 By Steven Keleti, Karl Thidemann and Seth Itzkan
#1 – Federal: ensure that greater funding for regenerative agriculture and soil health programs is in the Farm Bill. The Senate version has provisions to better support soil health and carbon sequestration, while the House version does not. The provisions in the Senate version need to make it into the final version from conference committee. See, for example: Good Soil Policy in Senate Farm Bill June 13, 2018 Lara Bryant https://www.nrdc.org/experts/lara-bryant/good-soil-policy-senate-farm-bill 5 reasons why the Senate farm bill is a conservation powerhouse By Callie Eideberg / Published: June 27, 2018 http://blogs.edf.org/growingreturns/2018/06/27/5-reasons-senate-farm-bill-conservation/ Conservation for Very Erodible Row Cropland Act of 2018 (COVER Act) https://www.bennet.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2018/6/bennet-introduces-bill-to-promote-soil-health-and-boost-rural-economies #2 – State: ensure that state legislatures have Healthy Soils legislation on their dockets and/or appropriations for increased funding for state soil health programs, which many soil and water conservation districts have. (Note: this is not yet happening, yet legislators could consider funding programs through a fee on fertilizers and/or pesticides, as over-application of fertilizers and pesticides adversely impact soil health, water quality, air quality, drought resilience and stormwater management.) Draft legislation exists for Connecticut, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri, Massachusetts, Kansas, Colorado, Vermont and Oregon, and there is growing interest in several other states. California’s Healthy Soils Initiative is the strongest program thus far. Maryland passed a Healthy Soils bill, yet needs to determine a funding source. Oklahoma has had a small program since 2001. Hawaii funded a small study. New York funded a study toward a Carbon Farming bill. We can help connect people who are interested. #3 – Local: lawns are the biggest “crop” in the United States, and there is growing interest in providing incentives for regenerative agriculture and/or urban habitat on residential properties. This comes up at meetings - “what can I do?” and "what can we do to encourage regenerative practices in residential areas?” In order to provide incentives, legislation at state level may be needed. Bills were filed in Massachusetts the last two sessions to create a local option to allow a revenue-neutral property tax exemption to provide an incentive, but the bills did not move forward.
0 Comments
 "There's five times more carbon is soils than there is in the atmosphere." - Dr. Thomas Goreau. U.S. Congressional Candidate, Physicist Gary Rucinski, Calls Soil Key to Reversing Global Warming7/9/2018  July 9, 2018 - Thetford, Vermont - Gary Rucinski, a Ph.D. physicist running for Congress in Massachusetts’ 4th District on a platform to reverse global warming, said recently that the restoration of degraded grasslands worldwide is essential to tackling climate change, because of the large quantity of atmospheric carbon that would be captured by soil. This CO2 “drawdown” can be achieved, according to Rucinski, through adoption of innovative cropping and grazing practices he referred to, respectively, as “permaculture” and “holistic range management.”
Rucinski stated, “We still have photosynthesis and biology available to us as … technologies that Mother Nature has honed over the last three and half billion years, that we can use to sequester the excess carbon load that’s in the atmosphere today and put it back into soils.” "Primarily the opportunity is on about 15 billion acres worldwide of degraded grasslands ..." “Primarily the opportunity is on about 15 billion acres worldwide of degraded grasslands, where if we simply reintroduce grazing herds and manage them properly, we will be building topsoil, we will be restoring wetlands, and we will be growing grass and building soil in order to allow carbon sequestration to happen naturally,” said Rucinski. Making the case that land restoration and a revenue-neutral carbon tax, another policy goal he has advocated, both offer economic as well as environmental benefits, Rucinski said, “We need to get ranchers generally to be aware of the fact that this is a financial win for them because they make due with fewer inputs, they get higher quality beef, and they can sell that at higher prices. So, again, just like the revenue-neutral carbon tax … getting ranchers and farmers to use permaculture and holistic range management is also a win-win-win for everybody involved.” Rucinski’s comments came during a July 6th livestream interview by Soil4Climate cofounder, Seth Itzkan, in the Facebook group of Soil4Climate Inc. A 2016 paper in the Journal of Soil and Water Conservation showed that well-managed grazing in North America could sequester 790 million tons of atmospheric carbon each year. According to the EPA Greenhouse Gas Calculator, this is equivalent to the annual emissions of 620 million passenger vehicles, more than twice the U.S. passenger vehicle population. Rucinski is formally Northeast Director of Citizens Climate Lobby. His opponent in the Democratic primary is incumbent Joe Kennedy III. A video of Rucinski’s comments quoted above (3 minutes) is at https://tinyurl.com/yd7tx99g A video of the full Rucinski interview (50 minutes) is at https://tinyurl.com/ycyntgx2 Soil4Climate, a U.S.-based nonprofit, nongovernmental organization, advocates for regenerative cropping and grazing practices to improve soil fertility, increase the bionutrient density of food, restore wildlife habitat, prevent flooding, replenish dried-up lakes and rivers, and revitalize pastoral communities while sequestering atmospheric carbon. Media contact: Karl Thidemann Soil4Climate karl.thidemann@gmail.com  Here's the YouTube version of our interview with Ridge Shinn, proprietor of Big Picture Beef. As described earlier, Ridge had the "big picture" in mind for how a thriving grass-fed beef industry in the northeastern part of the United States can help short circuit the CAFOs in the midwest, mitigate global warming, and help solve the American obesity problem. Some highlight quotes are below. "Give me Iowa and I'll change the weather."
