Nitrogen 2.0 with Eric Davidson University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and Spark Climate Solutions, and Charles Brooke from Spark Climate Solutions

Our food systems are orders of magnitude more complex than other sectors of our economy so how can tools such as Artificial intelligence help farmers across the world make better decisions to improve the sustainability and productivity of our food systems.Today we are joined by Aidan Connolly a animal agtech entrepreneur, investor, and author of The Future of Agriculture who has spend his career working on agricultural innovation. Send us a text

Today Ash Cloud is partnering with CSIRO to bring you Andy Sheppard, the Chief Research Scientist Biosecurity at CSIRO where he leads efforts to protect Australia, it’s neighbours,  and trading partners from plant, animal and human pests and disease threats. Building local and global partnerships to understand the biology of the threats across their native and invaded range so intervention opportnities can be implemented is a key part of his work. Andy is also the Co-Executive Director of Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry and CSIRO Catalysing Australia's Biosecurity Initiative. You can listen to our conversation here.Send us a text

The US military has recognized climate change as a national security threat for decades our guest today, Sherri Goodman, has been credited with educating a generation of US military officers and government officials about the complex interactions between climate change and national security. She is Secretary General of the International Military Council on Climate & Security  and the author of Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security.  I recently spoke with Sherri about her 30 odd years experience working on the nexus of climate and security, including the risks posed by climate change and the many indirect ways they can be manifested, the challenges in changing the mindset at DoD around how they think about climate change, what  can be learned from her experience, and opportunities to intervene. You can listen to our conversation here.Send us a text

The intersection between climate change and armed conflict is complex. For those who have not witnessed the difference between the devestation and social upheaval that results from war compared with any other form of social upheaval it is almost impossible to explain. This is why I see great importance in further understanding these intersections. Climate related violence is a messy marriage of climate stress and poor governance.ISIS profited from collapsing agricultural positions to bolster its ranks in Iraq and Syria. The recruitment rate of jihadis was three times higher from villages reliant solely on rain than from similar villages with access to irrigation water. The developed world is not immune, above and beyond the global impacts of migration it has been documented that violence against women in Greece appears to increase almost in lockstep with summer temperates. In the United States, 85% of the mass shootings that accrued in 2022 took place between the June and September with the physiological changes unleashed by higher temperatures appearing to be a determining factor. The migration stories that make the headlines are only the tip of the iceberg. These are based on the 10% of people that flee their homes due to conflict and migrate internationally.  The other 90% impact the towns and cities within their countries. However, as it's generally the best educated and wealthiest people that can actually afford to leave this also undermines the governance and financial security of the impacted villages further undermining these societies.The urban rural divide a growing issue globally. ISIS recruitment around Mosul was facilitated by the growing disparity between agricultural and urban livelihoods that led to some of the greatest  concentrations of ISIS recruits. The proximity to the city led ensured that villages were very conscious of this growing disparity making them easy targets for the ISIS recruiters.Peter Schwartzstein is an environmental journalist who has reported on water, food security, and the conflict-climate nexus across some 30 countries in the Middle East, Africa, and occasionally further afield. Peter is a Global Fellow with the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program. The Heat and The Fury,  is published in September 2024.Send us a text

Depending on who you speak with cattle can be vital to the sustainability of our food systems and our ability to provide health nutrition to humanity or they can be one of the largest sources of climate pollution. The culprit in this debate is methane, especially enteric methane emissions that is derived from the foregut of all ruminants including cattle. Frank Mitloehner is the Director of the UC Davis Clear Center that researches the intersection of animal agriculture and the environment and leads communication efforts across the complex interactions between the environmental health, human health, our food systems, and livestock. Frank’s work has significantly focused on methane emissions. I recently caught up with Frank to hear his perspective on how the conversation around methane has evolved, including the increasingly passionate positions on the role of ruminants in our food systems that are being advocated by different groups focused on addressing climate change.  It is widely accepted that reducing methane emissions is the emergency brake when it comes to mitigating warming, with a reduction of methane by 20, 30, or 40% having a significant impact due to the high warming potential of methane and it's rapid natural breakdown in the atmosphere. Where there is much more disagreement among those advocating for methane reduction is which sectors to target most urgently for methane reductions with oil and gas, waste, livestock, and domestic leaks being the most frequently discussed. Where there is no disagreement is the need for increased funding on research and innovations to reduce livestock methane.  Send us a text

Regenerative ranching has recently gained traction across the main stream media but the idea of using  livestock to mimic nature and managing a landscape holistically was largely led by Allan Savory from the 1980s. Rich Bradbury' parents attended the Savory Institute in the 1980's which was when he was first exposed to the holistic approach that Allan Savory brings to ranching.  I recently caught up with Rich to hear how this has impacted his thinking and the way he manages his ranch to this day.Send us a text

