Earth Is Losing its Roots
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- Опубліковано 21 вер 2024
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Roots do more than hold plants in place -- they hold the planet in place. They're an important defense against drought and climate change, and of course, our actions are changing them.
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There are thousands of scientists who disagree with so called Climate Shift. In fact, if our world had any less carbon life at all would not even be possible. It is political lies, based on bad science, and a lot of it's reality has to do with the sun. There is a great video on Magnetic Reversal News if you want to get into the specifics.
How about storing excess food grain in Antarctica to sequester carbon and have an insurance policy for a major catastrophe that could cause a massive famine?
This could have been a little more in depth but it is a good start.
Living roots retain soil better than dead ones, as living roots secrete 'glues' that help hold both soil and water.
Mycelium loves trees and helps move nutrients and moisture. Which is another benefit to treed landscapes.
Trees are important on steeper slopes where creating, bunds check dams etc could cause slides. The trees help protect hillsides from the drying effects of sun and wind. Trees also release pollen which triggers rain.
We can increase the number of trees by mimicking biomes. Primarily interplanting biome-compatible vines, perennials, shrubs and trees to grow with alley cropped 'savannas.'
This would provide more overall food and livestock feed for overall less cost in storage, farm equipment, irrigation and pumping, other red-line inputs.
Mark Shepard is a good resource on using biomes and how to set up farms to utilize this resource easily while building profitability and resiliency.
Since trees need reliable water to get started, learning about building small, frequent rainwater harvesting catchments from onsite materials would help in regreening.
Brad Lancaster has two terrific books on the subject...
Overall a big thumbs up for covering this topic. This covers half of the three most important bits to regreening, and reducing pollution.
Btw I realize you need money to fund you, but I would be suspicious of any company claiming to offset carbon footprints.
Bill Gates claims to offset his carbon footprint as well, except he makes it worse when he uses (bad) conventional ag and food producing practices including:
•Monocultures instead of polycultures
•Chemical inputs instead of using livestock to manage pests, weeds and fertility
•fallow/tilling/plowing, as well as planting annuals instead of growing more food-producing trees, perennials, vines and shrubs
•CAFOs and overgrazing instead of mobgrazing on diverse pastures ( mob grazing draws down a lot more carbon into the soil than overgrazing/CAFOs related methods. Mob grazing means cattle/livestock to produce a lot less methane as well. Cattle need less methane producing bacteria when they can avoid the lower-on-the-plant, poor-nutrition, hard-to-digest stems).
•depleting aquifers and watertables through bare soils (fallow/tilling/plowing), as well as having the various soil washed/blown away.
•using labs to grow 'meats' that worsen electrical grid strain, environmental pollution, etc.
•jetting around telling people he offset his carbon footprint.
How he earns his money would need a lot more offsets than he had going.
Anytime soil is made bare it exposes the carbon in it to sun and wind and can allow it to be blown away. This is made the worst when farmers plow/till seeds or leave them without living plant cover (fallow). Additionally soil loses much of its accumulated fertility when it lacks living roots to hold it in place. It is more than mere DIRT that is lost.
The argument at 4:03 is totally ignoring that by merely changing the way we grow out food we can greatly increase roots.
Btw Mongolia has been able to grow trees. Its a matter of harvesting rainwater, and avoiding overgrazing rather than cold...
Goatification in Mongolia hinders new trees as well.
Geology nerd here.its not just the root biomass that stores Carbon in the soil but plant respiration happens a lot in the roots and that increases the carbon dioxide content of the soil. Extra CO2 decreases soil pH which speeds up weathering. Weathering of minerals can lock away CO2
Cody!
Love your channel, man.
Don't soil microbes also play a large role in carbon sequestration with plants? I was told this is why it's a bad idea to constantly till the soil in my garden, because it disrupts a lot of the organisms in the soil.
Cody in the house! Transmitting from chicken hole.
@@FrozEnbyWolf150 Yes you are right. Plants use up to 30+% of their sugars produced from photosynthesis to feed the soil food web in the rhizosphere and create relationships with microbes to allow genes to be expressed. Mycorrhizal fungi are responsible for a 3rd of non labile carbon in the soil and greatly overlooked as they multiply the surface area of plant roots by 1000x. Along with the rest of the soil food web playing its part this generates a huge amount of humus and humic complexes further increasing the water and nutrient holding/exchange capacities. Also important to note that some carbon must make its way back up to the atmosphere by plant, animal and soil food web respiration to allow earths carbon cycle to reach homeostasis.
Certified arborist with a small point: Not all trees have deep roots. Some trees like hickory, redbud, and alder have tap roots which can go quite some distance down in search of water. These trees suck up water and flush it out to the surrounding soil which other trees are able to also share. Some trees, like maples and swamp loving trees, have very shallow roots which aid in oxygen exchange during flood times. Oddly enough the plants with some of the deepest roots are grasses like prarie grasses that are unmown. This is why tree choices at planting times, especially in new developments are SO important. A mix of trees that have varying root depths will work together better than monocultures of trees like maples (who will often struggle with the pressures of the urban environment). What is even more important than planting trees is preseving the most mature trees, especially in urban environments. We need to preserve these trees like our lives depend on them, because they do. Mature trees store more carbon than young trees because they have more leaves. Young trees release more carbon because they are growing more quickly (unless they are trained to do otherwise). Young trees need training to slow them down so they develop larger root systems and harder wood so they can survive the urban environment without mother trees. All of this can befound in 'Finding the Mother Tree' by my hero Dr. Suzanne Simmard. (#suzannesimard). Basically, we're doing it all wrong, but it is entirely possible to learn to correct our mistakes, and in the learning one can learn how incredible trees are. Trees are much more akin to whales than mailbox posts.
