Available for interview:
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Why popular remedies for global warming won't stop it
The author or publisher of Priority One will tell your audience:
- why fossil fuel marketers want you to believe that global warming is either not happening, or is inevitable and can't be stopped
- how soil is the largest carbon sink we have control over--and why this opportunity is overlooked or ignored
- how plowing, chemicals, and soil exposure caused the loss of soil carbon and fertility, and how these losses can be reversed rapidly at low cost
- why tree planting won't work
- 5 things the coal, oil, and gas companies don't want you to know
- how global warming is a post-partisan political issue that could turn around our farm, food, and land policies as well as energy
- 3 things that must happen before we can stop global warming and climate destabilization
- why governments won't seize this opportunity without popular support
It's more than just energy policy . . .
Sharply reducing fossil fuel emissions is necessary, but it is not sufficient. To stop global warming, we must also reclaim much of the excess carbon from the atmosphere. The only proven and cost-effective way of doing this is by managing our land better--not only forests, but more importantly pastures, croplands, and rangelands.
If the organic matter in the top foot of all the world's field and pasture soils were increased by 1.6%, the greenhouse effect would be back to near normal. By switching to sustainable energy sources that don't contribute carbon to the atmosphere, we could keep it that way.
No new technology, no yet-to-be-invented devices or processes are required to take advantage of these opportunities. People are doing it, but in a scattered fashion. Priority One connects the dots.
The soil is by far the largest carbon sink that we have significant influence on, much larger than forests. Much of the carbon in the atmosphere today has come from the soil via tillage, exposure to the elements, or chemicals. If we put it back into the soil, using solar energy captured by plants, it will help us with every single problem we have.
Sample audio for Allan Yeomans on a telephone interview, US to Australia:
mp3 audio clip, about 5 minutes (right click and Save Target As to download)
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"Allan Yeomans is an articulate spokesperson for a timely message that needs to be heard. Yeomans has facts and figures which he presents with clarity and knowledge. It is my opinion that he needs more exposure for his ideas, as people and politics enter a crisis situation facing the earth. He is an excellent interview." ---Maggi White |
Suggested interview questions
for Allan Yeomans or Peter Donovan
- Why did you write this book?
- Why has so little been accomplished to stop global warming?
- Why are most people only concerned with reducing emissions and energy policy, and not with the need to reclaim the excess carbon dioxide from the air?
- Why is the soil carbon opportunity mostly ignored?
- I've been hearing a lot about terra preta or biochar. Is that a good way to put carbon into the soil?
- Why is tree planting so widely recommended?
- Will carbon capture technologies help us to slow global warming?
- Do you think politicians and elected officials will solve the problem for us?
- What has to happen in order for us to fix global warming?
- There certainly is a lot of doom and gloom about global warming. Are there any bright spots?
What others have said about this controversial and original book:"Yeomans is uniquely experienced in fertility-enhancing agriculture and meteorology. An innovative approach to combating global warming . . . essential reading." ----Rob Borbidge, 35th Premier of Queensland, Australia "Through fossil fuel burning and land management that accelerates soil organic matter breakdown, we are releasing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than is being fixed by growing plants. Clearly we must reverse this to avoid the inevitable devastating climate change. This book lays out a way to do this that has so far been surprisingly neglected by most scientists and environmentalists." ----Stuart Hill, Foundation Chair of Social Ecology, Western Sydney University "Priority One is a refreshingly original approach to the problems of global warming, backed with convincing facts and figures, and highlighting the role of soil as a carbon sink. Yeomans gives compelling reasons for dismissing swamps and rainforests as carbon sinks. Our true savior may be soil humus of agricultural lands, and simple techniques to build soil fertility." ----Greg Retallack, Professor of Geological Sciences, University of Oregon "Yeomans is no tree hugger, no rubber stamp for amateurs who assemble just enough facts on the environment to be dangerous. . . . Priority One knows the meaning of the word priority, and it pursues the topic with rare energy." ----Charles Walters, editor of Acres USA "Priority One may hold the answer the world now needs for the prevention of global warming." ----Harry Messel, retired Professor of Physics, University of Sydney |
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Allan Yeomans is an inventor and manufacturer with numerous patents in agriculture, mining, furniture, and energy systems. He is currently developing a high-pressure, high-temperature steam solar thermal power station for remote towns and cities.
Allan Yeomans was born in Sydney, Australia. As a young man, he studied nuclear physics, chemistry, and engineering. His father, P. A. Yeomans, pioneered the Keyline system of soil development in Australia, and Allan took an active role in both the development of subsoil plows and the practicalities of managing land for rapid creation of fertile topsoil.
This combination of practical and scientific knowledges came together in what he recognized as a viable solution to the problem of global warming. In our modern era of specialization and separation of theory from practice, few people understand or appreciate how rapidly soil organic matter can develop under appropriate management, particularly in temperate zones. It is not common knowledge in academic circles, in government agencies, or in the nonprofit sector. "When I finally sat down and did some back-of-the-envelope calculations, it became apparent that soil could solve the global warming problem," he recalls.
Yeomans presented this concept to a gathering on sustainable agriculture in California in 1989, along with his thoughts on the undue influence of the oil and agrochemical industry on all aspects of American society. He thought people would realize that this was good way of solving the climate problem, but he was ahead of his time. He recognized that few others had his combination of practical and scientific knowledges, and he began to feel a responsibility and a duty to write about the solution he saw in a way that others could understand it.
In 1992 he began gathering more information and writing. Global warming, he says, was constantly portrayed as either not happening, unavoidable, or safe anyway. Almost all the reports and articles tended to discount both the dangers and the opportunities for solving the problem. After many years of research and writing, he published Priority One: Together We Can Beat Global Warming in Australia in 2005.
Yeomans is well versed in all aspects of his topic and speaks in plain language. "There is 20 times as much carbon in a square yard of good agricultural soil as in all the air above it."
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Peter Donovan lives in Enterprise, Oregon, where he writes on resource management issues, low-stress livestock handling, pasture management, and entrepreneurial development. He has herded sheep, cattle, and turkeys, worked on farms, and in the woods.
He thinks that the reason so many of our large problems are worsening is that the people who know how to solve them are usually excluded from the decision making.
Peter had also been doing back-of-the-envelope calculations on soil carbon. He discovered Priority One online and published a U.S./UK edition in the summer of 2007.
Biosphere Media
PO Box 393
Enterprise, OR 97828
USA
541-426-5783
peter at wallowa dot net
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