#California giant sequoias under threat from #ClimateChange: "...more frequent... extreme droughts & fires. ... > 10% of the remaining population of ~80k wild trees... killed in a single fire in 2020...
Get this: you can generate lignite (low-grade coal) in your garden?? Fast! IF you get the composting setup right.
The first half of the video is very detailed, nuts & bolts of soil and chemistry. The actual images of the site and how they did it starts at about 50min.
Soil science is the study of some of the most complex systems imaginable, and sadly still badly neglected-- especially considering how crucial it is to the foundations of our biosphere and survival. Much of this presentation is over my head, and it's tough for me to wade through all the "um, uh, uh"ing, but... wow!
I'll try to summarize:
There's a distinctive layer of black stuff under the soil of the Amazon, and people tend to assume it was built up from fires in years past (biochar is becoming a popular analogue), but researcher Scott Goode says it's created through much the same process that forms coal under peat bogs. That can take millions of years, but under the right conditions it can happen MUCH faster-- and all driven by biological action.
The idea here is you're trying to mimic the layers of soil activity under an old-growth forest, inside a trench 2' deep and 1.5' wide that's anaerobic at the bottom. Doing this in your own yard, Goode calls a "Climate Victory Garden". The trenches bracket your growbeds, and you don't stir or turn them-- you just have to keep filling them from the top, and once it gets going it's got quite an appetite.
Important note: while healthy soils can hold large amounts of carbon (80% of a forest's carbon is underground, only 20% is in the vegetation you can actually see), that carbon only stays put while the web of organisms using it stays healthy. Lignite on the other hand is a mineral that pretty much isn't going anywhere unless it catches on fire. This project demonstrates how to get BOTH the living system AND build long-term carbon storage at the same time.
One bit I really appreciate, about 1h16min in he is asked, "So what about the carbon market, what are they paying for?"
His reply starts with: "Really similar to the biofuels market, it's essentially a scam!"
"It’s a compelling pitch: Any #emissions polluters can’t curb themselves can be outsourced to someone else.
The only problem is that #CarbonOffsets of all kinds are increasingly being outed as total bullshit."
This article sketches the wild west of carbon offsets, including this bit: "As of now, there are few protections against multiple parties staking a claim to the same credits."
"#CarbonSequestration in grasslands has been proposed as an important means to offset greenhouse gas emissions from ruminant systems.
For various regions, grassland carbon stocks would need to increase by approximately 25% − 2,000%, indicating that solely relying on carbon sequestration in grasslands to offset warming effect of #emissions from current ruminant systems is not feasible."
ahem, I think that 1) desert ecologists will want to have a word, and 2) once you've regreened the land, others will want to "develop" it for their uses, so it may end up under asphalt etc like the rest of the planet?
I would be ok with regreening land that has desertified recently eg due to anthropogenic change.
---- #Rewilding asks us all to recognise that we are one species among many, bound together in an intricate web of life that doesn’t recognise lines drawn on a map. Our future is tied to the atmosphere, the weather, the tides and every other living creature on the planet--- https://www.rewild.scot/explore-rewilding
Climate change is an immediate threat to the majority of the world's population.
We need a local, regional, state, national, and international "moon shot" type of concentration of effort using available resources while developing and advancing new science and technologies to counteract the damage humans have caused.
Without this type of all-out, universal cooperation, human civilization, and perhaps humanity itself, are in imminent danger of extinction.
For those who are new here (or for those who've decided to activate the accounts they made months ago, just in case) let me offer, if I may, a re-#introduction. I'm Senator Paula Simons. I represent Alberta in the Senate of Canada, where I have served since 2018 as an independent senator and a member of the ISG, or Independent Senators Group. My home is in #Edmonton, on Treaty Six Territory. So I care about #Canadian politics, #Alberta politics, #cdnpoli#SenateofCanada, #yeg, #abpoli and such.
#Introduction: Hello! this is the account for the Green Shores project, where we will be sharing news, volunteering opportunities and pictures about this saltmarsh conservation and restoration project, based in Scotland over three sites: the Eden and Tay Estuaries and in Dornoch Firth.
This project has been made possible thanks to funding from #NatureScot, St Andrews University and other partners. #Saltmarsh#Restoration#NatureSolutions#CarbonSequestration#Scotland
" Humans have already wiped out huge numbers of #species and pushed many more to the brink – with some scientists saying we are entering a “#SixthMassExtinction” event, this time driven by humans.
The main factor is the destruction of #wild landscapes to make way for farms, towns, cities and roads, but #ClimateChange is also an important driver of species decline and is predicted to have an increasingly worse impact as the world warms."
Since it is especially the dearth of wild landscapes that is driving #speciesExtinction, #rewilding seems a good idea, especially when pieces of land left uncultivated can be connected into wildlife "corridors".
Wild landscapes are also best at #CarbonSequestration, so that's a real co-benefit.