This is why farms now are starting to plant trees on the perimeter of their crops, they retain water and protect from erosion ESPECIALLY while crops aren't present.
Not only that but it helps to prevent dirt and top soil from creating another dust bowl in America
@@Name.......... Correct!! You see windbreaks, ( narrow line of trees at the edge of a field ), all over the midwest.
I have seen fewer windbreaks in states like Iowa, but generally all fields and no trees at the edges is the exception, especially if it's a family farm.
My family owns a farm in the midwest. From my experience the family farms like ours will have both large and small wooded perimeters (windbreaks) and water local water detention areas to help regulate the soil water content and reduce erosion. It's pretty irresponsible to have unprotected areas. What has been happening here that contributes to the problem is farms installing large drainage systems that shunt rainfall into waterways. This causes the exact kind of flooding and erosion these systems are installed to prevent except on some ones elses property. We also have a large amount of forest and farmland being bought up my real estate developers, stripped of all life and useful soil and turned into houses. Kind of a rant but our current systems seem to not make sense to me.
i saw some research that was similar but it was planting trees with crops like wheat, it ended up increasing the crop yield aswell as boosted the trees output.
I think the type of thing its called is permaculture
...now?
A root cause for this is also the loss in crop varieties. Not so long ago every village had its own variety of corn, wheat or cucumber and they had to grow without irrigation most of the time, so their roots could reach up to 8 feet into the ground to reach the water deeper down. Today almost all crop seeds come from a few big corporations, who only sell a select few varieties, that aren't adapted to local environments, usually have short roots and require irrigation and, most importantly, artificial fertiliser and pesticides, that are coincidentally sold by the same corporations. And thanks to lobbying, it's even illegal for farmers to keep and sow their own seeds in a lot of places.
Yes, but that was in response to the fear that we would literally run out of food, so we had to find ways of making the farms we already had more efficient.
I feel the "well run out of food" is gaslighting when the systems aren't dealing with food waste at all.
Stores and restaurants just throw out their food. Because if they give it away to the homeless, they don't want people to expect it.
France made it a law that excess food goes to people in need. We need to do more things like this.
@@steggopotamus IIRC, they stopped giving away food to the homeless coz a restaurant got sued. You feel charitable and give away all the excess food and then they repay you with a lawsuit when they get diarrhea or what-not, whether or not it was your food that's to blame.
I'm glad you brought this up. Our crops are weak and lazy in comparison to crops grown even 100 years ago. I don't understand how growing chemical and irrigation dependent crops is more efficient when systems were developed over a thousand years ago to effectively grow nutrient dense foods without the need for inputs that couldn't be produced on site (commerce and industry weren't needed). The problem is people have become dependent on the grocery stores to feed them instead of supporting local farmers with sustainable practices or growing their own food. People today are as lazy and weak as the crops we grow, and the answer rests in our own ability to provide for ourselves. Commerce and industry generate the most waste and pollution, and by pushing their toxic products on us, we contribute to the problem. People just need to be producers instead of consumers. That would fix a lot of problems almost instantly, but people will wait for the government to fix it for them, or Monsanto to fix it for them, or superman to fix it for them. Save your selves. There is no heros to be found.
@@GemstonePhilosophy Modern plants and people aren't lazy, in fact both have never been so productive in human history. We exponentially increased plant yields and the human condition by freeing people from working unproductive fields and barely survive to a few percent of people working fewer fields to feed more people who can produce more goods and services like the internet you're making a fool of yourself on. If we go back to low yield subsistence living you can say goodbye to the internet, there won't be any "lazy" people in the world to maintain all that highly technical infrastructure.
So no, rather than fantasize about a better time 1 or 2 centuries ago, please look at the actual data and miserable existence it actually was.
I notice this at a much smaller scale in my garden. The plant pots which have live plants in them retain moisture far more than the pots with no plants. Even if i don't water either one during winter. The soil in plant pot with no plants turns to dust and flies away with the wind.
I noticed the same as you in my garden, but in my house in a humid setting without direct sun it's the pots without plants that remain wet longer.
@@Plflybit Yes, when I put seeds until they sprout, there are no real plant with roots and leaves there. Also to make cuttings, I can sometimes notice which cuttings have better roots in my house because I give all of them the same amount of water unless some of them are really dry (for example I did a few jasminium sambac). At the moment I have two pots with earth worms in there but no plants. Two died (out of 20 ) walnuts I kept inside for winter because I put them in pots in autumn to prove to a friend that walnuts don't need stratification or else, at least mine not. These two didn't sprout and develop correctly, they died so I still put some water for the soil life until I put a plant again or decide to "throw away" the earth.
Depending on the weather outside, you can also notice it there: the surface without roots and leaves dry out quicker after a rain. But in certain condition, in shade for example, it's the other way round. Sometimes with a light rain you even see a dry outline under certain dense trees.
