The Good News: There Are A Myriad Of Evironmental Solutions

I don't need to tell y'all that the environment needs our help; and that we really need some large scale solutions being rushed into play, like, yesterday. But people are working on some solutions, and some (the first story) happened all by itself! So I thought it was time for another article about #thegoodnews:

Gao trees in Niger are fending off the expansion of the Sahara desert:

image from article below

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/16/regreening-niger-how-magical-gaos-transformed-land

"This is not a grand UN-funded project aiming to offset climate change. Small-scale farmers have achieved it because of what the trees can do for crop yields and other aspects of farming life.

“It’s a magic tree, a very wonderful tree,” said Abasse Tougiani of Niger’s National Institute of Agricultural Research, who has travelled all over Niger studying Faidherbia albida – the gao’s Latin name.

Shielded from the sun, crops planted under the canopy of a tree usually do not do well in the short term, although there can be longer-term benefits. That’s one reason why many west African rainforests have been decimated. But with gaos, it’s the other way round. The root system of the gao is nearly as big as its branches, and unusually it draws nitrogen from the air, fertilising the soil. And unlike other trees in the area, gao tree leaves fall in the rainy season, allowing more sunlight through to the crops at a key moment.

Used along with mineral fertilisers, crop yields double under gaos, and the gao-nourished soil holds water better, ensuring a better crop in drought years." (excerpt from article)

Basically, the trees started seeding themselves, and the farmers started taking care of them, because they realized it helped their crop yield, among other benefits like lowering local temperatures (in an area that can get into the 40 degree celsius range). "One gao was equal to ten cows" for fertilizing, one person in the article said.

The regreening in Niger was helped by several things, and not just this practicality: until the mid-80s, every tree was considered to belong to the state. When that changed, people felt a sense of ownership and were happy to look after the trees. Also, there were schemes where farmers with 50+ gaos on their property were paid for each one, which further incentivized taking care of them.

The only concern is a disease that has been killing trees near the capital - fear that if it spreads, with their tree cover being such a monoculture, it could be devastating.

Feeding seaweed to cows can reduce their methane output by 30-58%:

https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-eating-seaweed-can-help-cows-to-belch-less-methane

"In the United States alone, domestic livestock — including cattle, sheep, goats, and buffalo — contribute 36 percent of the methane humans cause to be put into the atmosphere, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency." (quote from article)

Methane is a short-lived but more-heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, so basically it causes more global warming while it's in there but it breaks down and doesn't stay in the atmosphere as long as CO2 does. So, if we were to stop emitting excess methane tomorrow, it would pretty quickly dissipate to natural levels, whereas carbon dioxide would still be there for centuries. Methane is also found in landfill gas, fracking, and the melting permafrost, in one of the most famous feedback loops that is indeed "natural," but would not have happened if the climate hadn't warmed and the arctic started melting in the first place.

So, to cut back on the methane from livestock would be a pretty significant decrease in a major greenhouse gas.

"There’s nothing novel about cows eating seaweed, notes Joan Salwen, an environmental science fellow at Stanford University who introduced UC Davis scientists to the seaweed solution, and formed a nonprofit, Elm Innovations, to help focus and fund research. “Cows eat what’s available,” she says. In California, they eat almond hulls; in Georgia, they eat cottonseeds. Documented evidence attests to farmers in ancient Greece and 18th-century Iceland deliberately grazing their cows on beaches.

It was, in fact, an ordinary farmer who hit upon the idea of supplementing cows’ feed with seaweed — not for the climate, but simply for his animals’ overall health. On the shores of Prince Edward Island in Canada, Joe Dorgan observed that his beach-paddocked cows got pregnant faster and produced more milk than his inland pastured cows." (excerpt from article)

And just like with the gaos, there's an incentive for the farmers: increased milk production and cows getting pregnant faster. Win-win. It's one particular type of seaweed that produced the 58% result: "That process revealed Asparagopsis as the anti-methanogenic seaweed of choice. But Kinley is quick to warn that it does not grow in abundance all over the planet. If it breaks out as a global solution to enteric methane, it will need to be farmed.

Which is not, Kinley argues, a bad thing. Seaweed cultivation takes up excess nitrogen and dissolved carbon dioxide from ocean waters; cultivating it could create new economies in impoverished regions. Researchers still need to figure out how that would work. “There is no depth of knowledge in cultivation of Asparagopsis using any method,” says Kinley." ...so it could also help the overloaded-with-our-carbon oceans, and provide a new industry to people in impoverished places. Win-win-win-win. Further: "'Methane is an indication of an inefficiency in the animal’s digestion,' says Jonathan Reinbold, sustainability program manager for Organic Valley, a cooperative of more than 1,800 dairy farmers, including 35 in California. 'If you can increase the digestion efficiency of a cow by 5 percent you could remove 5 percent of the land you use for production for cows. It can go back to fallow or be used to grow other kinds of food.'" Less land needed for cattle grazing, too. Win-win-win-win-win!

Project Drawdown: ranking the best solutions:

I'll let this video speak for itself, but do watch it, there are some surprising results regarding what is most effective!

So there you have it, some hopeful solution-based news for you. As the video from Project Drawdown said, surely at least one of these solutions is something you might be passionate about helping with, right? I love that there is something for everyone to focus on, and many of the solutions have multiple benefits. You can help educate women, grow local economies, AND help the environment.

Thanks for reading!

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