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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] 3 . Flip-flop Flannery is a climate changeopportunist (should be biochar)

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  • From: Richard Wade <wade@coac.es>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] 3 . Flip-flop Flannery is a climate changeopportunist (should be biochar)
  • Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:32:13 +0100

Dear Harry,
I'll try to be brief and I hope accurate. Carbon is not an inert part of the soil complex. CO2 and soil organic matter are one and the same in different phases of the carbon cycle. (The carbon cycle permits life on earth). And in each moment of the cycle the carbon has vital functions to perform for the health of GAIA. The organic material that is decomposing in the soil by means of the soil micro-organisms release nutrients for the growth of plants. So if you are using only biochar, you must add nutrients, ( and the big promoters of biochar that I know are proponent of chemical farming) usually in the form of fertilizers.
The depletion of soil carbon that has happened in the last 100-150 years is due to mismanagment of the soil carbon. (organic material) We've burnt it out of the soil with our agriculture techniques, wanting too much for too little. We must amend that error.
All organic matter when breaking down in the soil will leave short, medium and long term carbon in the soil. It depends on the way you farm, the parent material and climate factors among other things. But far and away the major cause lof carbon depletion is the way we manage soil ie. farming practices. We've got the learn to farm so that the soil is better every year, after every crop and at the end our term on that farm. We've got great pioneers who have signaled the way. Fukuoka, Ruth Stout, P.A.Yoemans, and now Darryl Cluff and Col Seis in Australia. Look at the Holistic Managment approach as well. And remember that permaculture is about getting to the root cause of the problem, not looking for solutions to the simtoms. The question is not if biochar will help out but why do we find ourselves in need of biochar?
My personal opinion is that biochar, like GMO's are a fools approach to farming. We still don't know enough to beat nature at her own game, and we stand to lose a lot in the meantime. Biochar might we a useful way to manage the urban waste stream of old wood and such stuff. But Decayable organic material should get back in (on!!) the soil.
I hope this helps
Richard
www.permacultura-montsant.org


arry byrne wykman escribió:
Forgive me if this represents a similar ignorance to that which you
ridicule. I understanding that the primary importance of biochar as
opposed to organic matter is that biochar is STABLE. That is, it does
not release carbon into the atmosphere. For this reason it is
effective as a carbon lockup strategy.

Harry

On Fri, 06 Feb 2009 01:12:12 -0500
"Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflj@intrex.net> wrote:

=https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture/2009-February/032700.html
=[permaculture] 3 . Flip-flop Flannery is a climate changeopportunist
=Ryan Hottle ry.hottle at gmail.com
=Thu Feb 5 23:40:59 EST 2009
=
=I'm a supporter and practitioner of Permaculture and think biochar
is among =the most promising solutions to global climate change. I'd
like to note =that Clive Hamilton made no mention of any substance or
scientific relevance =about the benefits and risks of using biochar
as a solution to climate =change.
=
=Biochar is not exclusive in terms of being able to "cure" climate
=change--silver bullet solutions don't exist at this point--but it
does seem =to offer a promising and multi-faceted approach to
producing energy, =improving soils, and sequestering carbon in a
single process. "Never do just =one thing" right?
=
=It can be highly decentralized from small scale pyrolysis cookstoves
to =community scale combined heat and power carbon negative power
plants. It =can be combined with coppicing/pollarding and forest
garden systems. =
=The soil improving qualities are dramatic particularly in areas with
=extremely low soil organic carbon (SOM) such as places at risk of
=desertification, sub-Saharan Africa, and denuded landscapes in
Tropical =landscapes which tend to have highly leached and low
nutrient soils.

Are you a farmer? Have you ever farmed? Or gardened? Do you know
_anything_ about biological, biointensive, regenerative, natural
agriculture? Using massive amounts of rock dusts, manures, cover
crops and mulch in agriculture?

Why does harvesting all or part of a crop just to turn it into
charcoal only to bury it in the ground make any sense at all?

Gaia Lovelock says that farmers are the logical group to participate
in carbon sequestration by harvesting crop stubble, converting it to
charcoal and returning it to the filds INSTEAD OF SIMPLY PLOWING THE
STUBBLE UNDER TO INCREASE SOIL OM, thereby increasing tilth,
friability, life in the soil and fertility.

He doesn't know beans about agriculture and though I buy into his
Gaia theory completely he seems to have sold out on the biochar thing
without even looking at the long term benefits of traditional
regenerative farming, and local food production.

LL
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