Many traditional and new farming techniques use ALLEY CROPPING. This is planting annul crops between rows of trees. In Italy and Greece that would be a row of olive trees with a row of wheat in the middle. In Central America they use Inga trees. In USA I've seen Asparagus between nut trees.
Mark Shepard has alley cropping downtown a tee.
Alley cropping permaculture farms are the way of the future, no doubt. If we wish to survive as a species. That and permaculture city gardens as well. I do wonder if we will make the lifestyle change in a soon enough fashion.
nice to see scishow going back to its roots
This dad joke is so bad I automatically quit the video and the came back cause I still wanted to watch it
Original prairie had roots going down about 33 feet if I remember properly. So maintaining and renewing prairie would be valuable as well.
Quite true, but those prairie roots took millennia to develop. It would be easier and quicker to plant trees.
@@BS-vx8dg however that would completely change the ecosystem and whilst I doubt there's all that much to conserve it makes more sense to try and bring it back to what it was.
@@benjaminlamothe2093 It makes more sense to " bring it back to what it was." only *IF* that is an option. But as I said, those beautiful prairie grasses took thousands of years to develop, so no, that is not an option when we're concerned about climate issues that will be affecting life on earth in the next hundred years. Furthermore, bringing it back to "what it was" begs the question, *when* are you speaking of? Ecosystems have been in constant flux for millions of years. You and I might favor restoring the prairie grasses of the 17th century, but who is to say that that is superior to the ecosytem of 10,000 years ago, before those grasses emerged? Maybe we should aim to restore the ecosystem of 8000 BCE?
@@BS-vx8dg a common mistake a lot of people make is the contextualizing of a prairie as some massive open plain of grass swaying in the wind. Most prairies are actually what one would consider a weed and brush choked area with occasional meadows of grass and bare soil. The 33 feet of roots that you mention, only the top 3-4 feet were actually living roots. The rest were dead, but the soil always so poor it couldn’t sustain the microbes and fungus needed to break the roots down. We have permanently and irrevocably altered that over the last 200 years or so. Introduction of new funguses and microbes, altering the flora to enhance soil nutrients, and one HUGE introduction: earthworms. We have all but eliminated the natural diversity of brush and grasses and introduced new strains, we have altered the natural grasses to make better hay and straw for our livestock, we have brought in invasive species of trees and flowers… no we can never return the prairies to their original state. The only thing we CAN do is protect the untamed wild places and let nature do the rest in rebalancing the ecosystem.
The removal of prairie grass on a massive scale caused erosion on a massive scale (dust bowl) which in turn caused people on those areas to starve.
This could have been a little more in depth but it is a good start.
Living roots retain soil better than dead ones, as living roots secrete 'glues' that help hold both soil and water.
Mycelium loves trees and helps move nutrients and moisture. Which is another benefit to treed landscapes.
Trees are important on steeper slopes where creating, bunds check dams etc could cause slides. The trees help protect hillsides from the drying effects of sun and wind. Trees also release pollen which triggers rain.
We can increase the number of trees (and food if we use food producing trees) by mimicking biomes. Primarily interplanting biome-compatible vines, perennials, shrubs and trees to grow with alley cropped 'savannas.'
This would provide more overall food and livestock feed for overall less cost in storage, farm equipment, irrigation and pumping, other red-line inputs.
Mark Shepard is a good resource on using biomes and how to set up farms to utilize this resource easily while building profitability and resiliency.
Since trees need reliable water to get started, learning about building small, frequent rainwater harvesting catchments from onsite materials would help in regreening.
Brad Lancaster has two terrific books on the subject...
In addition to the mixed crop point, having a diverse forest composed of at least 8 species seems to be beneficial to overall forest health (as opposed to more common monocrop forests such as those used in agricultural production of fruits, nuts, palm oil, etc.). The data im referencing is as of yet unpublished, but its based on an ongoing 100yr study called “BioDiversiTree” for those who are interested in learning more.
In short, having diverse plant life seems to support a healthier ecosystem and is likely to be very beneficial to things like soil quality, plant health, and even total crop production.
Please don't forget our friends in the fungal group. They can transport carbon compounds for miles. Keep crops and non crop plants healthy.
I'm creating a small (2 acre) permaculture project in my garden and it has always worried me the way some permaculturists are smothering large swathes of ground with cardboard to kill off grass and weeds underneath, topping it all with large quantities of chipped wood.
Certainly the chipped wood will break down to create more soil (losing 90% of Carbon along the way), but now I see I was right in thinking that large scale smothering so many small plants has to be wrong.
I've always had the idea that if I plant my fruit trees in the grass (never cut, just trimmed around plants by hand), I preserve the soil structure and more of the varied fungal networks. The roots of grasses, I believe, do a better job of clinging to the soil during heavy rains and winds (which soar across the top of my garden, on the side of a hill).
Yes, my fruit trees and bushes take longer to grow, because they compete with the grasses and wild flowers. That cannot be helped. However, they grow stockier and I have preserved an ideal environment for gardener's friends that feed on the pests.
(I've long had toads, frogs, newts and a variety of insects hunting in the garden - lately, our rarely seen native lizards have appeared. Of course, all of these prefer a grassy environment to a wood chip one).
I can't help but think that land adjusts much better if you let the trees and bushes take over ground at their own pace, slowly outgrowing the grasses, etc as they grow naturally taller and their roots spread out.
