Solution to Anthropogenic Climate Change?

[Reality Check]

Jones's numbers are unknown and unsourced, papers not citing her work are irrelevant

Are you drunk again?...

Usual insults and rumors from Red Baron Farms. A rumor of "published case studies" in a farm journal that went bankrupt. A rumor that these case studies support her assertion of 5-20 tonnes CO2e /ha/yr.

The answer as expected to 9 April 2019: What are those conditions? Where are the sources for those numbers?
is: No one knows those conditions. No one knows the sources for those numbers. Thus
10 May 2019: Jones's numbers are unknown and unsourced, thus papers not citing her work are irrelevant.

• Carbon sequestration potential of switchgrass as a bio-energy crop is irrelevant to Jones numbers.
• Soil Carbon Storage by Switchgrass Grown for Bioenergy is irrelevant to Jones numbers.
• Impacts of soil carbon sequestration on life cycle greenhouse gas emissions in Midwestern USA beef finishing systems is massively irrelevant to Jones numbers.

 

[Reality Check]

An ignorant "repeatable" assertion about Jones' results

EXCEPT that her results are very easily repeatable by just about anyone and everyone who tries.

10 May 2019: An ignorant "repeatable" assertion about Jones' results because as he has just stated no one apparently knows about her case studies.

They are decades old case studies published in a defunct "farm journal" with an unknown impact. He has not supplied any citations of those case studies. People can only repeat case studies that have been known to have happened. Not even Jones has repeated those decades old case studies. That is a hint of a scientist abandoning an unfruitful line of research.

A logical conclusion is that these case studies were so obscure or maybe obviously invalid so not one has bothered to repeat them.

 

[Reality Check]

An "Jones was accurate in her case studies" lie

So we have a completely independent confirmation that Jones was accurate in her case studies.

10 May 2019: An "Jones was accurate in her case studies" lie because we have no idea what was in those case studies.

Jones' case studies did not use any Soilkee Renovators because they are recent technology. There is no evidence that her case studies used mulching, etc. as in this project about what looks like 1 farm so far.

 

[Reality Check]

A "published confirmation from the US" lie

I have also given you published confirmation from the US too.

10 May 2019: A "published confirmation from the US" lie

Same reason as before - her vanished case studies about unknown "certain conditions" with unknown calculations make any papers cited not a confirmation of those unknown conditions and calculations. An exception would be a paper citing Jones.

What the US papers state is that

• Switching to switchgrass is a viable way of increasing soil carbon content.
• The carbon emissions involved with feedlots may be neutralized by swapping to adaptive multi-paddock grazing.

 

[Reality Check]

This is easily repeatable by anyone who understand the biophysical process we now refer to as the LCP (liquid carbon pathway). ...

That "we now refer to as" is wrong. Google Scholar for "liquid carbon pathway" suggests that this is a rarely used term (36 results mostly from Jones!).

Fantasies about the fact that soil has carbon in liquid form are not a scientifically supported mechanism for increasing soil carbon content as global warming mitigation.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

A rumor of "published case studies" in a farm journal that went bankrupt. A rumor that these case studies support her assertion of 5-20 tonnes CO2e /ha/yr.

It's not a rumor RC I am not sure exactly what you have against Dr. Jones? But she indeed is a real scientist and was indeed working for CSIRO when she ran those case studies. Those are her published results of the case studies. She has a website called Amazing carbon. Read up on her work. Learn something.

The answer as expected to 9 April 2019: What are those conditions? Where are the sources for those numbers?
is: No one knows those conditions. No one knows the sources for those numbers. Thus
10 May 2019: Jones's numbers are unknown and unsourced, thus papers not citing her work are irrelevant.

• Carbon sequestration potential of switchgrass as a bio-energy crop is irrelevant to Jones numbers.
• Soil Carbon Storage by Switchgrass Grown for Bioenergy is irrelevant to Jones numbers.
• Impacts of soil carbon sequestration on life cycle greenhouse gas emissions in Midwestern USA beef finishing systems is massively irrelevant to Jones numbers.

You are still being stubborn RC. STOP .... TAKE A DEEP BREATH.....THINK CAREFULLY.

All those references are discussing a newly discovered biochemical pathway called the Liquid Carbon Pathway that was completely unknown prior to 1996. This pathway has been found to pump large quantities of carbon into the soil as root exudates to feed symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi that produce glomalin which in itself is very stable, but instead of decaying into CO2, it decays into humic polymers tightly bound to the soil mineral substrate. Because this unique pathway doesn't decay into CO2, a high % (approx 78%+/-) of that carbon is removed from the short term biological carbon cycle and instead enters the long term deep geological times carbon cycle.

