Cows save the planet and other improbable ways of restoring soil to heal the earth
In Cows Save the Planet, journalist Judith D. Schwartz looks at soil as a crucible for our many overlapping environmental, economic, and social crises. Drawing on the work of thinkers and doers, renegade scientists and institutional whistleblowers, Schwartz challenges much of the conventional thinki...
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| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
White River Junction, Vt. :
Chelsea Green Pub.,
Ã2013.
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| Subjects: | |
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| Summary: | In Cows Save the Planet, journalist Judith D. Schwartz looks at soil as a crucible for our many overlapping environmental, economic, and social crises. Drawing on the work of thinkers and doers, renegade scientists and institutional whistleblowers, Schwartz challenges much of the conventional thinking about global warming and other problems. For example, land can suffer from undergrazing as well as overgrazing, since certain landscapes, such as grasslands, require the disturbance from livestock to thrive. Regarding climate, when we focus on carbon dioxide, we neglect the central role of water in soil - "green water"--In temperature regulation. And much of the carbon dioxide that burdens the atmosphere is not the result of fuel emissions, but from agriculture; returning carbon to the soil not only reduces carbon dioxide levels but also enhances soil fertility. Cows Save the Planet is at once a primer on soil's pivotal role in our ecology and economy, a call to action, and an antidote to the despair that environmental news so often leaves us with. |
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| Physical Description: | xv, 220 pages ; 23 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 211-212) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781603584326 1603584323 |
| Author Notes: | Judith Schwartz is a longtime freelance writer with wide-ranging experience with books, magazines, newspapers, and a variety of writing and editing clients. She has written articles for women¿s magazines, co- and ghost-written books with therapists and doctors as well as a couple of her own. Her work then went in a different direction when she wrote an article on the Transition movement. When the 2008 financial crisis hit, she started asking questions like, What is money? Each inquiry led to more reporting, which took her on a whirlwind journalistic tour of New Economics, which sees the purpose of the economy as serving people and the environment. This lead her to environmental economics - which lead to soil. From all of this research came her book entitled Cows Save The Planet. In her book she shares insights on how we treat the soil can tilt us toward environmental and economic resilience. (Bowker Author Biography) |
