Wollongong [12833]

Desertification isn't bad...?

How do we, or anything in our biosphere, get better if we have more dry land?

And can you support your claims that he's lying?

MachineGunSteve [184119]

The thing that really sticks out for me is just how little we humans know.

In the 1970's it was sold to the public to use plastic to save trees. This guy killed 40,000 elephants to save the grassland. In the Americas all the buffalo were killed off in the span of 75 years or so, and then we wondered why we had the dust bowl when we plowed up all the land to grow wheat, and then FDR spent millions on a make work program trying to plant trees to prevent another dust bowl... 

My point is that today's solution often ends up being tomorrows problem.

The problem is simple.

Too many people.

The solution is not so simple.

 

MachineGunSteve [184119]

The thing that really sticks out for me is just how little we humans know.

In the 1970's it was sold to the public to use plastic to save trees. This guy killed 40,000 elephants to save the grassland. In the Americas all the buffalo were killed off in the span of 75 years or so, and then we wondered why we had the dust bowl when we plowed up all the land to grow wheat, and then FDR spent millions on a make work program trying to plant trees to prevent another dust bowl... 

My point is that today's solution often ends up being tomorrows problem.

The problem is simple.

Too many people.

The solution is not so simple.

 

dunmugmeh [538353]

Yes the main problem is that there are too many people.

Every single one of us places a huge burden on the ecosystem.

That is the one over riding thing which  places a strain on the environment.

Im not a vegetarian far from it. But sometimes days go by when i dont eat any meat.

Some people eat meat multiple times a day.

The costs on the environment of raising cattle to give us that meat is very high.

Some of us do need to eat a lot less meat.

But even if all of us only ate meat once or twice a week there would still be a problem.

There are too many of us and we place strains on the environment in other ways.

If you dont get what im saying about meat check how large the cattle/poultry industry is worldwide. 

All those animals need feeding etc, just for us to eat more meat.

We all need to eat less meat.

 

Wollongong [12833]

Desertification isn't bad...?

How do we, or anything in our biosphere, get better if we have more dry land?

And can you support your claims that he's lying?

Quickdraw [915500]

No desertification is not bad, it just depends on what your objective is. Desertification is a term that is supposed to sound bad, which is why we don't really use it anymore. But for example, shrublands typically store more carbon in the soil than grasslands. The transition from grasslands to shrublands is what a lot of people call desertification because you get an increase in bare soil with shrublands. But also, that increase in bare soil actually helps facilitate focused groundwater recharge and increases streamflow. So shrublands can produce more water for human use and store more carbon from the atmosphere. But grasslands support grazing, they also support native species that play important roles in the food web and provide ecosystem services. So desertification can be good or bad or neutral depending on what you want to get out of the land. But deserts in general are not bad for the biosphere. Contrary to the old way of thinking, there is enormous biodiversity in drylands and they play really important roles in the earth system so drylands are not bad.

It is not exactly that he is lying, but there is no way to know if what he is saying is true. This discussion is going to get a little pedantic, but I don't know a way around that, apologies in advance. Part of his whole idea is that you have to treat each ecosystem as a whole, which means that each system is unique. That means there is no way to replicate anything he does to actually check if his ideas worked or if something else caused an increase in grass cover. The way that scientific thinking works is to break those systems into smaller parts that we can build an understanding of how all those smaller parts work, and then we put it back together and have an understanding of how the whole works. Savory is trying to work the other direction, but that way you can't prove if anything you do works because there are many other variables that are changing as well. There are many reasons that an ecosystem might go from grassland to shrubland or vice versa, including fire patterns, climate change, grazing patterns, rainfall patterns, rodent populations, lagamorph populations etc. This goes directly against his claims that oxidizing grass is a problem, no studies have shown that to be true. 

It is good that he is trying to get people to think about systems as a whole and how many different things interact, but since there is no scientific backing to his story, he is just a snake oil salesman. If you are interested in learning more I can send you links to many papers quickly because I know the literature well, but I am assuming you aren't super interested in reading hundreds of pages of technical reports. 

Edit: I guess his title is lying, "how to green the worlds deserts"... That is not possible, deserts are not green because they don't have water, the only way to green them would be to add more water. 

Wollongong [12833]

Desertification isn't bad...?

How do we, or anything in our biosphere, get better if we have more dry land?

