly 10,000 conventional farmers to go organic. The key is to build on the hard labor of the previous years without relying on middle men or corporate entities to distribute and process our products.”

AEP is firm in its belief that the role humans play on farms is a key component of agroecology. According to its website: 

“Farmers . . . are critical actors in agroecological practice and agroecological transformation. They are stewards of biodiversity and the real keepers of relevant knowledge for this agenda. It is therefore important that agroecological knowledge and technologies are developed on the basis of farmers’ own knowledge and experimentation. Further, this means that agroecology has to be context-specific and culturally appropriate. Agroecology makes best use of the human, social, and environmental capital available locally.”

Green Revolution forces farmers into degenerative farming model

The future hasn’t always been so bright for some farmers in the Philippines.

Since the launch of the Green Revolution in the 1960s, Filippino farmers have largely depended on degenerative agricultural models that have forced millions of farmers into debt due to the high cost of chemical fertilizers and pesticides that over time eroded the soil and polluted waterways. 

More than half a century ago, the Filipiino government, with influence from the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation, created the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). In 1962, the IRRI crossed Dee-Geo-woo-gen and Peta rice strains to create IR8 or “miracle rice.” By 1981, “miracle rice” accounted for more than 80 percent of total rice crops in the Philippines.

The “miracle rice” produced high yields— ten times the amount of traditional rice varieties—allowing the Philippines to go from being an importer of rice to a global exporter.

Unfortunately, the benefits of the Green Revolution were short-lived. They were also outweighed by the rising costs of high-debt, falling income and the environmental consequences of chemical-intensive agriculture. 

This chain of events is found in many developing countries that fell victim to big agricultural corporations selling high-yielding seeds that provide productive harvests the first year, but then require major increases in chemical inputs the following year. 

The allure of high (but unsustainable) crop yields has led to a system of enslaved farmers whose farmlands have been rendered unproductive without the application of synthetic and chemical inputs.

Over time, pesticides destroy key microbes in the soil and alter its ability to retain nutrients and water, which makes farmers more vulnerable to drought, floods, pests and crop-related diseases. This escalates production costs that put smallholder farmers at risk of bankruptcy. 

Filippino farmers campaigning against Monsanto’s Golden Rice, promoting regenerative systems of rice intensification and defending local seed sovereignty.

AEP teaches farmers organic regenerative practices that benefit the environment and the community

AEP is working to break the patterns of conventional food and farming systems by providing smallholder farmers with free access to local indigenous seeds and information on practices such as composting, cover cropping, seed saving, crop rotation and the integration of livestock. 

It also teaches farmers about agroforestry, the incorporation of trees into agriculture, and encourages the exchange of knowledge between fellow farmers.

Agroecological and organic regenerative farming practices have never been more important. Like many nations around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to food shortages in the Philippines. 

The silver lining, however, is that empty store shelves have encouraged locals to buy directly from their farmer. Not only does this help small farmers, but it also provides families with safe, nutritious food that builds a strong immune system, Barro told RI.

Selling direct to consumers, and removing grocery stores from the equation, has allowed Filippino farmers to sell their products for less money. 

Luz Astronomo, an AEP member and small farmer from Davao City, Philippines, told RI in a Zoom interview that he’s able to sell his produce for 60 percent less than other produce because everything he needs to grow it comes from his farm, including the seeds and organic inputs.

“So, we don’t have to sell our products at a high price,” he said. 

In many localities, conventional farmers are now buying food from organic farmers because the monoculture systems they depend on are failing to compete with the diversified agroecological systems practiced by AEP’s members. Barro told RI:

“These are very difficult times brought about by COVID-19, but these very difficult times have painted us a picture of what kind of agriculture the world needs to overcome such crises.”

Organic regenerative agriculture helps fight climate change

In addition to producing healthier food, agroecological and organic regenerative farming practices help mitigate climate change by building healthy soil that draws down excess atmospheric carbon and stores it in the ground.

