permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@intrex.net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [SANET-MG] global gardening
Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2008 15:03:31 -0500
From: jcummins <jcummins@UWO.CA> <jcummins@UWO.CA>
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU

It would have been better had it been called global organic gardening!
Nature 451, 113 (2008) | doi:10.1038/451113a

Could global gardening fix climate change?
Biomass proposal could hugely reduce carbon dioxide levels.
Jeff Tollefson
Using biomass fuel on a massive scale in combination with carbon
sequestration could return atmospheric
carbon dioxide to pre-industrial levels within decades, according to a
new analysis.
Peter Read calls his proposal global gardening. To make it work, an area
the size of France and Germany would
have to be enlisted for growing biomass fuels for a quarter of a century .
“This is the first time it's been demonstrated that you can manage
carbon levels in
the atmosphere” using biomass, says Read, an economist at Massey
University's
Centre for Energy Research in Palmerston North, New Zealand. Such a move
may be
necessary to avoid abrupt climate change, he says.
Referees at the journal Climatic Change rejected Read's paper, but
editor Stephen
Schneider elected to publish it as an editorial commentary.
“Peter has some very clever and controversial ideas,” says Schneider, a
climatologist at Stanford University in
California. “ Climatic Change has long been a venue where clever and
controversial ideas can get aired — as
long as they are in perspective.”
Read envisions an array of plantations supplying commodities such as
energy and timber, as well as a livelihood
for countless communities. A second phase could combine biomass energy
with carbon sequestration, moving
society to the point where it sequestered more carbon than it emitted.
Gregg Marland, a climate researcher currently working at the
International Institute for
Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, has numerous doubts
about the proposal,
including crop productivity, implementation and land use. He co-authored
a commentary
suggesting that it's unclear whether Read's vision is “a dream or a
nightmare”.
But it's still a useful thought experiment, he says. “I think what Peter
has done is paint a
picture: if we really get into trouble with carbon dioxide, how can we
back off?”