Ready to Receive a Free Gift?
January 10, 2020

     Energy scientists have calculated that the amount of energy striking the earth‛s surface in the form of sunlight in a single hour is roughly equivalent to the amount of energy we modern humans collectively consume in a year from all other sources (fossil fuels, nuclear, hydroelectric, etc.) combined.  

     Think about it: all that free energy falling on us like grace, and we‛re not (yet) prepared to receive it, at least not efficiently.  Unlike plants, we humans cannot run directly on the sun‛s energy.  Alas, we do not photosynthesize.  As a result, our very existence is dependent on those things that do.  We need plants to mediate for us – to stand between us and the sun and convert its energy to something we can use.

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     A note on photosynthesis, by the way: it‛s a bloody miracle.  You remember how it works from fourth grade science class, right?  A plant captures sunlight in its leaves or blades, in little pockets called chloroplasts, then combines the sunlight with air, water, and soil nutrients – and turns it into food for itself.  We might as well call it Transubstantiation.

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     So one of the great challenges of our time – arguably the great challenge of our time – is how to make ourselves better recipients of sunshine, the free gift of the solar system.  There are scientists working on the high-tech end of the project, of course, with the development of solar panels and battery storage technology.  There are also scientists like Allan Savory and Dr. Allen Williams, and a host of others, who are working on more low-tech (but still scalable) strategies that involve orchestrating the movement of ruminant animals to increase the solar-capture capacity of earth‛s grasslands, which account for 20% to 40% of the world‛s land surface depending on how they are defined.  The data collected to date suggest that these animal-based strategies (alternately referred to as management-intensive grazing, holistic planned grazing, or adaptive grazing), can turn grasslands into massive sites for sequestration of atmospheric carbon, thus mitigating the effects of climate change while simultaneously improving soil health and fertility (which, ironically, increase with the addition of carbon).  And those are just the first-line benefits.

     We‛re not there yet, though.  The scientists must continue their important work, on both the high-tech and low-tech ends of the spectrum, and everywhere in between.  But the rest of us don‛t have to wait around to get in the game.  I, for one, am fascinated – indeed, perhaps obsessed – with putting myself as close as I can to the beginning of the sun‛s energy chain.  If I can‛t photosynthesize, then I need to work on getting my energy as directly as I can from the real-time photosynthesizers.  This is no small task, but one worth some serious thought and action.  How do I make myself more ready and able to receive the free gift that surrounds me?