[geo] Re: Soft geoengineering could mitigate change
Parminder et al, Thank you for bringing up the mangrove/salt marsh/peatland issue. As we know, the past 50-100 years have seen vast coastal areas simply devastated due to many human factors. One of the most far reaching factor, which is little known to the general public, is related to shrimp farming. I'm sure you and the Atlanta Botanical Garden http://newcaledoniaplants.com/plant-catalog/mangrove-plants/ organization are well aware of this problem. However, this simple video presentation http://mangroveactionproject.org/shrimp-farming/ is a good primer on that issue for those not familiar with the scale of devastation. Further insight on this primary threat to the mangroves is also found in this brief NRDC article; Meals of Mass Destruction: Shrimp http://www.nrdc.org/living/shoppingwise/meals-mass-destruction-shrimp.asp. For those readers wishing to lean more, at a deeper level, on the mangrove/shrimp suite of subjects, Paul Greensberg's recent book 'American Catch http://www.amazon.com/American-Catch-Fight-Local-Seafood/dp/1480599069' offers a welcomed and in-depth treatment of the mangrove/shrimp issue as well as informative and enlightening insights into the environmental/social impacts of a number of other coastal region related problems; which all clearly have global scale climate change ramifications. In short, we need to develop offshore mariculture operations on a vast scale to provide a sustainable supply of this and other important marine proteins while removing the need for such wide area environmental devastation within these most productive and fragile coastal regions. One current project which is aimed at bring such a paradigm into reality is the TROPOS Project http://www.troposplatform.eu/TROPOS-on-different-sectors/Aquaculture. Clearly, the EU Programme for Research and Development can not be faulted as being flighty in thought or actions. And, the TROPO Project is but one of a number of efforts to shift fulfillment of our basic resource needs out into the marine environment. The Shizimu Corp http://www.shimz.co.jp/english/theme/dream/pdf/greenfloat_e.pdf. and the Seastead Foundation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOa31wJD3G4 have also offered up plans for large scale marine operations. As an important technical note, offshore cultivation of shrimp and other cultivars, using organic recirculating aquacultural systems http://www.recircaqua.com/topics.html (i.e. organic feed, no antibiotics/chemicals and no 'waste' released), is well within the related STEM fields of knowledge. Such a systems approach to mariculture is a central focus of the protein related mariculture technology called for in the IMBECS https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m9VXozADC0IIE6mYx5NsnJLrUvF_fWJN_GyigCzDLn0/edit Protocol Draft. Further, coupling offshore protein farming with micro/macro algal farming offers the highest level of coastal environmental benefits as this eliminates cultivation pressure on both the mangroves and the broader marine littoral environments; which is an important factor in regenerating the balance needed between the two. The human footprint within the littoral waters needs to be kept to a minimum as a means of reducing the real and apparent potential of propagating pathogens, generating and building levels of toxins and destabilization of natural pray/predator relationships. Unlike many who champion the marine littoral cultivation approach to climate change mitigation, I propose a '*hands off the littorals*' stance and promote offshore cultivation above all other forms of CDR and CO2 utilization/sequestration. The logic of working well offshore being; Why interfere with a fragile coastal zone when the added cost of going well offshore is well within reason at the profit level? Some readers may view this marine based 'Soft Geoengineering' approach, with the call for biological management on a vast scale, as being too complicated and thus inferior to other more simplistic (reductionist) approaches. Beyond the apparent absurdity of thinking that global warming mitigation will ever be simplistic, the offshore regions offers us a vastly abundant and profitable opportunity to avoid the worst of climate change while reducing environmental pressures within critical littoral and coastal regions. This offshore marine based global carbon management method will also help reduce pressure on land protein production (marine protein can be grown with far fewer acquired resources than beef/fowl/pork) and provide a global abundance of organic fertilizer and biochar, for the building of soil organic carbon, as a by-product of marine biofuel production. The potential vast scale of ancillary freshwater production http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion#Desalination offered by offshore operations is something of a side bonus. We need a holistic, not reductionist, view of the problems we face and that of the
