[Terrapreta] two recent articles on TP

[Michael Bailes]

** Spring 2008: Climate Solutions        *The Solution on our Dinner Plates*
*by Guy Dauncey*
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Button]<http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php>     What
we can do about food and forests :: Changes from the ground up

Total global emissions are the equivalent of 31.6 gigatonnes of CO2
annually. The world's agricultural meat industry contributes 5.7 gigatonnes
of that, and 6.3 gigatonnes comes from forest destruction.[image: Eighteen
percent of the climate change problem is associated with raising, feeding,
and transporting meat. Cutting back on meat consumption is a way to
immediately reduce climate impact. Picture of Cow. Photo by Dagmar Nelson,
milkaway.smugmug.com]Eighteen percent of the climate change problem is
associated with raising, feeding, and transporting meat. Cutting back on
meat consumption is a way to immediately reduce climate impact. Photo by
Dagmar Nelson, milkaway.smugmug.comThe farm industries that put beef, pork,
and dairy on our dinner tables account for 18 percent of global greenhouse
emissions—a larger share than all the world's transportation.

Animal agriculture unleashes some of the most baneful greenhouse
gases—methane from cows' stomachs (25 times stronger than CO2) and nitrous
oxide from animal manure and the use of nitrogen fertilizer (298 times more
potent than CO2). And too often, both cows and animal feed are raised on
slashed and burned rainforest land, releasing more CO2.

The solution lies on our dinner plates. We need to eat less meat and dairy,
turning instead to the tastes, pleasures, and health benefits of vegetarian
food. If locally grown and organic, so much the better, since organic
farming stores carbon in the soil, and eating locally grown reduces the
carbon emissions from shipping. Research shows that organic farming can
produce as much food as industrialized farming in the developed world and
increase yields two to three-fold in developing countries (because many of
their existing farming methods are less productive to begin with).

The destruction of the world's tropical rainforests releases 17 percent of
the world's carbon emissions. We must go out of our way to protect the
forests in the Amazon, Congo, and Indonesia by buying threatened forests,
placing them in trust for indigenous inhabitants, and paying for policing
against illegal loggers.

Gaviotas <http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?id=842>, a social
experiment in the barren savannah lands of eastern Colombia, provides one
inspiring model. The visionary Gavioteros have created a thriving
carbon-neutral community complete with hospital, solar water treatment
plant, and wind turbines. By planting trees, they have begun changing local
rainfall cycles and restoring ancient rainforest—all in what was an almost
uninhabitable landscape, proving that anything is possible.

Another miracle goes by the name terra
preta<http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?id=2422>—rich,
black charcoal soil that stores huge quantities of carbon while making the
land more fertile.

As we enter the post-carbon world, we must learn how to reharmonize farming
and forestry with nature's carbon cycles.
------------------------------
Guy Dauncey wrote this article as part of Stop Global Warming
Cold<http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?id=2416>,
the Spring 2008 issue of YES! Magazine. Guy is a speaker, organizer,
consultant, and author with Patrick Mazza of Stormy Weather: 101 Solutions
to Global Climate Change, New Society Publishers. Carbon tamed to work two
ways
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 PETER BOYER

February 05, 2008 12:00am

*CARBON is the essence of life. Large proportions of it are in our bodies
and in every living thing on the planet. Animals breathe it out as carbon
dioxide and plants grow by taking it in -- part of the carbon cycle, the
cycle of life.*
Except that our own species has found many new ways of putting extra carbon
into the atmosphere, throwing the cycle of life out of kilter and
endangering all the life-forms it has sustained down the millennia.

We've left nothing alone. While burning Earth's fossil deposits, polluting
its atmosphere and pushing our soils to produce more food, we've also
degraded their capacity to do so. We're a demanding species.

We're also clever. What we've done, we ought to be able to undo. If only we
can get our act together, we ought to be able to put our minds to how we
might stop so much carbon entering our atmosphere.

Most talk about carbon storage (sequestration) has focused on the technology
of "clean coal", whereby carbon emitted from coal-fired power stations would
be captured and put into underground vaults.

The technology demanded by the clean-coal idea is complex, expensive and
unproven, and it requires large-scale centralised systems. But the climate
crisis demands decentralised solutions, with shared responsibility for
action and distributed power generation.

Here's an idea that, unlike clean coal, is within reach of local authorities
and serves multiple purposes. While keeping carbon out of the atmosphere and
generating electricity, it can also make our soils more productive.

Tasmania has no shortage of plant waste, rich in carbon. Much of it
disappears into the atmosphere by burning or is left to rot and relinquish
its carbon over time. We can put it to better use.

Biochar ("bio" as in plant matter and "char" as in charcoal) is a product
that its advocates believe can replicate the ways in which the world's most
fertile soils -- "terra preta" or "dark earth" -- cycle their nutrients,
hold their water and grow plants better than anywhere else.

Biochar is basically small granules of charcoal obtained through heating
plant waste in an age-old process called pyrolysis, by which we once
produced charcoal for fuel. Modern pyrolysis technology reduces carbon
emissions to practically zero while producing heat that can generate
sufficient electricity to power some small industrial plants.

The residue from the process is carbon in the form of biochar, which has the
capacity to revitalise our soils, giving long-lasting fertility while also
improving moisture-carrying capacity.

That's making carbon work for us, not against us. Which is the way nature
always intended.

*Peter Boyer is a writer, illustrator and publisher who has written
extensively about science. Since 2006 he has been a presenter for The
Climate Project (Australia).
peterboyer at southwind.com.au*
-- 
Michael the Archangel

"You can fix all the world's problems in a garden. . . .
Most people don't know that"
FROM
http://www.blog.thesietch.org/wp-content/permaculture.swf
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