And can you support your claims that he's lying?

Quickdraw [915500]

No desertification is not bad, it just depends on what your objective is. Desertification is a term that is supposed to sound bad, which is why we don't really use it anymore. But for example, shrublands typically store more carbon in the soil than grasslands. The transition from grasslands to shrublands is what a lot of people call desertification because you get an increase in bare soil with shrublands. But also, that increase in bare soil actually helps facilitate focused groundwater recharge and increases streamflow. So shrublands can produce more water for human use and store more carbon from the atmosphere. But grasslands support grazing, they also support native species that play important roles in the food web and provide ecosystem services. So desertification can be good or bad or neutral depending on what you want to get out of the land. But deserts in general are not bad for the biosphere. Contrary to the old way of thinking, there is enormous biodiversity in drylands and they play really important roles in the earth system so drylands are not bad.

It is not exactly that he is lying, but there is no way to know if what he is saying is true. This discussion is going to get a little pedantic, but I don't know a way around that, apologies in advance. Part of his whole idea is that you have to treat each ecosystem as a whole, which means that each system is unique. That means there is no way to replicate anything he does to actually check if his ideas worked or if something else caused an increase in grass cover. The way that scientific thinking works is to break those systems into smaller parts that we can build an understanding of how all those smaller parts work, and then we put it back together and have an understanding of how the whole works. Savory is trying to work the other direction, but that way you can't prove if anything you do works because there are many other variables that are changing as well. There are many reasons that an ecosystem might go from grassland to shrubland or vice versa, including fire patterns, climate change, grazing patterns, rainfall patterns, rodent populations, lagamorph populations etc. This goes directly against his claims that oxidizing grass is a problem, no studies have shown that to be true. 

It is good that he is trying to get people to think about systems as a whole and how many different things interact, but since there is no scientific backing to his story, he is just a snake oil salesman. If you are interested in learning more I can send you links to many papers quickly because I know the literature well, but I am assuming you aren't super interested in reading hundreds of pages of technical reports. 

Edit: I guess his title is lying, "how to green the worlds deserts"... That is not possible, deserts are not green because they don't have water, the only way to green them would be to add more water. 

Wollongong [12833]

Too much to respond to. But desertification. He says bare land exiles co2. You say it doesn't.  He says this is shocking as the literature tells us different. You point at the literature.

I'd say his claims are worth further research. After all, there was a time when literature said the planet is flat....

Wollongong [12833]

Desertification isn't bad...?

How do we, or anything in our biosphere, get better if we have more dry land?

And can you support your claims that he's lying?

Quickdraw [915500]

No desertification is not bad, it just depends on what your objective is. Desertification is a term that is supposed to sound bad, which is why we don't really use it anymore. But for example, shrublands typically store more carbon in the soil than grasslands. The transition from grasslands to shrublands is what a lot of people call desertification because you get an increase in bare soil with shrublands. But also, that increase in bare soil actually helps facilitate focused groundwater recharge and increases streamflow. So shrublands can produce more water for human use and store more carbon from the atmosphere. But grasslands support grazing, they also support native species that play important roles in the food web and provide ecosystem services. So desertification can be good or bad or neutral depending on what you want to get out of the land. But deserts in general are not bad for the biosphere. Contrary to the old way of thinking, there is enormous biodiversity in drylands and they play really important roles in the earth system so drylands are not bad.

It is not exactly that he is lying, but there is no way to know if what he is saying is true. This discussion is going to get a little pedantic, but I don't know a way around that, apologies in advance. Part of his whole idea is that you have to treat each ecosystem as a whole, which means that each system is unique. That means there is no way to replicate anything he does to actually check if his ideas worked or if something else caused an increase in grass cover. The way that scientific thinking works is to break those systems into smaller parts that we can build an understanding of how all those smaller parts work, and then we put it back together and have an understanding of how the whole works. Savory is trying to work the other direction, but that way you can't prove if anything you do works because there are many other variables that are changing as well. There are many reasons that an ecosystem might go from grassland to shrubland or vice versa, including fire patterns, climate change, grazing patterns, rainfall patterns, rodent populations, lagamorph populations etc. This goes directly against his claims that oxidizing grass is a problem, no studies have shown that to be true. 

