The second dust bowl cometh for America, supercomputer warns

https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/18/dustbowl_doe_climate/

by LinuxBender • 3 years ago

47 40 3 years ago

theregister.com

badrabbit• 3 years ago

Scary stuff. What is the solution? Make it illegal to grow crops in a way that destroys soil? Is this a partisan issue?

"Eat mor Chiken" as the chic-fil'a cows say?

flangola73• 3 years ago

What is the solution? Make it illegal to grow crops in a way that destroys soil?

That would be a start. Farming practices that have been known for centuries to maintain field fertility have been discarded because it reduces average annual yield (and thus, profits). It's been artificially propped up by the use of nitrogen rich fertilizer, but that's a dwindling supply.

"Eat mor Chiken" as the chic-fil'a cows say?

Eating less meat and eating more crops directly would improve our odds.

RealityVoid• 3 years ago

Why do you say nitrogen fertiliser is a dwindling supply?

bryanlarsen4• 3 years ago

You mean the organic farming practices that destroyed the Tigris and Euphrates, or the ones that caused the 30's first bowl or many others?

We know what causes soul loss. The primary factor is tillage.

And if you want to grow food on land without tillage the best way is to use more herbicide and more fertilizer, or to turn it into pasture and raise animals on the land.

culopatin• 3 years ago

And thus profits. It reduces the supply of food, which will likely cause more land to be used for farming. Also less people can afford a vegetable and can only eat corn syrup. This goes against the push for a growing population. If we had time to first accept and plan around a shrinking population we could afford to use less land or use the current one in a less aggressive way.

smileysteve• 3 years ago

1. Collect and use compost on farms

2. Use more sustainable, ground cover crops like hemp.

galleywest200• 3 years ago

Or clover, as it fixates nitrogen into the soil.

rocket_surgeron2• 3 years ago

Hemp isn't any more or less sustainable than any other crop.

This isn't about marijuana. Marijuana should and will eventually be legal.

This is about the cargo cult that has surrounded hemp.

Hemp is in the C3 photosynthesis category, as are million of other plants.

Generally speaking, switchgrass or any other C4 grass will produce more biomass in identical conditions, than hemp.

If your goal is biomass, switchgrass also has the benefit of not being an invasive, non-native, species in North America.

MithrilTuxedo• 3 years ago

Produce electricity where we currently grow food and use that energy to grow food closer to where we eat it.

rgrieselhuber• 3 years ago

And support policies that encourage ownership at the local level, prevent multinational corporations and billionaires from buying up the producing assets.

toomuchtodo2• 3 years ago

Lots of crazy locals are pushing back out of aesthetics or emotional attachment to farming even if that farming isn’t good for the land. Uphill battle ahead against these folks.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/30/its-got-...

https://www.realclearenergy.org/articles/2023/01/12/solar_en...

https://futurism.com/19606

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-solar-expansion-stalled-...

autoexec2• 3 years ago

It's a partisan issue in that there are those still trying to convince the American public that climate change isn't real, or that it's not caused by humans, or that it's not a real problem for people, or that doing anything that would impact the profits of the corporations who contribute the most to it would be entirely unacceptable.

We've known for a very long time that large parts of the western US were at severe risk of desertification and that combined with increasing temperatures there could come a time when they may not be fit to sustain large populations. I'm surprised to see projections that it'll be so bad in the midwest as well. It's sort of telling that they've been preparing for likely civil unrest as a result of drought (https://drought.unl.edu/Publications/News.aspx?id=388)

There's no one solution to the problem, but the good news is that this isn't a problem limited to the US. Governments around the world have been working on finding solutions for decades. (https://www.dw.com/en/holding-back-the-growing-desert/a-1862...) so I'm still hopeful that however broken our political system is or becomes, it won't prevent the exploration of new restoration techniques.

mistrial92• 3 years ago

The European Commission supports the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD)

hettygreen• 3 years ago

This is the actual paper (I think): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-12516-7

micah632• 3 years ago

No till drilling is the ultimate solution because you get ultra productive land without disrupting the soil. It's an incredible advancement in industrial tractor PTO accessories.

Another huge win that a lot of people are not aware of is using mobile electric fences to quickly move cows through fields. They eat, poop, stomp and move on. That adds an incredible amount of fertility into the ground without needing fertilizer.

For those interested in industrial production of healthy food with healthy soil (+18 inches of rich organic porous soil with trillions of cool characters, diversity and nutrient sharing super highways), check out "Kiss the Ground" on netflix (great intro to soil), then the "The littlest big farm" on netflix (see a 7 year transformation from barren monoculture hydrophobic dirt to rich soil farming in California), then check out youtube for Gabe Brown (soil expert), Joel Salatin (regenerative mobile cheap farming nut), Richard Perkins (regenerative farming expert), and Allan Savory (holistic management, how animals help soil).

moremetadata5• 3 years ago

No till drilling is the ultimate solution

What you state isnt far off, as tractors have got bigger so the plough cuts deeper and the soil erosion increases.

