How a literal grassroots movement can Heal the Land.

[Red Baron Farms]

Why, because we have so much time before it is needed?

We have about 50-100 years to have a plan not only in place, but fully functional and actually drawing down legacy CO2 levels. This is an astonishingly short period of time. It is urgent, but it can be accomplished without panicking.

Difficult when some are so into denial that AGW is even a thing.

What problem? No matter how much you want a bottoms-up solution, it won't get anywhere without buy-in that it is a problem.

Oh, those fancy-shmancy "scientists." What do they know? /sarcasm

The science is robust, but where many scientists have shot themselves in the foot is in delving too deep into other spheres of influence they ought not. Just because a scientist might be spot on correct about AGW , doesn't mean he knows a damn thing about politics, forming coalitions between society and business, marketing, macro-economics etc etc etc... And these are the sorts of factors primarily causing push back.

Despite your optimistic blueprint I don't share your assessment that there is plenty of time to reach this consensus you cherish.

I am not so sure of that myself. I only know that I am absolutely 100% putting all my effort into making it happen.

Yeah, I hope I'm wrong. But I don't see how you get there without any give so far on the part of people who hate science and accept as an article of faith that the short-term profits of monoculture trump stewardship.

I agree it will be much more difficult, but I do have a back-up plan.

This is not the thread for that discussion. But I am interested in how to bring about this global epiphany you believe is, or least can be, right around the corner, without any top-down influence.

What would we call the split thread?

"Toward a new paradigm: Widespread support for permaculture can solve AGW in one generation," maybe. "How a literal grassroots movement can reverse catastrophic climate change."

The thread with be partly off topic in every forum there is in ISF. This is because holistic management means "whole", So the political parts of the plan will be off topic in the science forum and the business forum, the science part of the plan off topic in the political and business forum, and the business part of the plan off topic in the science and political forum. And of course there is more to this than only just science, politics, and business.

And that's just the ground up back-up plan should me and thousands of others be unsuccessful in our top down strategies. Here is the science, politics and economics outline:
Can we reverse Global Warming?

To accomplish the above I cant possibly detail the whole thing here anyway but as a general outline there is a highly profitable business model that I propose we use to organize disparate sectors already present to form a grassroots coalition. They claim that it only takes 10% of the population to cause a revolution if they are dedicated, organized, and funded. I don't know if that's true, but we have an actual majority, so if we organize and fund it correctly, it should work.
So because it is a business plan the profit potential can attract investors, and if the business embedded 20 farm to forks in each of the top 50 US cities, with each farm to fork business seen as a "demonstration farm" for the local sectors and farmers already present; that represents 1000 hubs dedicated to building the infrastructure required to accomplish this profitably even if the government still resists. Each of the hubs educating both other farmers and local customers by the 100's and 1000's each. More importantly, it is 1000 millionaire business people in the local chamber of commerce of their respective local cities, using exactly the same tactics to sway local politicians...and since organized nationally into a sort of nationwide farmers co-op....national politicians too. Once we have "captured" the US with good food, we can push for international.

I'm really interested on how you can boil your position down to 20 words or so. It must be simple to reach simpletons. Not farmers; the GOP.

Others smarter than me already have. You could of course start by not calling GOP simpletons.

"If all farmland was a net sink rather than a net source for CO2, atmospheric CO2 levels would fall at the same time as farm productivity and watershed function improved. This would solve the vast majority of our food production, environmental and human health ‘problems’." Dr. Christine Jones

That one is not bad from a scientific POV.

To the anti-science hard core religious right I would say it differently by using the language that means exactly the same thing, but in a way that communicates this dynamic which emphasizes good stewardship of the land doctrine.

2 Chronicles 7:14 "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."

IMHO a coalition could be formed if we take this approach. There is even a top climate scientist who brings both these to the table, Katharine Hayhoe
She is even on public TV.


As for me the best one I personally was capable of figuring out was this:

There is more carbon missing from our soils worldwide than the additional carbon in the atmosphere since the beginning of the industrial age.

So yes we can reverse Global Warming.

It does not require huge tax increases or expensive untested risky technologies.

It will require a three pronged approach worldwide.

1. Reduce fossil fuel use by replacing energy needs with as many feasible renewables as current technology allows.
2. Change Agricultural methods to high yielding regenerative models of production made possible by recent biological & agricultural science advancements.
3. Large scale ecosystem recovery projects similar to the Loess Plateau project, National Parks like Yellowstone etc. where appropriate and applicable.

I am an organic farmer. I am not afraid of change. I am the change. -

That's obviously more than 20 words, but it is best I have so far. I have been working on condensing it for years into an advertisable soundbite. But it isn't necessarily easy for me. I am not some really great talented writer.

So to pull it all together We take a profitable conservative business model and creatively repeat and use it to affect biophysical, political, and cultural change.

 

[Lurch]

What's a "literal" grassroots movement? Are there "grassroots" movements which aren't? In my view something's either a grassroots thing or it isn't.

What's the critical mass for a grassroots movement to succeed? We see that a minority of deplorables can hoist to power and maintain in place a political party--lead by a raging idiot--that's actively anti-science and anti-environment in the service of short-sighted profit. What makes you think those same deplorables will see sense? I pray you aren't so deluded as to hope progress could result while this Party holds the reins, abetted by an electorate composed in frightful proportion of gullible, credulous, half-educated dullards.

A populace far more conversant in pop culture desiderata and sports stats minutiae than even the most rudimentary basics of science is not a promising foundation upon which to pin hopes for change that it is too myopic to perceive beyond the immediacy of the present moment.

America is in decline.