Jones is just one of many scientists who have measured the rate at which soil carbon increases when farmers manage their land to optimize this newly discovered LCP.

I gave you several citations, and you are 100% correct. All the others have entirely NOTHING to do with Jones' case studies. They are completely independently done 100%. In fact it is entirely possible some of them don't even know their work is repeating work Dr Jones did 10 years ago! That's how completely independent some of these other teams are!

And yet they are getting the same results!

You could too. I already am in my test plots. This means her work is not some strange outlier. It means her measured results of 5-20 tonnes CO2e/ha/yr are accurate. Here is one of those case studies discussed:

Pasture Cropping: A Regenerative Solution from Down Under

It also means Allan Savory's results discussed in this Ted Talk:
are also being confirmed as accurate.

I don't know what your issue is, I gave you independent confirmation that the rate of sequestration for the LCP is plenty high enough to mitigate or even reverse AGW if applied to enough acreage. Why you now think that because these alternate published results in the same range somehow are invalidated because they are truely independent? That's a complete mystery to me.

I gave you the benefit of the doubt you might be drunk...because otherwise you are just plain stupid. I know you are not stupid, so I deduced you must therefore be drunk. If I was wrong, then I apologize....But it makes your critical thinking capacity begin to be in serious doubt.

 

[JeanTate]

<snip>

It also means Allan Savory's results discussed in this Ted Talk:
are also being confirmed as accurate.

<snip>

I write this very tentatively, as it's a subject I know little about, and have ~zero desire to study.

Is this this the same Savory as the author/proponent of "holistic grazing"? About whose ideas Sierra devoted a lengthy piece in its magazine some time ago?

 

[Red Baron Farms]

I write this very tentatively, as it's a subject I know little about, and have ~zero desire to study.

Is this this the same Savory as the author/proponent of "holistic grazing"? About whose ideas Sierra devoted a lengthy piece in its magazine some time ago?

It is the same. Sierra wrote quite extensively why they think it shouldn't or couldn't work.

Problem though. This is their bias talking, because Sierra's entire hypothesis is falsified by evidence in the field it actually does work. So no matter how convincing their arguments may be, they collapse under the weight of the evidence.

In fact this is what me and RC keep going on about over and over. He has decided that what Savory says can't be right, but then he has no explanation for all the independent lines of evidence it is right. It is causing a normally rational RC to make really silly claims here.

 

[lomiller]

I write this very tentatively, as it's a subject I know little about, and have ~zero desire to study.

Is this this the same Savory as the author/proponent of "holistic grazing"? About whose ideas Sierra devoted a lengthy piece in its magazine some time ago?

Yes. Red Baron Farms is a long time proponent.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=271970

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=257348


I think there is an even older and longer thread out there someplace as well

 

[JeanTate]

It is the same. Sierra wrote quite extensively why they think it shouldn't or couldn't work.

Problem though. This is their bias talking, because Sierra's entire hypothesis is falsified by evidence in the field it actually does work. So no matter how convincing their arguments may be, they collapse under the weight of the evidence.

In fact this is what me and RC keep going on about over and over. He has decided that what Savory says can't be right, but then he has no explanation for all the independent lines of evidence it is right. It is causing a normally rational RC to make really silly claims here.

Thanks.

My memory of the article (plural actually) is hazy (I should try to dig it up and/or find an online copy), but two things I do remember:
a) they (or rather the author/s) tried very hard to get Savory to present objective evidence (he didn't/couldn't, merely lots of pretty pictures, no data), and
b) they were unable to find anyone - from the likes of a university ag department - who had objective evidence that Savory's ideas worked (at best the people they interviewed said the evidence was equivocal, at worst inconsistent with Savory's claims).

Of course, like everyone, Sierra makes mistakes. However, on this topic, they came across to me as having really done their homework. I wonder what evidence - which was available at the time they did their research - they missed?

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Yes. Red Baron Farms is a long time proponent.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=271970

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=257348


I think there is an even older and longer thread out there someplace as well

I first found out about Savory specifically in 2012. I investigated all the literature I could find on this for several months and by April 2013 I was pretty sure he was onto something and that's when I started my own trials integrating perennial grasses into vegetable production. All the beneficial side effects mentioned by Savory like increased soil moisture in drought, increased infiltration in heavy rain events, increased soil carbon deep in the A and B horizons of the soil and even increased biodiversity are being seen here as well.

 

[JeanTate]

Continuing a discussion, from the Nuclear power plants thread, which belongs here. I'll copy just one post; it captures most of the key ideas:

Cross-purposes.