In the meantime, I have begun to plant woodland flowers and bulbs in the grass, in the small shadows of the new trees and bushes, so they are ready to take over when the grasses start to fade under the increasing shade.
Now I've looked at a couple of comments made by those who know much more than I about biology and geology, I see that my instincts were right after all.
I figure it depends on what you're starting with & what you plan to grow, at the end of the day. Permaculture & Wildlife restoration can both be a lose now to gain later sort of scenario. Of course, most people are just making a very specific kind of garden, not a natural space, so I'm not sure how well that actually works, in the end.
i've always really appreciated that one basic fact that I learned in biology, that the energy reduction at each step up the food chain is by a factor of 10-to-1. It's an important thing to learn, and while it makes sense intuitively that there would be a loss of energy efficiency, learning the actual numbers was integral to my understanding. Like, the idea that if we were to primarily eat predator animals, it would take literally 100x the energy of eating produce, really solidified in my mind the importance of energy efficient food production.
We can’t just live on grains though, not enough protein for the calories. But the idea of lab grown meat can work.
@@mncdssctn9110 well, grains aren't the only produce, and there are plenty of non-meat ways of getting protein too.
@@mncdssctn9110 There are a myriad of crop species, and among them, plants capable of meating our protein requirements without being a hassle or a chore. They will have to reassert their historic place as the majority of our protein diet, as we can't sustain current levels,nor practices, of animal agriculture. If one desires meat in their diet, it may have to become a treat, rather than a staple.
@@mncdssctn9110 there are crops with favorable protein to cal ratios (beans, seeds and nuts come to mind) and we can and already do improve that further with processing. There's body builders living off vegan diets; this is already a solved problem.
@@MisterCynic18 vegan bodybuilders and weight lifters do not perform as well as the meat eaters. It is impressive though.
Planets these days smh
Back in my day, planets were nothing BUT roots! smh my head
Bold of u to assume it’s the planet’s fault
They have a bit of success and forget where they came from, forget what made them
Yeah, deep root disease was a serious problem
@@General12th sounds racist
This lists all the things I've been yelling from the mountaintops about for literally decades. For example, permaculture IS a thing. A thing that works very well, in fact. Monoculture, though, kills
Preventing food waste is another thing that works very damned well, too - we waste enough food that without using a single more acre of land, we could feed the planet twice over. Yet crops rot, food goes bad on the shelves, and people over-purchase & that all adds up to an insane level of waste!
Giving stipends to the poor in many places around the world would also stop illegal logging to grow illegal crops (or legal crops in illegal places). Paying them to instead plant and care for native trees and food plants would protect those old-growth forests, including rainforests, and replace the trees for the future.
Helping get birth control methods to places far from cities would also greatly help, to slow or reverse our population growth until we have habitable places on other bodies in the solar system. We are too populated for the way we treat the planet. Until change is made, we have to do the right thing.
Extinction is permanent, and if we don't do right by the planet, it will shake us off like a layer of dust.
One of the more nuanced strategies not mentioned is restructuring how farm land is designed and maintained. More diverse crops, combined with sections of every farm devoted to non-prductive ecosystem maintenance can reduce the strain of farming on local ecosystems, improve water retention, improve nutrient retention, and mitigate the loss of ecosystem associated with farm land. So while it doesn't negate the negative effects of agriculture, it does increase the resilience of the areas affected. And in the end what is needed is to slow down the effects of climate change so that species have more time to adapt to and recover from major changes.
This may be a good location to say that not all farming is equal, different practices yield different results
This may be a good location to say who tf cares? Each farmer should farm their land how they see fit, and the government(s) should eff off.
@@mfmageiwatch Did NewKingBrandon say anything about government action? I don't see any such comments. And there is nothing wrong with noting that different practices yield different results. *If* that statement is true (and I'm sure it is), what is wrong with disseminating truth?
💁🏾♀️✨ Permaculture.
@@TreeHairedGingerAle No. Maximizing yields.
@@mfmageiwatch it was not a good location to say that at all! This isn't about governments, this is about scientists and farmers collaborating to figure out how to take care of the land in financially feasible ways. We were all put on this earth to learn and to coexist with nature and life around us, and in agriculture that means we have a duty to change and adapt to nurture and protect our farms! I understand independence, and particularly that each farm has specific needs, but that doesn't mean we can't learn from one another
Some things that cattle eat can not be digested by humans, especially grasses. Grasses can grow under conditions that are untenable for many of the grains that humans eat, so reducing meat consumption may not be as effective as letting cattle eat a diet that is more natural for them.
Fungus roots are also extremely helpful preventing erosion as they're much finer and more prolific.
Permaculture and partial measures like ally crops and tree crops would help. Also perennial pasture for livestock holds way more carbon than a corn field. People will have to deal with grass-fed “gamey” taste. You can grow cows where you can’t grow human crops.
In the tropics consider vetiver grass hedgerows❓
A profound example of what the lack of roots can do to soil is Providence Canyon, Georgia.
While I don't have data to back it up, I imagine that ceasing or limiting monoculture crop farming would assist in root depth. Encouraging a diverse range of plants may help, rather than limiting to just plants intended for food. Another thing I think about is if there are ways to get more bang for our buck with crops--if there are parts that are edible to us, but the rest could be eaten by other animals. That way we aren't just growing food for our food, but food for our food and ourselves
If we can eat the plants so too can other animals
@@DistinctiveBlend I more mean that there are plants grown specifically for the feed of other animals, with some wasted parts after the fact. Perhaps there's a way to make those plants more dual purpose
@@Miss_Trillium idk how much time you've had on farms, but often it's the part of the plants we don't eat that are feed to stock. eg corn husks.