[geo] Re: Soft geoengineering could mitigate change
http://newcaledoniaplants.com/plant-catalog/mangrove-plants/ In addition to return crops and other plants back on soil there is also the need to return mangroves and other plants on peatlands, salt marshes etc. Their ability to take up CO2 as much as 4 times in tidal conditions compared to forests on land makes alot of sense to do it. Besides they can protect the coasts against SLR and erosion problems. Parminder Singh Malaysia On Wednesday, October 29, 2014 1:29:08 AM UTC+8, andrewjlockley wrote: http://www.thestarphoenix.com/touch/story.html?id=10331200 Soft geoengineering could mitigate change BY PAUL HANLEY, THE STARPHOENIX OCTOBER 28, 2014 Climate change looms over our children's future. For those not confident in global targets to reduce C02 emissions, geoengineering - the deliberate large-scale intervention in the Earth's natural systems to counteract climate change - offers a last-ditch solution.Proposals have been made to fertilize or increase the alkalinity of the oceans in order to increase carbon absorption or to release stratospheric aerosols to block sunlight and cool the atmosphere. While such proposals are rightly met with skepticism - if not fear - we should acknowledge that burning fossil fuels, deforestation and cultivation are inadvertent forms of reverse geoengineering. The American soil scientist Rattan Lal and others argue that restoring vegetation on degraded lands and increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) on existing farmland has the potential to sequester sufficient CO2 to substantially mitigate climate change if done on a large scale. This form of soft geoengineering is a safe, win-win solution, since land restoration and soil improvement also restore watersheds, foster biodiversity, improve productivity and assist with rural poverty reduction. The potential to reduce climate change by sequestering atmospheric C02 in soil and vegetation is huge.Photosynthesis converts 112 billion tons of atmospheric CO2 into biomass annually. (By comparison, only nine billion tons of carbon emissions are produced from fossil fuel combustion.) However, almost all of the CO2 synthesized by plants is returned back to the atmosphere through plant and soil respiration.According to Lal, if 10 per cent of what plants photosynthesize annually - about 11 billion tons - could be retained in the biosphere, it would be possible to balance the global carbon budget, halting climate change. Lal explains that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 from fossil-fuel combustion and land-use changes has increased by 30 per cent since 1750, resulting in gradual global warming. Since the Industrial Revolution, global emissions of carbon are estimated at around 270 billion tons due to fossil-fuel combustion and about 136 billion tons due to land-use change and soil cultivation.Emissions due to land-use change include those from deforestation, biomass burning, conversion of natural ecosystems to agriculture, drainage of wetlands and soil cultivation. Depletion of the SOC pool has contributed around 78 billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere. Some cultivated soils have lost one-half to two-thirds of the original SOC.The depletion of SOC is accentuated by soil degradation and exacerbated by land misuse and soil mismanagement. Soil is the third-largest carbon sink after oceans and fossil fuels. Soil contains 4.5 times the sequestration capacity of all vegetation (including trees) and 3.3 times that of the atmosphere.While Rattan Lal estimates that 10 to 20 per cent of annual greenhouse gas emissions could be removed each year by sequestering carbon in cultivated land, a study by the Rodale Institute was more optimistic. It states, multiple research efforts verify that practical organic agriculture if practised on the planet's 3.5 billion tillable acres, could sequester nearly 40 per cent of our current CO2 emissions. Even by the more conservative estimate, carbon farming holds significant potential to mitigate climate change. The global potential of SOC sequestration through the application of recommended management practices on a large scale, at an average of one ton per hectare year, is one billion tons of carbon per year, which would offset one-fourth to one-third of the total human-caused annual net increase in atmospheric CO2, estimated at 3.3 billion tons per year.The cumulative potential of SOC sequestration over 25 to 50 years could be as much as 60 billion tons, close to half of all emissions from land-use changes since 1750.The potential of soil sequestration to mitigate climate change of course depends on the extent of the application of recommended practices. Some 1.5 billion hectares of land are currently under cultivation. There is an optimum range of SOC concentration of two to three per cent in the root zone of most soil types. Given that cultivation has generally led to
