Agrivoltaic Arrays Will Win The Rural Solar War, With Insects
https://cleantechnica.com/2024/06/08/agrivoltaic-solar-arrays-will-win-the-rural-solar-war-with-insects/

We found increases over time for all habitat and biodiversity metrics: floral rank, flowering plant species richness, insect group diversity, native bee abundance, and total insect abundance, with the most noticeable temporal increases in native bee abundance,” the researchers reported earlier this week in the open access journal Environmental Research Letters.

SHEFIK:

o jeho podcenovani covidu toho moc nevim, nicmene to je zase cernobila zkratka :) zadny clovek nema ultimatni pravdu ve vsem, nebo patent na rozum.

Tím jsem jen zmínil proč se mi to jméno vybavilo, to že má vaznost na uhelný a ropný průmysl a vznesl dosti pochybné tvrzení, které zní jak z knihy climate deniers jsou o dost větší red flags, zároveň s tím, že nemá ani akademickou vazbu, dle wiki je "science writer, journalist and businessman" (a libertarian, another red flag). Proč si raději neposlechnout antropology, klimatology, ekology, aj.?

The Man Who Wants to Northern Rock the Planet

Matt Ridley accused of lobbying UK government on behalf of coal industry

Souhlasím s tím, že nějakého zjednodušení se člověk dopustit musí, pakliže pokrývá multidisciplinární tématiku a snaží se ji nějak shrnout, sám několik takových autorů sleduji a myslím, že je to potřeba, protože žádné téma a věda neexistuje ve vákuu.
Za mě dost dobrá kniha, která zahrnuje všemožná témata a problémy:

Reality Blind: Integrating the Systems Science Underpinning Our Collective Futurest

Uvadis kolik lidi upozornilo na to, ze co2 dokaze atmosferu ohrat, ale to nikdo, ani ja v mych prispevcich nerozporuju. Zaroven se ti nepovedlo odpovedet ani na jednu z mych otazek :)

Snažil jsem se odpovědět s myšlenkou, že se bavíme o rozmachu průmyslového zemědělství a věcí s ním spjatých a reagoval tím, že tyto témata a teorie započaly před ním.

Otázky níže jsou velmi obecné, takže nevím z jakého úhlu a perspektivy vycházíe, ale pokusím se.

Myslis, ze pokud bychom negenerovali prebytky, byli bychom si zmeny klimatu vedomi?

V rámci generací si lidstvo změn všímat může, nicméně pokud půjdeme k morku kosti, tak přebytek nám obecně poskytl všechny možné příležitosti a možnosti. Ani jednou jsem v předešlé konverzaci nic proti tomu nenamítal, nebo netvrdil opak, takže netuším proč se na to vůbec ptáš. Nicméně když už tě to tak zajímá.
Je také rozdíl mezi tím, obstarat potravu tak rychle/nenáročně, že má člověk čas navíc (zjednodušeně), nebo mít fosilní paliva, kde barel ropy je schopen nahradit 6 let fyzické práce jednoho člověka, která navrch nahodnocujeme pouze dle ceny extrakce/zpracování.

Z jíného úhlu mohu také říct, že nebýt oněch přebytků (v podobě fosilní energie) tak by ona změna klimatu na steroidech vedena antropogenními emisemi neprobíhala, takže bych také mohl odpovědět "nebýt přebytků nebylo by co vnímat". Nicméně jsem názoru založeného na ekologických teoriích a poznáních (např. tzv. maximum power principle, ecological overshoot..), že by lidstvo klima v dlouhodobém meřítku tak či onak ovlivnilo, pokud by nedošlo k zásadním změnám v tom jak funguje (tzn. pokud by lidstvo pokračovalo tak dál, jen neobjevilo fosilní paliva), ale to už bych hodně teoretizoval.

byli bychom ji schopni pokrocile merit?

Hádám, že se odkazujeme na přebytek, zodpovězeno v otázce výše,

byli bychom o ni schopni komunikovat na celoplanetarni urovni s takovym zasahem?

Hádám, že se odkazujeme na přebytek, zodpovězeno v otázce výše.
Zde jsem zmínil hlavně to, že komunikujeme přes 50 let, ale nevím kde je ten "zásah", nebo změna směru. Zároveň nemůžu říct, že je to chyba někoho konkrétního, jako společnost si nějak definujeme naše cíle, málokdo se dobrovolně vzdá jákehokoliv pohodlí a jsem názoru, že fungujeme jako superorganismus a nikdo přímo nekoordinuje onen směr.