A carbon tax, of the kind I mentioned, would be very inefficient for removing carbon from the atmosphere, because it acts to push economic actors to reduce net carbon emissions to zero (or some level much below current).

To avoid ocean acidification to the point of wiping out almost all oceanic shellfish, the level of CO2 in the atmosphere needs to be reduced. Quite a lot (and it may be too late anyway).

Killing two birds with one stone is not inefficient cross purposes working against each other! Instead it is dual purposes working in very efficient harmony together! There is a huge difference.

And yes the tax of the kind you mentioned would be inefficient at actually removing CO2 from the atmosphere. However, the dividend structure I mentioned corrects this shortfall. That was my point.

First, "cap and trade" is inefficient, compared with a carbon tax.

Compared with everything.

Second, a carbon tax to keep global temperature rise to below 1.5C by 2030 (say) needs to be far more widely (and rigorously) applied than hithertofore. And far bigger.

yes

One terrific feature of a robust carbon tax is that it leaves the "how" of getting to zero net carbon emission up to each economic actor. And we know that technical answers to "how" are already widely known, for almost all types of economic activity; and the marketplace will quite quickly and efficiently find good answers.

100% agreed. And the exact same dynamic for sequestration will also apply to a robust verified dividend.

Directing some of the revenue raised by a carbon tax to R&D on various "how"s might be warranted in some cases, but by far the best thing to do is use the revenue to reduce other forms of taxation.

Which my proposal would do by eliminating the entire current farm bill subsidies on excess grain production.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Not maybe, certainly.

The key points are a) there are lots of ideas floating around, b) not all central grid electricity utilities (or beef farmers) are the same.

Exactly and a robust tax combined with a robust verified dividend for sequestration will make winners out of those sectors of the economy with the least emissions and the most sequestration, and losers out of those refusing to change to more advanced balanced carbon technologies.

(my hilite)

What is this (proposal/dividend structure/whatever)? Sorry if I missed it, earlier in this thread or elsewhere.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Thanks.

My memory of the article (plural actually) is hazy (I should try to dig it up and/or find an online copy), but two things I do remember:
a) they (or rather the author/s) tried very hard to get Savory to present objective evidence (he didn't/couldn't, merely lots of pretty pictures, no data), and
b) they were unable to find anyone - from the likes of a university ag department - who had objective evidence that Savory's ideas worked (at best the people they interviewed said the evidence was equivocal, at worst inconsistent with Savory's claims).

Of course, like everyone, Sierra makes mistakes. However, on this topic, they came across to me as having really done their homework. I wonder what evidence - which was available at the time they did their research - they missed?

Savory made several testable claims aside from the cases he presented in his Ted Talk and his own project which won the Buckminster Fuller award.1

Starting with his main claim regarding desertification. The soil moisture content in arid areas under his style of management is a good non-biased measurement that can be taken that is pertinent to desertification and its reversal.

Effect of grazing on soil-water content in semiarid rangelands of southeast Idaho

Notice that not only does his holistic planned grazing result in more soil moisture than the rest rotation grazing most commonly used in the region, it also is an improvement over the control of no grazing at all!

"soil-water content is the
principal determinant of productivity and the primary driver of
rangeland condition in semiarid ecosystems."

There are other properties too though. These can be measured objectively too. For the purposes of this discussion soil carbon is a big one.

Grazing management impacts on vegetation, soil biota and soil chemical,
physical and hydrological properties in tall grass prairie

Again Savory's management system for grazing, (called adaptive multi-paddock grazing in this study) shows improvement over other types of grazing and improvement over the control of no grazing at all here too! And the rate of increase of soil carbon is indeed high enough that if applied over 100% of all rangeland would indeed offset emissions.

So if we were to actually reduce emissions and change land management to Savory's holistic management, then it would indeed bring about the Draw Down of atmospheric CO2.

So his two main claims of greening desertified land and sequestration of carbon at a high enough rate and scale to reverse AGW both have published evidences supporting them that were around long before Sierra wrote that in 2017.

Of course there is a lot more to the discussion, like the biophysical and biochemical processes that describe causation....but none of that matters until you first show he has found a method that has results worth investigating to begin with. He has. It works

Ironically I don't even raise cows, but when I started investigating these biochemical and biophysical processes that make Holistic Management work, I figured out a way to incorporate them into what I am doing with vegetables too!

 

[JeanTate]

Thanks RBF.

