[Terrapreta] Politics

[lou gold]

Hi Everyone,

I'm really liking the direction of recent dialogues on this forum.
Thanks to everyone, for your inputs of information, for your sometimes
challenging critiques and vigorous disagreements, and (above all) for
your real desire to help each other and the world become a better place.

My main skills lie not so much in the details of knowledge but lean instead
toward political organizing in the broad-brush form of trying to help
stimulate
popular moments for change -- primarily through simple story-telling (I got
hooked on show-and-tell in 3rd grade).

I sense here on this forum a familiar distaste for politics -- perhaps
especially
among scientists who would prefer some kind of ideal triumph of reason over
"all that other irrational stuff." Sometimes I feel that way myself. But
more generally
I understand politics in a different way -- as actually the mechanism for
discovering
and disseminating knowledge about what works and implementing it on a large
scale.
Yes, it gets crazy and distorted and sometimes highly destruction but it is
the fire in
which we forge change. The Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore (Asia's first
Nobel laureate)
put it well when he said, "Do you think that the piece of gold likes it when
it is being
hammered into a fine shape?"

We and terra preta are that piece of gold. I see that our shape is growing
more lovely
day-by-day. It is becoming like the shine of sun offering a light to guide
us out of the
darkness of fear and scarcity.

Thank you. Thank us. Thank all that is.

hugs and blessings,

lou









BIOCHAR: AN ANSWER

by Tim McGee, Helena, MT, USA on 03.23.08
Science & Technology

[image: Biochar_Answer.jpg]

Deep, rich, black soil is a farmers dream come true. Healthy
soil<http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/01/soil_health.php#ch01>is
full of life, with entire communities living just below our feet.
Healthy
soil can retain and purify water, provide an abundance of food, and even act
as way to sequester carbon dioxide. One key to getting there is amending
soil with biochar<http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/05/charcoal_the_next_green_alternative.php>.
Biochar is what you get when biomass is heated in the absence of oxygen
through a process called pyrolysis. When incorporated into soil, biochar
provides the structural habitat needed for a rich community of
micro-organisms to take hold. Incorporating biochar into soil can also act
as a way to sequester carbon.

Carbon dioxide sequestration was not likely the original goal of biochar, or
terra preta, developed thousands of years ago by the Native Americans in the
Amazon region. But today, as we recognize the cost of emitting green house
gases, we also recognize the wisdom of using biochar as micro-habitat to
improve our soils. Biochar is a classic win-win scenario, a solution that
can provide us with a valuable tool for fighting climate change, world
hunger, poverty, and energy shortages all at the same time. Sound good?

Tim Flannery <http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/author_tim_flan.php>,
a regular fixture here at TreeHugger, was interviewed this week by Beyond
Zero<http://beyondzeroemissions.org/2008/03/19/tim-flannery-australian-of-the-year-2007-talks-bio-char-why-we-need-to-move-into-the-renewable-age>(Listen
to the
Podcast<http://podcast.beyondzeroemissions.org/08jan11-tim-flannery-beyondzero.mp3>),
and discussed the benefits of biochar, or terra preta, as a sequestration
technique.

One of the clear benefits Tim sees of biochar for carbon dioxide
sequestration is that it is easily measured. You can literally weigh the
carbon before you use it for soil amendment. This ease of measurement makes
biochar easy to manage in any carbon sequestration calculations, which are
notoriously difficult to quantify.

Another point Tim made is that when biochar is added to the soil, it is at a
much lower risk of returning to the atmosphere than if it were carbon in a
living forest. Biochar is mostly inert, and is known to stay in the soil for
thousands of years<http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/03/soil_color_carbon.php>.
It is also not subjected to the risk of being blown down in a hurricane, or
cut down, or otherwise placed in a process for a more rapid return of carbon
dioxide to the atmosphere.

As a sequestration technology, biochar is simple, easy, and proven. Although
sequestration alone might be enough of a reason to consider biochar, the
benefits of biochar in agriculture are really the reason this solution is
gaining momentum quickly. The use of biochar has been shown to increase
water retention, microbial activity, uptake of minerals by plants, as well
as continued deposition of healthy soil. Two new organizations have emerged
that highlight the multi-faceted solution of biochar.

[image: IBI_logo.jpg]

The International Biochar Initiative
<http://www.biochar-international.org/home.html>(IBI) has emerged as the
center for biochar research and development. The IBI:

"Provides a platform for the international exchange of information and
activities in support of biochar research, development, demonstration and
commercialization. It advocates biochar as a strategy to:

* improve the Earth's soils;
* help mitigate the anthropogenic greenhouse effect by reducing greenhouse
gas emissions and sequestering atmospheric carbon in a stable soil carbon
pool; and
* improve water quality by retaining agrochemicals.

The IBI also promotes:

*sustainable co-production of clean energy and other bio-based products as
part of the biochar process;
* efficient biomass utilization in developing country agriculture; and
* cost-effective utilization of urban, agricultural and forest co products."

Biochar begins to answer problems surrounding biodiversity, water purity,
deforestation, hunger, and poverty. As we recognize the 'services' healthy
soil can provide biochar continues to gain value as a strategy to mitigate
many of these issues at the same time. Another important new organization
centered around biochar as a multi-faceted solution is the Biochar
Fund<http://biocharfund.com//index.php>
.

[image: BiocharFund.png]

"The Biochar Fund is a social profit fund that completely changes the way in
which chronic hunger, deforestation, energy access and climate change are
addressed amongst the world's poorest populations: small subsistence farmers
at the tropical forest frontier. The fund's systemic interventions create a
synergy that breaks and reverses an environmentally destructive,
unsustainable and socially catastrophic land use cycle. By doing so, we help
communities gain the knowledge, tools and financial means needed to lift
themselves out of poverty once and for all. Simultaneously, the biochar
concept has the capacity to help tackle climate change in a significant and
cost-effective way. It allows us to actively remove carbon dioxide from the
atmosphere."

Franklin D. Roosevelt said, "The Nation that destroys its soil destroys
itself." Biochar offers us the opportunity to stop destroying our soils,
enhance the communities that live under our feet, and create sustainable
human communities as well. For more on biochar and recent developments
please follow the links below to a wealth of information.

:: Beyond Zero Emissions<http://beyondzeroemissions.org/2008/03/19/tim-flannery-australian-of-the-year-2007-talks-bio-char-why-we-need-to-move-into-the-renewable-age>
:: The International Biochar Initiative (IBI)
<http://www.biochar-international.org/home.html>:: Biochar
Fund<http://biocharfund.com//index.php>


-- 
http://lougold.blogspot.com
http://flickr.com/visionshare/sets
http://youtube.com/my_videos
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