The Nation that gave us Apollo now hitches rides on Russian rockets. The far-sighted magnanimity of the Marshall Plan has given way to petty squabbling over NATO contributions. Kennedy stood up to Kruschev; Trump buries his nose up Putin's crack. And all the while the somnolent masses are distractedly content with their Kardashians and ball teams, possessing of the most trivial details in entertainment while being grotesquely ignorant in matters of real import for them and their country.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

growing more plants is not a useful way to sequester carbon.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

What's a "literal" grassroots movement? Are there "grassroots" movements which aren't? In my view something's either a grassroots thing or it isn't.

a play on words literally.
Cenozoic Expansion of Grasslands and Climatic Cooling
That is the natural biophysical dynamic we are mimicking in order change modern agriculture from a net source to a net sink. The Liquid Carbon Pathway into the soil via grass roots and their symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi.

What's the critical mass for a grassroots movement to succeed? We see that a minority of deplorables can hoist to power and maintain in place a political party--lead by a raging idiot--that's actively anti-science and anti-environment in the service of short-sighted profit. What makes you think those same deplorables will see sense? I pray you aren't so deluded as to hope progress could result while this Party holds the reins, abetted by an electorate composed in frightful proportion of gullible, credulous, half-educated dullards.

A populace far more conversant in pop culture desiderata and sports stats minutiae than even the most rudimentary basics of science is not a promising foundation upon which to pin hopes for change that it is too myopic to perceive beyond the immediacy of the present moment.

America is in decline.

The Nation that gave us Apollo now hitches rides on Russian rockets. The far-sighted magnanimity of the Marshall Plan has given way to petty squabbling over NATO contributions. Kennedy stood up to Kruschev; Trump buries his nose up Putin's crack. And all the while the somnolent masses are distractedly content with their Kardashians and ball teams, possessing of the most trivial details in entertainment while being grotesquely ignorant in matters of real import for them and their country.

My backup plan only needs one original investment to succeed or fail. If the first proof of concept succeeds, it will self replicate and generate everything that is needed to succeed on the larger scale. At the larger scale it will be large enough to be the required safety net we need to save the country from the collapse that will come if nothing is done in 50-100 years.

I of course can't guarantee the first proof of concept until I actually do it. However, the business model though somewhat unique is actually a trending profitable general type of business. There actually is a huge unfilled marketplace demand that remains unfilled for many reasons. Farm-to-table I am in talks about that though. Not all farm to forks or farm to tables actually sequester net carbon or function as a demonstration farm/community center. However those do exist and are very profitable as well. Most famous of those being Joel Salatin's PolyFace farm.


So although the exact business model I propose still requires a proof of concept investment angel to succeed because technically it is experimental, the principles it will use are actually better proven than you might think at first glance. They and somewhat new but they are trending already. Attach them to the time honored farmers cooperative business model in the creative way I propose the proof of concept and I believe once started that will be the classic snowball rolling downhill and growing as it rolls ever faster.

There actually is historical evidence it can succeed as I describe:

Granger movement, coalition of U.S. farmers, particularly in the Middle West, that fought monopolistic grain transport practices during the decade following the American Civil War. The Granger movement began with a single individual, Oliver Hudson Kelley.

growing more plants is not a useful way to sequester carbon.

Correct. It is useful for fixing carbon, which is different than sequestering it. What happens next determines if it is only a short term fixing of carbon into biomass which will return again to the atmosphere relatively quickly, or if the carbon gets sequestered into geological time frames.

 

[Minoosh]

At the larger scale it will be large enough to be the required safety net we need to save the country from the collapse that will come if nothing is done in 50-100 years.

You say "save the country" - does this model allow for international adoption?

 

[Red Baron Farms]

You say "save the country" - does this model allow for international adoption?

Requires it or whatever other mitigation plan that other country can manage.

 

[Minoosh]

Requires it or whatever other mitigation plan that other country can manage.

I used to think China was pretty good at sustainability - don't know how true that ever was, or if it's changed, but the impression I got from reading is that making food was integrated into almost everbody's life at some time. If your farm animal dies, eat it. If you get a plague of locusts ... eat the locusts.

I've worked at schools that could raise a couple of hogs on what kids throw away. The law requires that a lot of food be thrown away. Last place I worked had sandwiches for kids in extended care but they had to be served with milk. Lots of unopened milks in the trash. Also, no food could be taken home ... some health rule I think. Lots of kids offered me their "baby" carrots and I often scored milk as well.

That probably doesn't have much to do with capturing carbon in soil but it illustrates how much energy is expended making and transporting food that is going to end up in a landfill.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I used to think China was pretty good at sustainability - don't know how true that ever was, or if it's changed, but the impression I got from reading is that making food was integrated into almost everbody's life at some time. If your farm animal dies, eat it. If you get a plague of locusts ... eat the locusts.

I've worked at schools that could raise a couple of hogs on what kids throw away. The law requires that a lot of food be thrown away. Last place I worked had sandwiches for kids in extended care but they had to be served with milk. Lots of unopened milks in the trash. Also, no food could be taken home ... some health rule I think. Lots of kids offered me their "baby" carrots and I often scored milk as well.

That probably doesn't have much to do with capturing carbon in soil but it illustrates how much energy is expended making and transporting food that is going to end up in a landfill.

By the time you count fertilizer, fuel for mechanized planting and harvest, transportation, refrigeration, processing and distribution; the calories of fossil fuels required to feed ourselves compared to the calories of food we actually consume is 10:1. That's 10 calories in for every calorie out.

Of course the localized system I propose can be much much less.

 

[dudalb]

Sorry, but Jefferson's "Yeoman Farmer" ideal has been dead for a long time.