Restoring Water Cycles to
Reverse Global Warming
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. . . and one with Jim Laurie too!
Even with elevated greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,
water can cool the biosphere and address
destructive feedbacks in the climate system.
Friday – Sunday, October 16-18, 2015
A conference at Tufts University
Medford, Massachusetts, USA (Boston area)
Sponsored by the Tufts Institute of the Environment
Water and its remarkable physical properties make life on earth possible. In this conference we will pay particular attention to water’s role in regulating climate through its capacity to store, move and transfer more heat than any other natural compound. Water is a planetary thermostat, and even with elevated greenhouse gases in the atmosphere it can cool the biosphere and address destructive feedback loops in the climate system.
Check out Michal Kravcik’s Global Action Plan
for the Restoration of Natural Water Cycles and Climate
Good water management is a facet of good land management, which we covered broadly at last year’s conference, Restoring Ecosystems to Reverse Global Warming. This year we will carefully examine the water cycle, how we can have a dramatic positive influence on it, and in so doing successfully address drought, floods, soil health, food production and climate.
Although water and carbon travel together, water cycles can be restored even more quickly than soil sequestration can reduce atmospheric carbon levels. Thus, while we’re drawing down atmospheric carbon, we can significantly cool the surface of the earth to mitigate and even reverse the damage done to date by elevated planetary temperatures.
All we have to do is bring over 12 billion ruined acres back to life. And we can!
Registration: Sliding scale, $15 – $150. Please pay as much as you can afford to help with conference expenses and funding scholarships/work exchange (ten slots available, contact climate2015@bio4climate.org). Student tickets are in limited supply so make your purchase now before they sell out! Register for the conference here.
Speakers: We are bringing together a roster of world-class experts, climate advocates, scientists, practitioners. We ask speakers to be available all weekend if possible to participate in networking and exchanges with attendees and one another.
Current confirmed speakers include:
- Rajendra Singh, the “Water Man of India”, recently named the 2015 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate.
- Michal Kravcik, internationally recognized water scientist, Goldman Environmental Prize recipient, and author of A New Water Paradigm.
- Maude Barlow, best-selling Canadian author and water activist, chair of the board of Food and Water Watch.
- Foster Brown, senior scientist at Woods Hole Research Center and recipient of the Chico Mendes Forest Citizenry prize.
- Precious Phiri, Founding Director of EarthWisdom Consulting Company and former Senior Facilitator at the Africa Center for Holistic Management (ACHM) in Zimbabwe.
- Walter Jehne, leading Australian soil and climate scientist, Director of Healthy Soils Australia.
- Tom Goreau, biogeophysicist, climate scientist and leading coral reef restoration expert, president of the Global Coral Reef Alliance.
- Carol Evans, Nevada BLM fisheries biologist whose work has been featured in the film The Beaver Whisperers, highlighting her deep involvement in monitoring the impact that planned grazing and returning beaver have had on restoring watersheds.
- Jon Griggs, ranch manager for Maggie Creek Ranch, a beef-cattle operation running on both public and private lands in the high desert of Northeastern Nevada.
- Jim Laurie, Restoration Ecologist at Biodiversity for a Livable Climate, who has been working with water – and biodiversity – for decades.
- Scott Horsley, an expert in watershed planning and water resources management who has served as a consultant to federal, state, and local jurisdictions around the world.
- Steven Apfelbaum, chairman at Applied Ecological Services and one of the leading ecological consultants in the U.S. who has contributed his unique creative scientific expertise to over 1,500 projects throughout North America and beyond.
- Charlotte O’Brien, President and CEO of Carbon Drawdown Solutions, an entrepreneuer and pyrolysis and biomass expert who has worked for years with many varieties of bamboo.
- Judith Schwartz, longtime freelance writer and author of several books including Cows Save the Planet, and a new book on water due out later this year.
- Jan Lambert, an environmental journalist and editor of the Valley Green Journal who has been working closely with Michal Kravčík in promoting the New Water Paradigm via her journal and a resource book, Water, Land and Climate – The Critical Connection: How We Can Rehydrate Landscapes Locally To Renew Climates Globally.
- Allison Houghton, permaculture and gardening instructor who manages the Greater Boston CSA for The Food Project, orchard manager and assistant grower for Lincoln Farm and former horticultural director for Green City Growers.
- Adam Sacks, Executive Director, Biodiversity for a Livable Climate, a long-time climate activist with extensive experience in non-profit management, computer technology, education, politics, advocacy, and holistic medicine.
Our primary urgent goal in the face of widespread breakdown in addressing climate change is to further the understanding necessary to embark on the global regeneration process. Collectively we will present affordable strategies for restoration of water cycles that local, national and international governments, agencies, communities and individuals may rapidly implement in order to reverse global warming.
Land Restoration in Mexico: 1963 – 2003. Regenerated water and carbon cycles
enhance food and water security. Photo credits: Guillermo Osuna.
Hope
There is a way, which has yet to take its rightful place at the heart of the climate debate: the capacity of the natural world to actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and store it in soils worldwide.
Restoration of global water cycles is essential to a successful climate strategy.
The biosphere is a powerful geological force. While it is not yet widely understood, the life force has been terraforming the earth for the past 3.5 billion years, from vast rock formations to an oxygen atmosphere to soils and weather and everything in-between. Forces of living systems, managed for healthy biodiversity and natural cycles, will capture prodigious amounts of carbon dioxide. If we set up favorable conditions, nature will store greenhouse gases in complex and stable biomolecules in soils, the largest terrestrial carbon sink on the planet, as it has done for eons.
We already have the knowledge and experience to move ahead confidently with all due haste. Scientists and practitioners of eco-restoration have decades of experience, repeatedly having demonstrated dramatic successes in bringing dying lands back to life in only a few years, regenerating ecosystems such as dry grasslands, humid jungles, and temperate forests.
To accomplish this on a global scale would not only address a rapidly deteriorating climate, but restore flourishing habitats for the millions of species that we depend upon across the world. We can bring untold benefits, including food production and economic security, to people everywhere. Best of all, it is low-tech and low-cost – and when given a chance, the biodiverse life in the world’s soils will do 99% of the work.
We invite sponsorship and partnership from individuals and organizations, which may include support for conference organizing, publicity, administrative support, venue, and operating expenses.
For further background information, please see our Resources page, and for inquiries please contact climate2015@bio4climate.org