@@DistinctiveBlend 80% of the world's soybean crop is fed to livestock. There's a model under which small subsistence farms raise a vanishingly small number of animals on food waste and byproducts, but that's just not the model we use to raise animals today.
@@oasntet Sure but how does that relate to OPs question? If 80% already goes to other animals then that doesn't mean our 20% comes from their percentage.
Nearly every problem we face as a species, or inflict on other species, could be lessened if only we focused on sustaining rather than overpopulating... taking on the mindset that overpopulation is simply an inevitable aspect of humanity that will somehow untangle itself is one of the most dangerous ideas...
Yeah bro just forcefully sterilize people you don't like!
I can't help but think of The Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
The picture at 3:40 is a good example of root depth. At first it looks like they are going deep into the soil, but you have to realize the bank of that soil was cut away and the roots that were in that soil fell down due to gravity. Look behind the exposed roots at the soil and you see none that deep, all of them are in the first 5-10 inches of soil
0:46 *THIS ENTIRE TIME I COULD'VE GROWN A MINECRAFT TREE ON TOP OF A DIRT BLOCK THAT'S ON TOP OF BEDROCK TO BREAK BEDROCK TO GET TO THE VOID!?*
We learn something new every day. It's been almost two decades until I finally found this out.
In the presentations I've seen about land reclamation in the Sahel, it's always a package. Water harvesting, tree planting, and crops plants are considered together, sometimes with livestock included if the farmer is prosperous enough to own any. We call this "permaculture" today, but it seems like the practices involved are often very old. We need more of this kind of farming, no matter what we call it. Large scale monoculture and intensive cattle grazing are not good for the land or the climate.
Farmers don't necessarily practice monoculture because they want to, they're just following the market. There has to be some proper leadership if anything's going to change.
This is why my tree is staying where it is! (My house is on a river bank.) 😅
I'm surprised you didn't mention using GMO and other cropping techniques that result in a higher yield/less food loss per m^2. While a lot of people complain about GMO organisms and artificial pesticides because they're "unnatural", if it means we need to dedicate less land to farming to feed the world's population, that means more land that can be left wild
Carful with planting trees in the wrong spots, savannas are disappearing in North America and its not uncommon for reforestation efforts to destroy a savanna or prairie with rare and endangered plants and animals. Grasslands are just as good and often better a carbon storage as well. North American savannas require fire though, unfortunately few are doing the controlled burns necessary for their future.
Reintroduction of bison would be a huge win for American prairies
I've heard grass is far superior for carbon sequestration because their roots grow faster and decompose faster than woody roots, and their lifecycle is shorter, so decomposition takes place more frequently. The bison would indeed be a win, but how many miles of barb wire and roads must be removed or rerouted to make that work? People are pretty selfish about the land being used to support life, and would rather poison everything and cut lifelines across the continent. Pretty sad that people will not cooperate on such an important rehabilitation of OUR land.
@@GemstonePhilosophy The selfishness is primarily on the corporate level, most landowners will allow the management of their land so long as the impacts on them aren't too much. But with most landowners trying to make it into law and force them makes them feel attacked. The law isn't the answer when dealing with most landowners, but when dealing with large corporate entities very strict regulations are required because corporations cant be swayed by emotion.
The huge difference in tactics requires different people, laws that regulate corporations and organizations that work with landowners.
Also keep in mind when it comes to carbon sequestration not all forests and grasslands are the same, a rainforest and a temperate woodland are not the same and neither is a grassy wetland and a prairie. They also accomplish different environmental benefits, most areas in the world were mixes of forest, savanna, and grassland. Ideally you want as many environments in close proximity as possible, surprisingly the difference between two similar looking places can be massive underneath just because of the soil and organism composition.
For example in my area the red alder fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere so they can make otherwise poor soil into very good soil, this generally leads to them getting outcompeted by other trees eventually since they aren't as tall or shade tolerant. The thing is that even though the alder always loses to other trees in the long term it can grow anywhere and grow very fast compared to other trees. Alder forests and savannas are transitional but also required for many species to live, the function of this forest has little in common with the old growth cedar/fur forest, maple forest or willow forests which all serve completely different purposes from each other that are extremely important.
@@GemstonePhilosophy *Native land.
It’s so true what you write though
@@NCRonrad "native" is an interesting word. It implies that it came from there, but where is there? Native Americans are people who were born in America. Indigenous tribes people are not Native American if they were born on their sovereign lands because they are independent nations. Native lands would imply something different than what I believe you intended. When I say OUR land, I mean it is our responsibility to steward over it, and not just the cattle ranchers or the railroad magnates that bought up half the land, or to imply ownership whatsoever. We all have a responsibility to it, so it is ours collectively. If it were an option, I would gladly elect the tribal nations to take dominion of this land once again. They at least knew how to coexist and be an integral component to the health of the land rather than a resource consuming parasite. I'm sure there are a few ranchers who'd love to feed me to their pigs for saying it, but I've said what I needed to say.
