Should NSF become a part of the next election debate?
Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 12:07 pm
Everyone is now aware of the scientific and anecdotal evidence for climate change and global warning.
Here in Australia, we are witnessing the drying up of the great Murray Darling Basin system, which up to this time has supplied nearly 70% of our food and fibre.
The Prime Minister's announcement that unless we get more rain into the MDB, 55,000 farmers will no longer be able to draw on water for agriculture. And the PM's response "we need to pray for rain".
The PM may not realise that it does'nt rain on deserts. The MDB has been drained and this loss of water in the whole system has meant that we have heated the surrounding landscape. That, together, with the removal of vast areas of natural vegetation, have been the two most important reasons for the calamitous situation we find ourselves in. We could potentially be witnessing the decline of civilisation as we know it.
And while Nero fiddles, Rome burns.
Peter Andrews has had a very simple message to restore the balance in the landscape, which can potentially be one solution to climate change and global warming. It is the one thing that has been missing from all the models on climate change and the one solution that can give us the greatest chance to turn things around. We keep forgetting the enormous importance of the water cycle and vegetation. Professor Wilhem Ripl claims this in his paper "Memorandum on Climate Change" and talks about the role of water cycles and plants have on moderating both local climate and global climates. He fully endorses what Peter Andrews has been saying.
We can surely all remember making a glass terrarium, filling it with charcoal, potting medium and plants, watering it and then putting the lid on it. It self-sustained itself, recycling both its water and nutrients. On a bigger scale, regions and countries and their landscapes operated on the same basis. Take the plants out of the terrarium and soon the whole thing dries up and desertifies. The broader landscape is no different to the terrarium only the scale is different.
The Australian continent went thru a similiar climate change aeons ago, as we are going thru today, when it broke away from Gondwanaland and lost its connection to all the rivers that connected it to Antartica. This left three great floodplains without any water supply and Nature needed to evolve a new landscape that contained the most unique efficient water and nutrient cycles on Earth, that provided settlers when they first arrived here 200 years ago with between 4,000 and 20,000 year old carbons in the soils. Today those same soils have between 2-4 years of carbon in them.
We will soon be publishing the Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Natural Sequence Farming on the nsfarming.com website.
The findings and the papers offer solutions to our vexed questions.
I would implore everyone to keep the website in their favourites and view often.
The issues that confront us all are way above politics and political manipulations. Inclusivity and innovative solutions will be the beacon that shines forth and gives us the path to sustainability for current and future generations.
Here in Australia, we are witnessing the drying up of the great Murray Darling Basin system, which up to this time has supplied nearly 70% of our food and fibre.
The Prime Minister's announcement that unless we get more rain into the MDB, 55,000 farmers will no longer be able to draw on water for agriculture. And the PM's response "we need to pray for rain".
The PM may not realise that it does'nt rain on deserts. The MDB has been drained and this loss of water in the whole system has meant that we have heated the surrounding landscape. That, together, with the removal of vast areas of natural vegetation, have been the two most important reasons for the calamitous situation we find ourselves in. We could potentially be witnessing the decline of civilisation as we know it.
And while Nero fiddles, Rome burns.
Peter Andrews has had a very simple message to restore the balance in the landscape, which can potentially be one solution to climate change and global warming. It is the one thing that has been missing from all the models on climate change and the one solution that can give us the greatest chance to turn things around. We keep forgetting the enormous importance of the water cycle and vegetation. Professor Wilhem Ripl claims this in his paper "Memorandum on Climate Change" and talks about the role of water cycles and plants have on moderating both local climate and global climates. He fully endorses what Peter Andrews has been saying.
We can surely all remember making a glass terrarium, filling it with charcoal, potting medium and plants, watering it and then putting the lid on it. It self-sustained itself, recycling both its water and nutrients. On a bigger scale, regions and countries and their landscapes operated on the same basis. Take the plants out of the terrarium and soon the whole thing dries up and desertifies. The broader landscape is no different to the terrarium only the scale is different.
The Australian continent went thru a similiar climate change aeons ago, as we are going thru today, when it broke away from Gondwanaland and lost its connection to all the rivers that connected it to Antartica. This left three great floodplains without any water supply and Nature needed to evolve a new landscape that contained the most unique efficient water and nutrient cycles on Earth, that provided settlers when they first arrived here 200 years ago with between 4,000 and 20,000 year old carbons in the soils. Today those same soils have between 2-4 years of carbon in them.
We will soon be publishing the Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Natural Sequence Farming on the nsfarming.com website.
The findings and the papers offer solutions to our vexed questions.
I would implore everyone to keep the website in their favourites and view often.
The issues that confront us all are way above politics and political manipulations. Inclusivity and innovative solutions will be the beacon that shines forth and gives us the path to sustainability for current and future generations.