Watching Realtime last night Bill Maher's first guest briefly mentioned this TED talk and asked viewers to watch it. I did and its pretty remarkable. I thought it would be of interest to many people in the community here. I'm not going to explain the content of video as I don't believe I could do it justice, all I ask is for you to watch. I know its 22 minutes but I think it's well worth the time.
Allan Savory: How to fight desertification and reverse climate change
I think what made it so meaningful to me is that there are tangible results. This man has brought empirical evidence with him showing that his theory works. It also doesn't rely on science and can be accomplished by anyone with a herd of live stock. Ideal for Africa and other less wealthy areas of the world.
EDIT: I'll attempt a brief summary as requested.
Mr. savory starts by detailing his journey from childhood and through school to where he is now. Interesting but somewhat unimportant. The good stuff comes later. To make it very brief his theory is not that livestock is destroys good land but was the reason it was maintained. By grazing large herds of livestock like would've happened in the past before humans changed their life style you can turn land that has desertified (not a word I know) back into grass land.
The cows eat all the dying grass, allowing new grass to grow. They trample grass, creating shade and allowing for the biology in the soil to thrive. I also think something to do with the urine and feces helps the grassland as well. These things all have to effect of creating an ideal environment in which grasslands can grow.
By causing new grasslands to spring up in areas which are currently 'dead' you create massive carbon sinks. If we could shrink the deserts in Africa by creating new grasslands it is estimated that carbon levels in the atmosphere would decrease to below pre-industrial levels.
I hope that's an OK summary.
