Earth's recent climate spiral.

[The Grand Nudger]

They didn't, they created an engineered substrate through the release of massive amounts of atmospheric carbon. You know what, never mind. Fuck it.

See everyone at the end of the world party.

[Anomalocaris]

They didn't, they created an engineered substrate through the release of massive amounts of atmospheric carbon.  You know what, never mind.  Fuck it.

See everyone at the end of the world party.

The amount of carbon they released in the making of terra preta was impressive for Stone Age population, but trivial next to the current industrial rate and volume of release.    The self-regenerative properties of terra preta greatly contributes to lowering the amount of initial burning needed to get the process started.

[The Grand Nudger]

-and not trivial if we wanted to use it to produce food now. Turning oil into food is more environmentally conscious than slash and burn.


Like I said, see you at the end of the world party, because wtf is a fact anyway, amiright? For the rest of us not committed to contrarianism for contrarianisms sake..... 800 years. No shortcuts. Let it sink in, as we sink it under concrete. Honestly, at the rate we're going, we'll run out of soil and water before we feel the worst of climate change.

[Jehanne]

Soil isn't just a carbon trap, it's a dwindling commodity that takes roughly 800 years to produce an inch of.  There are no known shortcuts.

Good night, godspeed...and good luck....lol.

There are known short cuts.    The native Americans of Amazon rain forest figured it out about 500 BC.   

Using Stone Age tools and with a population of just perhaps one million at most, they systematically manufactured the richest agricultural soil in the new world, out of some of the most nutrient poor natural soil in the world, to cover an area larger than France to a depth of 2 meters and more over a period of about 1500 years.  

Not only does the artificial soil they manufactured, called Terra preta, rival the most fertile agricultural soil in. Euroasia, such as the fabled chernozem soil of Ukraine, in fertility.    it also has remarkable self-regenerative properties unrivaled by any known naturally fertile soil.    They can regenerate themselves at a rate of 1cm a year.  From a thin priming layer a inch deep, they can regenerate enough for most agricultural crops in 25 years.

Just a point of clarification: rainforest soil is nutrient poor:

What makes the soil in tropical rainforests so rich?

[Leonardo17]

They didn't, they created an engineered substrate through the release of massive amounts of atmospheric carbon.  You know what, never mind.  Fuck it.

See everyone at the end of the world party.

The amount of carbon they released in the making of terra preta was impressive for Stone Age population, but trivial next to the current industrial rate and volume of release.    The self-regenerative properties of terra preta greatly contributes to lowering the amount of initial burning needed to get the process started.

- Similar ancient and eco-friendly ways of agricultural production are present in many parts of the world. In fact at the beginning of the century all agricultural methods were traditional and quite similar to this “terra negra” method of agriculture.
    Of course more modern agricultural methods have increased agricultural production a lot. So we cannot seek to totally eliminate modern methods of agriculture. But the issue is this:
Rectangular agricultural spaces, with chemical fertilizers and intensive agriculture are gradually becoming sand. Sand is when there is no biomass left in the soil. So you have to put even more chemicals and even more water into it in order to be able to grow anything in this type of soil.
   The alternative to this is to have soils with at least 3% of organic material in it (living organisms and to have trees around agricultural fields that will reduce erosion, create some shadow (that will protect these organisms) and attract and trap rainwater. With such soils you need less irrigation and much less pesticide and fertilizers. I think this should be the new method of agriculture because even in much religious societies like India the number of farmers committing suicide has increased a lot in this century.
   So this is one of the many methods that are available to us even we are to keep inhabiting this spaceship of ours

[Jehanne]

The cover photo on this UN news release is too sweet not to post:



Our World's population to reach 8 billion in 2 days:

World population to reach 8 billion on 15 November 2022

[Leonardo17]

- I think the ideal number (according to the estimations I've heard) is more like 4 Billion inhabitants. The growth rate of population growth is also slowing and we might get to point when the population naturally begins to decrease. The key element in this is of course female emancipation and financial independence together with better education opportunities for girls.
 
   I think this should be one of our goals and we should get there by 2040. As Jagadish Vasudi (or Sadhguru) said in one of his speeches: “If you do nothing population will decrease”. Another one of my favorite quotations from him is “I have many children, but only one of them is my mistake”

   So this is also not impossible. The projections of 10 – 15 billion inhabitants are one of the insane projections of the strongest believers in old style liberalism. It’s simply not feasible unless half of us decide to become fishes.

   Here is a short Summary by the BBC that gives us some reasons to be hopeful about the results of the COP 27 Climate Conference in Sharm El Sheikh:

[The Grand Nudger]

The amount of carbon they released in the making of terra preta was impressive for Stone Age population, but trivial next to the current industrial rate and volume of release.    The self-regenerative properties of terra preta greatly contributes to lowering the amount of initial burning needed to get the process started.