It is good that he is trying to get people to think about systems as a whole and how many different things interact, but since there is no scientific backing to his story, he is just a snake oil salesman. If you are interested in learning more I can send you links to many papers quickly because I know the literature well, but I am assuming you aren't super interested in reading hundreds of pages of technical reports. 

Edit: I guess his title is lying, "how to green the worlds deserts"... That is not possible, deserts are not green because they don't have water, the only way to green them would be to add more water. 

Wollongong [12833]

Too much to respond to. But desertification. He says bare land exiles co2. You say it doesn't.  He says this is shocking as the literature tells us different. You point at the literature.

I'd say his claims are worth further research. After all, there was a time when literature said the planet is flat....

Quickdraw [915500]

Well that is the point, the literatture I am referring to IS the further research that shows that what he is saying isnt correct. Trying to bring up that we used to think the planet was flat as a way to discredit science is ridiculous beause people thought that before the scientific method was invented. The important thing is that the evidence and data show that what he is saying is not true. 

Savorys whole idea is that you cannot perform research to test his ideas becaise they cant be replicated. He is trying to hide behind unscientific mysticysm because the evidence shows that he is wrong. 

Wollongong [12833]

Desertification isn't bad...?

How do we, or anything in our biosphere, get better if we have more dry land?

And can you support your claims that he's lying?

Quickdraw [915500]

No desertification is not bad, it just depends on what your objective is. Desertification is a term that is supposed to sound bad, which is why we don't really use it anymore. But for example, shrublands typically store more carbon in the soil than grasslands. The transition from grasslands to shrublands is what a lot of people call desertification because you get an increase in bare soil with shrublands. But also, that increase in bare soil actually helps facilitate focused groundwater recharge and increases streamflow. So shrublands can produce more water for human use and store more carbon from the atmosphere. But grasslands support grazing, they also support native species that play important roles in the food web and provide ecosystem services. So desertification can be good or bad or neutral depending on what you want to get out of the land. But deserts in general are not bad for the biosphere. Contrary to the old way of thinking, there is enormous biodiversity in drylands and they play really important roles in the earth system so drylands are not bad.

It is not exactly that he is lying, but there is no way to know if what he is saying is true. This discussion is going to get a little pedantic, but I don't know a way around that, apologies in advance. Part of his whole idea is that you have to treat each ecosystem as a whole, which means that each system is unique. That means there is no way to replicate anything he does to actually check if his ideas worked or if something else caused an increase in grass cover. The way that scientific thinking works is to break those systems into smaller parts that we can build an understanding of how all those smaller parts work, and then we put it back together and have an understanding of how the whole works. Savory is trying to work the other direction, but that way you can't prove if anything you do works because there are many other variables that are changing as well. There are many reasons that an ecosystem might go from grassland to shrubland or vice versa, including fire patterns, climate change, grazing patterns, rainfall patterns, rodent populations, lagamorph populations etc. This goes directly against his claims that oxidizing grass is a problem, no studies have shown that to be true. 

It is good that he is trying to get people to think about systems as a whole and how many different things interact, but since there is no scientific backing to his story, he is just a snake oil salesman. If you are interested in learning more I can send you links to many papers quickly because I know the literature well, but I am assuming you aren't super interested in reading hundreds of pages of technical reports. 

Edit: I guess his title is lying, "how to green the worlds deserts"... That is not possible, deserts are not green because they don't have water, the only way to green them would be to add more water. 

Wollongong [12833]

Too much to respond to. But desertification. He says bare land exiles co2. You say it doesn't.  He says this is shocking as the literature tells us different. You point at the literature.

I'd say his claims are worth further research. After all, there was a time when literature said the planet is flat....

Quickdraw [915500]

Well that is the point, the literatture I am referring to IS the further research that shows that what he is saying isnt correct. Trying to bring up that we used to think the planet was flat as a way to discredit science is ridiculous beause people thought that before the scientific method was invented. The important thing is that the evidence and data show that what he is saying is not true. 

Savorys whole idea is that you cannot perform research to test his ideas becaise they cant be replicated. He is trying to hide behind unscientific mysticysm because the evidence shows that he is wrong. 

MachineGunSteve [184119]

Is he completely wrong, as in his ideas have no validity whatsoever, or is it that he is a shill for the cattle industry, but there is some proof that in some places his techniques could be used to make the situation better? In other words, his fix isn't going to fix all of the problems, but maybe it could be used as a partial cure in some places?