Byli bychom schopni ji predikovat?

Hádám, že se odkazujeme na přebytek, zodpovězeno v otázce výše.
K predikcím a modelacím, ale mohu dodat, že je to něco do čeho bychom měli investovat mnohem více.

Co je tedy tvá téze, sdílený článek bylo o tom, že dojde k vrcholu produkce potravin, zmíněn byl hlavně klimatický chaos, ale k tomu jsem dodal i absolutní závislost na neobnovitelných zdrojích - od samotné techniky, po hnojiva a další. Úbytku půdy, vody, znečištění, viz odkazy níže.
Ty jsi navrhl, že v záloze je GMO, u kterého jsem uznal, že může být jakousi náplastí na střelnou ránu, ale to samotné krvácení to nezastaví.
S tím jak popisuješ (soudě, dle té knihy) to jak lidstvo funguje a historicky se vyvýjí takhle obrazně zcela souhlasit nemohu, ale musel by ses víc rozepsat.

...jez je zalozena na prebytcich, ktere dale umoznuji specializaci, jez dale umoznuje vyssi efektivitu, tedy vice prebytku. Tzn. to kritizovani rustu a prebytku je ve svem principu uplne spatne, protoze prebytky jsou to, co lidstvu umoznilo dlouhodobe prezit a ziskat evolucni vyhodu, at uz v podobe zasob, vedeckeho poznani, nebo i kulturni evoluce.

Tady se shodneme v rámci specializace, surplusu. Samotná efektivita je také sporná (viz Jevonsův paradox), ale záleží v jakém případě se o ni bavíme, avšak upřesním termín "růst" (protože růst může být spirituální, intelektuální, sociální aj.) na "ekonomický růst", který je takřka 1:1 spojený se spotřebou surovin a dalších zdrojů. Při 3% ročního růstu můžeme očekávat zdvojení spotřeby surovin a energie za ~24 let (viz exponenciální růst). Přebytek jsem jako takový nekritizoval, nicméně přebytek může existovat v absenci ekonomického růstu. Co bych kritizovat mohl je "overconsumption".

The Limits to Growth

A Synopsis: Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update

Global Resources Outlook 2024

Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change (kniha)

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (kniha)

Prosperity without Growth: Foundations for the Economy of Tomorrow (kniha)

The decoupling delusion: rethinking growth and sustainability

Ted sice dochazime k tomu, ze existuji v konkretnim case limity (energeticke, materialove), ale to neznamena, ze jsme doted delali vse spatne. Naopak, pokud bychom to tak nedelali, dost mozna by tu lidstvo nebylo (doba ledova, valky, neurody,...)

Nevím kam přesně míříš s "doba ledova, valky, neurody" - války a konflikty tu byly a jsou (a počtem narůstají), neúrody tu byly a jsou (a momentálně i přes intenzivní zemědělství narůstají) - a dovolím si tvrdit, že na ještě více nestabilní planetě šance obou pouze narůstá, nemyslíš?

Conflict Trends: A Global Overview, 1946–2022

Uppsala Conflict Data Program

Alert 2023! Report on conflicts, human rights and peacebuilding

Projections constructed using an ensemble of 21 climate model simulations suggest that climate change could reduce global crop yields by 3–12% by mid-century and 11–25% by century's end.

Neřekl jsem, že jsme vše dělali špatně (i když mnohé ano). Téma bylo o industrializaci zemědělství a že nám pomohla předejít (krátkodobě) problémy s dostatkem jídla, ale ona industrializace přinesla i mnoho negativních důsledků, včetně degradace půdy, ztráty biodiverzity a znečištění životního prostředí a dalšího jež jsem zmínil níže, a moje další téze byla, že GMO není univerzálním řešením a nemůže kompenzovat všechny ekologické problémy spojené se současným zemědělstvím. Energetické a materiálové limity jsou celkem zásadní, ve světě poháněném onou energií a postaveném na oněch materiálech, ještě k tomu v nastavení, kdy se jimi plýtvá jako dnes.