One other reason roots are getting shorter is because we rapidly loose soil organic matter. Erosion takes away the top layers, only leaving behind highly weathered deeper layers wherr roots tend to not grow well in. Plus, in general, plants don’t put their roots too deep anyway. The vast majority of tree roots are in the top few inches! Also, grasslands allocate around 80% of their biomass to roots. Where trees are like 15%. So, from a soil scientist perspective, grassland plants are preferable because they have the ability to put carbon into the soil to lock it away, where trees are keeping it above ground and dropping it on the top layer which causes a huge loss because of decomposition. Really, we need more wetlands and more cold environments to stop decomposition
In my country, IMO it makes more sense to eat beef than pig and chicken. Cows eat grass, hay and silage (dried grass and fermented grass), pigs and chicken need feed made from monoculture crops like wheat and corn. Note: both can be fed with scraps from the industry or vegetables that no shop chain wants to buy (like carrots, potatoes, ...) but sadly it's not always efficient. Also the pastures for the cows have trees for shade, and a lot of different plants, even lots of different grass species.
Maybe we can focus more on trees that make food, like apple trees?
And nut trees, and vines, shrubs and perennials, instead of annuals.
And using livestock to manage weeds, crop residues, fertility and pests instead of pretending raising grains is an an improvement.
It's like they're willfully blind....
Fruit gang wins!
Everything that exists within a natural ecosystem is food for something. Mono- cropping will lead to its own sort of catastrophe.
@@GemstonePhilosophy read my comment above.
@@b_uppy? I don't see your comment
BEFORE I WATCHED ....."NO!!"
after I watched ...." NO! SAVE THE ROOTS!"
Max Cavalera has been telling us about the importance of roots since the 90s.
I admire your almost unbridled optimism.
I wonder if the models account for agriculture that doesnt destroy the roots of food crops though? Yes there are many that till the land every year, but there are also farms that focus on permanent food forests (and also stuff like tree orchards), or places that harvest the crops, but dont destroy the root system, just the above ground plant life.
For example I grow sunflowers which are a deep rooted crop, and unless I am tilling or trying to get rid of pesky weeds, with most of my garden beds, I kill the plant but leave the roots in the soil, because it also breakdowns in the soil to allow better nutrients for future plants
It's ignored like it doesn't exist. It's why the keep promoting veganism.
This is such a very important issue. We are unfortunately being told to get rid of trees and plant communities to prevent fire problems. Instead we are creating more fire problems by destroying native plants etc. So sad I wish more people cared about this issue. Please send information to our politicians on this issue.
If we could replace cereal crops with trees that produce the same type of starches, we would probably increase food production as well as root production.
I need to add a point in here: While indeed feeding livestock in stables does need a lot of extra space to grow their food, we could change keeping livestock in orchards, woods and forests instead of stables. That way, we could grow forests AND have food from livestock, without "extra" space. #agroforestry #silvopasture
I wonder if any of these projections took into account things like the peat bogs and muskegs of the northern and southern latitudes in their calculations. Most of the plants in those are very shallow root plants (grasses, shrubs and stunted trees) however they are massive carbon sinks as well as retaining enormous amounts of water. There are some peat bogs in northern Canada and Russia that the peat is tens of meters thick. And the muskegs can be 50-60 feet thick in places. All of this is one enormous carbon sink, and builds up very quickly (some areas in Alaska can see muskeg depth increase several inches over a decade). While it isn’t enough to completely offset our excesses, I never hear about THOSE contributions to the storage of carbon. Yes, the oceans (and its photosynthetic life forms) are undoubtedly the largest contributor, but the I almost always see the switch to trees, which by common consent is one of the LOWEST contributors to locking away carbon. Trees themselves can store a lot of carbon, yes, but the vast majority of the carbon a tree stores is returned to the active environment after its eventual death. Through rot, decomposition, burning, and consumption most of the carbon is released back into the atmosphere in on form or another.
Earths got no roots, cause it's home was never on the ground. 🎶
Also: Stop buying organic! It consistently uses 25% more land for the same output as conventional, and organic most often does not mean 'pesticide free'. In fact, pesticides available for organic farming are often more harmful.
There's a very obvious and simple solution to this problem that I'm surprised this video didn't talk about. Integrating trees and woody perennials into annual farming systems. This is called agroforestry. Not only does it increase root mass and depth in the soil, It actually builds soil and restores biodiversity. It also increases resilience to climate change because it has a moderating effect on local weather and patterns and can increase precipitation if done on a large scale. It's amazing how solutions like this are not talked about much...
You could use regenerative practices where cows would actually improve the grass lands if they are forced to move around. Goats and animals like that could be used to clear brush as their food source. its possible, but more expensive.
loads of issues with this. For example how much land you need for it. Fertile land at that... And how much it's going to cost to the farmers. Landowning taxes etc... It would make their business virtually unprofitable and they would have to shut down pretty fast. Really only solution to this would be that government wouldn't punish farmers for owning land and making business through agriculture. But that is big no no to the left wing.
@Tespri
Read up on Restoration agriculture.
Mark Shepard has shown a paradigm shift, accomplished using alley cropping with animals as part of weed, pest and fertility management.
All roots are equal, but some roots are more equal than others.
Thank you Scishow for my daily does of existential climate anxiety
Farmers use many techniques to prevent erosion!! Of everyone, they value soil the most because their livelihood depends on it. Farming revolves around protecting the soil and terraces, grass waterway, contour planting, subsoiling, as well as no-till (now the norm) planting are used by all farmers.
