That is a good one. I saw it before, and it is worth watching again!

Thanks, Mike, these are fantastic. I heard in a Zoom meeting today that we need to frighten people into proactively doing things about climate change. They need to become extremely aware of everything they and their families actually could lose.

@AnonySchmoose absolutely agree. This is serious, but it is also exciting opportunity for all of us to learn to live a better, more "woke" (lol) way. BTW, I will spare you further links, but there is searchable stuff out there on projects and approaches for urban communities to live more renewably; things like community rooftop gardens, expanding municipal native habitats, etc.

Perhaps Covid-19 is nature’s way of controlling populations. Similar to the decline of bees and bats

Yes, population control is of utmost importance. We cannot do away with climate change without population control throughout the world. We don't have to stop eating animals, but we do need to stop eating such high numbers of animals.

@Canndue Covid-19 is way to selective to make much of a difference in population...only about 2% or so actually die.

I really enjoyed these great short videos about the benefits of dried poop; regenerative ranching; balancing native plants with introduced plants; and a simple permaculture lifestyle.

@AnonySchmoose great! Me too. There are really tons of videos on you tube about permaculture, native plant importance to ecology, soil vitality regenerative farming and its closely related topic of the role of agriculture technique in climate greenhouse gas loss vs carbon sequestration. It is exciting to see these topics getting increasing attention. The full "Kiss the Ground" on Netflix is actually a feature length documentary and is even more chock full of info. There is a related film on Amazon Prime about John D Liu, who spearheaded the Netflix film. It is called Regreening the Desert.
Hey I’m watching Regreening The Desert - VPRO Backlight. Check it out now on Prime Video!
[watch.amazon.com]

@MikeInBatonRouge
I will watch these too. I wish to be able to talk to people about both "soil vitality regenerative farming and its closely related topic of the role of agriculture technique in climate greenhouse gas loss vs carbon sequestration."

@AnonySchmoose Not all poop is equal. Cow poop = an excellent fertilizer. Horse poop = good for nothing (as I was told by a nursery owner). However, that was disputed by a guy who used to come to my place to take horse poop home for his roses.

@dahermit
To each his own . . . poo!

@dahermit on the strangely specific topic of poop, I have been a part of three different rose societies over the years, and horse manure is widely regarded among rosarians as ideal for roses, better than any other manure. As I have never tested this notion with experiments on my own, I don't argue the case strongly, but only say many very experienced rose growers swear by it. It would seem from that it at least is good, if not automatically the best. I think the gripe I have heard by gardeners in general is that horse manure fails to kill off weed seeds.

@MikeInBatonRouge By my observation, horse poop also will kill-off desirable grasses (lawns), if freshly deposited. Folksy wisdom has always maintained that it must be "well-composted/allowed to rot" before it can be used, whereas cow poop is pretty much ready to go as-is.

@dahermit oh yes, most certainly. Rosarians talk about the absolute requirement of aging it 8-12 months.

You are wrong...switching to natural fertilizers will not stop nutrient run-off into lakes and rivers and the resulting algae blooms and contamination. The main problem is human population. There must be a moratorium on having babies.

@dahermit Chemical fertilizers run-off into waterways, etc, IS a HUGE problem and it pollute the Oceans as well when the rivers, etc, run into the seas.

@Triphid
Yes chemical fertilizers are a big problem. But it is also true that organic ones can be a problem too, the real cause of the problems are not the origin of the fertilizer, but how it is used. If fertilizer is aplied in large concentrations and in a highly soluble form , to land which is not buffered against run off by large areas of none cropping vegetation, water absorbent organic content in the soil, and the wind and rain shelter provided by mature standing crops. Then both will be a problem.

And the underlying problem, (besides human population ) is that the application of fertilizer costs money and time, therefore, there is a big incentive to use limited numbers of large applications, with the smallest bulk, (bulk also slows leaching, especially with organic which takes time to break down). One of the obvious solutions to the problem, would be to get more of that excess human population back into agriculture, especially working manually, so that fertilizer and cropping can be done more slowly and intelligently. But guess what, that ain't going to happen, any time soon.

