A good article, thanks.
It sounds like "moving cattle around" is beneficial because it lets grassland recover during "rest periods". I think there is a common theme in many ecologically wise actions: use the land less intensively.
That seems to conflict with short-term greed, which I've begun to think is all that is considered by any business. Even when intensive management for short-term profit can be shown to be a long-term guarantee of NO profit, short-term maximizing seems always to win the day. Like businesses that will alienate customers for life to make 1% more on a transaction.
Why do we do that so consistently?
One thing I didn't see in the parts about sequestering carbon in soil is that it is hard to keep more than around 5% organic matter in aerated soils, long-term. I understand the climate advantage to bringing very infertile, inorganic soil up to 5% organic matter, but can much be done with fertile soil to hold more carbon than it already is?
I may not understand biochar, but it sounds like turning OM to charcoal, which could be stored anywhere, not just in soil.
Say "average soil" was 1.5 grams per cubic cm.
5% OM would be 0.075 grams OM / cm^3.
That's 75 Kg OM per cubic meter (if I got the decimal pints right).
Say the OM was distributed in the top 50 cm (20 inches).
One square kilometer half a meter deep is 500,000 cubic meters, or
37.5 million Kg OM per square Km.
Say 37 thousand metric tons of OM could be sequestered per square Km.
And we have a lot of square Km in our deserts!
I hope I did get the decimal points in the right places.
