I debated on whether or not to post this one, but it could be the most enlightening book you'll read on the planet. It explains how there is no water shortage, we just don't know how to manage it and make use of it before it runs off back to the sea. It shows how before we messed it up, herds of wild, moving grazing animals kept the land productive and able to hold water just by their hoof impressions and their dung, and even the predators had a role to keep the herds moving so overgrazing didn't occur. But nobody thinks this way because we overgrazed with domestic animals and ruined it so grazing is now considered bad for the land.
It explains how our use of nitrogen fertilizers has created weak and unhealthy crops that are subject to disease and pests, requiring the need for pesticides. Giving a plant nitrogen instead of letting the plant get the nitrogen by natural process kills an important function of the plant, it no longer takes carbon from the air and returns it to the soil. The soil needs the carbon, it's what makes black, loamy soil. This is why approximately 25% of the world's agricultural lands are now deserified.
It also explains how our forest mis-management has led to temperature and weather changes, and how much the entire world needs the Amazon. But they are still chopping it down. There are actual rivers in the atmosphere that occur over forested lands. Lose the forests, lose the atmospheric rivers and the moisture needed for entire continents, and the protection form the sunlight which keeps the surface temperatures moderate.
All these factors have contributed to our climate more than our emissions, and in fact the book hints that if we could restore the lands and forests to what they should be it would offset our carbon emissions.
There is already some being done but on a small scale, and it has been successful, the author visited places around the world where the land is being restored just by managed grazing and forest restoration, and when the land comes back the climate comes back.
I have also studied terracing which is a simple alternative way of plowing and has been successful in retaining water and restoring land in parts of the dust bowl.
Maybe some of you already know this stuff, I knew some bits and pieces of it but this book puts all the "whys" together in an easily understood way.
It's not a hard read and hope you will read it and comment.
. No devices were used inside.
