[Terrapreta] Beware The False Prophets of Terra Perta

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi Erich and All,

Interesting article.  "... for support rather than illumination"  <- I like your review of it.  What illumination do we have about Terra Preta?

Clearly (do you think?), the ancient native Amazonian people did not "slash and char" forestland to sequester carbon.  They were not billions of them pumping fossil fuel burning exhaust into the atmosphere for a century or more until some of them recognized (and broadcast it on the Internet) that they were poisoning the planet.  It would be quite an interesting archaeological find for any evidence that they even new Earth was a planet with a finite atmosphere.

Rather, I think they made "Terra Preta", because one day they found some burned down area that grew food crops much better then anywhere else in the leached out Amazon River basin.  They, smart bunch that they were, wanted to replicate Nature.  My guess it that was a good idea then and about as technologically advanced as one could be.  They recognized that they were part of the natural world and that nature was far more successful at the running the world then they were, so she could help, if they only observed and learned.  Many of the doers in 21st century humanity could stuff the arrogance and do with a little of that humility towards Nature.

The evidence is there, even if it was performed in only limited areas, near river basins and some lakes, that people made Terra Preta soil, molded an "artificial landscape", and fed some millions of people by doing so for centuries, if not millennia.  If it did not work for what they were doing if for (trying to improve the soils ability to grow food crops), then I am absolutely positive that they would not have continued to compost charcoal into sterile Oxisol soils for centuries trying to make it work.  Can anyone imagine how much work and how many tons of charcoal composting they must have done?  Millions of people for centuries?  What limited amount we have found was a BIG JOB.  I think it is a wonder that Terra Preta is as widespread as it is!

Just pretend you are an ancient Amazonian.  There is a place near a lake which grows huge food crops and feeds 100s of thousands of other people you can see around it.  Then 8-10 kilometers away, near another lake, there is rainforest, with poisonous frogs and water and water and bugs and more water, but there is no soil there in which you can grow food that people eat.  Where are you going to live?  Where you can eat bugs and rain and otherwise starve alone with your little family?

My view is that the archaeological record will always meat out what was "common sense" for the time.  We all are more like one another than we are different.  We all collaborated then and still collaborate now to the benefit the greater group and to ourselves.  Humans are gregarious.  Agriculture has only pulled us closer together into "growing regions" to try and feed ourselves and one another.  That has not changed in millennia, nor should it in the future.

If modern people can repeat that miracle today, maybe we will feed the 4 billion more people expected by 2050.  That, by itself would be something.

But even if that did not happen, the carbon dated charcoal, which has been examined under scanning electron microscope and still shows the cell wall structures in the charcoal, from the cells of the trees that it was made from 1000s of years ago, has SUSTAINED.  Charcoal in soil is highly resilient!  As long as it doesn't poison the soil so that it cannot grow crops, then its doesn't matter how much we bury into it.  If it helps degraded soils, great!  If it allows us to use less fertilizer, great!  If it improves agricultural crop quality and yield, great!  Those will all be huge benefits.

That we can really "sequester carbon", which has been taken out of the atmosphere, by putting charcoal into soil, is all by itself a very important part of the "Terra Preta" story!  Let me repeat that.

"TERRA PRETA (CHARRED BIOMASS IN SOIL) = REAL CARBON SEQUESTRATION" 

Let's just get on with it already, because the oil companies and the coal mines are going to continue to be burnt into the atmosphere until they are gone.  We humans living in our own filth in our little petri dish called Earth can either wake up and clean up, or we will die from it.  The only business that we need to really succeed at right now is proving that it can be done economically.  The carbon credits and the agricultural benefits will come from our endeavors.  I am confident of that.

Once again, Sean will stop his rant now, step off his soap box, bow slightly, and go to bed.

Regards,

Sean K. Barry
Principal Engineer/Owner
Troposphere Energy, LLC
11170 142nd St. N.
Stillwater, MN 55082
(651) 351-0711 (Home/Fax)
(651) 285-0904 (Cell)
sean.barry at juno.com<mailto:sean.barry at juno.com>
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Shengar at aol.com<mailto:Shengar at aol.com> 
  To: terrapreta at bioenergylists.org<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2007 10:37 PM
  Subject: [Terrapreta] Beware The False Prophets of Terra Perta


  Beware The False Prophets of Terra Perta

  It is quite worry some that development interest are seizing on "Artificial landscape" for justification of unsustainable practices, when the real lesson about TP culture is it's amazing Sustainability! 

  They are using TP as a drunk uses a lamp post.............. for support rather than Illumination.
  Erich

  Bioenergy pact between Europe and Africa<http://biopact.com/2007/03/amazonian-population-theories-paleo.html>
  http://biopact.com/2007/03/amazonian-population-theories-paleo.html<http://biopact.com/2007/03/amazonian-population-theories-paleo.html>

  "Artificial or pristine landscape?
  In the community of environmental archaeologists and paleo-ecologists, there are two distinct theories on pre-Columbian Amazonian populations. One commonly held vision says that the Amazon rainforest as it exists today is not 'pristine' at all, but basically an 'artificial landscape', created in ancient times by millions of people, who farmed, slashed-and-burned, logged and used the forests extensively and for centuries. According to the other camp, there is scant evidence for this hypothesis, and instead one can assume that the Amazon was sparsely populated, and only by small, primitive groups, whose impacts on the ecosystem have always been marginal."





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