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Can Dirt Save the Earth?
- mooreds 8y agoFor a book length version of how soil can help the environment in many ways, I suggest "The Soil Will Save Us". http://www.kristinohlson.com/books/soil-will-save-us http://www.kristinohlson.com/books/soil-will-save-us
- murrayb 8y agoThanks for the recommendation, just ordered a copy for my wife as a Christmas present. She's a horticulturalist so I think she will love it. Hacker News accidental Christmas gift shopping tips?
- ars 8y agoNicely written article, but the author needs to have a conversation with a chemist on the difference between carbon, carbon dioxide, and hydrocarbons. The author calls all of them "carbon", making for confusing reading. Anyway if you need a summary: Spray cow manure on fields to encourage plant grown. Done right you can actually increase topsoil, burying older plants under newer ones and store hydrocarbons there. Basically reverse soil erosion, with benefits in carbon dioxide capture.
- aaaaaaaaaab 8y agoOk, let’s cultivate the Sahara!
- eveningcoffee 8y agoIt is not a bad idea but it will probably need an enormous political (mostly I think), economical and technological effort.
- rebuilder 8y agoThere's a slight problem with water, I believe.
- tonyedgecombe 8y agoOnly because we removed all the vegetation. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170314111320.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170314111320.h...
- jmts 8y agoSpray cow manure on fields to encourage plant grown I don't believe that's quite right. The article suggests that manure and fertiliser themselves release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, potentially negating any increase in sequestration due to plant growth: Wick wanted to know if he could deliberately replicate this process on his ranch — but without manure, which, as it decomposes, can release potent greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide. The former traps about 30 times as much heat as carbon dioxide, the latter 300 times as much. As a carbon-farming tool, manure might be self-defeating. Instead they propose that compost be used, while avoiding methods of farming that release carbon from the soil. Jeff Creque, a onetime organic farmer, had a suggestion: Why not use compost? Compost can contain manure, but whereas manure alone can release nitrogen as nitrous oxide, the nitrogen in compost becomes locked up in complex molecules. At least in theory, that limits the escape of a powerful greenhouse gas. Silver had thought that the compost would simply break down, releasing its carbon back into the atmosphere or, worse, produce nitrous oxide. But those emissions never occurred; moreover, judging by its chemical signature, most of the carbon moving into the soil came from the air, not the compost. The compost appeared to help the plants draw more carbon from the atmosphere than they otherwise would have.
- discreteevent 8y agoThe article seems to be saying, don't spray manure but compost made with manure. I'm not sure what that is. Is it manure mixed with plant compost?
- Bjorkbat 8y agoI always love a chance to use my old farmer background on Hacker News. So, manure is decaying animal excrement. Compost is decaying animal excrement plus some additional biological matter handled in such a way that certain species of bacteria take over. Basically, you turn it frequently. What kind of bacteria take over? Aerobic ones. Now, granted, aerobic bacteria do produce greenhouse gases, but they're in the form of CO2, which really isn't so bad. By contrast, anaerobic bacteria release more potent greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrogen dioxide. A big steaming pile of manure, left on its own, will easily be overtaken by anaerobic bacteria. With proper treatment, however, aerobic bacteria will dominate.
- petecox 8y agoManure is basically a monoculture of whatever the cow ate - i.e. decomposing grass. Worms and bugs need a balanced diet. So a farmer will, presumably, add crop and other agricultural waste to cultivate these helpful aerobics. (I'm only a backyard horticulturalist. Gardening experts stress adding a balance of leaves, grass clippings and miscellaneous 'organic material' to one's vegie scraps for a healthy urban compost.)
- strainer 8y agoIt's the language of carbon capture which the IPCC uses. Of course they are aware of the differences between those molecules, but the common element of concern is - carbon.
