[Terrapreta] biochar instruction manual

[David Yarrow]

i've begun serious work writing an instruction manual for gardeners and farmers on how to make and use biochar in soil.  last night i finished the first page of the introduction, which i have pasted below.  later i will post the outline and table of contents.  one page done; 40 to go.

Confronting Our Climate Change Challenge

How to Make & Use Biochar

Instruction Manual for Farmers & Gardeners

 

HOW TO

Sequester Carbon in Soil to Reverse Global Warming

Create Sustainable Soil Fertility for Food Production

Produce Carbon-Negative Renewable Energy

 

David Yarrow

Winter 2008



Introduction

Our Climate Change Challenge




In 1975, I read a self-published essay discussing increasing carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere, and its implications for climate, weather and food production.  The article contained a graph of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air which began in 1890, and curved steadily upwards.  The rate of increase steadily increased, rising faster all through the 20th century.

This CO2 curve is now famous, thanks to Al Gore's documentary movie "An Inconvenient Truth."

I recognized this curve was real-an outcome of accelerating global industrialization.  Having excelled in math, physics and electronics, I could see this rising curve was nearing "the knee," when it became more vertical than horizontal.  Clearly, near the end of my lifetime-left unchecked-CO2 would reach a catastrophic level.  While I didn't accept or agree with all the author's conclusions about the effect this will have on climate and weather, I knew this will cross a limit that will threaten agriculture's capacity to feed humanity.

This was first in a series of discoveries to support my belief humans were abusing nature, and this destructive relationship with the planet's life systems and ecological communities will catch up to us soon after the end of the 20th century.

      What are Greenhouse Gases?

      Energy from the sun heats the earth's surface and air to create climate and drive weather.  Earth's surface radiates some solar energy back into space.  Certain gases-carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides, sulphur oxides, and others-are called greenhouse gases (GHGs) because they trap outgoing energy, retaining heat like glass on a greenhouse.

      Scientific evidence finds global temperatures are increasing due to a buildup of GHGs in the air.  Since the 19th century, levels of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide increased by over 30%, 145%, and 15%, respectively.  In the same period, scientists noted an average global temperature increase of nearly 1 degree F.  Much of this occurred in the past two decades.

      Fossil fuel use and other human activities added significant amounts of GHGs to the air.  Scientific evidence suggests this is the primary cause of the increased average global temperature.
     
So, I decided to keep an eye of this CO2 curve, and learn more about its consequences.  I took notice of every scrap of data that added to this picture of the CO2 curve's impact on climate.  And I chose to focus on developing farming and food systems able to adapt to a changing climate and energy supply.  This led me into many efforts, including co-founding the Syracuse Center for Self Healing, NYS Food Policy Council, Onondaga County Food System Council, Northeast Organic Farming Assoc. of NY and its certification service, NYS Organic Food Advisory Committee, Finger Lakes Organic Growers Coop, NYS Old Growth Forest Association, and SeaAgri.

February 1, 1990 I heard enough evidence to convince me climate change would be the #1 issue of the 21st century.  I was traveling by train to Albany, the New York State capital, to lobby for 13 proposals for ecological agriculture legislation.  National Public Radio announced that Louis Harris had reported a second survey with the same results of their first:

·   83% of American would buy organic food-if they could get it

·   51% would pay more for that food

·   88% don't believe government is keeping chemicals out of food

The next news was that Valdez Alaska-famous for the Exxon Valdez oil spill-had 22 feet of snow-as much snow by mid-winter as normally falls in one year.

Third was news that northern Europe, including Britain and Scandanavia, had its third winter storm exceeding century level intensity.  Winds over 100 miles per hour blew down thousands of trees, ripped down power lines and tore roofs off houses.

These two events were triggered by ocean currents that carry warm water from tropical oceans to the edge of the Arctic Sea.  These sea streams of warm water move 10 to 20 times more heat around the Earth than all the atmosphere.  At the northern end of their journey, their warm waters release heat and moisture into the atmosphere, generating weather systems that sweep across North America and Northern Europe.  Twenty-two feet of snow meant an excess of heat and moisture being vented along the Alaska coast.  Moisture-laden clouds, before they could rise over the Coast Range, had to unload as record-breaking snow.

One winter storm at the 100-year mark was considered interesting, but without greater significance.  The second century-level storm was a warning something unusual was afloat in the atmosphere.  But this third storm convinced even Britain's skeptical, hard-edged Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that global warming and climate change should be taken seriously.

Ocean currents are the planet's thermal conveyor belt, moving heat from tropical seas to the arctic edge.  Clearly Earth's thermal engine was in overdrive, struggling to move excess of hot water to cold northern latitudes.  Much as the year before, the Mississippi River flooded to form a sixth Great Lake in America's heartland, now too, the warm ocean streams were in flood stage, overloaded with trapped solar heat trying to exit the tropics.

Planet Earth was coming with a fever that likely will last several decades, if not a few centuries, to threaten the foundation of industrial civilization and the survival of future humans.

But on Groundhog Day 1990, no one in the Empire State capital noticed this shadow cast across our planetary future, or understood it consequences for future generations, or even for agriculture and food production.

 

Two major trends impose an urgent necessity for humans to find new sources of energy and fertility in the immediate future: climate change and peak oil.  In a few decades, we must change our energy supplies from carbon-based fossil fuels to renewable, sustainable sources that are carbon-negative.

 

Climate change is driven by heating of the planet by the greenhouse effect caused by the increasing levels of carbon dioxide and a few other "greenhouse gases."  Sunlight falling on the planet is re-radiated as lower frequency heat.  This heat is trapped in the atmosphere by these greenhouse gases, and the planet is unable to release this extra heat.  Thus the Earth becomes warmer.

We know how the air in a car with closed windows and dark upholstery will overheat in bright sunlight.  On a hot, sunny summer day, this condition can quickly become fatal for pets or children left unattended in the car.  On a global scale, greenhouse gases act like the car windows to trap heat in the air.

The extra greenhouse gases are mostly created by human combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, natural gas, and methane.  Burning fossil fuels has accelerated with the Industrial Revolution, further aggravated by soaring human population.

Burning wood, including forest fires, adds to this overload of greenhouse gases.  Deforestation, annual plowing of soil, and excess use of chemical fertilizers further add to this air pollution.  Mortar and cement production, algae blooms and volcanic eruptions also add significantly to this.

In the 20th century, all these processes have reached such a massive scale that they are upsetting the thermal balance of the Earth to such an extent it is changing the balance and stability required for living organism and ecological systems to function.  In the next century, scientists now believe these growing imbalances will exceed biological limits and initiate a worldwide ecological catastrophe.
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