[Terrapreta] Why Bother?

[lou gold]

Thank you Peter for pointing directly at THE critical problem.

Now we have Michael Pollan saying that the most meaningful people can do is
plant a garden. And we have James Hansen saying that the most meaningful
proactive carbon negative strategy is to revise agriculture and forestry for
carbon sequestration in the soils. BUT there is no mechanism for connecting
the dots and mobilizing the massive program that is now necessary. You are
quite correct in asserting that this will not be achieved by gardeners who
might want to make their own charcoal. But they are potentially a huge
constituency of active participants, provided that there is a ready supply
of horticultural charcoal.

This is precisely where government can (and probably will) enter the
picture. Either through carbon credits or through public appropriations, we
can subsidize the production of biorchar. Oooops, did I say the bad 'S' word
-- subsidize? The fact is that EVERYTHING of scale that we do in the modern
world is based somewhere or somehow on a public subsidy -- it may be a
tax-break, a certification, an allowance, an appropriation or a qualitfying
law -- but there is NOTHING that functions nowadays on a large scale without
public support. Now we need support for charcoal. And that is why it's
important to talk about all these other things -- we are mobilizing the will
and the mechanisms for putting charcoal into the soil.

Thank you so much for placing the spotlight on the right place.

hugs and blessings,

lou



On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 3:27 PM, <PurNrg at aol.com> wrote:

>
> In a message dated 4/21/08 11:15:32 AM, kchisholm at ca.inter.net writes:
>
>
> Wouldn't it be nice if people could come to the TP List and find out how
> to make TP for their Garden?
>
> Oh well. Other Lists will probably evolve and grow to fill this need.
>
>
> Well, yes, it would be nice, but it is impeded completely by something
> much more potent than wandering topics! What is that? The practical
> unavailability of affordable horticultural charcoal packaged in a way to
> make it accessible to the home gardener.
>
> So, we can go on and on and ON writing in circles about it, but it ain't
> gonna happen until the charcoal is available. All the stuff about making
> your own is fine for inventive people who live in the country and have the
> materials and time on their hands. Here, there'd be fire trucks at the first
> puff of smoke! So for the millions of suburban gardeners who could be
> sequestering carbon, there isn't any available to sequester.
>
> I, personally, am selfishly interested mostly in improving the soil in my
> own and my many clients gardens so that the plants do better. There IS no
> stopping global warming, LOL. It's too far gone and NO indication that
> anything will REALLY happen other than people standing around talking about
> it as the oil runs out and the water rises :-)>.
>
> So, I lurk and watch the posts go by. As with ANY old list or topical chat
> room, the topic itself has been talked to death and if members are fond of
> the group and like to participate, it is the natural progression to
> introduce peripheral related topics. Those are fun and often very
> informative in many ways. If I don't want to read one, I just click on by.
>
> Best Regards to all, Peter :-)>
>
>
> **************
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