I always thought "woody encroachment" was a bad thing, but now I know...
It is if you're a grassland/steppe bird or other species. Plus the very fertile "cernoziom/black earth" comes from the quick lifecycle of grasses. Tbh very general assertions like "good/bad thing" should be accompanied by a very important "for..."
🤔 . . . How can we grow food that’ll contribute to root growth? I’ve heard of a starchy plant called breadfruits (do your research before claiming that I made it up), are they tree like enough to plant as trees & thus have an abundance of starchy fruits that’ll replace corn, rice, wheat, & other grains?
It’s becoming so hard to not be depressed every day now. 😢
Your money and your own hands are very powerful. You can't fix the whole world and no one should ever expect you too, but we can make choices that contribute to the team effort. Even if you can't do it every day, just remember that you do have power and we are all on this planet together.
What are you finding depressing?
If you're in New Zealand, come plant native trees with me at conservation volunteers 🎉
We are out there putting roots back where they once were
Sadly, some roots also ruin your sewer line and house foundation. I'm busy trying to rid my property of them (in particular, "Tree of Heaven" and Japanese knotweed) but I'm in the city, so it's kinda unavoidable. I wonder, though, how cities figure into this? Between clearing of land for streets, freeways, parking lots, & all kinds of buildings, and people like me trying to manage our own property, it seems like roots would be quite endangered - although nature really does a great job of persisting.
Japanese knotweed is edible, maybe find your prefered way of preparing them and eat your way through?
@@sarahlabbe9779 Yikes! I've been told to eat the lambsquarter, too, although that one doesn't bother me as much since I can just mow it down. As far as I know, its roots aren't a problem. (I hope!)
@@elainebelzDetroit Yikes? Japanese knotweed make some dang tasty pickles! 🤤
Maybe you could see if there's a local forage group in your area that would be willing to take that stuff of your hands. I know I would be more then happy to clear a neighbour's yard for some pickled delicacies
I dont know very much about the subject, but would mix plant farming fields help?
Like instead of large acres of weat or kale. Having 100ft or 30m of weat and then rows of deep root fruit trees. I think it would help the soil bether than monocultures.
Good topic and good plug. Thanks!
Pasture raised meat helps support healthy soils because the grasses grow back after grazing. Their roots aren't destroyed and hold the soil and, the carbon in there, in place.
oh good, another existential crisis which we won't address until its too late
Reminder: milk, cheese, joghurts and other dairy products are mostly farmed from cows, too. So reducing dairy and cow's meat in ones diet is really the way to go when one wants to eat more climate conscience.
And yes, one can replace those with plant based food items and no, they don't need to be called vegan milk etc.
For creamy souces add nut butters, usually a tee- to tablespoon per person is enough depending on the recipe. Other great bases for creamy sauces include hummus, coconut milk or pureed veggis like tomato, bell pepper or even avacado.
Cheeses are not easy to replace, if you are just after the flavor and can skip out on the texture, nutritional yeast will do the trick.
For a quick snack inbetween instead of joghurts try porriges made from various grains, they will also increase your fiber intake which is great for ones gut health.
We can't ask people to stop eating - immediately after asks people to stop eating meat.
Thank you SciShow for bringing this important topic to discussion and public knowledge.
Many "environmental" organizations want to address climate change without talking about the problems of emissions and land use of livestock. Thank you for mentioning it and overviewing the concept!
The graphic at 1:40 misrepresents the root system of a typical tree. The root mass of most species of trees in most growing conditions is shallow and wide: most of the roots are in the top 18 inches of soil, and the root mat can extend anywhere from 5 to 13 times the diameter of the canopy. There are a few tree species, mostly in very dry climates, that have roots of the type shown in the drawing, but it is by no means the norm. This is easily confirmed with a bit of searching.
In my area agricultural land is diminishing because nobody wants to be farmers so they're selling the land to developers and the only thing growing there are hastily constructed homes. 😢
We are doing so much damage to the planet that even the trees are packing up and saying, "I'm outta here."
3:21 we've lost that as compared to what? What's the scale? The past twenty years? Since the industrial revolution? Since agriculture? Compared to pre-humanity?
We also should optimize our food supply chains. Around 40% of global produce goes to waste at different levels of the chain, from producers, to supermarkets to consumer. Currently we produce enough for 10 billion people
Ah, I see, it's not that Earth is losing the roots, WE are destroying them.
That makes more sense.
I'd like to see perennial versions of grains for reducing soil loss, water use, and need for plowing. Annuals were easier to selectively breed, but we could use genetic engineering to combine traits of domestic grain and perennial grasses.
Roots , bloody Roots
So if we eat more fruits nuts and vegetables that come from trees rather then eating meats, we can increase the root system on earth... have I got this correct?
I, every once in a while, send some small donations to the US Forest Service's Plant-A-Tree program. I hope it is really going to planting more trees.
It's a fascinating topic and this video was quite informative. I've only recently been reading about woody encroachment, and it was interesting to see the other side of that here. But, as stated in the video, the topic is extraordinarily complicated. That piece about reducing emissions having a counterintuitive effect is really important, because people so, so often assume when seeing a problem that an "obvious" solution should be implemented immediately (see CFL light bulbs, for example). We need lots of research and almost as much patience. We should also be wary of using the term "crisis" when speaking about climate change; I think climate change is incredibly serious, but humans *will* deal with it, one way or another. Describing it as a "crisis" is likely to provoke poorly-thought-out "solutions" which could easily hurt the world's poorest without actually achieving any measurable progress on the problem.