@Fernapple Actually I've been using natural organic style fertilizers on my gardens for the best part of 20 years now, what the plants don't use up the worms relish in using.
In the 20 years the worm populations in my soils have gone from an average approx. 1 earthworm per 2 square metres to, at my last 'survey, 60+ per half square metre and all are big healthy breeding worms as well.
Plus my Kitchen Scraps, lawn clippings, weeds, etc, EXCEPT meat scraps of course, are all either put into a set of Composting Bins or go straight into my Liquid Natural Fertilizer tank where they are allowed to dissolve into a 'tea of sorts' which is then diluted to a 50-50 mixture that is poured over the soil.
For example, when I first started my Navel Orange tree was bearing fruits about the size of a Tennis ball with very little taste or juice, my latest crop was oranges as big and sometimes even bigger than I could wrap my fingers around comfortably and so large in numbers that I actually gave away at sum total of 50 kilos to friends, neighbours and needy families.
This season, my Nectarines are now, though still unripe atm, the size of Tennis balls and my rough estimate from the 2 trees, grown from seeds btw, is probably going to be approx. 60+ kilos or even more.
Man-made Chemical based fertilizers are without a doubt the most harmful things we can add to the soils, not ONLY do the leach into the subterranean water tables but they run-off into streams, rivers, etc, etc, causing often massive outbreaks of Toxic Algae such as Blue-Green Algae ( something we are well aware of out here since Cotton and Rice Farming in the Northern reaches of the Darling River caused MASSIVE Native Fish deaths in the last 2+ years, and also, the addition of Phosphates into these Chemical fertilizers causes massive death tolls with the Native Flora here since phosphates ARE TOXIC to 90% of Native Australian trees and other plants.
The self-same trees and plants that help hold the thin top-soils of this country together and STOP/lessen the MASSIVE RED Dust storms that have plague us for the past 3 or more years.
A good friend of mine owns and runs a 93,000 acre Sheep and Cattle Property, 25 years ago he inherited it from his parents then set about 'going natural' and restoring the pastures with native trees, plants and grasses using a mix of Sheep, Cattle, Pig and, Yes, Human excrement from his Septic system that is digested by using the bacteria found in the gut of animals like rabbits, etc.
even though, at the time, the soil was still very thin and poor nutrient wise, after 3 years his Wool yield went from approx. 600 Bales per Annum to approx. 1,200 Bales per Annum and the Fleece quality has gone from average to High Quality.
Even through the recent Drought because he had restored the Native Flora he could keep 80-85% of his stock on the property and needed very little extra imported feeding ( hay, etc,) for them, this year alone he has approx. 300 fat lambs ready to be marketed and 1,000 yearling wethers ( neutered male Sheep) as well where properties around him are struggling even now.

@Triphid I agree...chemical fertilizers do cause a problem. However, massive amounts of sewage on a massive amount of farm land will also be a problem albeit somewhat less so.

@dahermit But ONCE the sewage has been dried out correctly AL<it really is just a NATURAL fertilizer at best.
What do think humans used as fertilizers BEFORE Chemical based Fertilizers were invented?

@Triphid That is very good, and I am sure and your land sounds very well cared for, but that is in part the point, not every organic user is like you. The point is when triphid says, " massive amounts". There is no doubt that when used carefully and in small amounts, organic fertilizers do break down slowly, and cause much less harm than chemical fertilizers. As they did in pre-industria agriculture when only small amounts were obtainable, and they were applied carefully. But there have been some terrible records of ecological damage, cause by organic fertilizers, when they have been used in an industrial manner, especially on a large scale. They contain by the nature of fertilizers, exactly the same chemicals as artificial fertilizers. The only benefit to organics is that those chemicals are bound into organic matter and generally only leach out slowly, hopefully at the rate which the environment can cope with, and the plants use.

Some organic fertilizers, such as slurry, sewage, and chicken waste especially, are just as strong and just as inclinded to leach through the soil, at a faster rate than the plants and natural environment can use them, causing exactly the same sort of damage, you see with artificial chemicals, to the soil wettland rivers and the seas etc. They can also contain traces of toxic chemicals, including those from animal disease control and cleaning products, which acumillate in the environment. Because of which, for example, some 'organic' farmland in New Zealand is now classified as toxic, and may not now be legally used. Organic is certainly good and can improve soil structure, but a lot of that benefit is lost on an industrial scale, where 'concentrated' organics are used, in part to save transport and application costs. The big problems for the environment are those of scale, cost cutting, over application, and uninteligent use, and they apply nearly as much to organic farming as to chemical farming.

While organic fertilizers are a step in the right direction, and can help, they are not a magic bullet, and on their own will have little effect on the environmental damage caused by agriculture.

@Fernapple Non-natural fertilizers, i.e. man-made Chemical Fertilizers, ARE NOT used in small amounts, they are used by the TONS and TONS but the plants and crops can ONLY utilise the small amounts at any one time, ergo the remainders are wasted completely.
Natural fertilizers are far more beneficial to the environment than chemical ones can ever be since not only the plants can utilize the nutrients to promote growth BUT also encourage and feed Natures own Soil Turning machines, the Worms.
Worms are VITAL to the production of crops and the environment, 1 single Earthworm can , on its own, turn, aerate and revitalise 1 cubic metre of soil every 36-48 hours.
For example, I tested this by making my own Worm Farm using an old bath-tub, adding in 1 cubic metre of degraded soil and 1 cubic metre of 'tired' garden soil and topped it off with a layer of kitchen wastes ( including Chicken Manure, Goat Manure and Horse Manure)(NO MEAT or MEAT Products).
I then added 1 single Earthworm to the mix.
3 days later I checked the progress to find that I now had well turned, fresh and reinvigorated soil for my gardens AND approx. 30 worms of different sizes, ranging from almost thread-like through to full sized adult worms.
And, before you 'jump in' with a comment that the other worms could have come up from the surrounding soils, No, they could NOT have since my Worm Farm is built on a frame that stands at my waist height ABOVE the surround ground.
From my 'little' worm farm I get new, revitalised soils, Worm casting and a liquid I call 'worm juice' which is, in fact, worm excrement.
In a second experiment I built another worm farm AND only added chemical fertilizers along with soil and a very small layer of dry, dead leaves from my gardens. and 1 single worm.
3 days later, ALL I had was soil with chemical fertilizers in it, a layer or dried, dead leaves and NO worm/s.
So, WHAT exactly does that tell you?