Like chemo isn't always the cure for cancer, sometimes it needs to be cut out, and other times a combination of solutions should be employed?

Wollongong [12833]

Desertification isn't bad...?

How do we, or anything in our biosphere, get better if we have more dry land?

And can you support your claims that he's lying?

Show post

Quickdraw [915500]

No desertification is not bad, it just depends on what your objective is. Desertification is a term that is supposed to sound bad, which is why we don't really use it anymore. But for example, shrublands typically store more carbon in the soil than grasslands. The transition from grasslands to shrublands is what a lot of people call desertification because you get an increase in bare soil with shrublands. But also, that increase in bare soil actually helps facilitate focused groundwater recharge and increases streamflow. So shrublands can produce more water for human use and store more carbon from the atmosphere. But grasslands support grazing, they also support native species that play important roles in the food web and provide ecosystem services. So desertification can be good or bad or neutral depending on what you want to get out of the land. But deserts in general are not bad for the biosphere. Contrary to the old way of thinking, there is enormous biodiversity in drylands and they play really important roles in the earth system so drylands are not bad.

It is not exactly that he is lying, but there is no way to know if what he is saying is true. This discussion is going to get a little pedantic, but I don't know a way around that, apologies in advance. Part of his whole idea is that you have to treat each ecosystem as a whole, which means that each system is unique. That means there is no way to replicate anything he does to actually check if his ideas worked or if something else caused an increase in grass cover. The way that scientific thinking works is to break those systems into smaller parts that we can build an understanding of how all those smaller parts work, and then we put it back together and have an understanding of how the whole works. Savory is trying to work the other direction, but that way you can't prove if anything you do works because there are many other variables that are changing as well. There are many reasons that an ecosystem might go from grassland to shrubland or vice versa, including fire patterns, climate change, grazing patterns, rainfall patterns, rodent populations, lagamorph populations etc. This goes directly against his claims that oxidizing grass is a problem, no studies have shown that to be true. 

It is good that he is trying to get people to think about systems as a whole and how many different things interact, but since there is no scientific backing to his story, he is just a snake oil salesman. If you are interested in learning more I can send you links to many papers quickly because I know the literature well, but I am assuming you aren't super interested in reading hundreds of pages of technical reports. 

Edit: I guess his title is lying, "how to green the worlds deserts"... That is not possible, deserts are not green because they don't have water, the only way to green them would be to add more water. 

Wollongong [12833]

Too much to respond to. But desertification. He says bare land exiles co2. You say it doesn't.  He says this is shocking as the literature tells us different. You point at the literature.

I'd say his claims are worth further research. After all, there was a time when literature said the planet is flat....

Quickdraw [915500]

Well that is the point, the literatture I am referring to IS the further research that shows that what he is saying isnt correct. Trying to bring up that we used to think the planet was flat as a way to discredit science is ridiculous beause people thought that before the scientific method was invented. The important thing is that the evidence and data show that what he is saying is not true. 

Savorys whole idea is that you cannot perform research to test his ideas becaise they cant be replicated. He is trying to hide behind unscientific mysticysm because the evidence shows that he is wrong. 

MachineGunSteve [184119]

Is he completely wrong, as in his ideas have no validity whatsoever, or is it that he is a shill for the cattle industry, but there is some proof that in some places his techniques could be used to make the situation better? In other words, his fix isn't going to fix all of the problems, but maybe it could be used as a partial cure in some places?

Like chemo isn't always the cure for cancer, sometimes it needs to be cut out, and other times a combination of solutions should be employed?

Quickdraw [915500]

That is an important question. Here is what we know for certain: The promises he makes about reversing climate change, feeding the world, and restoring rangelands by adding more cattle are false. Allan is not a scientist, but he pretends to be so he can make claims like this and makes it sound like they are backed by evidence, but they are not. It also depends on what your goal is, rangeland sciences originally had the goal of increasing grass cover in order to increase the amount of animals that could be grazed. That is Savory's goal, but it might not be the best goal considering the other ecosystem services like carbon storage or water resource provision. Savory is a politician so he goes about looking at evidence in the wrong way, which is common among people trying to prove their point. He is trying to find evidence to fit his narrative, rather than looking at the evidence and creating a narrative based on the evidence. Most of what he says is fluff and buzzwords, for example read this paper from his website, there is only one statement of intent in the entire 20 pages. Some of what he says in those 20 pages is true, but he is waffling around to hide his message, which is that we should increase stocking rates: https://www.savory.global/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/climate-change.pdf

Increasing stocking rates doesn't restore rangelands anywhere. But, if you are going to have a high stocking rate there are mixed results regarding whether you should use rotational grazing or not. So it is sort of true that you can improve rangeland quality in some areas using his approach, as long as you don't increase stocking rates. 

