Horses for Future

Kate Jackson has participated in Extinction Rebellion protests. In this podcast she shares her experiences and talks about creative ways you can bring the message of climate change into your community.

We’re coming up on the end of August which means whether or not to reopen schools is the topic that is front and center for a great many people. This is a question that doesn’t really seem to have any good answers. What’s the best path to take?

I have a number of friends who teach in public schools. They’ve been describing the re-designs their classrooms have been going through. The administration has told them desks have to be placed six feet apart - even if that means some students won’t be able to see the blackboards from their designated spot. What a nightmare. But is there an alternative? Staying home isn’t sustainable. Going to school may not be safe.

Here’s an alternative. How about Forest schools. Don’t laugh. This is a really thing. I first heard about Forest Schools many years ago from this week’s guest, Kate Jackson. Kate is a teacher. I think as you listen to this podcast, you’ll very quickly discover that she is the teacher you wish you could have had in grade school. If you were very lucky you did indeed have someone very much like her.

Kate is also a climate activist and a horse owner. I met her through the clicker training clinics. In one of our many evening conversations, she talked about Forest Schools. The conversation stayed with me. When the corona virus closed schools, I started thinking more seriously about Forest Schools, especially when we started to hear that the risk of spreading the disease is lower outside.

So I have invited Kate to talk to us about Forest Schools - what are they, how do they work, where do they fit in a school program? Lots of questions. I’m sure, if you have children, you will have many more. And I suspect quite a few of you will be googling Forest Schools after you listen to this podcast.

This week’s episode was prompted by an email exchange about hedgehogs. Those enchanting little creatures are about to take us down a garden path that leads to cybernetics, home grown national parks, reframing values and a memory jog back to our childhood for some inspiration.

I’m in conversation with Josephine Lock. Josephine did post graduate research with Professor Stafford Beer, the founder of Management Cybernetics and the author of “Beyond Dispute”. She began in one field and landed literally in another when she shifted her focus from the business and academic world to the training of dogs for conservation work.

This conversation is filled with ways in which we can all make a difference. I hope this isn’t a podcast you listen to just for entertainmentand then forget about. Jo reminds us that the purpose of a system, is what it does. That’s a great quote. What does this podcast do? I hope it helps us all to send out ripples that make a difference.

“Our obsession with the growth of our wallets needs to shift to the growth of our minds.” That’s another great statement.

Here’s another quote Jo shared with us:

“The greatest task is to live on a piece of land without spoiling it.” Aldo Leopold

Why isn’t that a measure of success?

Plant a butterfly garden and you can begin to influence value systems.

You can spark conversations in a non-confrontational way. You can model alternatives.

You can change value systems in small ways that send the ripples out. And before you know it, that becomes the norm.

It becomes trendy.

Can we fix it? Of course we can. Begin by picking one thing where you can make a change, and then please visit this Horses for Future facebook page and share the ripples you are setting into motion. Let’s inspire one another with our thoughtful action.

And do please leave a five star review. That helps google find the podcast which makes it easier in turn for others to find it.

Pick one thing. That’s the answer Sarah Nickels gives when she’s asked what each of us can do to help mitigate the climate change crisis. Pick one thing to learn about. It might be something related to a product you buy in the grocery store, or the way you manage your pasture. Become a micro-expert in a micro area. Sarah explains how the ripples from that can spread around the planet.

"Horses for Future" explores the question: what can horse people do to help in the climate change crisis? I don’t have the answer, just the desire to be part of the solution. In this week’s podcast we’re traveling to Australia to meet Sarah Nickels. When I wrote on my Click that teaches Facebook group that I was going to giving Stay At Home virtual clinics, Sarah emailed me to ask if I would do a clinic for Australians. The answer to that was maybe. I wasn’t sure how it would work with the time difference. I would have to think about it.

But in the meantime would she like to do a Horses for Future podcast for me? I know that wasn’t the answer she was expecting, but in her email Sarah mentioned her “day job”. She’s a social scientist in the environmental field. Her work focuses on biodiversity and behavior change. That perked my ears forward. In the next line when she talked about permaculture design, I knew we needed to meet via the internet. Permaculture is a term that keeps coming up as I explore regenerative agriculture. Here was a great opportunity to learn more about it. So this week begins a two part conversation with Sarah Nickels.

Visit the show notes in sequestercarbon.com for a list of the books Sarah references.

This is part 2 of a conversation with Sam Bingham. Sam is a a journalist. He spent about ten years living in New Mexico with the Navajo. While he was there, he met Allan Savory. Savory’s work promotes the use of livestock and planned rotational grazing to reverse the process of desertification.

Bingham co-wrote Holistic Management Handbook with Savory. I wanted to talk to him about the of livestock to maintain healthy grasslands.

We begin this week’s podcast with a description of Alan Savory and his work. It’s interesting to hear about people whose ideas sit outside of the mainstream. We will need creative, out-of-the-box thinkers to help solve the climate change crisis.

In February a chance conversation at the Art and Science of Animal Training conference led me to this week’s guest, Sam Bingham. Sam is a journalist and author. He collaborated with Allan Savory in writing “Holistic Management Handbook”.

February seems like such a long time ago. In March the corona virus took over our lives, consumed every news cycle, and pushed concerns about climate change to the back burner. It seemed more important to talk about degrees of freedom with Joe Layng that it was to think about pasture management.

But that doesn’t mean that the grass wasn’t growing. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to manage my pastures, so this seemed like a good time to share this conversation.

I feel so unbelievably privileged that every few weeks I get to share with you a conversation with author and activist, Manda Scott.

Especially in these uncertain times, it’s so easy to get busy, to get worried, to get pulled in different directions by the demands of the here and now. Manda reminds us to listen, to feel, to imagine, to simply ask questions.

This is a complex conversation that begins with the corona virus but takes us to so much more. You’re about to have a lesson in economics, but it’s a view of economics which is very different from anything I was presented with at school.

This week’s podcast takes a very practical, down to earth turn. I mean literally down to earth - I am talking with Suzanne Kernek about vegetable gardens.

This was a subject that I always knew was on the list of things I wanted to explore through the Horses for Future podcasts. What can horse people do to help with the climate change crisis? We have land and we have horse manure. So we can grow food. We can grow food for ourselves, and we can also grow food to share.

I am planting a vegetable garden this year. I’m sure I am not alone in thinking that especially this year with so many unknowns surrounding the corona virus this is a very good time to grown my own veggies. One huge advantage I have over my suburban neighbors is I have a ready source of well composted horse manure. Here’s yet another way horse people can make a difference in this current crisis and in the climate change crisis - we can grow our own food.

I’ve been a gardener all of my life but flowers, not veggies, so I invited Suzanne Kernek to join me in a podcast conversation about vegetable gardens. Normally we would be talking about training, but not this time. Our subject was vegetable gardens - how to prepare a garden, and what to grow.

Last summer Suzanne set up a farm stand for the first time. Here’s how she describes it:

“Feed Thy Neighbor Farm Stand is neighborhood farm stand that offers vegetables and bouquets picked from my garden that day. It is an honor-system process with no prices. I encourage people to take what they need if they cannot afford anything. I have a dream of starting a program where neighbors collect their excess produce from their gardens and offer it collectively to the neighborhood, with all proceeds going to a different non-profit every week.”

That’s a great dream. It’s a great way in which horse people can indeed make a difference.