[Terrapreta] two recent articles on TP

Fri Feb 29 16:29:55 CST 2008

Yes, and so do dogs, elephants, fish, termites and even people.

http://www.crappersquarterly.com/features/farts.htm

gerrit

On 29-Feb-08, at 5:20 PM, Michael Bailes wrote:

> 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
>>
>>
>> 	
>> 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.
>>
>> 	
>>
>> 	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, 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—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, 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:
>> Font size: Decrease Increase
>> Email article: Email
>> Print article: Print
>> Submit comment: Submit comment
>> 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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>
>
>
>
> -- 
> 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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