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  • From: jamesdavid Sneed <harvestcircle@hotmail.com>
  • To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Carbon farming as solution to climate change?
  • Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2010 11:32:41 -0700


Rain, I have a couple thoughts on carbon renewal in our soils. It is a valid
idea, but I've adapted it to my own patterns as a result of decades of
food-growing from Oregon to Alaska.
First, I have grown cautious about using, on a global scale, any one "cure"
for our long-term screw-ups. That's partially because a problem that is
several thousand years in the making cannot be fixed in a decade or so of
effort, and also because I have noticed that every time we use technology to
fix what we've screwed up, we make it worse or create new problems. Also,
there seems to be a tendency even in organic food production to want to do
everything on a grand scale instead of as a garden.
The second thought is that instead of using a complex system that can be sold
in workshops or books as the "cure", I found ways to incorporate the carbon
usage into simple gardening. I use a woodstove, and instead of burning
everything to fine ash, I clean out the stove when there is still a lot of
charcoal present, and put it into the compost to feed the microbes. The
potash with it doesn't seem to slow the microbes and worms a bit. The chunks
of carbon are slowly consumed, a long-term supply of energy for microbes and
the life forms that live upon them.
Many pre-metal native groups around the world used limited burning to prepare
temporary fields, and they didn't garden them for more than a year or two
afterward, so they didn't wear out the soil's supply of the nutrients that
were released by the fire. Often these plots were less than a quarter acre,
were gardened intensively for one to two year, and then allowed to regrow
while they still had enough nutrients left to get things started, growing
soft hardwoods that deposited many leaves, and then rotted themselves into
the soil.
I spend a lot of time sitting in Nature and watching how Nature grows plants
and animals. Our gardens should be a reflection of Nature, us in the garden
and a garden within ourselves.
> Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2010 11:52:04 -0700
> From: raincascadia@yahoo.com
> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: [permaculture] Carbon farming as solution to climate change?
>
> I recently talked to a fellow permaculturist that attended a presentation
> by Darren Dougherty on carbon farming as a solution to climate change. I
> doubt his perspective was representative of everyone who was present, but
> he was touting carbon farming as a cure-all, in the same vein as a
> technological fix that absolves us of the need to make radical social and
> personal lifestyle changes (like minimizing air travel). My understanding
> is that carbon farming has the potential to be a big part of the solution,
> but is limited mostly to temperate soils that are capable of storing carbon
> (without the more intensive charcoal method) and is still in the beginning
> stages of investigation. It would require the same level of political will
> that the other solutions would require in order to get landowners and
> farmers around the world to actually implement it, so really has no
> strategic advantage over the other solutions. In my opinion, almost all
> the changes
> that are needed to stop climate change have side benefits and should be
> pursued regardless of climate change, so carbon farming is not special in
> this regard. Could somebody give me a realistic assessment of the
> potential of carbon farming?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Rain
>
>
>
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