Cows save the planet and other improbable ways of restoring soil to heal the earth
By: Judith D. Schwartz ; foreword by Gretel Ehrlich
Publisher: Chelsea Green Pub.
Published: 2013
Place of publication: White River Junction, Vt
Language: eng
Number of pages: 220
ISBN-13: 9781603584326; 9781603584333
Subjects: Conservation du sol; Soil restoration; Soil ecology; Protection du sol; Ecologie
Description: In Cows Save the Planet, journalist Judith D. Schwartz looks at soil as a crucible for our many overlapping environmental, economic, and social crises. Drawing on the work of thinkers and doers, renegade scientists and institutional whistleblowers, Schwartz challenges much of the conventional thinking about global warming and other problems. For example, land can suffer from undergrazing as well as overgrazing, since certain landscapes, such as grasslands, require the disturbance from livestock to thrive. Regarding climate, when we focus on carbon dioxide, we neglect the central role of water in soil - "green water"--In temperature regulation. And much of the carbon dioxide that burdens the atmosphere is not the result of fuel emissions, but from agriculture; returning carbon to the soil not only reduces carbon dioxide levels but also enhances soil fertility. Cows Save the Planet is at once a primer on soil's pivotal role in our ecology and economy, a call to action, and an antidote to the despair that environmental news so often leaves us with.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 211-212) and index.
Table of contents: title: Ground zero for carbon dioxide reduction is the ground --; title: Carbon trading: nature's version --; title: The making and unmaking of deserts: the grazing paradox --; title: The return of lost water --; title: Beyond eat your vegetables --; title: The more the merrier: biodiversity starts in the soil --; title: The soil grab --; title: Floods, drought, and the Grasslands, LLC, experiment --; title: The soil standard.