World Scientists' Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice

LIVING PLANET REPORT 2022

Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

The State of the Birds Report 2022

Planetary boundaries (9 boundaries assessed, 6 crossed)

More losers than winners: investigating Anthropocene defaunation through the diversity of population trends

FAO warns 90 per cent of Earth’s topsoil at risk by 2050

A World Without Soil: The Past, Present, and Precarious Future of the Earth Beneath Our Feet

pokud se budem zabejvat jen idealnim stavem a jeho statutem quo, pak si muzem rovnou usetrit spoustu casu, protoze nic takovyho jako vesmirny equilibrium neexistuje

Souhlasím s tím, že ideální stav není dosažitelný, ale to neznamená, že bychom neměli brát v úvahu ekologické limity a hledat udržitelnější alternativy.

Tvrdis, ze statisticky kvalita zivota neni lepsi, jenze se k tomu daj krasne sledovat parametry jako je prumerny vek doziti, novorozenecka mortalita atd. Pro me sou tyhle parametry baseline. Jestli mas nejake jine, lepsi, nasdilej.

Z hlediska statistiky může být průměrný věk dožití a novorozenecká mortalita jedním z ukazatelů kvality života, ale není to jediné měřítko, nicméně k tomu:

Snížená mortalita dětí do 5 let je skvělý úspěch, proti tomu nic neříkám, a celkově je zrovna zdravotnictví/sanitace/.. něco co nekritizuji.

Dále k průměrnému věku, ten byl historicky dost zkreslen právě novorozeneckou mortalitou, průměry, které nezapočítavají děti odhalují, že se lidé běžně dožívali relativně vysokého věku. Následně, za jakých podmínek se dnes lidé dožívají vysokého věku? Nutnost 24/7 péče, na přístrojích,.. také proto vidíme debaty na téma eutanázie, a celkově jsme jako společnost posedlí tím neumřít, ale přijde mi, že se přehlíží kvalita života, kterou se snažíme dohánět materiálně, neúspěšně.

Old age isn’t a modern phenomenon – many people lived long enough to grow old in the olden days, too

Dalšími měřítky, které nemůžeme ignorovat je kvalita životního prostředí, sociální rovnost a celková udržitelnost společnosti. Opět dodám důraz na životní prostředí, vyměnit biosféru a relativně stabilní planetu za století prosperity nezní jako dobrý obchod. Lidí s nedostatkem jídla/vody též přibývá.

2024 Social Progress Index

The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change

The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2023

Adaptation Gap Report 2023

Global Risks Report 2024

A Short History of Progress

Jak jsem zmínil, na profilu mám řadu zdrojů. Mohu doporučit něco konkrétního máš-li konkrétní dotaz, ale bavíme se o několika tématech.
Pokusil jsem se k popsaným tématům a tvrzením dodat nějaké zdroje.

SEEDS OF EUROPE
https://youtu.be/hj-oyEix1Q0?si=LDOKwpENfKWhx5Rg


Summer 2023. 2 young filmmakers travelled through Europe visiting seed producers at their workplaces and experiencing first-hand how important it is to preserve this diversity in Europe. The short documentary gives a voice to these small-scale seed producers and seed savers from across Europe, with beautiful footage shot in Ireland, Luxembourg, France, Italy, Austria and the Czech Republic.

For diversity on our plates and in nature, we also need diversity in seeds. However, when we look at the selection available in supermarkets, including in the vegetable aisle, it quickly becomes clear that everything looks the same, almost all the time and all year round. Why is that? Because large corporations have power over the market. Now, however, EU seed legislation is being reformed - a chance to save seed diversity.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adf2027

Here, we show that tree seedlings inoculated with microbial communities sourced from drier, warmer, or colder sites displayed higher survival when faced with drought, heat, or cold stress, respectively. Microbially mediated drought tolerance was associated with increased diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, whereas cold tolerance was associated with lower fungal richness, likely reflecting a reduced burden of nonadapted fungal taxa. Understanding microbially mediated climate tolerance may enhance our ability to predict and manage the adaptability of forest ecosystems to changing climates.