He is not exactly a shill for the cattle industry, but that is who his clients are. They did not approach him and ask him to create a propoganda network for them, he came up with these ideas and is trying to sell them to the cattle industry. That is why he overstates the benefits, he is a salesman. 

Truly understanding this takes a whole lot of effort, I have been working full time on this and similar issues for the past 6 or 7 years and I realize my posts probably aren't totally satisfying, but I would need to teach an entire class on the subject for everyone to understand enough about how rangelands actually function for us to have a discussion. On top of that, scientists have been working on increasing grass cover in rangelands for 100 years and we don't have an answer right now. Everything going on in rangelands favors shrubs over grasses, climate change, grazing, fire suppression, all work to reduce grass cover, so in order to truly restore rangelands we would have to fundamentally change society. 

Wollongong [12833]

Desertification isn't bad...?

How do we, or anything in our biosphere, get better if we have more dry land?

And can you support your claims that he's lying?

Quickdraw [915500]

No desertification is not bad, it just depends on what your objective is. Desertification is a term that is supposed to sound bad, which is why we don't really use it anymore. But for example, shrublands typically store more carbon in the soil than grasslands. The transition from grasslands to shrublands is what a lot of people call desertification because you get an increase in bare soil with shrublands. But also, that increase in bare soil actually helps facilitate focused groundwater recharge and increases streamflow. So shrublands can produce more water for human use and store more carbon from the atmosphere. But grasslands support grazing, they also support native species that play important roles in the food web and provide ecosystem services. So desertification can be good or bad or neutral depending on what you want to get out of the land. But deserts in general are not bad for the biosphere. Contrary to the old way of thinking, there is enormous biodiversity in drylands and they play really important roles in the earth system so drylands are not bad.

It is not exactly that he is lying, but there is no way to know if what he is saying is true. This discussion is going to get a little pedantic, but I don't know a way around that, apologies in advance. Part of his whole idea is that you have to treat each ecosystem as a whole, which means that each system is unique. That means there is no way to replicate anything he does to actually check if his ideas worked or if something else caused an increase in grass cover. The way that scientific thinking works is to break those systems into smaller parts that we can build an understanding of how all those smaller parts work, and then we put it back together and have an understanding of how the whole works. Savory is trying to work the other direction, but that way you can't prove if anything you do works because there are many other variables that are changing as well. There are many reasons that an ecosystem might go from grassland to shrubland or vice versa, including fire patterns, climate change, grazing patterns, rainfall patterns, rodent populations, lagamorph populations etc. This goes directly against his claims that oxidizing grass is a problem, no studies have shown that to be true. 

It is good that he is trying to get people to think about systems as a whole and how many different things interact, but since there is no scientific backing to his story, he is just a snake oil salesman. If you are interested in learning more I can send you links to many papers quickly because I know the literature well, but I am assuming you aren't super interested in reading hundreds of pages of technical reports. 

Edit: I guess his title is lying, "how to green the worlds deserts"... That is not possible, deserts are not green because they don't have water, the only way to green them would be to add more water. 

Wollongong [12833]

Too much to respond to. But desertification. He says bare land exiles co2. You say it doesn't.  He says this is shocking as the literature tells us different. You point at the literature.

I'd say his claims are worth further research. After all, there was a time when literature said the planet is flat....

Quickdraw [915500]

Well that is the point, the literatture I am referring to IS the further research that shows that what he is saying isnt correct. Trying to bring up that we used to think the planet was flat as a way to discredit science is ridiculous beause people thought that before the scientific method was invented. The important thing is that the evidence and data show that what he is saying is not true. 

Savorys whole idea is that you cannot perform research to test his ideas becaise they cant be replicated. He is trying to hide behind unscientific mysticysm because the evidence shows that he is wrong. 

