Rewarding Farmers to Sequester Carbon - Michael Pollan

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/05/05/Michael_Pollan_Deep_Agriculture

"Estimates are between 10-15% of all atmospheric carbon could be returned to the soil with sustainable agriculture practices," says author Michael Pollan. He suggests developing a method to measure and reward farmers for sequestering carbon.

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Farming has become an occupation and cultural force of the past. Michael Pollan's talk promoted the premise -- and hope -- that farming can become an occupation and force of the future. In the past century American farmers were given the assignment to produce lots of calories cheaply, and they did. They became the most productive humans on earth. A single farmer in Iowa could feed 150 of his neighbors. That is a true modern miracle.

"American farmers are incredibly inventive, innovative, and accomplished. They can do whatever we ask them, we just need to give them a new set of requirements." - The Long Now Foundation

Michael Pollan is the author of The Omnivores Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, a New York Times bestseller. His previous books include The Botany of Desire: A Plants-Eye View of the World (2001); A Place of My Own (1997); and Second Nature (1991). A contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, Pollan is the recipient of numerous journalistic awards, including the James Beard Award for best magazine series in 2003 and the Reuters-I.U.C.N. 2000 Global Award for Environmental Journalism. Pollan served for many years as executive editor of Harpers Magazine and is now the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at UC Berkeley. His articles have been anthologized in Best American Science Writing 2004, Best American Essays 2003, and the Norton Book of Nature Writing. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, the painter Judith Belzer, and their son, Isaac.

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[PSK11489]

Three years ago you could have said that. Now there's more proof than we can handle. No one, not even the government or even fuel companies, is denying it anymore. Get with the times.

And Michael Pollan isn't a "carbon person", he's a journalist who's writen some of the most revered works on nutritional science and evolutionary botany in the last decade. To avoid looking like a moron in the inevitable round 2, try doing some homework and stop acting like an intellectually-blind cocksure teen.

[tdsinfo]

Yawn. Get with the times indeed. You go off like this with the same tired vitriol and you reveal yourself as the crazy one.

[bigalhorse1]

@matzner21 -anymore, much of the industrialized world isnt applying manure to fields, to get their p and k they are using a potash/phosphorus mix from natural potash and phosphorus rocks. so the moral of the story is to know your shit before u try talking it to someone with first hand experience, secondly is that organic farmers use up more fossil fuels by NOT conforming to new ways, (we do things do be economical not industrialized). and thirdly...I FARM. YOU EAT. ENJOY!

[bigalhorse1]

@matzner21 -u wanna talk fossil fuels and farming?? if i didnt spray my corn field ONE time a year for weeds and bugs, it would take up to an extra FIVE trips across every acre of my field to keep the weeds cultivated down. further more, what u are referring to with the killing of marine life in the gulf is an effect from applying livestock manure to fields, not herbicides/insecticides etc, those are bound to soil. and in case u werent aware, organic farmers apply manure. i farm. u eat. period.

[matzner21]

@bigalhorse1 Organic farming doesn' require the use of fertilizers/pesticides, of which are made by producing carbon emissions, and how are they spread? by crop dusting/spraying (both of which requires gasoline) so yes it does have something to do with it, not as part of photosynthesis but further down the line, your comment suggests that you dont think about the effects industrialized farming has had on our planet, ex. marine wildlife being depleted in the Gulf of Mexico, the effects are vast

[bigalhorse1]

growing crops in general takes carbon out of the atmosphere, and organic has nothing to do with it, its simple plant biology. this guy has a sly way of talking bullshit with a smile on his face.

[giannamarie96]

gianna is a pollcat lover

[tdsinfo]

There persists confusion between natural climate patterns and anthro forcings. Millions of yrs of carbon has been burned into the atmos. in barely 200 years - not part of the natural climate cycle. To dismiss it plays a grand experiment on the climate that flies in the face, at the veryleast, of sound risk mgmt.

Regarding the warming of the solar sys., I will let you comment if you like. Explain methods of data collection, analysis, modeling- compare Earth's climate with other planets.

[mushmouth4life]

ok, so how much will it cost to focus on this 10-20% as opposed to just focusing on the other 80-90%

[walkerindarkness]

Will you address the similar rise in temperatures through out the solar system?

I reject your premise that the life cycle of co2 disconnects it's upward thermal influence from the downward thermal influence of the water cycle.

The difference in cycle life of co2 to water plays no role in net global temperature when averaged over time due to the extreme amount of water in the atmosphere and 2/3-3/4 of the surface is covered.

It is my premise the water cycle regulates global temps.

[tdsinfo]

Every scientist knows that water vapor is the prominent naturally occurring 'greenhouse gas' - you say this as if you are letting some big, ugly secret out of the bag.

What you fail to mention, either through intent or ignorance, is that water vapor cycles through the atmosphere in hours or days. Carbon stays in the atmosphere for decades or more. Leave Al Gore out if it (if you can) and try to learn the whole story. Though that is probably something you aren't interested in. Pity.