Farmers are instrumental in addressing climate change because they experience the impacts of a changing climate, Barro said.

AEP recognizes this, too, which is why it now offers a course on soil quality management to teach farmers how to better manage soil when dealing with pests, disease and climate extremes. 

Mr. René Garcia, also a small farmer and member of AEP, says regenerative agriculture practices help restore key microbes in the soil. Garcia told us in a Zoom interview:

 “We are practicing regenerative agriculture to return microorganisms to the soil that feed the plants. By using the systems of rice intensification, which can reduce flooding in rice paddies and dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and can also help conserve water and boost yields.”

AEP believes that all farmers can grow resilient to the effects of climate change by caring for their soil, ditching the toxic chemicals, producing and distributing food locally, and practicing and advocating for organic regenerative farming systems.

“Success stories of farmers that are working to mitigate and adapt to climate change will inspire people all over the world,” said Barro, adding that it gives people hope to know others are coming together to make this world a better place. 

Stay tuned for more stories of regeneration both in the Philippines and around the world. 

Oliver Gardiner represents Regeneration International in Europe and Asia. To keep up with news and events, sign up here for the Regeneration International newsletter.

Una superficie como un campo de fútbol se erosiona cada cinco segundos

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Está ahí, justo bajo los pies, pero subyacente en el sentido amplio de la palabra. Bajo los cimientos de las casas, los cines y las fábricas, sustentando las carreteras que llevan a las playas, nutriendo a los alimentos exquisitos, acunando los lagos y ríos.., pero la función de este recurso, no renovable, va más allá. “Los niños que han tenido la dicha de jugar con el suelo saben un poco lo que es, pero los de la ciudad no tanto. Y es nuestro aliado silencioso, la mayoría de la comida se produce ahí, y también es un almacén natural de carbono, asume más que la vegetación terrestre y la atmósfera juntas, y eso es importante contra el calentamiento global. Además de aguardar microorganismos que proporcionan biodiversidad”, resume con brevedad Ronald Vargas, secretario de la Alianza Mundial por el Suelo, consciente de que este recurso natural no capta tanta atención como el agua en el mundo.

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The Fate of Planet Earth Lies in the Hands of Just Two Generations, Warns Climate Columnist David Wallace-Wells

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The global impacts of global pollution are so terrifyingly vast and all-encompassing that fully comprehending the potential consequences can prove difficult for the human mind. 

If it continues unchecked, scientists warn1 of an increase in extreme weather including rising sea levels, intensified and more frequent wildfires, devastating flooding, stronger hurricanes and prolonged droughts — all of which are projected to have colossal and costly impacts on public health, agriculture, politics, economic growth and human migration. 

But there’s good news: Humans have the power to stop, and potentially reverse pollution, but only if appropriate action is taken immediately, and on a global scale. 

While most people think of the burning of fossil fuels as the primary driver of pollution, data point to industrial agriculture as the greatest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions. An estimated 44% to 57% of all greenhouse gases come from the global food system. This includes deforestation, agriculture, food waste and food processing, packaging, refrigeration and transportation.2

So, while some argue that, in addition to curbing greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning to 100% renewable energy, implementing new and costly carbon-capturing technology3 is the solution, mounting evidence points to a less costly and more natural solution: Harnessing the power of Mother Nature. 

This includes organic regenerative agriculture,4 which promotes soil health, biodiversity, soil carbon sequestration and large-scale ecosystem restoration such as reforestation and the restoration of peatlands, mangroves, salt marshes and other important ecosystem habitats capable of drawing down and storing excess atmospheric carbon.5

Climate Columnist: ‘The Main Driver of Future Warming Is What We Do Now’

What happens on Earth within the next century in regard to climate change depends on the action humans do or don’t take, said David Wallace-Wells, deputy editor and climate columnist for New York magazine, in a recent interview on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast. 