Nitrogen is absolutely essential for all forms of life, plants, animals and microbes. Nitrogen is the basis for making amino acids, and amino acids are the basis for making proteins, enzymes. The historic nitrogen system was balanced and based on microbial activity transforming atmospheric nitrogen into soluble forms usable by plants and microbes. Eric Davidson's has been working to transform our food systems through better understanding terrestrial nutrient cycling, cycling, greenhouse gas emissions from soils, global biogeochemical cycles, and how they impact sustainable agriculture. Charles Brooke has been working to accelerate the rate of action and innovation in reducing the climate impact of livestock production. He leads Spark Climate Solutions livestock enteric methane mitigation program.The modern nitrogen system is based on the use of synthetic nitrogen fertilzers produced through the energy intensive Haber-Bosch process developed just prior to World War I to manufacture munitions. The impact of this synthetic nitrogen has spread far beyond conflict. Synthetic nitrogen has enabled our modern food systems to produce enough food to feed 8 billion people. It has also resulted in widespread nitrogen pollution in water ways and ever increasing levels of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide. Synthetic fertiliser production has been so successful that today 50 - 60% of all the nitrogen in human bodies in humans actually comes from Haber-Bosch processes.From a warming perspective nitrous oxide (or N2O) is about 270 times more potent than is carbon dioxide. However, unlike CO2 where levels are somewhat plateauing, N2O levels continue to rise. The use of nitrogen fertilizer is hugely inefficient. Half of all fertilizer put on the ground is lost. Additional losses occur when plant proteins are fed to animals prior to human consumption. Nitrogen 2.0 is focused on reducing nitrogen wastage and pollution, and increasing the circularity of nitrogen use. The three components are:Feeding nitrogen directly to livestockDecreasing the nitrogen required by and provided to cropsIncreasing the recycling of nitrogen in manure back into our cropping systems Eric Davidson is Professor of the Appalachian Laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. He is also a Principal Scientist at Spark Climate Solutions. His most recent book Science for a Green New Deal; Connecting Climate, Economics, and Social Justice was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2022.Send us a text

The efficacy of methane reducing feed additives constantly varies between cows and herds because the rumen microbiome is constantly changing. Certain feed additives that worked really well at that one given her may stop working, or the other way around. Feed additives that were not working can become effective. Using AI based on the genome sequences within the microbiome so that the right additive is used at the right time can triple the impact of feed additives. Yaniv Altshuler has been working on Artificial Intelligence for the over 20 years focusing on decentralized and scalable AI methods. He is a researcher at MIT and the founder and CEO of Metha.ai where he is using decentralized AI algorthims that are ubiquitous across nature to predict the efficacy of methane reducing feed additives based on the cows microbiome. More details on how AI can increase the efficacy of feed additives can be found in Yaniv's white paper here:From Microbes to Methane: AI-Based Predictive Modeling of Feed Additive Efficacy in Dairy CowsYaniv holds a PhD in Computer Science, and is the author of over 70 scientific papers and 15 patents. He is also the author of several books including "Security and Privacy in Social Networks" and "Applied Swarm Intelligence".Send us a text

California has been leading efforts to implement climate change policy since Governor Schwarzeneger signed the Global Warming Solutions Act in 2006 to begin the transition to a carbon neutral economy with food and agriculture are a key component of California’s strategy. Agriculture sits right in the middle of the climate debate, agriculture is a significant emitter and that needs to be acknowleded. Agriculture also has the potential be big part of the solution and the conversation needs to evolve beyond blame into how can we work together to address this ciritcal issue. Secretary Karen Ross has been leading California Department of Food and Agriculture since 2019 and she is global leader in sustainable and climate smart agricultural where she has been driving progressive food climate policy in California, leveraging the state’s innovative start up culture to create new technologies, working to build resiliant local food systems, and building global partnerships that are critical to addressing cliamte change at scale. California has signed climate smart agriculture MOUs firstly with the Netherlands, followed Denmark, Israel, New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Mexico, and Vietnam.“Leadership is not just talking to who we know and feel comfortable with. It's the willingness to reach out and to truly listen. And to first understand if I want to be understood.”Looking towards the future we also need to ask how can we grow food in a changing climate both in highly developed econmoies such as California and also across the Global South. The vast majority of farmers are small a subsustance farmers, frequently living in povery and food insecurity. These people also make up the vast majority of malnourished people globally. “Hunger drives desperation and creates unrest. Look at the migration patterns that are happening on a multitude of continents because of drought. There's not water to grow the crops. There's not the ability to feed the animals which are their sole income and ability to feed themselves."Send us a text

Rob Jackson is a climate scientist who has been leading global efforts to reduce millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions and improve human health, safety, and air and water quality. Methane emissions are a major focus of Rob’s work as there is nothing else that gives as much power to slow global warming over the next decade or two.  Rob’s new book, "Into The Clear Blue Sky” the path to restoring our atmosphere is being released at the end of July by Simon & Schuster.  In the book Rob tells the story of the people creating and driving some of the boldest and most impactful climate solutions under development and what motivates and inspires these people to dedicate their careers to addressing climate change. Rob Jackson is the Chair of the Global Carbon Project, a Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for Energy, and a professor of earth science at Stanford University. Send us a text