[geo] Re: Soft geoengineering could mitigate change
Hi, Michael and GeoE - Thanks. Michael, you write about wanting to “promote offshore cultivation above all other forms of CDR and CO2 utilization/sequestration.” I’ve seen the Rodale stuff before, and wondered about their rosy numbers. Note that in the quote here Rodale are describing using 2x the current amount of cultivated land. That’s quite an Ag footprint! It isn’t exactly “back to Nature.” It isn’t said often enough that agriculture is about the biggest and worst of the current, unplanned instinctive geoengineerings we've gotten ourselves into, and possibly where we should really take the bull by the horns…..and get rid of him. Rather than the “carbon farming” of sustainable beef, or the “carbon farming” of no till ag, Rodale, etc, what about the idea that going higher-tech on ag, on a planet with more than 7 billion, could possibly be one of the best ways toward greater carbon management and returning the global ecosystem to a more natural state? So, how about another idea, Michael, which is neither like your IMBECS – it could be complementary to it – nor what Rattan Lal is describing? Some years ago I got interested in hydroponics in general, and was fascinated back in 2007 when I saw a publication from an international hydroponics conference from the early 1970s where the opening essay said something like, “if global warming should ever become a major problem for agriculture, this could be an important solution.” They meant just to keep us all eating when the soils are dried out, but I’ve often wondered since whether it could become far more, and is better done sooner, proactively, rather than later, defensively. The only real CO2 purchasing market existing right now is for hothouse tomatoes. How far could it go? I know Lackner with his artificial trees has discussed tomatoes and such as a possible venue for growing his DAC technique, with pretty low estimates of potential, but if global-scale ag was really done this way, how high could the numbers reach? Has anyone ever seen or done that calculation? In other words, how much of that 112 Gt/yr CO2 mentioned in the article Andrew posted goes into what’s eaten up by human beings? I'd love to see that number if anyone has seen or done the calculations... Anyhow, I have long wondered about the opposite from what Lal is proposing – rather than growing the human ag footprint 2x but trying to sink much more C/acre soil, what about shrinking that footprint vastly and letting natural re-growth help species deal with the warming, sinking a great deal of carbon initially into growing the new forests, and having a BECS-like negative carbon ag profile from then on by boosting the internal CO2 growing environment to optimal for each crop, grown in large centers outside of metro areas? Of course this shares some things with Despommier’s “vertical farming” and such, but it’s also quite distinct in various respects – not with artificial light, nor so high as he plans, etc. Instead, just as high as the highest current greenhouses, maximizing light use through vertical filtering by crop, etc. The idea would be to have protein sources, too: I discovered back when I was first interested in all this that NASA had done a little research on possible hydroponic soy, but never did any actual breeding program (the Hoyt can grow this way, but is inferior...so, breeding work needed to get a higher quality cultivar); the Japanese after 9/11 researched and achieved hydroponically growable rice, for an “emergency” (they meant terrorism). All hydroponics grow with vastly less water, don’t need pesticides, and with much higher yield densities than soil ag. If rice were done widely this way, lots of methane would also be trappable and could be used as an energy source. One could even then promote the “high-CO2-consuming” diet for humanity. So, a veggie diet, of course, but also centering it on those things that love to suck up lots of CO2 – so… maybe forget Ken and his chomping on Chicken McNuggets out in mid- century….maybe more like, a hydroponically grown mushroom pizza salad? cheers, Nathan On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 7:48 PM, Michael Hayes voglerl...@gmail.com wrote: Parminder et al, Thank you for bringing up the mangrove/salt marsh/peatland issue. As we know, the past 50-100 years have seen vast coastal areas simply devastated due to many human factors. One of the most far reaching factor, which is little known to the general public, is related to shrimp farming. I'm sure you and the Atlanta Botanical Garden http://newcaledoniaplants.com/plant-catalog/mangrove-plants/ organization are well aware of this problem. However, this simple video presentation http://mangroveactionproject.org/shrimp-farming/ is a good primer on that issue for those not familiar with the scale of devastation. Further insight on this primary threat to the mangroves is also found in this brief NRDC article; Meals of Mass Destruction: Shrimp
