1,000-year-old farming secrets could save the Amazon rainforest

This is an interesting idea.. that doesn't require slash and burn farming techniques.

1,000-year-old farming secrets could save the Amazon rainforest



The Amazon covers over 2.5 million square miles. But that number is shrinking all the time, and the widespread deforestation could doom our hopes for averting catastrophic global climate change. That's why some ancient farming secrets could make a huge difference.

It's probably not even worth trying to comprehend the scale of the Amazon rainforest. It encompasses more than half of all the world's remaining rainforest, and it's home to about a tenth of all the world's known species, with about 90,000 tons of biomass for every square miles. And, perhaps most importantly, the Amazon stores about a tenth of the planet's stored carbon, equivalent to about 100 billion tons.

The rainforest's deforestation would threaten to release vast quantities of that stored carbon, which would greatly accelerate the global warming process. The good news is that, since around 2004, conservation efforts have begun to take hold and, while the deforestation hasn't stopped, it has at least slowed down significantly. The basic problem is how to protect the long-term health of the rainforest

Thread started at Forum 4 Politics on 04-10-2012 07:29 AM

 

Brazil not doin' much of a job of protectin' rainforest...

Brazil’s Coastal Rainforest Suffers Widespread Species Extinction
August 14, 2012 - The Atlantic forest in Brazil, once a part of the great Amazon basin on the South American continent, is suffering from widespread species loss according to a new study.

 

Apparently by getting North Americans switched over to ostrich meat rather than beef the need for pasture land could be reduced by 90%!

 

Raising awareness of how serious the problem really is will help too...…


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090205142132.htm

 

Americans could switch to anything besides beef and it would be more efficient. It's kind of tragic that we eat so much beef since it's not even really good for us.

 

According to what my kids were taught in school in 1980, the Amazon rainforests ceased to exist 14 years ago.

 

A side note - according to Anthony Bordain, people in Argentina and Paraguay appetite for beef dwarfs US consumption

 

Beavers--they terraform, can be eaten, and will let us wear fur coats again

 

Why reduce pasture land again?

 

I like buffalo, I think we should switch to that!

 

We have a buffalo farm not too far away, but I have never known them to dam surface water to add to fertility the way beavers do.

 

Beavers could be hard to hunt, we'd have to bunker buster their dams or something...

 

They move toward the sound of running water, so we could just put some of those bargain bin mood music CD's on blast and they'd come running.

 

Has anyone ever eaten a Beaver or Ostrich?

I tried Ostrich once and it was not good...never eaten beaver....love Buffalo...And I raise a few head of beef and pigs.

Also chickens and I am working on raising a few fish.

We throw very little away...No food waste...just plastic and paper.

 

Humnnnnnn..... thank you for this warning about the flavor of ostrich meat!

Oh well........... I guess switching over to ostrich will probably not be the way that we reduce the need for pasture land by 90% or so!

 

After his near death experience Mellen Benedict got the impression that humanity was going to unite and save the reainforests!

It seems that the beings that Mr. Benedict met knew more than your kids' teachers.


http://www.near-death.com/experiences/reincarnation04.html#a09

 

I almost passed this up but decided to comment.

Cattle only graze on a small percentage of land. The vast majority of beef in stores and restaurants comes from feed lots! They're huge but don't take up that much land and opposed to open grazing.

 

Hmmm...

Impressive number of replies to a straight up "One Weird Trick" spam-bot post.

 

… but…… wouldn't you have to calculate the amount of acreage needed to grow the feed to consider how efficient they really are?

 

That's it! I'm cancelling my sponsor child!

 

I guess we all suspected that that day was coming!


http://www.politicalforum.com/relig...elligent-androids-how-could-we-test-them.html


If we invent super intelligent androids... how could we test them?



Might we perhaps invent some sort of virtual reality holographic environment where the attitude and character of an android can be tested to see if they will behave in a manner that is altruistic and humble?

The analogy to Adam, Eve, Lucifer and his angels should be obvious!

Is our creator going to scale back human freedom of choice somewhat over the coming centuries in order to produce a genuinely peaceful and utopian world?

 

These ancient farming methods might just work out.