TUHO: + neco aktualnejsiho

- Heymann, Matthias, Gramelsberger, Gabriele and Mahony, Martin. (eds.) (2017). Cultures of Prediction in Atmospheric and Climate Science: Epistemic and Cultural Shifts in Computer-based Modelling and Simulation (Routledge Environmental Humanities). London: Routledge/Francis & Taylor.
- Gramelsberger, Gabriele, Lenhard, Johannes and Parker, Wendy (2020). Philosophical Perspectives on Earth System Modeling: Truth, Adequacy and Understanding. In: Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems 12(1). DOI: e2019MS001720.
- Gramelsberger, Gabriele (2018). Climate and Simulation. In: Oxford Research Encyclopdia Climate Science. DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228620.013.52.
- Gramelsberger, Gabriele (2015). Symbol Systems as Cognitive and Performative Hybrids: A Reply to Axel Gelfert. In: Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 4(8), 89-94.
- Mahony, Martin, Heymann, Matthias and Gramelsberger, Gabriele (2019). Cultures of prediction in climate science. In: Feola, Giuseppe et al. (eds.): Climate and Culture, 29-38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Gramelsberger, Gabriele (2017). Calculating the weather – Emerging cultures of prediction in late 19th- and early 20th-century Europe. In: Matthias Heymann, Gabriele Gramelsberger, Martin Mahony (eds.): Cultures of Prediction in Atmospheric and Climate Science, 45-67. London: Routledge/Francis & Taylor.
- Gramelsberger, Gabriele (2017). Mathematical Images of Planet Earth. In: Nitzke, Solvejg and Pethes, Nicolas. (eds.): Imaging Earth. Concepts of Wholeness in Cultural Constructions of Our Home Planet, 23-44. Bielefeld: Transcript.

A trochu obecnejs k AI, modelum, komputacim etc.

- Gramelsberger, Gabriele (2020). Affective Computing. In: Hessler, Martina and Liggeri, Kevin. (eds): Handbuch für Technikanthropologie, 445-452. Baden-Baden: Nomos/Edition Sigma.
- Gramelsberger, Gabriele (2020). Algorithm Awareness. Towards a Philosophy of Artifactuality. In: Bösel, Bernd and Wiemer, Serjoscha. (eds.): Affective Media and Policy, 41-49. Lüneburg: Meson Press.
- Gramelsberger, Gabriele (2020). Augmenting Human Intellect. In: Thomas, Paul and Dewes, Tobias (eds.): Vergangenheit analysieren - Zukunft gestalten (Aachener Studien zur Wirtschafts-, Sozial- und Technikgeschichte 20), 51-64. Düren: Shaker Verlag.
- Gramelsberger, Gabriele (2013). Simulation and Systems Understanding. In: Andersen, Hanne, Dieks, Dennis, Gonzalez, Wenceslao J. et al. (eds.): New Challenges to Philosophy of Science The Philosophy of Science in a European Perspective, vol. 4, 151-161. Dordrecht: Springer.
- Gramelsberger, Gabriele and Mansnerus, Erika (2012). The inner world of models and its epistemic diversity. The cases of infectious disease and climate modelling. In: Bissell, Chris and Dillon, Chris. (eds.): Ways of Thinking, Ways of Seeing. Mathematical and Other Modelling in Engineering and Technology, 167-195. Dordrecht: Springer.
- Gramelsberger, Gabriele (2011). From Computation with Experiments to Experiments on Computation. In: Gramelsberger, Gabriele. (ed.): From Science to Computational Sciences, 131-142. Zürich, Berlin: diaphanes.

TUHO: Grasslands store approximately one third of the global terrestrial carbon stocks and can act as an important soil carbon sink. Recent studies show that plant diversity increases soil organic carbon (SOC) storage by elevating carbon inputs to belowground biomass and promoting microbial necromass contribution to SOC storage. Climate change affects grassland SOC storage by modifying the processes of plant carbon inputs and microbial catabolism and anabolism. Improved grazing management and biodiversity restoration can provide low-cost and/or high-carbon-gain options for natural climate solutions in global grasslands. The achievable SOC sequestration potential in global grasslands is 2.3 to 7.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year (CO2e year−1) for biodiversity restoration, 148 to 699 megatons of CO2e year−1 for improved grazing management, and 147 megatons of CO2e year−1 for sown legumes in pasturelands.

Juries keep letting Extinction Rebellion off the hook — here’s why | Evening Standard
https://www.standard.co.uk/comment/juries-judges-extinction-rebellion-innocent-just-stop-oil-protests-climate-activists-b992610.html

When it came to our turn to defend ourselves there were limits to what we could say. We were allowed to talk about who we were, what we had done, and why. We couldn’t give a lecture on the disaster of climate breakdown, but we could speak about our ‘subjective belief’ that it was taking place. Similarly, we couldn’t tell the jury about Shell’s wickedness, how it had lied for decades about what it knew about the effects of burning fossil fuels, and the damage its drilling had done to environments and communities around the world, but we were allowed to say why we wrote what we did on the walls of the company’s HQ. Each of us is a different character, and each of us had a different story to tell.