- rsync 8y ago"Spray cow manure on fields to encourage plant grown. Done right you can actually increase topsoil, burying older plants under newer ones and store hydrocarbons there." Fair enough, but can that process be achieved with net-negative carbon emissions ? I live in rural Marin County which is featured in this article and is (currently) ground zero for this kind of research. There are several ranches near mine that have adopted these practices specifically to combat climate change.[1] After you raise the cattle (with all of the carbon emissions that entails) and then transport their manure in a large ICE truck (but not large enough to get economies of fuel efficiency like a semi on a highway would have) and then use a big tractor and/or bulldozer to unload and move it ... You've got four or six or eight guys there at the ranch doing the labor and of course they don't live there - and the reality of Marin County land values and rents dictates that they probably live an hour or more away in Santa Rosa or Vacaville or worse. And of course they drive as large of pickup trucks as their paycheck will possibly support to transport their single body to that worksite. And then you have to maintain the process by tilling or turning the material - again with tractors or bulldozers and again with more workers who drive to the site. It sounds like I'm getting unfair and nit-picking here but that's the whole point: the exercise makes no sense unless it is carbon net-negative so you have to add all of these costs to the ledger. I would be overjoyed if it penciled out, but very skeptical that it does. [1] https://www.marincarbonproject.org/ https://www.marincarbonproject.org/
- strainer 8y agoIts being reviewed by The American Carbon Registry who seem to be experienced and meticulous. Details of the methodology here: https://americancarbonregistry.org/carbon-accounting/standards-methodologies/methodology-for-greenhouse-gas-emission-reductions-from-compost-additions-to-grazed-grasslands https://americancarbonregistry.org/carbon-accounting/standar...
- scumblr 8y agoI love reading about clever ideas like this, but at the same time, I'm leery of the notion that we can fix the climate at the last minute, a narrative that stems from the late capitalist imperative to innovate. We don't need to innovate to find a solution; we need to act.
- harryh 8y agoOf course we need to innovate. Billions of people aren't going to voluntarily go back to living in terrible poverty.
- tonyedgecombe 8y agoYou don't need to live in terrible poverty to reduce your carbon footprint.
- harryh 8y agoI'm not talking about me. I'm talking about the 2 billion people in China and India.
- CM30 8y agoThere is no other way. Any attempt to get people to 'change' their lifestyle now is ineffective, and any attempt to force them to will just be met with a coup/failed government. At the end of the day, technology is the only thing that will fix climate issues. Anything else is simply not possible.
- strainer 8y agoIve nabbed the cover photograph of a big steaming pile of dirt to fertilize my desktop environment with - its splendid :D
- monkeydreams 8y agoAustralian farmers, suffering through yet another "unexpectedly intensive" drought, could learn a lot from this. I mean they won't, but they could. Instead they will whinge and complain and put their hands out and watch their stock die and, when rain falls again, they will take the government-aid cheques and overstock their land and continue the laziest, dumbest form of farming they could import from the cooler, wetter climes of England.
- ciconia 8y agoThat's exactly the mindset of Farmers here in Burgundy, France. We just had one of the dryest summers on record - we're still running a water deficit. Farmer's response: demand government subsidies!
- saiya-jin 8y agoWell that's France, a country with arguably most fucked up mentality of citizens in the world, at least in some sense(s). Just look at many news coming from there for last 20 years related to farm subsidizing, or people demanding more money out of thin air while in the same time wanting even more social state, and of course higher pensions too. I presume somebody skipped the math class in primary school. If you don't like reality? Normal person would look at option on howto improve one's situation. Maybe work harder (anybody can work more than 35h/week, while having 7-10 weeks of paid vacation per year), learn something new, move abroad if you really don't like it there. Well, french go out, burn some cars, destroy historical monuments, block rest of the country or take them hostage in some other way and government will for sure cave in. I am not impressed, to be polite.
- Faaak 8y agoI am not impressed by your disdain of the French people. Looking at your comments, you seem so polarized about things (traders, for example), without even knowing how they work; it's sad...
- nicolaslem 8y agoParent's comment is off-topic but let me get the facts straight: a worker in France having a 35h work week will typically get 5 weeks of paid time holiday, not 7-10 weeks.
