Quite possibly the most amazing TED talk ever...

[Ts Stormrage]

Allan Savory: How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change

I'm not a scientist, but I play one on TV... So let's open up a debate on what else you think can save the world from all its perils (both man-made and natural)...

Always wanted to try to flex my admin powers on these forums, so let's keep this topic intelligent, shall we?

[His Lordship]

That man has just become my hero.
It does bring back much hope.

[Owen]

Blew my mind. Will post more later.

Gonna be researching tonight!

[Super Cook]

That is phenominal :O

[Lord Himself]

Such a straightforward solution, but we have to be wary of complications always.

[His Lordship]

I'm impressed at how many people took the time to watch it.
Good job guys.
And thanks Stormrage for showing it to us.

[Ts Stormrage]

One thing about that vid is unclear though...

He says to mimic nature by bunching and moving livestock around, in a planned fashion...
But he says that wasn't enough...

Did he really increase the livestock to 4 times its size to get the desired effect? Or did I miss something...

[Keith]

One thing about that vid is unclear though...

He says to mimic nature by bunching and moving livestock around, in a planned fashion...
But he says that wasn't enough...

Did he really increase the livestock to 4 times its size to get the desired effect? Or did I miss something...

He's saying that it needs to be done on a larger scale because small flocks don't have the desired effect. So they formed a herd 400% larger than normal and had it travel through targeted lands and used it to simulate nature but in a faster pace. The planning and increased livestock part is to increase the speed of simulation, to really get the areas back on track. Or so it seems to me.

But this is an excellent listen, finally someone who's not blaming oil companies for everything.

[Ts Stormrage]

Although that canadian tar sand thing, and that fracking isn't exactly helping...

Those methods not only pollute the ground water with chemicals we're not allowed to know about, something that will devastate a lot of things further down the line, but they are also producing 20% more greenhouse gasses than conventional fossil fuels...

The reason that they never employed these methods before is because prices of a barrel of oil are, on average, high, and rising further as time progresses...

The Keystone XP pipeline, when realised, means game over for the environment... And that isn't something I just made up, that is a direct quote from the two foremost climate scientists...

The good news in this is that, due to ever lowering cost of "alternative" energy sources (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal) and rising costs of fossil fuels, the point where the green energies become cheaper than the dirty ones is rapidly approaching... When this happens, noone is going to invest in oil, coal, gas, etc anymore...

If you want to help bring this point closer much faster, do all you can do to stop new pipelines, new drilling projects, and new areas being given the green light to "develop", by voting and signing petitions, and all that... This will drive costs of fossil fuels up even faster...

A good site to visit that has an aim to bundle all the green movement's momentum is www.350.org and is backed by the worlds leading climate scientists, including Bill McKibben, Peter Byck (maker of the movie Carbon Nation) and James Hansen...
350 is based on the parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere that the best calculations show is manageable for the earth to handle without any major impact on the climate...
Just to give you an indication; pre-industial revolution, the concentration hovered around 280ppm, and the current trends suggest we are already past the 400ppm mark...
And we are still without any significant reduction in global emissions in the foreseeable future...

[Keith]

Although that canadian tar sand thing, and that fracking isn't exactly helping...

Those methods not only pollute the ground water with chemicals we're not allowed to know about, something that will devastate a lot of things further down the line, but they are also producing 20% more greenhouse gasses than conventional fossil fuels...

The reason that they never employed these methods before is because prices of a barrel of oil are, on average, high, and rising further as time progresses...

The Keystone XP pipeline, when realised, means game over for the environment... And that isn't something I just made up, that is a direct quote from the two foremost climate scientists...

The good news in this is that, due to ever lowering cost of "alternative" energy sources (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal) and rising costs of fossil fuels, the point where the green energies become cheaper than the dirty ones is rapidly approaching... When this happens, noone is going to invest in oil, coal, gas, etc anymore...

If you want to help bring this point closer much faster, do all you can do to stop new pipelines, new drilling projects, and new areas being given the green light to "develop", by voting and signing petitions, and all that... This will drive costs of fossil fuels up even faster...

