Homestead mailing list

[Don Bowen KI6DIU <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

At 1/31/2008, you wrote:
>  The best I can deduce is that dead
> plant roots contain a lot of carbon and as long as they stay under the
> ground, then that carbon stays out of the atmosphere.

As long as the carbon stays below the level of oxygen in the 
soil.  Microbes eat the carbon and emit CO2.  There is a balance between 
CO2 production by decay and carbon production by plant growth.  That 
balance has been working for several billion years.  Some of the excess 
carbon trapped in layers where there is no oxygen have been turned into 
well known substances such as peat, coal, diamonds, natural gas, oil, 
etc.  Over the last 150 years or so we have been returning much of that 
trapped carbon back into the atmosphere with ever increasing disastrous 
results.

For an excellent book on the mechanisms or soil, see the soil science book 
sold by Acres USA.  The title completely escapes me and my copy is where 
everything else is, in storage.  There is a lot of misinformation out there 
pushed by people with an agenda and many more people willing to accept that 
information because it is an easy way out.

Don Bowen              Awl Knotted Up                       KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com