With random and sudden ruptures, it becomes possible to imagine different realities.
Sudden war, sudden disaster, realising your girlfriend is pregnant, all of these things, from the personal to the seismic, can sharpen the focus and change the dynamic.
Ireland has just experienced sudden onset recession, and even more sudden onset flooding. So what was written in stone has been, literally and metaphorically, washed away.
Who knows what the next decade will bring? Even the next few years will be interesting in that Chinese proverbial sort of way: strikes, deflation, unemployment, but also perhaps the resourcefulness of a young, well educated population shining through.
(Image from NASA)
Global warming and the peaking of oil availability will be defining aspects of these coming years.
We don't know how related to global warming the recent flooding in Ireland has been.
But we do know that organic farming, in some very significant ways, fights both flooding and global warming.
The UK's Soil Association has recently released a report on the soil carbon building dimension to organic farming, and speculated on a world where organic farming was the norm.
This mega-imagining is radical rupture stuff, but maybe now is the time for that sort of thinking.
This new report's key point is that organic farming methods build up the amount of carbon in the soil, which in basic terms means that its not in the sky causing global warming.
Taking their cue from a review of the 39 available comparative studies of organic farming
soil carbon levels, they made some significant points:
�Soil carbon sequestration, according to the IPCC�s scientific advisors on land use, represents 89% of agriculture�s greenhouse gas mitigation potential.� (The IPCC are the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).
They describe this as a �blind spot�, as it is an otherwise under analysed area: most attention is focused on methane, nitrous oxide and anaerobic digestion.
In other words, locking carbon into the ground is farming's biggest trump card: the report in fact reveals that carbon sequestration may be far more significant that these other areas.
�Unlike the carbon released from fossil fuels, the soil carbon store has the potential to be recreated to a substantial degree�.
This means that farming, properly practiced, can be the planet's knight in shining Armour.
�More widespread adoption of organic farming practices and grass based and mixed farming systems � can make a significant and immediate contribution to greenhouse gas mitigation.�
Humid Ireland is well placed to further develop its grass based and mixed farming systems, as well as organic.
A key comparative finding is the following; �Organic farming practices produce 28% higher soil carbon levels than non-organic farming in Northern Europe, and 20% for all countries studied�
What these levels mean is that, if adopted on a significant scale globally, �organic farming could potentially sequester 1.5 billion t(onnes) C(arbon) per year, which would offset about 11% of all anthropogenic global GHG emissions for at least the next 20 years.�
Thinking globally on this level might seem far fetched and outlandish. But then, so do last year's property prices. And so would the current flood levels, from the vantage point of 12 months ago.
Imagine if farming offset 11% of all human-caused GHG (Green House Gas) emissions?
Crucially, bringing many relevant aspects of the global warming and farming debates together for a country like Ireland, the report suggests the following:
�Grass-fed livestock has a critical role to play in minimising carbon emissions from farming and this must be set against the methane emissions from cattle and sheep�.
�This is because grasslands for grazing livestock, whether permanent pasture or temporary grass on mixed farms...represent vitally important soil carbon stores.�
Ireland has a head start over the more intensive, compound feed driven meat and dairy sectors of other countries.
It may turn out that grass fed animals on mixed farms, just slightly adapted to encompass organic farming principles, will be a significant part of dealing with global warming.
Is that a radical rupture or a radical realisation?
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