A good site to visit that has an aim to bundle all the green movement's momentum is www.350.org and is backed by the worlds leading climate scientists, including Bill McKibben, Peter Byck (maker of the movie Carbon Nation) and James Hansen...
350 is based on the parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere that the best calculations show is manageable for the earth to handle without any major impact on the climate...
Just to give you an indication; pre-industial revolution, the concentration hovered around 280ppm, and the current trends suggest we are already past the 400ppm mark...
And we are still without any significant reduction in global emissions in the foreseeable future...

As long as oil companies exist, people are going to invest in oil. Despite a revolution in greener technology in some first world countries, it's hard to foresee a worldwide change. As well as that methods for obtaining and using oil are becoming more efficient and the demand is still growing up until green energies are on a remote scale compared to the size of the oil industry, and that an oil company can lower prices extensively if the competition DOES become so dire. I can't see oil companies going anywhere withing the next 50 years. Especially since it's becoming more and more cost efficient to drill essentially anywhere. I'm not against fracking either, I just believe it should be done in a more controlled manner.

Spoken from someone who is probably going to work for an oil company within the next 5 years.

[Wayshow]

Keith you're a geologist! SAVE OUR WORLD!@$%

[Keith]

Keith you're a geologist! SAVE OUR WORLD!@$%

Maybe after i'm done milking oil companies for all their worth! After that I can work on reversing what I did lolol

[Ts Stormrage]

Right now oil companies are pretty heavily subsidized in the US...

If fuel prices were anywhere near what they are overhere in Europe, the demand for fuel efficient cars would go up... Just to name one example... But there is a reason why noone outside of the US is buying any american cars other than the Ford Focus...

But if I was a betting man (and fortunately, due to having a critical brain that embraces the scientific method, I'm not) I would put all my money in green technologies... Scientists and economists line up overwhelmingly on the green side to be the place to put your money...

And there is one more thing... Graphene is going to do for the world what plastics have done before it, and steel before that... Only the benefit of it is that it's far less polluting...
I'll try and dig up a video of the properties of this new stuff (which is basically a 1-atom thick sheet of carbon in a honeycone lattice), and let you guys decide...

[Ts Stormrage]

Found it:

How To Make Graphene

[Rachellove9]

I was amazed by the burning of grasslands in Africa.
I'm really concerned for the African people.
This is crazy to be doing this much damage.

I will be watching 2nd video and commenting shortly.

[Asaad]

My concern is the mobility of livestock. For example, who in the U.S. is going to take it upon themselves to move livestock through Yellowstone park? I'm not sure privatized businesses would do so.

[Rick]

Offers salvation for Africa, however in nations where it is not yet a necessity this will not happen. As a race we only acknowledge a problem when it is glaring right back at us.

I am a bit skeptical though; it restores grasslands but applying the concept to produce mass crops introduces additional factors. Sure he speaks about an increased crop yield, but what kind of % increase would be necessary for the natives to live sustainably and support themselves?

Having said that, any sort of increase fertility in the soil has got to be considered a revelation.

[Ts Stormrage]

Having read some of the more intelligent omments on that vid, sme ranchers already do this in the states...
You may remember that last year saw a massive draught throughout most of the country, but the crops and livestock of the ones using these techniques suffered much much less or not at all... This is what his argument is for private business...
For public land and nature reserves, all you need to do is reintroduce the wildlife that was supposed to live there in the first place, along with its natural predators...
So, sorry Sarah, no more shooting wolves from a helicopter...

Also Rick; for a population to be at sustainable numbers and not wildly spawning offspring you got to give women a measure of control of their fertility cycle...
Most of the western world still spawned 5 or more children, even after the 2nd world war, but this has levelled off to about 2.1 children per two parents...

But when women in particular get an education, or even better, a job with income, their decision-making powers within the family advance greatly... These two factors are just about the only thing that you need to explain the birthrates on this map:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Birth_rate_figures_for_countries.PNG

The odd factors out are ofc China with their 1-child policy that has caused many women fetusus to be aborted in favor of having one son over one daughter, and the methodology of estimating these numbers factor in the average age people die per country, making peace-prone europe and other healthy nations drop dramatically on this chart, and war-torn Afghanistan rise just as dramatically...

