She confessed that she knew that carbon footprints measured something about the level of carbon released into the atmosphere, but added that she was a little shaky on the details.

I wasn’t surprised. Carbon footprint is one of the most widely used--and least widely understood--terms in our lexicon today. The more people begin to actually understand the concept, the more they will recognize that bison can play a positive role in addressing the problem of carbon-based greenhouse gasses.

The concept behind carbon footprints is fairly simple. Soil serves as a giant sponge, capturing carbon from living matter and storing it beneath the surface. Some carbon--such as that in the dinosaurs and plant life a million years ago--is trapped beneath thousands of feet of soil and rock. But living plants every day capture carbon from the atmosphere and return it to the top layers of our soil.

Various activities conducted by humans and other animals release that carbon into the atmosphere, thus contributing to global climate change. Burning oil and coal are two of the major activities that release carbon. Intensive row crop farming, as well, releases carbon. In fact, any activity that breaks up the soil releases carbon.

On the other hand, stable, sustainable forests and grasslands play a critical role in removing carbon from the atmosphere and returning it to the soil.

We all know that the North American continent is a virtual sea of native grasslands that evolved over tens of thousands of years in concert with the grazing activities of bison. The grasses across our continent require grazing, manuering, and hoof activity to maintain their health. Allen Savory of Holistic Management International has clearly documented the devastating impact on grasslands when ruminant animals are removed from the equation. No grazing leads to an ultimate collapse of the health of those grasslands. That collapse, in turn, removes one big carbon sponge from the environment.

I shared that explanation with the reporter, which led to another long pause...followed by, “Wow, that’s really neat."  more>>

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