“Value & Waste” August 2021

This month we begin with a Youtube video to provide context of this provocative month of conversations and a short reading from “Mobilize”.

Week One

For additional color for the mess we are in, watch “The Biggest Little Farm”. This documentary features a couple and their natural farm built on biodiversity, regeneration and recognition of interconnections, impermanence and transformation. (Find it on Amazon Prime and Hulu)

Week Two

  • Watch the talk by Walter Jehne on Youtube if you haven’t already.

  • We’ll send you the list of Small Group Numbers and names via email.

  • Make sure that you are on Slack, as you’ll communicate via Slack with your small group this week.

  • Before next week communicate with your small group via Slack or phone. Share about:

    • Cultivating moods for dealing with this mess

    • Walter Jehne’s talk on youtube

    • Value and Waste

  • Coaching for Small Group Talks

    • Pay attention to the “listening” and the moods of everyone in your small group.

    • This is an important conversation. There is lots of contention and disagreement around these topics today. Make assessments with courage and don’t take disagreements personally. We are seeking paths forward in our conversations.

Week Three

Please study these 4 contributions from Ed Huling:

1: Traditional Crop Yield Analysis

This is a picture of a control plot. We planted a mix of summer annual forage seeds into a typical, depleted pasture WITHOUT applying our fertility application. Growth time = two months….about 1/3 of the growing season. Yield = 2,100 pounds of dry matter per acre (Average pasture yield in our region is 4,000 pounds for the entire year.)

2: Control Plot with addition of Fertility Amendment

This is a picture of the same forage seeds planted at the same time as the control plot. The yield with the addition was 10,000 pounds of dry matter per acre with our fertility, a 500% increase.

3. Cloud Cover and Forests: Princeton Report

This Princeton research confirms that there is more cloud cover over forests, and that those clouds have a cooling effect on earth. It makes sense that there should be more clouds over forests, in part because there is more evaporation from trees, and in part because the forest is emitting bacterial nucleators that aggregate microdroplets into larger drops that will eventually precipitate out of the clouds as rain.  Clouds reflect the sun’s energy back out to space. This supports my conviction that we need to grow more food per acre so that we can reforest crop land to cool the earth. Depleted soils need our fertility for higher food production and successful reforestation.

4. The real threat to human life: MIT Article

Our 500% higher grass productivity should generate 500% more hydroxyl radicals to help neutralize the imminent release of frozen methane to avoid another extinction event that could include “us” this time. MIT scientists recently discovered that geologic events about 250 million years ago triggered a massive release of  methane and CO2 that sharply raised  temperatures and acidified the oceans, wiping out most land and ocean species. Frozen methane in the ocean and tundra is expected to be released as the earth warms. According to Dr. Walter Jehne, only a major increase in hydroxyl production by green grasses (kept green and vegetative by grazing animals) can save us when this methane is released.

  • Make sure that you are on Slack, as you’ll communicate via Slack with your small group this week.

  • Before next week be in communication via Slack with your small group, (or by phone). Share about:

    • What is happening to you in this conversation.

    • Where you are with Ed Huling and Walter Yehne

    • Cultivating moods for dealing with this mess

    • Value and Waste

  • Coaching for Small Group Conversations

    • Pay attention to the “listening” and the moods of everyone in your small group.

    • The “climate” subject is an important conversation. There is lots of contention and disagreement around these topics today. Make assessments with courage and don’t take disagreements personally. We are seeking paths forward in our conversations.