The additional factor to explain birthrates is religion. Parents who practise their religion will adhere to the ban on contraception, and are more likely to spawn not just more offspring, but offspring that is religious themselves as well... Once again; education can reduce much of this damage...

[Elyxiatic]

The good news in this is that, due to ever lowering cost of "alternative" energy sources (solar, wind, hydro, geothermal) and rising costs of fossil fuels, the point where the green energies become cheaper than the dirty ones is rapidly approaching... When this happens, noone is going to invest in oil, coal, gas, etc anymore...

If you want to help bring this point closer much faster, do all you can do to stop new pipelines, new drilling projects, and new areas being given the green light to "develop", by voting and signing petitions, and all that... This will drive costs of fossil fuels up even faster...

I work in this industry so I think I have a bit of technical knowledge when I say the following:

A lot of people who analyze the industry from the outside use the terms you have used above - Phrases such as "due to ever lowering cost of alternative energy sources" and "rising costs of fossil fuels"; these are a very big generalization. The energy industry is primarily driven by "lowest cost" methodology. This takes into account generation, transmission, distribution, imports, exports & cost of fuel production. The energy market in any country is regulated with an overall body projecting future energy utilization by source. Green energy never shows 100% utilization in these projections in the next 50 years.

Some simple reasons off the top of my head why green energy cannot produce enough power are listed:

a) Wind power - Needs vast space between wind turbines and can only be placed along coastlines or naturally occurring wind tunnels created by landscape. Even when this occurs, it is not effective at converting mechanical power to electricity.
b) Hydroelectric - Can only be placed where you have a dam, or a naturally occurring waterfall. This is a very cheap source to run, but is limited by where it can be placed.
c) Photovoltaic (solar) - Very expensive. Yes, the power is basically free (after installation costs). However those installation costs are extremely high, and it takes an extremely long time for the capital paid in installation to be gained through electricity production.
d) Biomass - Cannot be done in large scale production.

The issue is that "green" energy can never fully compensate for fossil fuels. You will never get a worldwide 100% green energy production in the next 50-100 years, until the technology is developed further. In conjunction, fossil fuels are not rising in costs, much. Oil, maybe? Gas, no. Coal, no. For a fact I am 100% sure the coal price is stable each year within the normal 2-3% limits (I have seen the projections and history of the pricing).

The thing is, countries like Australia are not "switching" to green. Coal seam gas is relatively new (past 10-20 years), and the "switch" occurring is from coal to gas fired power stations. America might have nuclear power, but the change of this occurring in a lot of other countries is out of the question in the near future due to the extreme health risks.

I will post my thoughts after I watch the video.

[Bam]

very interesting

[Elyxiatic]

very interesting

^ This. I watched the video.

[Ts Stormrage]

Maths, you're missing out on a couple of key new energy sources...

The hydro electric part you completely miss out on energy taken out of waves, from either on coastal installations or those snakes you see on out to sea or underwater turbines that take advantage of tidal power.
The photovoltaic (or other solar energy utilisers, such as boiling towers) methods are still expensive, yes, but the cost of it has halved roughly every 8 years since 1980. On top of that, the materials used require so little maintainence that a guy with a bucket of water and a squeegy can do it.
There's an organisation/consortium going on right now known as Desertec, which aims to turn parts of the Sahara desert into a giant solar powerplant, meeting the energy needs of all North-African countries and plenty to spare to power large portions of Europe.

See this map:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/DESERTEC-Map_large.jpg/1280px-DESERTEC-Map_large.jpg

You also completely miss geothermal and nuclear alternatives for uranium.

Like this one:
LFTRs in 5 minutes - Thorium Reactors

China is very big on using these types of reactors to power their cities. Just as they are the the leading nation on windpower. In 6 years time they managed to increase their MWh output from windpower alone by 30 times to 70% that of ALL of the EU generates (and this includes nations big on windpower such as Germany, Denmark, Spain, and the U.K.)
EVEN the U.S. is showing a healthy growth in that industry, scaling up their MWh production by a factor of 5, to produce now more than twice what Germany does.
And yes, there are limits to where you can place these turbines, but then again, oil isn't in the ground everywhere either.

