But the big variable for me is whether or not the Co2 will stay there. Is it locked in? Will it evaporate out as the warming trends already set in motion play out? Biochar seems to be, but even the most enthusiastic IBI estimates says it will only amount to 1 ‘wedge’ (of the estimated 7 wedges) of Co2 reduction strategies.

The 2 figures for burning both come from the Lauk paper linked to above:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.07.003

Lauk calls his types of fires big and small, but reading the description of
what constutes a big fire, its clear that most or all are livestock related.
The small fires are shifting cultivation. Put simply, when people burn
forest to crop, they burn what they can farm … a small area. But when
they burn for livestock, they can graze a huge area, so that’s what
they burn. This is always the way because livestock is so
dismally unproductive per hectare.

I think what will grab people’s attention is the convergence of Peak Oil (2008), Peak Coal in China (2015) and regional water shortages. Agriculture will have to change radically because diesel and DAP (diammonium phosphate) will be too high priced. While the Treasurer wants more near city farmland covered in cement and connected to coal fired electricity for all the newcomers I think that’s where we will have to grow the food. Phosphorous and water will be recycled through our innards and farms will be semi enclosed and use small machinery. More road vehicles will use natural gas than battery power.

When nukes come in is hard to say. It will have to be crystal clear to everyone that oil is on the way out, that coal should be left in the ground and gas should be made to last. I’d say 2015 for the penny to drop and 2020 for decisive action.

Soil emissions may be more important than we thought.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/02/09/2814540.htm

But then, soil may potentially store even more carbon than we thought, and if we change our agricultural practices and fertiliser regimes and bring the soil back to life, maybe even end up storing our annual Co2 emissions according to the following expert.

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2010/2809236.htm

http://www.amazingcarbon.com/

This form of agriculture is likely to increase exponentially, especially as fertiliser costs rise after peak phosphorus kicks in over the next 20 to 25 years.
http://phosphorusfutures.net/news

Given peak oil and gas are close, and even peak coal could be by 2010 through to 2048 according to Newcastle University
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_coal

…then surely we’re going to see a carbon *negative* economy start to kick in sometime over the next 50 years or so? The 2 paths of exponential economies of scale bringing down the cost of renewables / Gen3 nuclear and exponential increases of fossil fuel prices after production peaks will surely see economies be FORCED to transition rapidly off fossil fuels, while at the same time this new form of agriculture takes over, sucking in vast quantities of carbon.

Surely there’s hope, whether or not Copenhangen or some future Kyoto agreement ever passes?

Can you please walk us through the sources or calculations (if you did them) that

a) 90 % of forest fires/biomass burning is anthropogenic, and

b) two-thirds of forest/fires are due to livestock?

Also I saw you state that livestock are responsible for 51% of emissions, and that presumably includes black carbon — if you are referring to the Worldwatch article written by Jeff Anhang and Robert Goodland, their estimates did not include black carbon.

Furthermore, I have a strong suspicion that many of the African nations, when they reported their emissions to the IPCC, did not include their methane emissions from those 250 million cattle, because I saw a report recently on two of the nations, one of which was Sudan, and didn’t see anything to suggest such a high number of cattle. I am not sure if the IPCC made adjustments or not when they calcuated total emissions.

Best regards,

Susan

One big thing which I’m guessing makes livestock and termites different is that termites can’t outstrip their local food supply, but livestock can

If you mean termite populations can’t undergo overcompensatory density dependence, then I don’t agree. It’s quite plausible that they could, under certain temporary conditions (e.g. large flux of plant growth following good rains, followed by a dry period). However, it’s easier to see how cattle to chronically overeat a food supply if they are given supplemental water and fodder.

Termites and methane — it’s much like the rest of the natural carbon cycle. A huge amount of carbon is turned over naturally, vastly outweighing the fossil carbon released by people. But it’s in equilibrium (or at least has been). Same deal with termites — they cannot be driving increases in methane levels unless we are doing something to increase their abundance. We know we have done this for ruminant animals — that’s the difference.

It is not just ‘transition’, it’s a form of permenent subordination of the weaker economy to the stronger one. It props up a limited segment of the middle-class but impoverershes the working and agricultural ones. Protectionism in many ways prevents this. I’m not “for” tariffs or ‘protectionism’ per se: I’m for nations acting a nations protecting their citizens from outside entities and stealing their resources. I think its a “good thing” that Chavez, for example, “renationalized” the already nationalized PDVSA…it put ALL the resources under the protection and control of the country itself, out of the hands of the foreign entities. Foreign investors who made deals AFTER this took place are protected and of course making lots of money. The key is that money STAYS in Venezuela, infrastructure is developed and general wealth of society there has gone up, not down, like in areas where free trade predominated.