Wallace-Wells, who wrote “The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming,”6 says we tend to think about climate change as something that began centuries ago during the Industrial Revolution, but the truth is that in the history of mankind, 50% of all the carbon we’ve released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels has occurred within the last 30 years.7

That means the fate of the entire planet may lie in the hands of just two generations, because what happens in the next 50 to 100 years from now will depend on how humans address climate change today, Wallace-Wells says.

Deadlier Wildfires in California

In the featured video, Rogan and Wallace-Wells discuss how climate change is worsening wildfires in California, causing the fires to burn hotter and more frequently. Science shows California wildfires could get up to 60 times worse as climate change intensifies, says Wallace-Wells. 

That’s an alarming prediction considering California, in the past two years, had some of the most destructive fires on record. In fact, the Mendocino wildfire in July 2018 was the state’s largest ever, causing 60% more damage than any fire before it.8

There are a number of ways in which climate change may be intensifying California wildfires. For starters, hotter temperatures can create a drying effect, turning once-green vegetation into flammable wildfire fuel. Secondly, scientists say climate change is shortening California’s rainy reason, and shifting the Santa Ana winds in a way that fan deadly wildfires in Southern California. 

In the podcast, Rogan says a firefighter once told him that with the right wind, it’s only a matter of time before a fire hits the top of Los Angeles, California, and burns all the way to the ocean, and there will be nothing anyone can do to stop it.

Development and urban sprawl are another reason wildfires could get a lot worse in California. When Native Americans stewarded the land, they often performed controlled burns to prevent the buildup of timber, but because some of America’s wealthiest elite insist on living in the California hills, controlled burns are out of the question, says Wallace-Wells. 

His observation leads to an interesting statement about how the situation in California is unique in that climate change tends to impact the world’s poorest first. But in places like Bel-Air, a ritzy upper-class neighborhood in Los Angeles, the effects of climate change are working in reverse as it has largely been the ultrarich who are most affected by wildfires. 

The damage has been both destructive and costly. Just three California wildfires, the Camp Fire, Woolsey Fire and the Hill Fire, are estimated to have killed 88 people, damaged or destroyed close to 20,000 structures and caused more than $9 billion in damage.9 Those costs may be just the tip of the iceberg.

Reposted with permission from Mercola

The Uninhabitable Earth

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Author: David Wallace-Wells |  Published on: July 9, 2017

I. ‘Doomsday’

Peering beyond scientific reticence.

It is, I promise, worse than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible, even within the lifetime of a teenager today. And yet the swelling seas — and the cities they will drown — have so dominated the picture of global warming, and so overwhelmed our capacity for climate panic, that they have occluded our perception of other threats, many much closer at hand. Rising oceans are bad, in fact very bad; but fleeing the coastline will not be enough.

Indeed, absent a significant adjustment to how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century.

Even when we train our eyes on climate change, we are unable to comprehend its scope. This past winter, a string of days 60 and 70 degrees warmer than normal baked the North Pole, melting the permafrost that encased Norway’s Svalbard seed vault — a global food bank nicknamed “Doomsday,” designed to ensure that our agriculture survives any catastrophe, and which appeared to have been flooded by climate change less than ten years after being built.

The Doomsday vault is fine, for now: The structure has been secured and the seeds are safe. But treating the episode as a parable of impending flooding missed the more important news. Until recently, permafrost was not a major concern of climate scientists, because, as the name suggests, it was soil that stayed permanently frozen. But Arctic permafrost contains 1.8 trillion tons of carbon, more than twice as much as is currently suspended in the Earth’s atmosphere. When it thaws and is released, that carbon may evaporate as methane, which is 34 times as powerful a greenhouse-gas warming blanket as carbon dioxide when judged on the timescale of a century; when judged on the timescale of two decades, it is 86 times as powerful. In other words, we have, trapped in Arctic permafrost, twice as much carbon as is currently wrecking the atmosphere of the planet, all of it scheduled to be released at a date that keeps getting moved up, partially in the form of a gas that multiplies its warming power 86 times over.

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