Post from Tribulation Watch:
COMMON SENSE ON ENERGY, NOW!!!, Part VII
| By theguardian777 - Sep 22, 2008 7:55:26 PM ET |
| Also listed in: AMASS | Midwestern Change | Tree Huggers |
The 'Greens' want us to stop burning all fossil fuels and cut atmospheric CO2 back to pre-Industrial Age levels to negate the increased 'greenhouse effect', but they also scream for "wetland" restoration.
Such 'mosquito hatcheries' are detrimental to all warm-blooded animal and human health, and the greatest producers on Earth of methane (CH4), which is 21 times more effective than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
Now, I agree that we should take immediate steps to clean up our rivers and restore percolation into our subterranean aquifers. We should renovate all of our lakes and prairie potholes for the survival of all aquatic species. We can kill three birds with one stone by dredging out the highly organic material-laden silt of thousands of years of erosion, build up our farmland with it, divert all drainage ditches from our riparian systems to these static bodies, and build community biogas generators with settling ponds at each ingress. These will trap silt and agricultural run-off, collect CH4 from the anaerobic digestion of fertilizers and crop residues, and return that organic matter to our fields.
We must not degrade our environment and economy by such ill-advised and irresponsible actions as destroying productive farmland to build new 'mosquito hatcheries'.
Naturally discharged CH4 is a greater threat to life on our planet than CO2 ever could be.
First, because Carbon is not the enemy! All life is made from it! Carbon is Life!
Higher atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2), not modern technology, is the greatest contributing factor to our higher contemporary crop yields, because it acts like a super-fertilizer for plants. Ag technology leaders, like ADM, have known this, and have been using CO2 in their bio-tech greenhouses, for the past 30 years. We can feed 6.7 Billion people, on the farmland we have today, primarily because of that higher CO2 level.
Recent crop yields are not the result of the fossil fuel-based synthetic chemical fertilizers and many toxic ag petro-chemicals that most "experts", as varied and world-renowned as agronomist Norman Borlaug and economist Jeffrey Sachs, would have us to believe.
None of these "Doctors" are as knowledgeable about the carbon and nitrogen cycles as Gary Zimmer, who regularly achieves 200 to 250 bushel corn yields on his Spring Green, Wisconsin farm with organic culture methods. He claims that, as he continues to improve soil tilth and organic fertility, he will soon reach 300 bushels per acre, all this without so much as one ounce of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.
Likewise, there is no greater threat from CO2 produced by burning fossil hydrocarbons, than from burning renewable carbohydrates and hydrocarbons, tho' some of each are cleaner burning than others. All petroleum fuel processing yields many toxic by-products spread across the globe by consumers as plastics, synthetic rubber tires, waste oils, solvents, asphalt, and agricultural, consumer or industrial chemicals. Obviously, it would be most advantageous if we were to develop renewable substitutes for all of these.
But, if we return our atmosphere to pre-industrial CO2 levels, we will also return to the mini-ice age and mass starvation of the several centuries prior to the Industrial Age.
Secondly, Nature already created thousands of highly efficient carbon sequestration schemes; they are called plants, they consume CO2 and produce Oxygen (O2) in a completely self-regulating cycle of life!
We do not have too much CO2! We have too few plants!
This is because most humans are better at building deserts than gardens!
We should try growing more plants, before we spend millions on wacky science projects!
Algae are the simplest and fastest growing plants, some are excellent human and animal food, some are excellent fuel, all consume CO2, and none require expensive farmland! In fact, they grow very well in deserts, in sewage ponds, even in saltwater!
CO2 is locked up in plants or organic humates in our fertile soils, and surface waters, only until it decomposes back into CO2 to feed other plants.
The simpler the carbonaceous material, the faster it decomposes. Algae decompose rapidly, trees more slowly, charcoal hardly at all!
Processing algae by pyrolysis can yield a full range of clean, renewable automotive fuels and a charcoal referred to as biochar.
Biochar from algae is the answer to recuperating fertility in deserts and other depleted soils, stabilizing the carbon cycle, and to feeding and fueling a hungry planet!