And on biomass you have to define what you are refering to:
Wood and plants? Biogas from landfill and municipal waste? Or, what I'm suspecting, biofuels from stuff like sugar cane and corn.

Biofuels come in 3 generations, each of which have their origins in South America.
The first uses the sugars in crops and converts them into bioalcohol (really this is just making liquer), and is controversial due to the food vs fuel dilemma.
The second generation is currently the most viable one and IS used on a large scale. Cellulisic material from non-food crops and waste materials such as sawdust, yard trimmings, dried dung, and agricultural waste. The difficulty is breaking the cellulose down. Grazing livestock (and we've just come full circle) does this in a very slow working enzyme process to turn it into glucose.
Generation 2.5 biofuels and biodiesels come from fungi who turn cellulose into medium and long chained hydrocarbons.
Third generation biofuels utilise algae to turn CO2 directly into biodiesel.

I'm not all that big on biomass, personally. It's a nice stop-gap, but it is, as we dutch call it, mopping up with the tap still running... It only takes CO2 out of the air to pt it back in within the year.

In the end; ALL power is solar power, as it drives the winds, maks the plants grow, etc etc. The only exception is geothermal, which utilises the heat in the earth's crust, something that comes from radioactive decay deep within the earth, and tectonic friction.
That said, the earth recieves enough energy from the sun every hour right now to sustain us for over a year. The math is there.

[Rachellove9]

Population control in any way is just wrong.
Giving into a government that wants to legally kill, stop, or control what people do in the way of family is terrible.
You even slightly suggesting that it is a good thing makes me question if you want us to practice  the ideology of antihumanism.
My post might be off-topic but just the same the belief that the human race is a horde of rats whose unconstrained aspirations and appetites endanger the natural order, and that measures are necessary to constrain population to save the Earth is morally wrong.

USA gets involved in Africa and sends them stuff to help control population by way of birth control.
Underlying though they are sending them a death sentence in that what they send is an increase chance to get aides and pass it.
Also the shots they provide for the birth control give them a much higher risk of death from breast cancer.

I financially support many missions to Africa and I hate what happens when they trust the wrong people/government.

I will watch the second video soon when I can give it my attention.

[Ts Stormrage]

I'll give you a chance to modify your response after you read this thread again...
I never mentioned the 1-child policy being a good thing, and I never even mentioned aids (without the e) because it is not a consequence of giving females more control over their bodies and family income.
Nor did I say anything about giving the government the power to do those things you said...

This coming from an american is hypocritical at best, tbh...

[Elyxiatic]

If you look at that map with the photovoltaic cells, can you see how spread out they are across the map?

The problems associated with I^2*R power losses there are so significant, you'd have to step the voltage up to 500kV (more likely 765kV) to transmit it a significant distance. Stepping a voltage up to such a high level means billions of dollars of infrastructure (transformers, switchgear, transmission lines) across those barren deserts.

-----

China is very big on using these types of reactors to power their cities. Just as they are the the leading nation on windpower. In 6 years time they managed to increase their MWh output from windpower alone by 30 times to 70% that of ALL of the EU generates (and this includes nations big on windpower such as Germany, Denmark, Spain, and the U.K.)

This is from Wikipedia:

The People's Republic of China is the largest consumer of coal in the world,[1] and is about to become the largest user of coal-derived electricity, generating 1.95 trillion kilowatt-hours per year, or 68.7% of its electricity from coal as of 2006 (compared to 1.99 trillion kilowatt-hours per year, or 49% for the US).

It might have dropped to 60% at the lowest point in 2013.

Who cares if it has the same as 70% of the production of EU? China generates so much electricity to fund their industrial sector, the majority of their power comes through coal generation. The focus on wind power is what they use to pull the wool over the eyes of the media so they don't have to take real action on their CO2 emissions.