Quickdraw [915500]

No desertification is not bad, it just depends on what your objective is. Desertification is a term that is supposed to sound bad, which is why we don't really use it anymore. But for example, shrublands typically store more carbon in the soil than grasslands. The transition from grasslands to shrublands is what a lot of people call desertification because you get an increase in bare soil with shrublands. But also, that increase in bare soil actually helps facilitate focused groundwater recharge and increases streamflow. So shrublands can produce more water for human use and store more carbon from the atmosphere. But grasslands support grazing, they also support native species that play important roles in the food web and provide ecosystem services. So desertification can be good or bad or neutral depending on what you want to get out of the land. But deserts in general are not bad for the biosphere. Contrary to the old way of thinking, there is enormous biodiversity in drylands and they play really important roles in the earth system so drylands are not bad.

It is not exactly that he is lying, but there is no way to know if what he is saying is true. This discussion is going to get a little pedantic, but I don't know a way around that, apologies in advance. Part of his whole idea is that you have to treat each ecosystem as a whole, which means that each system is unique. That means there is no way to replicate anything he does to actually check if his ideas worked or if something else caused an increase in grass cover. The way that scientific thinking works is to break those systems into smaller parts that we can build an understanding of how all those smaller parts work, and then we put it back together and have an understanding of how the whole works. Savory is trying to work the other direction, but that way you can't prove if anything you do works because there are many other variables that are changing as well. There are many reasons that an ecosystem might go from grassland to shrubland or vice versa, including fire patterns, climate change, grazing patterns, rainfall patterns, rodent populations, lagamorph populations etc. This goes directly against his claims that oxidizing grass is a problem, no studies have shown that to be true. 

It is good that he is trying to get people to think about systems as a whole and how many different things interact, but since there is no scientific backing to his story, he is just a snake oil salesman. If you are interested in learning more I can send you links to many papers quickly because I know the literature well, but I am assuming you aren't super interested in reading hundreds of pages of technical reports. 

Edit: I guess his title is lying, "how to green the worlds deserts"... That is not possible, deserts are not green because they don't have water, the only way to green them would be to add more water. 

Show post

Wollongong [12833]

Too much to respond to. But desertification. He says bare land exiles co2. You say it doesn't.  He says this is shocking as the literature tells us different. You point at the literature.

I'd say his claims are worth further research. After all, there was a time when literature said the planet is flat....

Quickdraw [915500]

Well that is the point, the literatture I am referring to IS the further research that shows that what he is saying isnt correct. Trying to bring up that we used to think the planet was flat as a way to discredit science is ridiculous beause people thought that before the scientific method was invented. The important thing is that the evidence and data show that what he is saying is not true. 

Savorys whole idea is that you cannot perform research to test his ideas becaise they cant be replicated. He is trying to hide behind unscientific mysticysm because the evidence shows that he is wrong. 

MachineGunSteve [184119]

Is he completely wrong, as in his ideas have no validity whatsoever, or is it that he is a shill for the cattle industry, but there is some proof that in some places his techniques could be used to make the situation better? In other words, his fix isn't going to fix all of the problems, but maybe it could be used as a partial cure in some places?

Like chemo isn't always the cure for cancer, sometimes it needs to be cut out, and other times a combination of solutions should be employed?

Quickdraw [915500]

That is an important question. Here is what we know for certain: The promises he makes about reversing climate change, feeding the world, and restoring rangelands by adding more cattle are false. Allan is not a scientist, but he pretends to be so he can make claims like this and makes it sound like they are backed by evidence, but they are not. It also depends on what your goal is, rangeland sciences originally had the goal of increasing grass cover in order to increase the amount of animals that could be grazed. That is Savory's goal, but it might not be the best goal considering the other ecosystem services like carbon storage or water resource provision. Savory is a politician so he goes about looking at evidence in the wrong way, which is common among people trying to prove their point. He is trying to find evidence to fit his narrative, rather than looking at the evidence and creating a narrative based on the evidence. Most of what he says is fluff and buzzwords, for example read this paper from his website, there is only one statement of intent in the entire 20 pages. Some of what he says in those 20 pages is true, but he is waffling around to hide his message, which is that we should increase stocking rates: https://www.savory.global/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/climate-change.pdf

Increasing stocking rates doesn't restore rangelands anywhere. But, if you are going to have a high stocking rate there are mixed results regarding whether you should use rotational grazing or not. So it is sort of true that you can improve rangeland quality in some areas using his approach, as long as you don't increase stocking rates. 