- Ridgway F Shinn, Proprietor, Big Picture Beef, 100% grass-fed, grass-finished in America. "If we graze cattle correctly we sequester large amounts of carbon, we fix the water cycle, and we create jobs." - Ridge Shinn. "In those states (of the northeast) over 600,000 beef cattle are born every year...Over 90% of those are aggregated by the cattle dealers and go west to the feedlots....So, our model is to insert ourselves into that movement of the cattle, so, instead of the feeder calves - a year of age - moving west, we aggregate them and put them on our finishing farm, which is a grass forage only finishing farm in the northeast. We have six of them, and we aggregate a big heard. Then, by moving them 2 or 4 times a day, we can actually finish them - make them fat on grass efficiently - harvest them in the northeast and bring them into the northeast market. “ - Ridge Shinn  Soil4Climate Advisory Board Member William Moomaw Joins James Hansen For Historic Congressional Testimony on ClimateJune 23, 2018 - Thetford, Vermont - Thirty years ago today, on June 23rd, 1988, the U.S. government was put on notice that climate change was real and, if not addressed, the consequences would be catastrophic.
On a then relatively rare (though increasingly more common) swelteringly hot day in our nation’s capital, NASA climate scientist James Hansen laid out for Congress a detailed synopsis of the science of global warming, as well as offering what has turned out to be an eerily prescient forecast for the anticipated rise in the world’s temperature. In understated scientific jargon, Hansen ominously reported that, as he had predicted in 1981, the signal of global warming was becoming “louder than the noise of random weather.” Two seats away from Hansen at the witness table was MIT Ph.D. William “Bill” Moomaw, director of the Climate, Energy, and Pollution program at the World Resources Institute, and today a revered member of the Soil4Climate Advisory Board. Describing this momentous occasion, an Associated Press correspondent recorded the following exchange: Sen. Wendell Ford, D-Ky., concerned about his state's coal industry, asked physical chemist William R. Moomaw of the World Resources Institute, a Washington-based policy research organization, if technology could not reduce the harmful emissions. "I'm trying to find a way to use a resource we have," Ford said. Moomaw replied, "I would argue the resource we have in most abundance is the potential for using fossil fuels more efficiently at much lower cost than building any form of power generation." Moomaw’s career in climate science has ranged from helping to craft legislation to regulate chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to protect the ozone hole, to serving as coordinating lead author of the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change chapter on greenhouse gas emissions reduction, and as a lead author of three other IPCC reports (1995, 2005 and 2007). The work of the IPCC was recognized with the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Moomaw is Professor Emeritus of International Environmental Policy at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, where he was the founding director of the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy, the Tufts Climate Initiative, and co-founder of the Global Development and Environment Institute. I serve on the advisory board of Soil4Climate, an organization that has helped to create a global community of awareness and activism around these issues,” said Moomaw. Inspired by Soil4Climate cofounder Seth Itzkan’s accounts of his visits to Zimbabwe to witness the extraordinary ecological restoration work being accomplished by wildlife biologist Allan Savory, Moomaw extended an invitation to Savory to speak at Tufts University. Just two months after his presentation at Tufts in January 2013, Savory delivered his TED talk that has received nearly 5 million views. Most recently, Moomaw’s research has focused on halting the expansion of the bioenergy industry, its greenhouse gas emissions - officially considered “climate neutral” - greater than if an equivalent amount of power had been generated by burning coal. “Having worked as a scientist in the field of climate mitigation for three decades, I have been encouraged to see the increasing recognition that natural systems already slow the growth rate of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. These systems can be managed to further reduce the growth of carbon dioxide by keeping forests intact, and allowing them to continue to grow, protecting and restoring wetlands, and transitioning to regenerative cropping and grazing practices that capture carbon in soil. I serve on the advisory board of Soil4Climate, an organization that has helped to create a global community of awareness and activism around these issues,” said Moomaw. Please join us in our admiration and appreciation for Bill Moomaw, a pioneering climate champion who truly sees the world as a whole, and has devoted a lifetime to assuring its biodiversity and abundance will be the legacy of generations that follow. Media contact: Karl Thidemann Soil4Climate karl.thidemann@gmail.com AP Was There: The Age of Climate Change Begins - The New York Times https://mobile.