[Terrapreta] Critical thinking or lack thereof

[Sean K. Barry]

Hi William,

Thanks for your clear voice on this issue.  You are absolutely correct.  It is far more important to differentiate fossil carbon from other carbonated energy sources than it is to differentiate energy sources as to their carbon content.  Even though hay and would are more "carbonated" than Methane-CH4, it is better to burn biomass for energy than it is to burn natural gas.  Fossil carbon is the enemy to the atmosphere, not biomass carbon, which is born under the sunshine and actually cleans CO2 from the atmosphere as it grows.

If Terra Preta enthusiasts understand the value of biomass carbon as a "carbon neutral" energy source, all the better if we understand biochar as the mechanism to achieve "carbon negative" energy.  Making charcoal out of some biomass and harvesting some energy out of the same biomass feedstock can clean the atmosphere of the pernicious carbon, provide a large source of distributed energy, and improve soils that we sequester that charcoal carbon into.

Regards,

SKB
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: William Carr<mailto:Jkirk3279 at qtm.net> 
  To: Terra Preta<mailto:terrapreta at bioenergylists.org> 
  Sent: Friday, February 22, 2008 1:45 AM
  Subject: Re: [Terrapreta] Critical thinking or lack thereof



  > "According to Jesse Ausubel of the Rockefeller Institute,  
  > industrialized nations have been decarbonizing their energy sources  
  > for 150 years, meaning we are moving away from carbon toward  
  > hydrogen. In other words, the ratio of carbon to hydrogen decreases  
  > as you go from wood and hay (1:1) to coal to oil to gas (1:4)"

  Did anybody catch this part?

  An invalid comparison if there ever was one.

  Crichton is cherry-picking his citations,  trying to prove we don't  
  need to DO anything about carbon by going all the way back to HAY !

  As if there was some magic guiding force moving our society away from  
  carbon, mysteriously operating in the background !



  It's an invalid comparison, if you're actually concerned about carbon  
  dioxide as a Global Warming gas.

  Wood and hay are carbon neutral fuels.   Coal, oil, and gas are not.

  Burning biomass has never added a gram of Carbon to the atmosphere  
  that didn't COME from the atmosphere in the first place.




  ************



  This reminds me of what a cousin of mine tried to tell me once.

  We were at a family picnic, and out of the blue he said:  " did you  
  know that if you dump raw sewage into a river, 100 yards down the  
  river that water will be safe to drink"?


  I looked at him in astonishment.   Several things went through my mind.

  1) This was obviously something he'd been told.   What today we call a  
  "talking point", particular to his political party.

  2) This guy is actually supposed to be intelligent.

  3) My cousin is SO convinced of the rightness of his Party's policies  
  he didn't even analyze this anecdote before repeating it.

  4) Apparently he'd never heard the "solution to pollution is dilution".

  Dilute raw sewage ENOUGH, and the amount of live Fecal Coliform  
  Bacteria per liter will be low enough that your likelihood of  
  infection from it is also low.

  But the water ISN'T clean.    The bacteria will find a haven in a  
  backwater somewhere, and given a food source may reproduce until it  
  reaches toxic levels.   That's why municipalities have Sewage  
  Treatment plants.

  5) Also apparently, the conclusion the listener is supposed to draw is  
  this:   that God has such a complex plan for the world, that he  
  designed Nature to automatically clean up after us !

  This anecdote isn't a fluke.

  I've heard other talking points like this, with similar flawed  
  logic:   I occasionally get them in group emails and it's a  
  distressing sign of "group think".



  *************



  I looked at my cousin in disgust, and told him "YOU can drink it, not  
  me !".     He was taken aback.   Apparently not the result he was  
  expecting.


  And so we come full circle.   Both Crichton and my cousin seem to  
  believe there's no need to worry over the problems global civilization  
  causes.

  Both of them want to dissuade the rest of us from the effort of  
  thinking, and possibly doing something about these problems that might  
  cost them money in taxes.


  I think the "lack of critical thinking" is just what Crichton is  
  hoping for.



  William Carr














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