The carbon ranch is in an expression of the permaculture side of REAL Green. What REAL Green does with permaculture is go hybrid with the old ways and new ways to achieve the goal of local sustainability with resilience. The side benefits are increased benefits to local wildlife plus increase in the health of soil and water through REAL Green permaculture practices. Rotational grazing with smaller stocking rates on polyculture pasture by multispecies grazing lowers machinery and chemical use. Small scale hay production with low horse power equipment is lower carbon. REAL Green intends to go electric with solar power charging of an electric tractor when available. Real Green goes further with energy production by using a sustainable wood lot for wood heat but also solar energy to heat and supply power. This energy production is hybrid and still uses the grid. It is the hope of REAL Green the grid goes greener with more renewables. The reason for the hybrid of grid and off grid strategies is the increased resilience of the two. REAL Green is realistic about power and understands the benefits of both. The grid is reliable and on demand which is useful with varied situations a REAL Green finds himself in. REAL Green also is dedicated to efficiency strategies that lower consumption foot prints. These are both technology and behavioral.
REAL Green is based on localism because that is the proper human scale but REAL Green is realistic and understands a REAL Green Ranch must dwell in a delocalized world that is carbon intensive. This delocalized world is with people too who live on demand and discretionary in regards to consumption. Many people do not factor in resilience, sustainability, and permaculture into their daily decisions but REAL Green does. Activities are reflected on in this regard by REAL Green. A trip to town is carbon intensive so the trip is multi-tasked. Food waste is minimized by feeding animals what is left. Localism means focusing on doing things at home avoiding road trips for enjoyment yet REAL Green realizes significant others are not REAL Green so there is flexibility to accommodate significant others who don’t embrace REAL Green. This includes low carbon travel because REAL Greens point is localism enhances the Ranch and travel diminishes it. That said some educational trips are beneficial and embraced. Conservation strategies are embraced. Lights are turned off when not in use. Showers are done as needed instead of as a routine.
Consumerism is reduced but also adapted. REAL Green embraces a decline paradigm so it is green prepping. Consumerism is REAL Greens access to a bounty of high-quality material for the REAL Green Ranch. REAL Green collects and stores the best material and tools for future use. These items have longevity built in. An emphasis is on low tech and simplicity. A REAL Green farm will have plenty of hand tools but also exceptional high-tech tools like solar, batteries, and digital tools. REAL Green understands we are carbon trapped and path dependent so industrial agriculture is accepted as necessary in the fabric of the gradient of decline of a world in overshoot. This means REAL Green does not try to replace industrial agriculture but offers seeds of change for the local for when planetary and social decline drives the local into less affluence. REAL Green behavior is an add on for anyone including industrial ag.
Green prepping and low footprint living for the benefit of the planet is good and offers meaning. It does not come cheap because it is hybrid and redundant for increased resilience and sustainability. Hyper efficiency of the status quo seeks to drive cost down by whatever means. REAL Green instead seeks to lower cost rationally when applicable in this regard. A solar system is not cheaper than all electric but the resilience has a value. Low stocking rates make an operation less efficient in regards to scale with volume but low stocking rates benefit the environment. Vegetables are cheaper at Walmart but the taste and benefit of having food sources locally has value. REAL Green uses the status quo to leave it so the value in that mentality is primarily about localizing delocalization. Scale is the basis of REAL Green. Humans are not scaled properly and this is primarily the problem with behavior and environmental degradation. Since our environment is now a delocalized Anthropocene to inhabit, one must adapt but also mitigate. The mitigation is localizing the damage delocalization does.
Ultimately REAL Green is about the wisdom of less. The reason less is the focus is the fact that we are faced with too much from the delocalized world. Costs drive us to delocalize because economies of scale and comparative advantage offer cost advantages. Cheap energy allows transport that harms a local both with products introduced but also the delocalizing ability to leave the local. REAL Green balances these demands with localism and resilience in mind. Currently REAL Green localism is not even on the radar screen and for those who read these words REAL Green may be considered nutter. That will change as the collapse process intensifies. Since REAL Green is behavioral it is about the meaning that comes with increasing the strength and survivability of a local. REAL Green does not have to be a ranch but permaculture should be a component. Real Green can be a trade and might include travel like life found in sailing. Scale dictates REAL Green value.
“The Carbon Ranch”
https://tinyurl.com/rwpb465 resilience
https://tinyurl.com/wv96zvf carbon ranch picture
https://tinyurl.com/qnrqj5g marin carbon project
“why is society so obsessed with high technology as a solution to our problems, including climate change, when the low technology of nature could be more effective? Why not use the power of photosynthesis as a solution instead? In the op-ed, I argued that we could store carbon in soils by: (1) switching to planned grazing systems using livestock, particularly on degraded land; (2) restoring riparian and wetland zones; (3) protecting open space from development; and (4) implementing no-till farming practices. “The time has come to bundle them together into one economic and ecological whole, which I call a carbon ranch,” I wrote. “The goal of a carbon ranch is to reduce atmospheric CO2 while producing substantial co-benefits for all living things. These include local food production, improved ecosystem services, restored wildlife habitat, rural economic development, and the strengthening of cultural traditions.”
REAL Green Adaptation 