It is a strange, quite primitive experience to face a jury of your peers and explain your actions to them directly – the way I imagine it might happen in a tribe or a mediaeval village. With the mystification of the law removed, it was an intensely personal interaction, even with the judge’s many interruptions. Our jury reflected the diversity of London: mostly young, ethnically diverse, the majority women. I felt glad to be in their hands.

After the jury cleared us, some of the press coverage commented on our ingenious tactics. But they were no such thing. There wasn’t even much by way of eloquence or persuasion. What happened over the two weeks was that we shared something with the jurors – our understanding of the science, yes, but also our vulnerability, our grief at what was happening to the planet and the people who live on it, and our gratitude to them for listening.

COP26 will be a colossal mining cop-out - MINING.COM
https://www.mining.com/cop26-will-be-a-colossal-mining-cop-out/

' At 386 pages IEA WEO 2021 is quite the tome (download here). Under Section 6.3.1, you’ll find the energy bible’s take on “critical minerals”. It is six pages in total.

Those six pages may be headlined critical minerals, but it’s hard to detect a sense of urgency in Section 6.3.1:

“The rapid deployment of low-carbon technologies as part of clean energy transitions implies a significant increase in demand for critical minerals.”

The word “significant” used here contains multitudes (lithium “100 times current levels” according to the IEA’s own calculations) and the Paris-based firm has some questionne:
“The prospect of a rapid increase in demand for critical minerals – well above anything seen previously in most cases – raises questions about the availability and reliability of supply.”

With only six pages to work with, the IEA has to be succinct in its appraisal of the mining industry:

“The [supply] challenges are compounded by long lead times for the development of new projects, declining resource quality, growing scrutiny of environmental and social performance and a lack of geographical diversity in extraction and processing operations.”

The Soil Microbiome and Gut Microbiome Connection | FoodPrint
https://foodprint.org/blog/soil-microbiomes/

The Human Microbiome Project, another enormous and cross-disciplinary area of study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 2007 to 2016, was instrumental in beginning to tease out the connection between the soil microbiome and our gut microbiome, which both contain approximately the same number of active microorganisms. (There’s also a connection between the human gut microbiome and the ocean microbiome; they share about 73 percent of their microbes in common.) The soil microbiome likely evolved in tandem with the human microbiome and its estimated 39 trillion microbes that occupy our noses and mouths, our armpits and the palms of our hands, and most of all, our guts — particularly our large intestines. Our health is not only predicated on the activity of the microbes in our guts, but on the microbes we ingest both directly (from purposeful geophagy, or accidental dirt ingestion) and indirectly (in the form of plant crops) from the soil.

“It’s an absolutely amazing story, how the same molecules are used for the health of a plant in soil and our own gut; it must be a very ancient system that’s been preserved,” says Mayer. Gut microbes produce enzymes that help us digest food and break it down into essential nutrients, producing vitamins our own bodies don’t possess the ability to make on their own; protect us from disease-causing bacteria by regulating our immune system and teaching it how to fight off invaders; as well as produce anti-inflammatory compounds. A microbiome is unique to a person, passed on from a mother when we’re born. Likewise, microbiomes in soil differ in composition depending on region, type of soil, plant matter, and a variety of other factors.

Despite all the powerful benefits they can confer, microbiomes are hardly invincible, and human activity has done much to disrupt them. Industrial agricultural practices have an outsize role to play in the destruction of the soil microbiome. Tilling soil releases carbon and disrupts and damages bacteria, fungi, and arthropods. Monocropping saps nutrients from soil and decreases the beneficial microbes that live in it, leading to poorer plant growth and increased susceptibility to plant infections and diseases. Additionally, monocropping is heavily dependent on chemical inputs; these “negatively affect the biological functionaries of microbes, their diversity, composition, and biochemical processes,” according to multidisciplinary research from 2020 published in Land, causing “serious hazards to soil environment and human health.”

This finding is supported by a new study conducted by the Center for Biological Diversity and other partners, which shows that pesticides are poisoning soil and all the life supported by it. “The prevalence of negative effects in our results underscores the need for soil organisms to be represented in any risk analysis of a pesticide that has the potential to contaminate soil,” the research concluded, “and for any significant risk to be mitigated in a way that will specifically reduce harm to the soil organisms that sustain important ecosystem services.