@Triphid That's what I said. It is not the use of organic or inorganic, though organic is better, that is important, but the use of tons and tons of it especially in concentrated form. Which is what can happen and does happen, on industrial farms where organics are overused in exactly the same way as chemicals.

@Fernapple With organic fertilizers the actual usage ratio is calculated as being 15 kilograms to every 100 acres, with chemical man-made fertilizers the manufactures STATE that the ratio should be a minimum of 150 kilograms per 20 acres, i.e 7.5 kilograms per acre.
Which results in complete saturation of the soils when using non-natural fertilizers and Farmers using non-natural fertilizers spread these self-same fertilizers at least TWICE per Growing Season PLUS once every planting season as well.
In my late 20's I worked for a spell on an experimental Cotton farm approx. 100 miles from where I live.
One of the job tasks involved was a 'Flag-man' for an aerial Crop-duster, he used a total of 3.5 metric tonnes to cover an area of 10 acres with man-made Chemical fertilizers, 3 times in a 2 month period of which I calculated that a minimum of 15% went directly, by the air-drop, into their Irrigation Channels ( which were fed from the nearby Darling River and emptied back into it as well) PLUS another 15-20% would leach through the soils and got back into the river as well.
And yet, 50 miles further north, there was a Farmer growing table Grapes and vegetables who used ONLY organic fertilizers ONCE only per season, no irrigation channels, just pumps to feed water to his
drip-feed watering systems and his crop tallies were approx. 2-3 times higher than those of the Cotton farm every year.
Plus his annual water usage was between 45-60% LOWER than the Cotton Farm's as well and soil sampling done on BOTH places showed that the Cotton Farm had little or NO earthworms present in the soil where the other property was, literally, 'crawling' with earthworms in abundance.
So what, IF anything, does that tell you?

@Triphid It tells me that organic practices, well used, are a lot better for the environment and the cropped land than chemical farming. No argument with that. But the problem is in the phrase, 'well used'. My point is that badly used organic farming, can be just as harmful as chemical farming.

For some twenty years in my youth, I helped my father run an organic fruit and veg smallholding, and was an enthusiastic member of the soil association. We did the very best we could to create a good environment, and produce good quality healthy products, without chemicals. But then I reached an age where I began to move and circulate with a wider range of, so called, organic farmers, I found that many of them had appalling practices, terrible animal welfare, were relabeling inorganic produce as organic, and that one of our wholesale merchants was putting our boxes, of quality organic produce, on the top of pallets containing very poor chemically fed produce and selling them as one. Many organic growers were no more interested in the environment than the conventional farmers over the fence, sometimes less so, were only interested in the higher ticket value of organic produce, and were sometimes using highly doubtful sources, chemical, industrial, intensive farms, for their 'organic' fertilizers.That the movement was handing out organic lables to just about anyone, regardless of the qualifications. And that the public buying the products with organic labels on them, who beleived they were getting environmentally responsible husbandry and high animal welfare, when they bought the label. Were actually often getting the very opposite, or at least things which were produced no differently from mainstream agriculture. And that the movement was often being used by extremists, to pedal political agendas.

At that point I realized that I had been taken in by a religious cult, and that the innocent buyers of organic products were being taken in the same. I am still sure that their are many good organic growers out there, doing a good environmentally sound job, and good luck to them. I anm also stiioll sure that organic, is a better way to farm. But I am now convinced that the only way to improve the environmental impact of agriculture, if it can be done at all. Is by getting down to the hard nitty gritty, of enquiring into every single product, employing a lot more people, people being the one resource the the world has lots of, and making people aware that they have to enquire deeply into the source of their food and make a big effort. The cult of buying organic, is just that, a cult, and it is holding back real progress in addressing the business of making agriculture more environmentally sustainable, because it creates the false impression that it is a done deal.

@Fernapple Yes there are those who claim, quite falsely imo, that they are farming organically and their produce is organically produced.
and, imo, there should be some Regulatory Department set up to ensure that Organic Produce is 100% organically produced.

Yes, unfortunately, in the 'name of progress.'
The paradise of the natural world is ignored or obliterated by the greedy.

Yes, and how come so many are ignorant about these threats.
Religion probably contributes to this ignorance, imo.

@AnonySchmoose I doubt they are ignorant of the issues, they simply do not care as long as they can make a fortune in the short term.

The need for biodiversity appears to be unheard, unread news to many, especially in particular regions of the US. Unfortunately.

I'm definitely for that -- whether in the countryside or in cities.