Trade is very important, it’s how it is done that we are discussing. 75% of the worlds nuclear plants were built by state owned enterprises. Publicly owned utilities in the US generally are as or better well run that investor owned ones. There actually is no conflict between them. However, it is a matter of record that ratepayers for publicly owned utilities in the US, based entirely on those utilities revenue streams and not taxes, offer lower rates to the customer. They can be run cheaper because they have smaller legal depts, do almost no advertising, have zero ‘investor services’ and simply don’t have to run at a profit and pay dividends.

I think also, is that if you are for nuclear energy expansion, we are in a period of “by any means necessary” (to quote Malcolm X). That is…be it private, public, private-public partnership, that any form of nuclear infrastructure investment is a good thing so long as it is safe and well thought out. The Chinese, Koreans and other countries are clearly putting this issue first, not ‘profit’.

The total free enterprise perspective is problematic: look Entergy. Becaue “profit” is No. 1 per the mandate of the stock holders, nuclear energy ipsotfacto becomes No. 2. Thus, it is not “profitable” for the always typical short term investor to build plants that might not pay a sent in profit until 20 years plus a day. So…they do uprates. I support that as I’m sure all of us do. But it’s done in *substitution* for building a long term new build strategy. They can’t think beyond the next fiscal quarter. Personally I don’t want anyone that attitude in charge of the “Nuclear Renaissance” in the US. They have zero entrepreneurial spirit (which I can at least relate to). They are at best speculators.

Industry needs to return to it’s core purpose: build infrastructure. If it means out right nationalization, then we do it, by any means necessary.

DW

I’m sure professional ecologists have thought about this for a lot longer
than me and have a few more clues … Barry?

In terms of small economies that are liberating their economies I suspect that the problems you are refering to are transition issues. These are still a real concern but they are less a product of free trade and more a product of the economic structure created by protectionism. I would readily agree that transition issues are often poorly considered and poorly managed especially in the context of liberalizing small, poor, undiversified economies.

Getting back to the land management issue however there is lots to be gained from improved property rights and the removal of perverse government incentives.

I’m talking about the ‘free’ trade where powerful industrial economies…like the EU, forece open weaker mostly agricultural economies and *kill them*. The US did this with rice and pork in Haiti. It did it with corn and beans with Mexico. It causes huge social dislocations. It’s why there is a trend toward nationalization in countries like Ecuador, Venezuela and Bolivia. Even in Argentina, Uruguay and now Paraguay: becauce unbrittled free trade hurts those that the bottom.

In energy, the *history* of the great projects: generally, nuclear and hydro, rail, etc have been state, non-profit oriented financed and run, or, public-private partnerships. Internationally this means, as it does in EVERY country considering nuclear or implementing, *bi-lateral* trade in nuclear plants, never ‘free trade’, nor should it, ever.

“Free Trade” can’t ‘build’ nuclear, they don’t have the capital to do it. Energy, by it’s very nature, has to be highly regulated, even in ‘free trade’ capitalist America. So the libertarian perpsective toward energy just ‘ain’t happen’n’.

David

Very interesting article, Geoff, but when I read this I couldn’t help but think of the 4 billion tons of termites and their contribution to atmospheric carbon. If anyone’s interested in this topic, here’s something you might like to read.

The only reason that the USA features so prominantly in discussions of trade is that it is such a large component of global production.

They are not only testing Biochar in different global contexts, rainfall patterns, etc as you mentioned, but testing it with different additional nutrients, different soil micro-organisms and different soil chemistries. It’s all way beyond me, but the message I get is that they are using scientific controls and trying to nut out all the variables. Yet the constant message I get is that this stuff is a lot more powerful than just raking the agriwaste back into the soil and is consistently lowering farm nitrogen input into cropping soils by about 30%!!

John: you have hit the nail on the head, the local details of char sources, soils and the like will matter globally. If people start growing forests for char and shipping the wood to a huge char burner on the opposite side of the planet then the golden egged goose wouldn’t lay much.
Depends on whether the logs are ‘sailed’ there, dunnit? ;-)
Look, in Australia the economics of carting around the biomass to the Biochar unit has already seen the invention of Bigchar!
http://www.bigchar.com.au/index.htm
If Mohammed won’t come to the mountain, then the mountain (or Biochar processor) must come to Mohammed!