Nov. 4 was a key day. Built into the Paris Climate Accords was a period for any nation leaving the Accords to reconsider. When Trump canceled U.S. participation, Nov. 4 was the end date. Like the pandemic, Mother Nature will be unrelenting on climate. Her “feedback loop”, inevitable now, makes climate change our next great challenge, lasting thousands of years with no handy “vaccination.” Survival depends on our actions now.
According to “Climate Crisis: Can We Dial It Down?” (Harvard Magazine, Nov./Dec. 2020) carbon in the atmosphere, now 417 parts/million, was 319 parts/million in 1960. Already creating havoc: unquenchable fires, over-heated oceans melting the Arctic/Antarctic ice causing rising sea levels, storms, floods. According to Harvard’s researchers, carbon overload will be disastrous for 1,000 years (30 generations)!
We have the ability to lower the generation of atmospheric carbon now. Those in our region, intent on lowering their carbon footprint to near zero, can accomplish it with technology and programs already in place. But getting to a balanced level will take removing carbon already in the atmosphere, a process known as “carbon sequestration.”
If we could start now without adding more, we would still need to drop the carbon overload by a one-quarter. None of us can afford to sit this one out! Those in agricultural regions will have a special responsibility.
Wild ideas considered in the current issue of Harvard Magazine, (spraying the atmosphere with chemicals replicating volcanic explosions that occlude sunlight) neglect what nature has already designed.
Turning to some experts on “carbon sequestration,” we learn that the ” … science is clear on some basic facts about nature’s carbon cycle: photosynthesis takes carbon from the atmosphere and pulls it down into plant roots; then soil fungi take excess carbon from the roots and store it safely beneath the soil’s surface where it cannot be oxidized.” Check out this excellent three-minute video. https://bit.ly/2I86H30
But how can these natural processes be put into climate change policy?
Regenerative methods speed up the process that was used by roaming herds of ruminants (e.g.: bison on the U.S. prairies). This promising system is planned grazing. Conventional beef production causes terrible environmental and human health problems, traced to transporting and fattening cattle on corn in feedlots. In contrast, a newer approach has multiple environmental benefits — including a significant net climate and human health benefit. Regenerative grazing, is already underway. Farmers are combating climate change, restoring farmland, producing healthier food, and making a decent living.
Here is how this updated grazing method increases carbon sequestration. When a cow eats grass, the plant sends a chemical signal to its roots to shed “exudates” into the soil— sugary bits that attract microbes. Soil fungi eat the exudates and multiply, transferring excess carbon from roots and storing it in waxy structures called glomalin.
Regenerative grazing methods cycle cattle through a series of paddocks day by day, giving each paddock time to regrow grass deep into the soil, before it is grazed again.
Dr. Richard Teague, research ecologist on grazing management, Texas A&M, knows as much as anyone in the world about regenerative grazing, ( Adaptive Multi-Paddock (AMP) grazing. He came with a Ph.D. from South Africa, and followed up with extensive work in the U.S., researching grazing practices, measuring carbon and biomass production. In a 2019 article he said this:
“In the more sophisticated grazing systems we have been studying, there is an order of eight times as much carbon dioxide equivalents being sequestered into the soil as is being emitted by the cattle.
This is if the cattle are on perennial grass. As soon as you take the cattle off permanent grass and feed them corn, their net emissions are increased substantially…When you feed cattle corn, they inherit the corn’s very large carbon footprint.… Being fed only on perennial grass without fossil energy-based inputs creates a strong carbon negative production system.” https://bit.ly/3kWPmby
The U.S.A. could support regenerative grazing by ending subsidies for corn. Cattle producers feed corn because it’s cheap, and it’s cheap because it’s subsidized. 96% of our cattle are fed corn, unnatural food for ruminants, and unhealthy meat for humans!
Check out www.Big Picture Beef, a local company already selling regeneratively grazed, grass-fed beef to a vibrant consumer market, using grazing practices that sequester carbon into the soil. Profitable for farmers, it will be one major way to save life on the planet. But the process needs light, for photosynthesis. You do not get that by spraying chemicals to occlude the sunshine. (Keep that testing at Harvard!)
Pam Kelly, a Greenfield resident, is a Unitarian Universalist activist on environmental, racial and economic justice issues, with support from Ridge Shinn, Lynne Pledger of Big Picture Beef, Hardwick