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/06/18/science/ap-us-sci-30-years-of-warming-ap-was-there.html Game Over for the Climate - James Hansen The New York Times https://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/opinion/game-over-for-the-climate.html William Moomaw Biography http://fletcher.tufts.edu/Fletcher_Directory/Directory/Faculty%20Profile?personkey=67A797D9-CB21-4684-ADAF-388F7ED0DE39 Allan Savory - Reversing Global Warming while Meeting Human Needs Tufts University, January 25, 2013 https://youtu.be/uEAFTsFH_x4 Pruitt Is Wrong on Burning Forests for Energy - William H. Schlesinger, Beverly Law, John Sterman and William R. Moomaw The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/opinion/pruitt-forests-burning-energy.html  By Karl THIDEMANN, Seth ITZKAN, and Bill MCKIBBEN
Across the nation, the first wave of a political movement rooted in agriculture’s role as a climate solution is gathering momentum. Unseen by most city dwellers and suburbanites, a carbon farming revolution is sweeping over the land. Driven by a mix of economic and ecological reasons, a growing number of farmers and ranchers are adopting practices to draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, where it overheats the planet, into soil, where it boosts fertility. Plants have performed this pollution-to-nutrition alchemy nearly forever, with the deep, dark loam found in the world’s breadbaskets attesting to soil’s ability to keep carbon out of the air for thousands of years. Research suggests photosynthesis could “lock up” enough carbon to help civilization avert a climate catastrophe - assuming, of course, emissions from coal, oil, and natural gas are swiftly reduced through the deployment of renewable energy technologies. Converting agriculture, from a net source of greenhouse gases to a net sink, flips the climate imperative from “do less harm” to “do more good,” a proactive planetary healing that recognizes ecological restoration is climate mitigation. As one sign that so-called regenerative agriculture is going mainstream, Kiss The Ground, a California-based advocacy organization, will soon release a soil documentary featuring cameos by a celebrity couple not known for farm activism: Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen. The right policies, of course, will be key to hastening a transition to climate-friendly agriculture, and democracy is answering the call. Healthy soil has risen from an obscure topic to a key issue for a small but swelling cadre of candidates able to think beyond the next election cycle.
Regenerative agriculture candidates have found a home on social media in the Twitter feed of Citizens Regeneration Lobby (CRL), the political lobbying arm of the 850,000-member strong Organic Consumers Association. Alexis Baden-Mayer, director of CRL, notes that the roster of traditional farm issues, such as the regulation of pesticides and fertilizer runoff, has expanded this political season to include recognition of agriculture’s role as the only sector of the economy poised to reverse climate change. “One of the most exciting aspects of regenerative agriculture is how quickly this climate mitigation tool can be ‘switched on.’ Farmers and ranchers can, within a few years, transition to land management practices that make their farms not just carbon-neutral but carbon-negative, sequestering more CO2 than is emitted. The remarkable potential of agriculture to sequester literally billions of tons of carbon annually offers a much needed glimmer of hope on the climate front,” said Baden-Mayer. Elizabeth Kucinich, Board Policy Chair for the Rodale Institute, the oldest organic research organization in America, observes that improving degraded land offers economic and health benefits. “Returning carbon to soil boosts the natural capital of farms by helping farmers become more profitable and, by decreasing nutrient runoff, prevents algal blooms linked to human illness and harm to wildlife,” said Kucinich. Heralded by California’s pioneering Healthy Soils Program, paying farmers to return carbon to soil, and France’s aspirational “4 per 1000” international initiative, encouraging farmers worldwide to enrich soil organic matter by 0.4% each year to stabilize the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, the regenerative agriculture transformation is well underway. It must accelerate, lest the planet bake for millennia. --- Seth Itzkan and Karl Thidemann are co-founders of Soil4Climate, a Vermont-based nonprofit advocating for soil restoration to reverse global warming. Bill McKibben is the Schumann distinguished scholar at Middlebury College and founder of the anti-climate change campaign group 350.org. See May 2019 update here!  -- Notes from Steven Keleti to accommodate the map --
