Title
Cows save the planet and other improbable ways of restoring soil to heal the earth / Judith D. Schwartz ; foreword by Gretel Ehrlich.
ISBN
9781603584326 paperback
1603584323 paperback
Publication Details
White River Junction, Vt. : Chelsea Green Pub., ©2013.
Language
English
Description
xv, 220 pages ; 23 cm
Call Number
QH541.5.S6 S425 2013
Dewey Decimal Classification
577.5/7
Summary
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.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-212) and index.
Ground zero for carbon dioxide reduction is the ground
Carbon trading: nature's version
The making and unmaking of deserts: the grazing paradox
The return of lost water
Beyond eat your vegetables
The more the merrier: biodiversity starts in the soil
The soil grab
Floods, drought, and the Grasslands, LLC, experiment
The soil standard.