tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post91277937497970322..comments2024-01-10T11:19:56.456-08:00Comments on What Is Sustainable: The Once and Future WorldWhat Is Sustainablehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-42897090264032346842015-12-18T16:14:13.988-08:002015-12-18T16:14:13.988-08:00Greetings Sheldon! Thank you for sharing your per...Greetings Sheldon! Thank you for sharing your perspective. The book I reviewed here is not about ranching, I have never raised livestock, I am not an expert in ranching, and this is not a ranching blog. We live in an era when we have access to an immense amount of information, and a fair amount of it is inaccurate. The search for accuracy involves looking for the various viewpoints and comparing their arguments.<br /><br />Riversong (above) mentioned Savory, not long after I had read Monbiot’s forceful critique of Savory. So, I bounced back to him that Savory’s ideas are controversial. I often agree with Monbiot, but he has written a few stinkers. I have also conversed with someone who claims to have directly observed the success of Savory’s methods. I don’t know enough to express an opinion on the subject. But your views contribute to the debate — great!<br />What Is Sustainablehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-57210036294324047412015-12-17T14:02:30.007-08:002015-12-17T14:02:30.007-08:00I have personally thoroughly discredited two of th...I have personally thoroughly discredited two of the anti-Savory articles cited by a previous commenter (I am working on the third as we speak): <br />http://sheldonfrith.com/2015/12/16/a-response-to-chris-clarkes-very-misinformed-kcet-article/<br />http://sheldonfrith.com/2015/12/14/why-the-slate-article-about-allan-savory-is-dead-wrong/Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08604292788013541518noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-23027486182055708552013-11-20T16:07:44.472-08:002013-11-20T16:07:44.472-08:00Unknown, I don't know enough about dreams and ...Unknown, I don't know enough about dreams and extinct creatures. I can tell you that I had a dream a few nights ago in which black panthers pranced playfully through a park, where some folks were sitting at picnic tables. All creatures were relaxed.What Is Sustainablehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-12999010345794197112013-11-20T04:39:46.610-08:002013-11-20T04:39:46.610-08:00Hi Rick,
I wonder if you can write a blog entry a...Hi Rick,<br /><br />I wonder if you can write a blog entry about psychology and extinct animals. I remember that Jung wrote about how our lives and dreams still are connected to the original hunter and gatherer mind. <br /><br />I personally have once in a while dreams about killing unsuccessfully huge, wild cattle. I wonder if that is connected to our ancestor's past.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-16853265123990813632013-11-18T15:56:57.172-08:002013-11-18T15:56:57.172-08:00Riversong, I buy my meat and eggs from a local far...Riversong, I buy my meat and eggs from a local farmer, who uses pre-industrial methods — grass fed, free range, etc. Grain-fed meat is dumb. As a consumer in 2013 who is not independently wealthy, this is about the best I can do.<br /><br />In my role as a thinker on ecological sustainability, trying to envision approaches for the long-term future, I don’t see animal enslavement as a part of the dream. Livestock ownership generates many problems. Richard Manning documents a lot of them in “Grassland” and “Rewilding the West.” <br /><br />In “The Others,” Paul Shepard was not a fan of cattle, or any other domesticated critter: “If the auroch was the most magnificent animal in the lives of our Pleistocene ancestors, in captivity it became the most destructive creature of all.”<br /><br />The ranching community seems fairly tolerant of Savory, since he endorses grazing. Lynn Jacobs, a blazing critic of the ranching industry wrote “Waste of the West” (1991). He said: “HRM [holistic resource management] promotes the dangerous philosophy that humans are capable of, and should be, managing a planet. It does not recognize the integrity of the natural environment, its right to free existence, or humans’ place in it.”<br /><br />Savory is not loved by one and all. <br /><br />Cows Against Climate Change: The Dodgy Science Behind the TED Talk by Adam Merberg<br />http://www.inexactchange.org/blog/2013/03/11/cows-against-climate-change/<br /><br />TED Talk Teaches Us to Disparage the Desert by Chris Clarke<br />http://www.kcet.org/updaily/socal_focus/commentary/east-ca/learn-how-to-hate-the-desert-with-ted.html<br /><br />All Sizzle and No Steak — Why Allan Savory’s TED talk about how cattle can reverse global warming is dead wrong. By James McWilliams<br />http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2013/04/allan_savory_s_ted_talk_is_wrong_and_the_benefits_of_holistic_grazing_have.htmlWhat Is Sustainablehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-56622559510840850062013-11-18T15:51:01.816-08:002013-11-18T15:51:01.816-08:00Georg, George Monbiot talks about bark and elephan...Georg, George Monbiot talks about bark and elephants in Feral, page 9. In the US, the pronghorn antelope are about five times faster than the fastest wolf or coyote. They evolved great speed to escape from speedy predators that have gone extinct.What Is Sustainablehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10227382786082159733noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-37955554286181119852013-11-18T08:01:30.467-08:002013-11-18T08:01:30.467-08:00Another man who learned the vital lesson of the im...Another man who learned the vital lesson of the importance of nature's diversity is Allan Redin Savory (born 1935), Zimbabwean biologist, farmer, environmentalist, and winner of the 2003 Banksia International Award for environmental excellence and the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge for comprehensive solutions to pressing global problems. He is the originator of holistic management. Savory has said, "only livestock can save us." Through reversing desertification, he believes rangeland soil has the ability to sequester vast amounts of CO2.<br /><br />Savory began working on the problem of land degradation (desertification) in 1955 in Northern Rhodesia, where he served in the Colonial Service as Provincial Game Officer, Northern and Luapula Provinces. <br /><br />As late as 1969 he was advocating culling large populations of wild animals such as elephants and hippos, when they were appearing to be destroying their habitat. He had participated in the culling of 40,000 elephants in the 1950s but he later concluded the culling did not reverse the degradation of the land, calling that project "the saddest and greatest blunder of my life."<br /><br />After leaving Zimbabwe, Savory worked from the Cayman Islands into the Americas introducing a plan to reverse desertification of 'brittle' grasslands by carefully planning movements of large herds of livestock to mimic those found in nature. <br /><br />Peer-reviewed studies have documented soil improvement as measured by soil carbon, water retention, nutrient holding capacity, and ground litter on land grazed according to Savory's methods compared with continuously grazed and non-grazed land. <br />Riversonghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05413657075902226702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4136626590097801169.post-14260536412265690572013-11-18T05:51:26.726-08:002013-11-18T05:51:26.726-08:00“We are different. We’re wired to love different ...“We are different. We’re wired to love different things than other people are.” I know what he means. We don’t feel at home in this society. Maybe we’re pioneers, scouting a new and safer path."<br /><br />Thank you! These sentences already made my day :)<br /><br />I once heard that European shrubberies and other trees developed a very thick bark. There is no use of this thick bark nowadays since all animals today in Europe are the size of a deer or wild pig. However, thousand of years earlier these thick barks were absolutely necessary for survival since animals like elephants, rhinoceros and other sized animals wandered in Europe.<br />Do you know in which book this is explained again?<br /><br />Cheers, Georg :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com