Disagree with the premise that feeding people and relieving climate change are competing goals. If desertified land is restored to life with good hydrology, the climate is directly cooled even before CO2 levels go down. And using livestock as the restoration tool empowers the people in those threatened lands to grow their own protein without external controls. A policy of "reducing ... demand for livestock products" is presumably based on an assumption that those livestock are net emitters. But such analyses don't include the possible benefits of livestock which co-evolved with the world's grasslands to feed each other. The side-benefit: grasslands can be the cheapest and most efficient carbon pumps. Brian
On Saturday, October 12, 2013 4:29:55 AM UTC-4, andrewjlockley wrote: > > http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.12160/abstract > > Abstract > > Feeding 9-10 billion people by 2050 and preventing dangerous climate > change are two of the greatest challenges facing humanity. Both challenges > must be met while reducing the impact of land management on ecosystem > services that deliver vital goods and services, and support human health > and well-being. Few studies to date have considered the interactions > between these challenges. In this study we briefly outline the challenges, > review the supply- and demand-side climate mitigation potential available > in the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use AFOLU sector and options > for delivering food security. We briefly outline some of the synergies and > trade-offs afforded by mitigation practices, before presenting an > assessment of the mitigation potential possible in the AFOLU sector under > possible future scenarios in which demand-side measures codeliver to aid > food security. We conclude that while supply-side mitigation measures, such > as changes in land management, might either enhance or negatively impact > food security, demand-side mitigation measures, such as reduced waste or > demand for livestock products, should benefit both food security and > greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation. Demand-side measures offer a greater > potential (1.5-15.6 Gt CO2-eq. yr-1) in meeting both challenges than do > supply-side measures (1.5-4.3 Gt CO2-eq. yr-1 at carbon prices between 20 > and 100 US$ tCO2-eq. yr-1), but given the enormity of challenges, all > options need to be considered. Supply-side measures should be implemented > immediately, focussing on those that allow the production of more > agricultural product per unit of input. For demand-side measures, given the > difficulties in their implementation and lag in their effectiveness, policy > should be introduced quickly, and should aim to codeliver to other policy > agenda, such as improving environmental quality or improving dietary > health. These problems facing humanity in the 21st Century are extremely > challenging, and policy that addresses multiple objectives is required now > more than ever. > > How to Cite > > Smith, P., Haberl, H., Popp, A., Erb, K.-h., Lauk, C., Harper, R., > Tubiello, F. N., de Siqueira Pinto, A., Jafari, M., Sohi, S., Masera, O., > Böttcher, H., Berndes, G., Bustamante, M., Ahammad, H., Clark, H., Dong, > H., Elsiddig, E. A., Mbow, C., Ravindranath, N. H., Rice, C. W., Robledo > Abad, C., Romanovskaya, A., Sperling, F., Herrero, M., House, J. I. and > Rose, S. (2013), How much land-based greenhouse gas mitigation can be > achieved without compromising food security and environmental goals?. > Global Change Biology, 19: 2285-2302. doi: 10.1111/gcb.12160 > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
