[Terrapreta] stories, facts and fictions

[lou gold]

The Pawnee Indians have a very interesting way to distinguish between a true
story and a false one. They do not make a moral judgment about "true" or
"false". Instead, they say that a "false story" is one that is told for
entertainment or for the aggrandizement of the storyteller and a "true
story" is one that helps people learn something important for their lives.
The most interesting aspect is that one can create a "false story" entirely
out of facts and a "true story" entirely out of fictions.

Here's an example: there are deep water oil reserves to be found in the
shelves off the US coast. Most assessments say that the deposits are not
huge, that it would take many years to develop them (shortage of drilling
ships, etc), and that gasoline prices are much more the result of global
supply and demand than anything else. These are the facts. Now place these
facts into the story context of $3 per gallon gasoline (and economic
stability) in the US and you get to maintain the ban on new off-short
drilling. Place the same facts into the story context of $4 per gallon
gasoline (and economic uncertainty) and you get a serious attempt to lift
the ban on off-shore drilling. The facts have not changed -- only the story
and the intentions of the political storytellers during an election year.

Thus -- without in anyway wanting to diminish the importance of discovering
the facts of what, when and how of biochar -- I submit for your
consideration that the story context surrounding biochar will be the most
important determinant of how the facts will (or will not) be employed.
We can see it already -- less than 10 years ago the facts of terra preta de
indios were of interest primary only to a small group of anthropologists,
archaeologists and regional farmers. But today, in the story context of food
crises, peaking oil, climate change and deforestation, interest is soaring
onto the global radar. Yes, there has been new research and some new finding
but the huge difference -- the difference that makes the difference -- is
the changing story context.

OK, I confess a conflict of interest that makes me less than a neutral
objective observer -- I'm a stortyteller.

hugs,  lou
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