- monktastic1 8y ago> This view ran counter to a lot of conservationist thought, as well as a great deal of evidence. Grazing has been blamed for turning vast swaths of the world into deserts. But from Creque’s perspective, how you graze makes all the difference. This is the idea behind this fantastic TED talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI We're largely focused on high-tech ways to "fix" the Earth, but the Earth has known how to do it since forever. Finding ways to use her own intelligence seems like a great idea.
- kiliantics 8y agoI remember being blown away by that video but apparently there has been some criticism of Savory's work. Searching his name returns a few critical articles such as this one: https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2017-2-march-april/feature/allan-savory-says-more-cows-land-will-reverse-climate-change https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2017-2-march-april/feature... He has responded to some of them and sticks to his claims. It seems the picture is very complicated and we haven't figured it out just yet.
- grondilu 8y agoThere is also Freeman Dyson's talk called "heretics thoughts" according to which global warming is mainly a land management issue. https://youtu.be/8xFLjUt2leM https://youtu.be/8xFLjUt2leM
- mr_overalls 8y agoThe Earth doesn't "want" to do anything. It's a collection of physical, geological, chemical, biological, etc. processes that can exist in a variety of semi-stable equilibria - some small number of which are amenable to human life. There is no evidence of any intentionality of any sort, no teleology, no preferred "healthy" state.
- triodan 8y agoDoesn't the account in the article run counter to the narrative that cows are massive greenhouse gas producers? Is there an alternative to grazing that would not require cows?
- rebuilder 8y agoThere's the question of what the cows are fed. AFAIK, grazing isn't how most cows feed these days, and the high methane output may have to do with the feed they're given instead of grass. There was a post here some time ago about feeding cows algae, and that also reducing methane output significantly. That said, even if grazing does result in a net capture if carbon, that doesn't mean that the problems associated with eating beef like we do go away. There's not enough pasture to produce the amounts of meat factory farming puts out.
- Beltiras 8y agoFeeding seaweed to cows reduces methane emissions by as much as 99%. https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/cows-seaweed-methane-burps-cut-greenhouse-gas-emissions-climate-change-research-a8368911.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/cows-seaweed-metha...
- AngryData 8y agoA decent article, not pefect but well done. Too often is wildlife, forestry and agricultural sciences tainted with the general populous's biases and misinformation about what is eco-friendly or green despite most people have almost zero experience in any relevant fields. People get taught some simplistic model or ideal as children and never get taught anything beyond that, so they mistakenly believe that they learned all the important and relevant parts to complete the picture. But in reality 9/10 people have never grown more than a few lawn weeds or an extremely hardy house plant that you have to actively attempt to kill. Add in some mass media fluff pieces and bullshit targeted political ads and you got a whole pool of nonsense shielded under the guise of 'common knowledge.'
- jillesvangurp 8y agoIf it works, even a little bit, I'm all for it. There are similar stories about e.g. China restoring vast arid lands back into green lands through simple measures that basically include a little bit of engineering but mostly letting nature do what it does best. Similarly, Northern Africa is basically turning land into deserts by letting goats and sheep roam free and to eat everything that looks even remotely green. Some simple fences keeping the animals out can apparently restore a lot of that land in years thus making it possible to farm all sorts of stuff that previously would not grow there at all. This suggests that figuring out how to manipulate nature to function more optimally, can actually be beneficial. Even merely stopping to do things that are clearly misguided seems to help. Healthy soil does all sorts of things that are beneficial. Holding carbon is part of that yes. But it also holds water. Without water nothing grows. If you fix that, bio diversity increases, the soil becomes richer, more stuff grows. Including the stuff we're interested in farming. Much of last century was dedicated to intensive farming and short term yields without any regard whatsoever to the long term impact. None of that has to be permanent. If you read science fiction, a popular topic is terra forming. We'll have an opportunity to terra form earth long before we need to terra form somewhere else. Might be easier too and feasible.
- JulianMorrison 8y agoAside, but Terra Preta is also well worth looking at, being something that can be easily made by human intervention, improves soil, and permanently sequesters carbon in a form that doesn't break down on any short timescale.
- majortennis 8y agoSadly not about Keanus latest adventures