What to Tell Environmental Activists about Agriculture

Stanford University via Ag on the Forefront

June 14, 2010

Advances in high-yield agriculture achieved during the so-called Green Revolution have not only helped feed the planet, but also have helped slow the pace of global warming by cutting the amount of biomass burned - and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions - when forests or grasslands are cleared for farming. Stanford researchers estimate those emissions have been trimmed by over half a trillion tons of carbon dioxide. The paper is being released this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.