[Terrapreta] Ice-age anyone?

David Yarrow dyarrow at nycap.rr.com
Fri Apr 25 16:00:32 CDT 2008

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maybe it was too much reverb on the recording i listened to, but heard bob dylan sing:
"you don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

at any rate, i've been watching fallout from the climbing CO2 curve since 1975. we definitely have a problem with the global thermal engine on planet earth. if nothing changes, our next generation will be in a fierce struggle to survive just based on one simple reality: how to feed communities when oil is a few hundred $ a barrel, and weather and climate no loner deliver rain, warmth and sunshine in steady, moderate, predictable doses.

and if all we were facing was a bit of overheated ocean and atmosphere, this onrushing challenge to survival wouldn't seem so impossible. sadly, tragically, the truth is we are facing a constellation of many factors and forces that demand major, fundamental changes in how humans relate to the earth, nature and ecosystems.

as stated in the earth charter, the first principle for a sustainable future must be "respect and care for the community of life." the second principle is "ecological intergrity." western-style industrial civilization has a long history of ignoring and violating both principles. only recently -- since the 1976 environmental protection act -- has light begun to dawn in minds that maybe we should take better care of nature. or, to flip the perspective over, most folks i talk to agree that modern industrial society has not done right by mother nature.

the virtues of terra preta extend well beyond sequestering carbon in soil. however, that alone is sufficient to highly recommend it as a key strategy for a sustainable society. for starters, data seriously indicate TP produces higher yield of healthier crops and more nutritious foods, with far fewer fertilizers and pesticides -- not just year by year, but over the course of centuries.

i am especially interested in terra preta's capacity to gold and dole out an abundance of nutrients in a biological soil food web. to put it in market-oriented rhetoric: terra preta is one of a handful of soil strategies proven to produce foods with superior nutritional content. thus, beginning next year, adding biochar to soil will be a highly recommended practice for certified growers of a new, superior class of foods, tentatively labeled "nutrient dense."

for a green & peaceful planet,
David Yarrow
44 Gilligan Rd, E Greenbush, NY 12061
www.championtrees.org
www.OnondagaLakePeaceFestival.org
www.farmandfood.org
www.SeaAgri.com
----- Original Message -----
From: lou gold
To: mark at ludlow.com
Cc: terra pretta group
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 4:15 PM
Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Ice-age anyone?

yep, Mark.

but I misquoted Dylan.

should be, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."

On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 5:08 PM, Mark Ludlow <mark at ludlow.com> wrote:

You got it Lou!

When someone starts telling me that it's all out of our hands and ability to affect, I throw up my hands. We're not going to change solar cycles. But we do have it within our means to be less potentially disruptive here on earth.

After we've done what we can do, then we take our chances, as all species did during the previous 5 (or more) great extinctions on earth.

Mark

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From: terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org [mailto:terrapreta-bounces at bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of lou gold
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 12:26 PM
To: Ron Larson
Cc: terra pretta group

Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Ice-age anyone?

Denial, skepticism and odd takes have always been part of the great weather story. The fact that they are duly represented here by a small minority should come neither as a surprise nor as an indicator that they are embraced generally by the readers of the forum.

We could take Bob Dylan's advice -- "you don't need a weatherman to know the wind blows" or, if you need more, try the trick of "mind over matter" -- pay it no mind and it won't matter.

hugs to all,

lou

On Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 3:47 PM, Ron Larson <rongretlarson at comcast.net> wrote:

Terra Preta List Members:

I write because I think it is exceedingly counter productive to the growth of biochar activity to allow the idea of an ice age to have any credence. Kurt's cited reference (Phil Chapman) said something I believe to be a big lie (Chapman, not Kurt). I do not use the word lie loosely - minimum research shows the direct opposite. The lie from Chapman I claim was:

All four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate
Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in
New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote
Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in
2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and
it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon
recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.

Going through each of these one by one:

1. NASA (GISS) at http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/ says that 2007 was the second highest temperature year on record. The year 2007 number has been obtained using methodologies that have been in place for decades.

2. The Hadley Center at

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20080103.html

put 2007 a little lower in ranking - but still a high year. See also

http://climateprogress.org/2008/03/18/hadley-center-to-delayers-deniers-pielke-global-warming-not-cooling/

3. The Christy group at the University of Alabama (Huntsville) was much harder to find. See http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/atmos/christy.html. As near as I can tell, Dr. John Christy does not report on world average temperature. However, I found at

http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=903

"While he now acknowledges that global warming is real and the human contribution is significant, Christy has been a long-time skeptic who previously argued that satellite climate data do not show a trend toward global warming, and even show cooling in some areas. His findings have been widely disputed. Christy now asserts that global warming will have beneficial effects on the planet and that increased CO2 emissions from human activities are a net positive."

(Needless to say I find his change positive. but believe his conclusion that warming is beneficial to be ludicrous. In any case, I doubt he is a reasonable authority to cite on global cooling.)

4. Remote Sensing Systems Inc capabilities are at http://www.remss.com/. I did not find a data base on world average temperatures. There is one satellite data base on sea surface temperature and they report that temperature has been going down slightly recently. But as I trust the first two authorities on world average, this can only mean that on-land temperatures are increasing even faster than the average - and this is where w temperature would see the biggest impact of an (totally implausible) ice age.

In conclusion, I urge our terra preta group to really get behind the idea of warming as a big problem - that can probably only be stopped and reversed in the near term with a combination of urgent forestry re-growth and biochar. If you aren't yet convinced about unconscionable warming , you must not yet have read the latest still-un-published Hansen material. I just tried to get back to it at http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126 and the Supporting Material at: http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1135 , but only got "access denied". Anyone know of where else these might be? (I have them, but want others to also.)

Ron

SNIPPING MATERIAL FROM SEAN, MARK, AND KURT - ALL TODAY.

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

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