Yesterday, A Siegel and Johnny Rook gave us two sobering diaries concerning a recent NOAA report on global climate change.
A few decades of prevention vs 1000 years of Hell ...
and
NOAA Forecast: "1000 Years Wandering in the Desert..."
The core message of each diary absolutely must be taken to heart, we must stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere. In addition, however it shall also be needful for us to learn how to extract CO2 from the atmosphere. On that point, the NOAA Press Release said only this:
Geoengineering to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere was not considered in the study. "Ideas about taking the carbon dioxide away after the world puts it in have been proposed, but right now those are very speculative," said Solomon.
That skill is something we humans have yet to acquire but I do wish to offer this proposal as a very modest step forward but a potential step forward nonetheless.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Do NOT simply put fresh charcoal into soil!:
If you put fresh charcoal into soil the fertility might actually decrease. In addition, we have noticed charcoal has a hydrophobic property that needs to be biodegraded before water borne nutrients can be transmitted into the internal structure of what was once the vascular system of the plant. In the conditioning process, the large inner surface of charcoal causes nutrients to adhere making them temporarily unavailable until the charcoal is saturated. Once saturated the charcoal becomes attractive to plant roots and soil microbes. Because of the inorganic nature of this substrate the charcoal will serve as an enrichment culture for nitrogen fixing and mycorrhizial partners.
Consult appropriate experts. Now back to the original story . . .
(Oh, and thanks to rossl for a link to Mother Earth News on how to DIY some bio-char)
Quick Summary
Family farms and specialty farms such as organic only might supplement their revenue by producing Terra Preta de Indio for sale to upscale home gardening applications and in bulk quantities to landscape contractors. If the use of such products were to become trendy and began to be seen as socially useful and desirable, preliminary steps would be taken to commence the narrative engineering that shall be needed to sustain the geo-engineering that might some day be necessary to remove significant quantities of carbon dioxide from our atmosphere.
As the NOAA Press releases confirms, the removal of CO2 from the atmosphere is a skill humanity hasn't even begun to acquire. Therefore, first steps will need to be modest but also need to be soon.
This program can also be used to facilitate the notion that "the less CO2 we put into the atmosphere now, the less we will need to remove, later" as it may not be feasible to remove significant quantities of CO2 once those CO2 levels increase in the first place.
One key point: There is no need to wait for government action. We can do this ourselves without government action by spreading the word and suggesting that local farms seek a market for this product.
That said, local governments could be potential customers for bio-char for their own landscape projects.
Terra Preta - Basic Information
"Terra Preta de Indio" (Amazonian Dark Earths; earlier also called "Terra Preta do Indio" or Indian Black Earth) is the local name for certain dark earths in the Brazilian Amazon region. These dark earths occur, however, in several countries in South America and probably beyond. They were most likely created by pre-Columbian Indians from 500 to 2500 years B.P. and abandoned after the invasion of Europeans (Smith, 1980; Woods et al., 2000). However, many questions are still unanswered with respect to their origin, distribution, and properties.
Bio char (a/k/a terra preta de Indio) perhaps represents a very early human effort at geo-engineering. Another passage from my most recent link:
It is now widely accepted that these soils were not only used by the local population but are a product of indigenous soil management as proposed by Gourou (1949). Later surveys confirmed these findings (Sombroek, 1966; Smith, 1980; Kern and Kämpf, 1989). Whether they were intentionally created for soil improvement or whether they are a by-product of habitation is not clear at present. This is in part due to the varied features of the dark earths throughout the Amazon Basin.
Cornell University has initiated a Agrichar soil management program:
Biochar - The new frontier
Inspired by the fascinating properties of Terra Preta de Indio, biochar was identified as a soil amendment that has the potential to revolutionize concepts of soil management. While "discovered" may not be the right word, as biochar or bio-char (also called charcoal or biomass-derived black carbon, in the context of agricultural application sometimes called agrichar or agri-char, which we do not adopt due to the wider applicability of biochar for environmental management beyond agriculture) has been used in traditional agricultural practices as well as in modern horticulture, never before has evidence been accumulating that demonstrates so convincingly that biochar has very specific and unique properties that make it stand out among the opportunities for sustainable soil management.
The benefits of biochar rest on two pillars:
1. The extremely high affinity of nutrients to biochar (adsorption)
2. The extremely high persistence of biochar (stability)
Beneficial effects of biochar on both soil microbial functions and soil water availability are highly likely but not yet sufficiently quantified to be effectively managed.
These two properties (which are truly extraordinary - see details below) can be used effectively to address some of the most urgent environmental problems of our time:
1. Soil degradation and food insecurity
2. Water pollution by agro-chemicals
3. Climate change
Biochar is not a silver bullet that will solve environmental problems without a much wider and far reaching strategy. But it can provide an important tool that contributes to a comprehensive approach that must include policy guidance.
A proposal to assist these efforts
Family farms and organic farms can begin immediate production of terra preta de Indio easily enough by the anaerobic pyrolysis of vegetative waste into charcoal followed by blending that charcoal with ordinary compost, perhaps enriched by the products of red worm composting along with ordinary black dirt.
The exact formulas and parameters to establish what can be defined as "authentic bio-char" is something others must do, as I am not qualified, however suitable experts should be readily available.
Such bio-char can then be sold as an upscale home gardening product and in larger bulk quantities to landscape contractors and local governments which can seek positive publicity and a competitive advantage from enabling the actual sequestration of atmospheric carbon.
As I understand things, the process works as follows:
Plants are grown and after the useful agricultural products are harvested, waste remains.
If allowed to decompose, the carbon found in that waste returns to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. However, if the carbon found in the plant waste were stabilized as charcoal and incorporated into terra preta de Indio that carbon will not re-enter the atmosphere for a long time, perhaps centuries.
In addition, soil quality is greatly improved.
How will this help?
I do not assert that significant quantities of carbon dioxide shall be removed from the atmosphere with a preliminary program such as this.
However, I do assert that encouraging early adopters and rewarding early adopters with social praise and perhaps modest competitive advantages can begin to alter the narrative (narrative engineering) concerning the use of geo-engineering concepts while simultaneously providing a modest ancillary revenue stream to our beleaguered farmers.
Just as [some] people buy hybrid automobiles such as the Toyota Prius for the status that comes from driving such cars, terra preta de Indio based gardens and landscaping might become a status symbol as well, and that can move forward the necessary narrative engineering that must proceed actual ego-engineering, at least on the scales necessary to be genuinely useful.