As these microbes disappear, the soil and its plants suffer; and so does our health, as we take in significantly fewer, and fewer types, of tiny organisms into our gut microbiomes; some of these microbes may actually be in danger of extinction, says Mayer, with the effects on human health not fully understood. Additionally, our diets have become reliant on monocultures of processed and fatty foods that do not properly “feed” our tenant microbes and keep them in balance, leaving us susceptible to diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and colon cancer.

In the same way that microbial diversity in soil is decreased by agricultural chemicals, our microbial gut diversity is reduced by antibiotics. Both antibiotics and synthetic pesticides have been critically important societal interventions, says Mayer, but the collateral damage to human and soil microbiomes has been “tremendous.” Figuring out how to restore and protect microbiomes — in soil, in people, in oceans, and air — will be the work of researchers for many years to come, and essential to supporting all life on our planet. “Nurture your ecosystem,” says Mayer, “and it will take care of everything else.”

Defining and validating regenerative farm systems... | F1000Research
https://f1000research.com/articles/10-115/v1

Regenerative outcomes were strongly correlated with our approach to farm scoring. Soil organic matter, fine particulate organic matter, total soil carbon, total soil nitrogen, phosphorous, calcium and sulfur all increased alongside regenerative matrix scores in one or both of the cropping systems. Water infiltration rates were significantly faster in more regenerative almond orchards. Soil bacterial biomass and Haney soil health test scores were higher as cropland incorporated more regenerative practices. Plant species diversity and biomass increased significantly with the number of regenerative practices employed on almonds and rangelands. Invertebrate species diversity and richness were positively associated with regenerative practices in corn, almonds, and rangelands, whereas pest populations and almond yields were unaffected by the number of regenerative practices. Corn yields were negatively associated with more regenerative practices, while almond yields were unaffected by the number of regenerative practices. Profit was significantly higher on more regenerative corn and almond operations.

How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for our Times: Servigne, Pablo, Stevens, Raphaël, Brown, Andrew: 9781509541393: Amazon.com: Books
https://www.amazon.com/How-Everything-Collapse-Pablo-Servigne/dp/150954139X

Book Review: How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for Our Times - Holmgren Permaculture Design
https://holmgren.com.au/book-review-how-everything-can-collapse-a-manual-for-our-times/

David Holmgren, co-originator of the permaculture concept, has just published a review of the book "How Everything Can Collapse". He writes:

"Reading this book did more than just mollify my adverse reaction to whether the term ‘collapse’ might be the best word to encompass the diversity of likely future scenarios. It generated a personal acceptance that I am, along a diversity of thinkers and writers acknowledged in this extensively referenced work, a collapsologist.... Servigne and Stevens have provided a great introduction to a field of study that cannot be investigated without that investigation dispelling the illusion of separation of subject and observer."

A 10-year plan to save the world's degraded soil | World Economic Forum
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/12/a-10-year-plan-to-save-our-soil

Of the three great bisospheres – soil, ocean, atmosphere – soil is the only one we have a fighting chance of remediating within a couple of decades given current technologies.

The need to fix soil is hardly an original idea. Yet progress on a global scale has been painfully slow, for several reasons:

Farming practices and incentives have prioritised yield optimisation over long-term soil health, and continue to do so.
Our understanding of the soil science has significant gaps.
Improving soil health is resource intensive and comparatively slow, while the complex variety of soils and climates means there is anything but “one size fits all”.

...


First, the work has confirmed three critical determinants of the functioning of any soil system – capacity, efficiency and resilience. Capacity is the ability to translate water and nutrients into outputs such as food. Efficiency relates to energy flows – how much energy is converted to outputs rather than dissipated? Resilience is soil’s ability to store water and nutrients until conditions improve. This is a framework to make sense of the enormous diversity of soil and climate across our planet, while providing much improved qualitative and quantitative understanding of the micro-scale processes involved.

Second, the work has enabled the prototyping of reliable, quick and low-cost measurement of soil health in real-time using networked digital probes. Access to these data in real-time has the potential to rapidly progress a “how to” library of best-practices for soil health across geography and climate, while providing objective measurement and hence the basis for relevant private or public incentives. Thinking has commenced on the protocols which would be needed to underpin this on a global scale.

Third, we now have, for the first time, a mechanistic theory for how carbon moves from the atmosphere to become stored in soil, and the co-benefits that emerge. This, combined with the measurement break-throughs, is a step-change in using soil management practices and incentives to sequester carbon and improve those three critical determinants of the functioning of any soil system – capacity, efficiency and resilience.