Postive Climate News: Carbon Cowboys and Regenerative Farming

As I wrote previously, I want to start combining our good news posts with climate solutions. I want to highlight good people doing good things in regard to the climate crisis. It’s important to know, despite what is often a deluge of bad news on the climate, good things are happening. I’ll be highlighting regenerative farming for the next few posts because I love how it bridges generational issues, political divides and brings disparate folks together.

And quail. For some reason, as you will see, quail are a big deal in these farming communities. As someone who lived on a National Seashore property as a kid, which meant it had to be left as natural as possible, I can attest to the joy of seeing quail and their chicks walk across the yard and hear their calls. I was glad to see I am not alone.

Part 1 of 10

Gabe Brown, Allen Williams and Neil Dennis were all going out of business with their conventional grazing – then nature forced their hand to try grazing without chemicals because they couldn’t afford them anymore. They are now the pioneers in regenerative grazing – replacing the specter of bankruptcy with resiliency. These ranchers regenerate their soils which makes their animals healthier and their operations more profitable. Robust soils enable rainwater to sink into the earth rather than run off; and retain that water, so the ranches are much more resilient in drought. Filmed in Starkville, Mississippi: Bismarck, North Dakota; Wawona, Saskatchewan, Canada

I’m starting with the Carbon Cowboys documentary, Roots So Deep. I’ll break it up over a few posts, but you can go to their website here or their YouTube page here to watch all of it now, read more about their research, and see where they are at in understanding the carbon capture aspect of this journey.

Fourth generation cattleman Will Harris shares his evolution from industrial, commodity cowboy to sustainable, humane food producer. A growing group of consumers look at beef consumption as a terrible environmental and moral choice. Harris’s work in southwest Georgia shows how he produces healthy beef that regenerates his soils and allow the animals to express their natural instincts. The 150+ jobs he has created are breathing new life into a community left behind and forgotten due to, as Will says, the industrialization of agriculture. Filmed in Bluffton, Georgia

Part 2 of 10

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It’s not just farmers adding solutions to the climate issues. Beavers are important participants in climate change solutions, too (I will also be highlighting other rewilding projects that have brought more changes than anyone thought possible)

More and more scientists are starting to ask the question: Could beavers be the ally we’ve been waiting for when it comes to saving the environment? Travel with host Joe Hanson to Central Oregon where a group of scientists set up a kind of beaver laboratory to learn more about the crepuscular creatures. We’ll also speak with a scientist who studies how beavers help to mitigate wildfire and drought.

California’s drought is a multi-billion dollar issue that we’ve dumped a lot of resources into, but climate scientists are finding that working with what nature provides could be more effective than our synthetic solutions. They say sometimes, you just gotta leave it to the beavers. (TaMara: groan)

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And finally, from bogs to cranberries and back to bogs:

Commenter Marion sent me a link, long ago, for a “Good News” site and I doubt she’d expect me to use it first in a Climate Solutions post, but that was the lead story when I clicked over:

Cranberry Growers Are Bringing Wetlands Back from the Dead

Though she and Schulman were only first-generation, they’d envisioned keeping the roughly 600 acres of legacy farmland pieced together into Tidmarsh Farms in their own family for many years to come. That looked unlikely if they kept growing cranberries — and impossible if the land wound up in the hands of a developer. So in 2008, Davenport retired from the media research lab she’d founded at MIT and went all in on conservation. It was the beginning of a multi-year effort to revive vanished wetlands that would bring new life not only to her property, but to an entire industry increasingly burdened by climate change, while doing some good for the climate in the process. Continue reading…

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And finally this video summarizes information I have been reading in a few places. (Simon is a Dr in atmospheric physics and his videos are pretty easy to understand and full of good information)