Savory made several testable claims aside from the cases he presented in his Ted Talk and his own project which won the Buckminster Fuller award.1

Starting with his main claim regarding desertification. The soil moisture content in arid areas under his style of management is a good non-biased measurement that can be taken that is pertinent to desertification and its reversal.

Effect of grazing on soil-water content in semiarid rangelands of southeast Idaho

Notice that not only does his holistic planned grazing result in more soil moisture than the rest rotation grazing most commonly used in the region, it also is an improvement over the control of no grazing at all!

"soil-water content is the
principal determinant of productivity and the primary driver of
rangeland condition in semiarid ecosystems."

There are other properties too though. These can be measured objectively too. For the purposes of this discussion soil carbon is a big one.

Grazing management impacts on vegetation, soil biota and soil chemical,
physical and hydrological properties in tall grass prairie

Again Savory's management system for grazing, (called adaptive multi-paddock grazing in this study) shows improvement over other types of grazing and improvement over the control of no grazing at all here too! And the rate of increase of soil carbon is indeed high enough that if applied over 100% of all rangeland would indeed offset emissions.

So if we were to actually reduce emissions and change land management to Savory's holistic management, then it would indeed bring about the Draw Down of atmospheric CO2.

So his two main claims of greening desertified land and sequestration of carbon at a high enough rate and scale to reverse AGW both have published evidences supporting them that were around long before Sierra wrote that in 2017.

Of course there is a lot more to the discussion, like the biophysical and biochemical processes that describe causation....but none of that matters until you first show he has found a method that has results worth investigating to begin with. He has. It works

Ironically I don't even raise cows, but when I started investigating these biochemical and biophysical processes that make Holistic Management work, I figured out a way to incorporate them into what I am doing with vegetables too!

As I mentioned above, I have zero desire to spend time learning (more) about this. Perhaps my biggest puzzle is why Savory did not provide the Sierra journalists with at least pointers to the objective evidence they asked for (persistently, from my hazy memory of the article)? And again from hazy memory, the Sierra issue led to a lot of mail (as you'd expect)! Yet none of what I remember of what was published (again, Sierra seems to have a good track record here IMHO) even hinted at objective evidence (i.e. papers published in relevant peer-reviewed journals) the journos had missed.

 

[JeanTate]

I found the Sierra article; it's by Christopher Ketcham and is dated 23 February, 2017: Allan Savory's Holistic Management Theory Falls Short on Science

To me, having re-read it, the most damning parts have to do with science; some examples (my formatting):

"I [Christopher Kectham] studied an informational sheet he had handed me when we met. It explained why he couldn't talk about the science behind his methodology. "Holistic management does not permit replication," said the document, which Savory had authored. "This point is critical to understanding the great difficulty reductionist scientists are experiencing trying to comprehend holistic planned grazing—because no two plans are ever the same even on the same property two years running." A stunning admission appeared a few lines lower: "Every study of holistic planned grazing that has been done has provided results that are rejected by range scientists because there was no replication!""

"Experimental validation, of course, offers the best process for evaluating whether holistic management works. But Savory rejects that possibility. "You'll find the scientific method never discovers anything," he told a journalist for Range magazine, which profiled him in 1999. "Observant, creative people make discoveries. But the scientific method protects us from cranks like me.""

There are also links to the mail this article generated, and a letter from the editor.

 

[Red Baron Farms]

Thanks RBF.

As I mentioned above, I have zero desire to spend time learning (more) about this. Perhaps my biggest puzzle is why Savory did not provide the Sierra journalists with at least pointers to the objective evidence they asked for (persistently, from my hazy memory of the article)? And again from hazy memory, the Sierra issue led to a lot of mail (as you'd expect)! Yet none of what I remember of what was published (again, Sierra seems to have a good track record here IMHO) even hinted at objective evidence (i.e. papers published in relevant peer-reviewed journals) the journos had missed.

The biggest problem I see is that Savory absolutely rejects any attempt at reductionist investigation of his holistic management. He claims that the function of the whole is compromised by the process of reducing it into its component parts because much of what happens is actually the result of unexpected emergent properties of the system taken as a whole.

Even when reductionist science does indeed find confirmation of a bit or part, he doesn't trust it to be consistent. He claims to have spent 30 years figuring out these issues and thinks any attempt to verify this with reductionist science will fail.

Personally I don't agree with him. I believe it can be reduced to its components like the two studies above did and like the biophysical and biochemical has also been partially done. However, it does take a bit of mental gymnastics to think about this from both a holistic view and a reductionist view simultaneously. I can understand the difficulties in doing that for many. And I do agree that we must be very very careful we don't lose an emergent property when scientifically breaking this down to its component parts.