He is not exactly a shill for the cattle industry, but that is who his clients are. They did not approach him and ask him to create a propoganda network for them, he came up with these ideas and is trying to sell them to the cattle industry. That is why he overstates the benefits, he is a salesman. 

Truly understanding this takes a whole lot of effort, I have been working full time on this and similar issues for the past 6 or 7 years and I realize my posts probably aren't totally satisfying, but I would need to teach an entire class on the subject for everyone to understand enough about how rangelands actually function for us to have a discussion. On top of that, scientists have been working on increasing grass cover in rangelands for 100 years and we don't have an answer right now. Everything going on in rangelands favors shrubs over grasses, climate change, grazing, fire suppression, all work to reduce grass cover, so in order to truly restore rangelands we would have to fundamentally change society. 

MachineGunSteve [184119]

Fair enough. I really know nothing about the subject. I do like a good grilled steak from time to time, but I would rather eat chicken and not live on dried up rock.

Thanks for the answer.

Wollongong [12833]

Too much to respond to. But desertification. He says bare land exiles co2. You say it doesn't.  He says this is shocking as the literature tells us different. You point at the literature.

I'd say his claims are worth further research. After all, there was a time when literature said the planet is flat....

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Quickdraw [915500]

Well that is the point, the literatture I am referring to IS the further research that shows that what he is saying isnt correct. Trying to bring up that we used to think the planet was flat as a way to discredit science is ridiculous beause people thought that before the scientific method was invented. The important thing is that the evidence and data show that what he is saying is not true. 

Savorys whole idea is that you cannot perform research to test his ideas becaise they cant be replicated. He is trying to hide behind unscientific mysticysm because the evidence shows that he is wrong. 

MachineGunSteve [184119]

Is he completely wrong, as in his ideas have no validity whatsoever, or is it that he is a shill for the cattle industry, but there is some proof that in some places his techniques could be used to make the situation better? In other words, his fix isn't going to fix all of the problems, but maybe it could be used as a partial cure in some places?

Like chemo isn't always the cure for cancer, sometimes it needs to be cut out, and other times a combination of solutions should be employed?

Quickdraw [915500]

That is an important question. Here is what we know for certain: The promises he makes about reversing climate change, feeding the world, and restoring rangelands by adding more cattle are false. Allan is not a scientist, but he pretends to be so he can make claims like this and makes it sound like they are backed by evidence, but they are not. It also depends on what your goal is, rangeland sciences originally had the goal of increasing grass cover in order to increase the amount of animals that could be grazed. That is Savory's goal, but it might not be the best goal considering the other ecosystem services like carbon storage or water resource provision. Savory is a politician so he goes about looking at evidence in the wrong way, which is common among people trying to prove their point. He is trying to find evidence to fit his narrative, rather than looking at the evidence and creating a narrative based on the evidence. Most of what he says is fluff and buzzwords, for example read this paper from his website, there is only one statement of intent in the entire 20 pages. Some of what he says in those 20 pages is true, but he is waffling around to hide his message, which is that we should increase stocking rates: https://www.savory.global/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/climate-change.pdf

Increasing stocking rates doesn't restore rangelands anywhere. But, if you are going to have a high stocking rate there are mixed results regarding whether you should use rotational grazing or not. So it is sort of true that you can improve rangeland quality in some areas using his approach, as long as you don't increase stocking rates. 

He is not exactly a shill for the cattle industry, but that is who his clients are. They did not approach him and ask him to create a propoganda network for them, he came up with these ideas and is trying to sell them to the cattle industry. That is why he overstates the benefits, he is a salesman. 

Truly understanding this takes a whole lot of effort, I have been working full time on this and similar issues for the past 6 or 7 years and I realize my posts probably aren't totally satisfying, but I would need to teach an entire class on the subject for everyone to understand enough about how rangelands actually function for us to have a discussion. On top of that, scientists have been working on increasing grass cover in rangelands for 100 years and we don't have an answer right now. Everything going on in rangelands favors shrubs over grasses, climate change, grazing, fire suppression, all work to reduce grass cover, so in order to truly restore rangelands we would have to fundamentally change society. 

MachineGunSteve [184119]

Fair enough. I really know nothing about the subject. I do like a good grilled steak from time to time, but I would rather eat chicken and not live on dried up rock.

