[Terrapreta] two recent articles on TP

[Michael Bailes]

Do goats fart?
or burp?
M

On 01/03/2008, Gerald Van Koeverden <vnkvrdn at yahoo.ca> wrote:
>
> Always when Westerners think about red meat, they think about cows!  Did
> you know that 68% of the world's red meat comes from goats?
>
> Gerrit
>
>
> On 29-Feb-08, at 4:18 PM, Michael Bailes wrote:
>
> ** Spring 2008: Climate Solutions        *The Solution on our Dinner
> Plates*
> *by Guy Dauncey*
>  [image: Print this article][image: Email this article to a friend]
> [image: AddThis Social Bookmark 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 5.7gigatonnes 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.com The 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
>  Article from: [image: The Mercury] <http://www.news.com.au/mercury/>
>
>    - Font size: Decrease<http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,23162520-5006550,00.html#>
>    Increase<http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,23162520-5006550,00.html#>
>    - Email article: Email<http://www.news.com.au/mercury/email/popup/0,22904,23162520-5006550,00.html>
>    - Print article: Print
>    - Submit comment: Submit comment<http://www.news.com.au/mercury/story/0,22884,23162520-5006550,00.html#submit-feedback>
>
> 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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> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/
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>
>
>


-- 
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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