Hello all, Quick summary: We need more help in Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Kansas, Kentucky and Missouri to build momentum. Your help in any state makes it possible to expand the work in every state. Texas and Pennsylvania are top priorities. Latest good news: (Attached is the latest map of the status of state Healthy Soils legislation.) Healthy Soils legislation for Massachusetts reported favorably and referred to House Ways and Means. Draft legislation for Connecticut (deadline Feb 21) discussion with Environment Committee Chairs February 5th went well and Soil and Water Conservation Districts are supportive – on track for this legislation to be filed by deadline. Draft legislation completed for Missouri (deadline Mar 1) - help needed to connect with Missouri supporters! draft removes sales tax exemption on fertilizers, pesticides, and fertilizers and commits that revenue to healthy soils fund. Draft legislation started for Pennsylvania (filing deadline TBD) Interest has been building in several states, including Texas, Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Mexico Please reach out to those you know who may be interested in Healthy Soils legislation to join the Healthy Soils Legislation Google Group: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/healthy-soils-legislation Upcoming deadlines: Connecticut (committee bill filing deadline Feb 21) Kentucky (filing deadline Feb 26) Missouri (filing deadline Mar 1) Ohio (filing deadline TBD) Help is still needed to get bills on the docket! Getting Healthy Soils legislation on the docket increases awareness and education opportunities with legislators and their staffs. Who is interested? Again, the letters on the map, indicating Senate and House members on the Agriculture Committees (chairs and co-chairs in a larger font), show why various states are higher priority, at least as far as shaping what happens in the Agriculture Committees relative to the September 2018 Farm Bill. Because of the lack of transparency from Republican legislators regarding the draft 2018 Farm Bill, a greater focus is being made on healthy soils legislation in states with Republican legislators. Status on selected states: Connecticut – On track for making legislative deadline of committee filing legislation by February 21st. Illinois, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, Kentucky, and Missouri – Initial draft for Healthy Soils legislation done for each state Need more contacts to support legislation Each need a group to be lead supporter for legislation For each state, need to identify legislators who will support healthy soils legislation Massachusetts – Healthy Soils H.3713 reported out favorably – referred to House Ways and Means Need help reaching out to legislators to move forward Need to create cost-benefit summary for legislators who want to have an indication of what funding may be requested later New York – Recommendations for updates to Carbon Farming bill need to be reviewed Need to recommend changes to define “economic value of carbon farming” Need to identify revenue source to offset revenue lost due to carbon tax credits Oregon – 'Clean Energy Jobs' or 'Cap and Invest’, HB4001/SB1507 had first public hearing at 3pm on February 7th Vermont – H.661 An act related to regenerative organic farming Could draft a short Healthy Soils bill to improve/expand 2008 law beyond “cover crops” and “carbon sequestration”, to generate interest as amendment to another bill Best regards, Steven (Keleti) https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/healthy-soils-legislation
Dear Friends, Please help us spread the Soil4Climate movement by singing a verse and chorus of the Soil4Climate theme song, "Brand New Sky." Just make a selfie movie and tag us on Facebook and post with hashtags #BrandNewSky, #Soil4Climate, and #EarthDay. An instrumental version and lyrics and chords are available below and on our Artistic page. This will be fun. Thank you so much!
Lyrics to Brand New Sky
Think of a world where everyone cares About the land that everyone shares Think of the soil that’s under your feet And what it needs to make it complete Under a brand new sky We don’t have to settle for a dying planet There is something we can do We can save the land and everything upon it All it takes is me and you Take a look outside of your door And find a world worth fighting for Where there was once nothing to see Now there is life all around me Under a brand new sky We don’t have to settle for a dying planet There is something we can do We can save the land and everything upon it All it takes is me and you The answer that we’re looking for is soil for climate Put the carbon back in the ground This can be a movement if we get behind it Help us turn the world around We don’t have to settle for a dying planet There is something we can do We can save the land and everything upon it All it takes is me and you © Kevin O’Connor and Seth Itzkan 2016 |
|||||||
RSS Feed
Meet Colleagues on Facebook |
Follow on Twitter
|
See us on Instagram |
Spread the Meme
Soil4Climate Logo for Download - Click for HiRes Versioin
|
Get the Buzz
|
Research |
Copyright © 2018 Soil4Climate Inc. All Rights Reserved.