Thanks for the answer.

Quickdraw [915500]

Just to be clear I didnt mean to imply you were dumb or not worth talking to about this. I was thinking "oh shit I agreed to talk about this and now it is going to take a lot more effort than I originally thought and I have too much actual work to do this week!"

I have also been thinking a lot about the role of experts and science communication. The democratization of information, largely via the internet, has led to some very good things but it also presents new challenges. Like this guy Savory, he makes a compelling argument, but it is not based on the reality of what we observe. But in order to know that he is wrong you have to put in a lot of effort to understand all the processes. The vast majority of people dont want to do that, and it is impossible to do for all the policy questions we need to decide there is simply too much knowledge for one person to know it all. So how do we fit in experts who can speak authoritatively on a subject with the fundamental anti authoritarian nature of science? My response in the past when people question scientific findings has been that they should do an experiment for themselves, but I know full well that wont happen. So how do we get people to trust what scientists say when the evidemce goes against what people want to hear? Savory is what people want to hear, a solution to solve all mankinds problems in 3 easy steps!

Im kinda just rambling but any insight you or anyone else has would be helpful to me. 

Wollongong [12833]

Desertification isn't bad...?

How do we, or anything in our biosphere, get better if we have more dry land?

And can you support your claims that he's lying?

Quickdraw [915500]

No desertification is not bad, it just depends on what your objective is. Desertification is a term that is supposed to sound bad, which is why we don't really use it anymore. But for example, shrublands typically store more carbon in the soil than grasslands. The transition from grasslands to shrublands is what a lot of people call desertification because you get an increase in bare soil with shrublands. But also, that increase in bare soil actually helps facilitate focused groundwater recharge and increases streamflow. So shrublands can produce more water for human use and store more carbon from the atmosphere. But grasslands support grazing, they also support native species that play important roles in the food web and provide ecosystem services. So desertification can be good or bad or neutral depending on what you want to get out of the land. But deserts in general are not bad for the biosphere. Contrary to the old way of thinking, there is enormous biodiversity in drylands and they play really important roles in the earth system so drylands are not bad.

It is not exactly that he is lying, but there is no way to know if what he is saying is true. This discussion is going to get a little pedantic, but I don't know a way around that, apologies in advance. Part of his whole idea is that you have to treat each ecosystem as a whole, which means that each system is unique. That means there is no way to replicate anything he does to actually check if his ideas worked or if something else caused an increase in grass cover. The way that scientific thinking works is to break those systems into smaller parts that we can build an understanding of how all those smaller parts work, and then we put it back together and have an understanding of how the whole works. Savory is trying to work the other direction, but that way you can't prove if anything you do works because there are many other variables that are changing as well. There are many reasons that an ecosystem might go from grassland to shrubland or vice versa, including fire patterns, climate change, grazing patterns, rainfall patterns, rodent populations, lagamorph populations etc. This goes directly against his claims that oxidizing grass is a problem, no studies have shown that to be true. 

It is good that he is trying to get people to think about systems as a whole and how many different things interact, but since there is no scientific backing to his story, he is just a snake oil salesman. If you are interested in learning more I can send you links to many papers quickly because I know the literature well, but I am assuming you aren't super interested in reading hundreds of pages of technical reports. 

Edit: I guess his title is lying, "how to green the worlds deserts"... That is not possible, deserts are not green because they don't have water, the only way to green them would be to add more water. 

Wollongong [12833]

Too much to respond to. But desertification. He says bare land exiles co2. You say it doesn't.  He says this is shocking as the literature tells us different. You point at the literature.

I'd say his claims are worth further research. After all, there was a time when literature said the planet is flat....

Quickdraw [915500]

Well that is the point, the literatture I am referring to IS the further research that shows that what he is saying isnt correct. Trying to bring up that we used to think the planet was flat as a way to discredit science is ridiculous beause people thought that before the scientific method was invented. The important thing is that the evidence and data show that what he is saying is not true. 

Savorys whole idea is that you cannot perform research to test his ideas becaise they cant be replicated. He is trying to hide behind unscientific mysticysm because the evidence shows that he is wrong. 

Wollongong [12833]

My response is not so ridiculous, as you refer to "literature" without stating WHICH literature ;) Adding links doesn't cost any more :D