[Terrapreta] two recent articles on TP

[Michael Bailes]

A Belch is just one gust of wind,
That cometh from thy Heart...
But should it take the downward trend,
It turns into a Fart

Thank you for you erudite comments
M

On 01/03/2008, Kevin Chisholm <kchisholm at ca.inter.net> wrote:
>
> Dear Michael
>
>
> Michael Bailes wrote:
> > Do goats fart?
> > or burp?
>
>
> They are probably like dogs ... only the Neighbour's dog farts. ;-)
>
> At any rate, Dauncy's claims about "If we only got away from cows, we
> would solve our problem" is trival and misdirecting. Cows and termites
> and goats and living things eat food that contains carbon and hydrogen
> that came from the Biosphere, and simply return them to the Biosphere,
> with no net addition.
>
> Such claims misdirect effort away from activities that could make a
> difference. For example, if he was advocating burial of char, he might
> make a difference.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Kevin
>
> > M
> >
> > On 01/03/2008, *Gerald Van Koeverden* <vnkvrdn at yahoo.ca
>
> > <mailto: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/
> >>      Print this articleEmail this article to a friend
> >>     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 5.7 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.
>
> >>     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
>
> >>     <http://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: 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 <mailto: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
> >>     _______________________________________________
> >>     Terrapreta mailing list
>
> >>     Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org <mailto:Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
> >
>
> >>
> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/
> >>     http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org
> >>     http://info.bioenergylists.org
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > 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
>
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Terrapreta mailing list
> > Terrapreta at bioenergylists.org
> > http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/
> > http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org
> > http://info.bioenergylists.org
>
>


-- 
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
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: /attachments/20080301/c38cd865/attachment-0001.html