We can filter these algae from any watercourse, static body of water, tank, or translucent pipeline, and produce as much as 15,000 gallons of auto fuel/surface acre/year.
That is about 100 times the best production from an acre of land!
Remember, Carbon is life!
Such 'mosquito hatcheries' are detrimental to all warm-blooded animal and human health, and the greatest producers on Earth of methane (CH4), which is 21 times more effective than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
Now, I agree that we should take immediate steps to clean up our rivers and restore percolation into our subterranean aquifers. We should renovate all of our lakes and prairie potholes for the survival of all aquatic species. We can kill three birds with one stone by dredging out the highly organic material-laden silt of thousands of years of erosion, build up our farmland with it, divert all drainage ditches from our riparian systems to these static bodies, and build community biogas generators with settling ponds at each ingress. These will trap silt and agricultural run-off, collect CH4 from the anaerobic digestion of fertilizers and crop residues, and return that organic matter to our fields.
We must not degrade our environment and economy by such ill-advised and irresponsible actions as destroying productive farmland to build new 'mosquito hatcheries'.
Naturally discharged CH4 is a greater threat to life on our planet than CO2 ever could be.
First, because Carbon is not the enemy! All life is made from it! Carbon is Life!
Higher atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO2), not modern technology, is the greatest contributing factor to our higher contemporary crop yields, because it acts like a super-fertilizer for plants. Ag technology leaders, like ADM, have known this, and have been using CO2 in their bio-tech greenhouses, for the past 30 years. We can feed 6.7 Billion people, on the farmland we have today, primarily because of that higher CO2 level.
Recent crop yields are not the result of the fossil fuel-based synthetic chemical fertilizers and many toxic ag petro-chemicals that most "experts", as varied and world-renowned as agronomist Norman Borlaug and economist Jeffrey Sachs, would have us to believe.
None of these "Doctors" are as knowledgeable about the carbon and nitrogen cycles as Gary Zimmer, who regularly achieves 200 to 250 bushel corn yields on his Spring Green, Wisconsin farm with organic culture methods. He claims that, as he continues to improve soil tilth and organic fertility, he will soon reach 300 bushels per acre, all this without so much as one ounce of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer.
Likewise, there is no greater threat from CO2 produced by burning fossil hydrocarbons, than from burning renewable carbohydrates and hydrocarbons, tho' some of each are cleaner burning than others. All petroleum fuel processing yields many toxic by-products spread across the globe by consumers as plastics, synthetic rubber tires, waste oils, solvents, asphalt, and agricultural, consumer or industrial chemicals. Obviously, it would be most advantageous if we were to develop renewable substitutes for all of these.
But, if we return our atmosphere to pre-industrial CO2 levels, we will also return to the mini-ice age and mass starvation of the several centuries prior to the Industrial Age.
Secondly, Nature already created thousands of highly efficient carbon sequestration schemes; they are called plants, they consume CO2 and produce Oxygen (O2) in a completely self-regulating cycle of life!
We do not have too much CO2! We have too few plants!
This is because most humans are better at building deserts than gardens!
We should try growing more plants, before we spend millions on wacky science projects!
Algae are the simplest and fastest growing plants, some are excellent human and animal food, some are excellent fuel, all consume CO2, and none require expensive farmland! In fact, they grow very well in deserts, in sewage ponds, even in saltwater!
CO2 is locked up in plants or organic humates in our fertile soils, and surface waters, only until it decomposes back into CO2 to feed other plants.
The simpler the carbonaceous material, the faster it decomposes. Algae decompose rapidly, trees more slowly, charcoal hardly at all!
Processing algae by pyrolysis can yield a full range of clean, renewable automotive fuels and a charcoal referred to as biochar.
Biochar from algae is the answer to recuperating fertility in deserts and other depleted soils, stabilizing the carbon cycle, and to feeding and fueling a hungry planet!
We can filter these algae from any watercourse, static body of water, tank, or translucent pipeline, and produce as much as 15,000 gallons of auto fuel/surface acre/year.
That is about 100 times the best production from an acre of land!
Remember, Carbon is life!
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