A new book has recently hit the market, The Blueprint: Averting Global Collapse, by Daniel Rirdan and you can get it free on Kindle from Amazon on July 25th and 26th at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Blueprint-Averting-Collapse-ebook/dp/B008MBG094.
Mr Rirdan has taken on the task of quantifying a number of big issues and exploring elegant solutions for those problems. He contacted HMI awhile back to explore the idea of improving rangeland health and increasing carbon sequestration with livestock. Like many environmental writers he had assumed livestock were bad for the land. But, unlike many people with biases against livestock, he wanted to understand how livestock could improve land health. In exploring these ideas, one of his key ideas to avert global collapse is to have Holistic Management practiced on the 6.5 billion hectares of rangeland and crop/pasture land worldwide.
Looking at current global livestock numbers of 2.24 billion SAU as well as the number of acres of rangeland and crop/pasture land, he notes we can, with some conservative carrying capacities that would improve over time with holistic planned grazing, carry 10.33 billion livestock to create food security and increase land health. Sounds like a noble idea worth trying.
To herd the numbers of livestock we have globally would require 2.5 million herders (assuming 1000 head/herder). This would not be possible in many places in the U.S. so we would need many more here which would help us reach the 52 million farmers we need to create a more sustainable ratio of farmer/consumer as we once had.
Of course the devil is in the detail as we look at large tracts of public and private land and making shifts in management practices, but the big picture is breath-taking. So is the results of individual Holistic Management practitioners who are highlighted in the book like Chad Peterson, Greg Judy, Joel Salatin, Tony and Jerry Tipton, and Neil Dennis. These stories give the public an idea of how these practices have already been put into effect and are successful. The challenge is getting the system to shift so that such practitioners are more the norm.
So his suggestion is to take 700,000 sq miles of the Great Plains and start a “nature restoration.” That would require 50 million cows, 45% of the cattle inventory for the US, to get the ball rolling. Anyone interested in playing?
If you want to shake people up and introduce them to some big ideas, I suggest you introduce them to The Blueprint. Be ready to answer the questions that will immerge from that provocative read.
To purchase The Blueprint, click here.