When horses pulled ploughs, they didnt cut too deep into the soil so that white root mass you find in soil which hasnt been dug over in years is not far from the surface, but now you have to dig several inches deep before you hit any root mass of sorts, when todays tractors have been over it. Its the root mass which helps reduce the soil erosion, but also have plenty of small ponds and lakes also keep the water table up.

Whats also interesting, there is only one agricultural machinery manufacturer that I know of who is R&D'ing smaller equipment to make into robots, and they are German, in order to tackle the soil erosion, and make their equipment more usable in smaller fields.

Because Japanese food is so expensive partly because of the lack of land, you can be sure its of the highest quality, similar efforts are being seen in the UK to make the food quality higher whilst increasing biodiversity with smaller fields.

The days of stack it high sell cheap are coming to an end, partly because the pollutions levels are so high, and the poor quality food is shortening people's lifespans which is now only just showing up in data, despite retirement ages being raised.

They eat, poop, stomp and move on. That adds an incredible amount of fertility into the ground without needing fertilizer.

The bacteria levels need to rot the poop down, so you are better off muck spreading with from old piles of poop, just like any compost, than you are from fresh. One of the other things I've seen farmers doing here in the UK, is spreading seaweed on fields to increase certain minerals.

mattpallissard• 3 years ago

as tractors have got bigger so the plough cuts deeper and the soil erosion increases.

The size of your equipment does not dictate the depth you have your drill or planter set to.

When horses pulled ploughs,they didnt cut too deep into the soil

Yes they did. Plowing completely turns over the top soil.

There are other things at play too like row spacing. We used to plant at 36", eventually we went down to 30", some of our neighbors even went down to 20" or so.

tharkun__3• 3 years ago

    The bacteria levels need to rot the poop down, so you are better off muck spreading with from old piles of poop, just like any compost, than you are from fresh

If I understand you correctly then you are advocating for not letting them poop on the fields?

That would mean not letting them graze on the fields either. So you're back to a barn. With associated problems.

That can also be labor intensive. Now you have to actually muck the barn and compost it all, then spread the compost on the fields.

Or you just let the cows graze, poop and stomp and you do nothing (except move them around from field to field).

I know what I'd do if I had to do all that work.

bryanlarsen4• 3 years ago

What you state isnt far off, as tractors have got bigger so the plough cuts deeper and the soil erosion increases.

Old style moldboard plows drawn by horses or oxen cut about 4-6 inches deep. A modern cultivator is usually set to a depth of about 0.5 - 2 inches.

jaredhallen• 3 years ago

I expect you're right about the depth of the till, but it has more to do with than just the roots. Healthy soil is a living ecosystem, and tearing it up wreaks havoc on that ecosystem. To deal with that, we apply synthetic nutrients, which do feed the plants in the short term, but the soil continues to degrade over time, requiring ever increasing quantities of chemical inputs. It's not a good situation over the long term, and it doesn't take a super computer to figure that out.

rumdonut• 3 years ago

I am confused by how this would avert some of the issues described in the article. It describes dustbowl conditions as evaporating water out of the ground. Does no-till drilling solve this?

micah632• 3 years ago

Healthy soil accepts water and retains it. Soil does not like to be naked, it always tries to cover itself so that it can grow a jungle of underground creatures and nutrients superhighways. Every time you till (cut up the jungle to get rid of weeds and give crops a chance to grow), you complete destroy all organic life! That soil turns to dirt that can’t accept water (drought) and can’t retain it (floods and top soil erotion). No till drills surgically insert seeds so that you can grow diverse crops simultaneously without destroying the underground jungle! Check out Gabe Brown to learn more about no till drill crops.

rainbowzootsuit• 3 years ago

Thanks for some info to catch up on.

I've seen another step described where you bring in a mobile chicken coop a few days after the cows have departed to eat the insects that arrived to eat the poop.

Also keeping the cows a little while means they eat up all the "weed" plants and not just the tastier stuff —"eat your vegetables" type of thing—while if they free graze they only take the best tasting grasses and move on.

How to green the world's deserts and reverse climate change | Allan Savory (TED talk) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI

meghan_rain• 3 years ago

Just 6 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34757626

autoexec2• 3 years ago

Does anyone have a good source for tracking data on the average amounts of dustfall in the US? It feels like there's more and more dust on everything these days, on shelves, in/on cars, building up in my electronics, etc. and I'm having to deal with it more often, change filters more frequently etc. but it could easily just be the area's I'm in. I'm wondering if there's really been an increase in dust for most places or data on which places dust is more/less of a problem today.

rocket_surgeron2• 3 years ago

A dust bowl isn't just brought about by drought but by both drought and intensive tillage.

According to the USDA 2017 Census of Agriculture no-till acreage increased from 96.5 million in 2012 to 104.5 million in 2017. Reduced-tillage increased from 76.6 million to 97.8 million. Intensive tillage decreased from 105.7 million to 80.0 million.

So 202.3 million acres are now no- or reduced-tillage and 97.8 million acres are intensive-tillage.

The 2022 Census of Agriculture is being drafted and I imagine the intensive-tillage numbers will decrease even more.

Overall, tillage conservation practices have increased by 2-3% every year since the 1970s.

The second dust bowl cometh for America, supercomputer warns

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