Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[mdnagel@verizon.net]

Not to be flip, but anyone who's extensively involved with something is going to be a proponent.  There are plenty of people who think that modern Ag is good!

Pyrolysis is fascinating, but don't let fascination distract from the facts.

Burning fields is NOT the same as pyrolysis.

Not single thing is going to "save the planet."  Nothing that humans do is going to do this!  The planet doesn't need to be "saved," as this implies a dependency on humans.  The planet will be fine, whether it is hospitable to life as we know it is another question.  And, the next glacial period WILL arrive, regardless of what we do: it's Mother Nature's "Big Till," "game reset."

Again, NO ONE has been able to demonstrate a net REDUCTION in CO2.  And even IF this were so, that doesn't automatically solve anything- the entire process needs to be analyzed; and then, the extent of scaling needs to be looked at BEFORE any attempts to scale it!

Whether something NEEDS government subsidies* isn't the point.  If capitalism gets a hold of something you can be assured that it will milk government money* regardless!

* This "money" is the people's money, not the government's.


-Mark Nagel
Everett, WA


Nov 12, 2009 10:46:31 AM, livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

I had attended a talk by Tim Flannery, author of The Weather Makers, last year and there heard of pyrolysis for the first time in relation to climate change mitigation. Flannery ranked pyrolysis very highly as one of the ways to save the planet, because it converts crop waste to fuel and char to enhance soil fertility and store carbon ... and it does not need extensive govt subsidies and policies to implement.

I did not have the perspective to question the efficacy of this method, and have been since considering buying a pyrolysis kiln from ARTI (http://www.arti-india.org/content/view/42/52/). I am eagerly following this discussion to get inputs from both angles. Now this kiln apparently will use some of the pyrolysis gases to run the combustion. It would be interesting to know if this really sequesters carbon more efficiently than mulching.