From: Don Bowen KI6DIU <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>
To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [Homestead] Earth charity
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 06:54:16 -0800
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.