- Similar ancient and eco-friendly ways of agricultural production are present in many parts of the world. In fact at the beginning of the century all agricultural methods were traditional and quite similar to this “terra negra” method of agriculture.
    Of course more modern agricultural methods have increased agricultural production a lot. So we cannot seek to totally eliminate modern methods of agriculture. But the issue is this:
Rectangular agricultural spaces, with chemical fertilizers and intensive agriculture are gradually becoming sand. Sand is when there is no biomass left in the soil. So you have to put even more chemicals and even more water into it in order to be able to grow anything in this type of soil.
   The alternative to this is to have soils with at least 3% of organic material in it (living organisms and to have trees around agricultural fields that will reduce erosion, create some shadow (that will protect these organisms) and attract and trap rainwater. With such soils you need less irrigation and much less pesticide and fertilizers. I think this should be the new method of agriculture because even in much religious societies like India the number of farmers committing suicide has increased a lot in this century.
   So this is one of the many methods that are available to us even we are to keep inhabiting this spaceship of ours

Slash and burn is not eco-friendly.  

If we wanted to point to an eco friendly form of traditional agriculture (that will feature heavily in future) we need look no further than the chinampas system also used in those same slash and burn areas and cultures.  We need to come to terms with the fact that we will need more food than even the well managed soils of earth (dwindling at present) can sustainably provide.  This started out as floating beds of vegetation, but today has morphed into massive zero discharge systems pulling in 17m3/hour at 99.6% reuse efficiency capable of producing over 500 tons of animal protein and many, many more in edible or useful vegetative and fruiting mass which require no fertilizers, pesticides, or antibiotics whatsoever (in fact, can't operate -with- them).   With more green energy available every year - excess sustainable productivity can go to processing the nutrient mixes and provide lift far beyond what we generally find available today, to the point that they're suitable for the fine delivery lines of scalable vertical systems..which, even on the low end, can increase the productivity per acre of many important crops by as much as 200-800%.  Freeing up field acres for even more staple crops under no-till management and livestock as regenerative agriculture. All of which leading to greater soil and water conservation, reduced hunger, increased wealth, and lower carbon footprints.

This is something we can do today, no future tech or future discoveries required.  It's already economic at scale, but, at least for now, with capital investment high and the price of oil very intentionally kept low, it struggles at the scale of the small and/or family farm.  Thus, the epa and the nrcs in conjuction with the usda and land grant college system have pumped tons of money and research and volunteer work at steering future investments and developments into operations like this, and out of what we will soon no longer call conventional ag.

[Jehanne]

Our World & Civilization is, perhaps, in a Catch-22. On the one hand, we have Western democratic capitalism, which embraces (at least on paper) individual liberties, freedoms, self-determination, due process of law, and even welcomes (at least in some quarters) diversity, self-fulfillment and expression, but yet, tolerates over-consumption. On the other hand, our World has murderous communism and totalitarianism states which suppress human liberties & freedoms, squelch human diversity and attempt to regulate human thought through a surveillance society, and yet, limit consumption to the point of human misery.

If one trusts the physical models (sets of partial differential equations), the former systems of government will likely lead to our species annihilating itself while the latter will somewhat less likely result in said outcome. Question is, "Can we have Liberty without Consumption?"

[Leonardo17]

People are talking about a circular economy now. Which is not exclude market economy at all. But consumerism occurs when (for instance) the petro-chemical industry which is forced to take part in the energy transition (because it has become obvious that renewable energies will be even more affordable in the future) is now pushing people into extreme plastic consumption. In some instances I am receiving about three plastic packages one within the other for a single item I purchased on the internet. And how many times have I asked the waiter not to bring a plastic straw and have it brought to me anyway.
Today there are techniques like chemical recycling that can almost transform these items into petroleum. But these are new methods. 90% of our plastic is ending up somewhere in nature, and it is probably going to stay there for 500 – 1000 years (while disintegrating into micro and nano plastics which will easily make their way into our own bodies via the food chain).
So China used to be a good example of that. They used to import plastic in order to sort it out and recycle it. Today, the madness of our system is that the production of new plastic is simply cheaper and more efficient than the recycling of plastic.
So in a market economy, governments should take the lead and push people into using less plastic, banning single use plastics altogether and promoting things like doing the farmer’s market shopping with reusable bags etc. Today when I go to the farmer’s market I receive on plastic bag for each item I am receiving.
So the industry is literally pushing these items into our hands and is greenwashing it by making us believe we can overcome this issue just by recycling plastic items. I think alternatives to plastics must be promoted as quickly as possible.