Read Mark Shepard's Restoration Agriculture. It's methodolofpgy is something totally overlooked by studies.
Think there are conflicts of interest between best-outcome farming practices and those who fund the studies.
You'll see this on that clown world channel next. It seems that when things aren't understood nowadays people are claiming it's clown world.... They'll be squeezing their noses and making honking sounds to the very end
Sounds like we need to start planting more trees on agricultural land
If anyone takes away my beef, pork, or other large-animal red meats, I will eat THEM instead.
2:41 don’t forget urban living, the reason for most mass production farming & the sprawling development killing roots to house more people. I actually know the farmers who my milk, meats, cheeses & vegetables are coming from. Small scale farming using responsible farming practices locally, so also eliminating the pollution of transportation, refrigeration and mass production. Why mono crop mass farming occurs should be fixed first, before eliminating mass populations food supply, Elsewise it’s like fixing a broken dam by only dealing with the runoff & eliminating potential erosion rather than fixing the broken dam.
5:32 small scale farming provides grazing opportunities over mass cropping to grain feed mass production livestock. Again the WHY mass production farming happens is mass populations of people who do not grow their own food and must have it supplied to them.
You realy should of have Alice Merton - No Roots playing in background.
"Roots can even break bedrock"
Minecraft players: Impossible 😳
New archaeology discoveries in the Amazon west shows much of what is now forest was once native farmlands. When the Conquistadores came and wiped out the population the jungle took over.
Atmosphere, biosphere, lithosphere, this would be named rhizosphere?
we can also alter what we feed our food. Rather than alfalfa, we can genetically modify cornstalks or wheat straws to be easier and more nutritious for livestock to consume
That's IT. I am moving to a mountain top!
Degrowth for the humans, regrowth for the plants.
This reminds me of the warnings in 2002 that vegetables would have no value by 2030.
If you guys don't have a video on lab grown meats, you should do one!
It could help with cutting down on both animal suffering AND greenhouse gas emissions WITHOUT relying on people to change their diets!
Sorry mate, the major source of soil carbon is soil mycorrhiza. These are really delicate and are the first to go when the soil is disturbed. Good article though. Main point still stands 😊
Bamboo is pretty awesome for carbon storage.
The beef industry converts crop waste (which is usually 90% of the crop mind you, particularly with corn & soy) & converts it into not only usable food, but particularly nutrient dense food... It's carbon footprint is smaller than you think
Just about every place on Earth where humans have practiced agriculture, topsoil has been lost at a faster rate than it is formed from rock weathering processes and that same unsustainable topsoil loss continues today only on a much, much larger scale.
Is that actually true?
"[Trees did a thing.] Not only do they keep plants fed and watered, they can also make it easier for water and nutrients to stay in the soil."
I think this may have been over-edited, losing the relationship between "roots" and "they" in this sentence.
Trees can be used to help crop land. It's not all or nothing. So many ways to mass production with trees and the environment in mind.
Food-producing trees, shrubs, vines and perennials can be part of the solution.
Look up Mark Shepard and restoration agriculture.
The rapid form of development for housing and retail has removed the trees without regard.
We're all doomed.
Action combats despair.
It may seem hopeless, but worrying can't help anything, it just makes you feel worse
Educate yourself, start a garden or something. You can't help the entire planet, but you can enact change on a local scale: vote for local government representatives, make your city better for yourself and your kids
But you're not a bad person for worrying. Worrying means you care.
This is basic earth science. Commercial ag is terrible for roots, but the big multinationals are partly to blame. Mostly, actually.
The fact that we need to be reminded of this foundational reality of nature, is kind of sad.
We need more people like you sir
We've never really effectively addressed the global erosion problem.
I feed cows grass and eat the cow because they can digest grass while I can't. I can digest the cow though. So the cow is turning indigestible to me food, into digestible food.
Permaculture FTW!
Yes! I just watched a promising looking example of this over on a new channel @r-a-s here, from the Spanish Sierra Nevada.
Not to mention Lawton’s Greening the Desert project of course.
It's a nice idea but currently way too labour intensive. Few people want to go back to a world where half the population has to do back breaking work in the fields.
We use stone contours to prevent slopes from losing soil.
@@duvipearson6251 Yeah, different types of location appropriate swales are integral to good land management.
Make Earth Cool Again
Part of the problem is old growth forests with deep roots are economically not productive. You can't make anything worth anything off that land, you can't mine it or farm it. Tourism is perhaps an option but that's a limited supply, and if you get enough tourists to make the land really productive you'll probably wreck it anyway. So people who live on these lands, especially in poorer nations, will have no way to make an income. Do we just pay these people a subsidy, or do we encourage them to move away? For the governments that have a lot of that land in their borders, how do we stop them exploiting it? Should the UN pay those countries a subsidy, give Brazil a few hundred billion dollars a year to make up for the GDP that would be made from turning the Amazon into a strip mine and cattle ranch? And who should made those contributions to that fund, those with the least amount of protected land or the wealthiest nations? There's a lot of questions as to how you could actually do this in a way that doesn't just mean people, and nations, ignore the rules.