Albert K. Bates

The Biochar Solution (eBook, ePUB)

Carbon Farming and Climate Change

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

HOW THE DIRT BELOW OUR FEET CAN SAVE US FROM EXTINCTION

This comprehensive and well-informed review of current initiatives and technologies is a tour-de-force. It is hard to imagine a technical subject-compounded of organic chemistry, archaeology, rural economics, climate science, and microbiology-presented with greater drama or clarity.
- Peter Bane , publisher, Permaculture Activist

Conventional agriculture pollutes our water, is a major contributor to climate change and has degraded soil carbon by as much as 80 percent in most of the world's breadbaskets. Created by burning biomass in the absence of oxygen, biochar has the unique ability to withhold carbon from the atmosphere while simultaneously building soil fertility. Author Albert Bates traces the evolution of this extraordinary substance from the ancient dark earths of the Amazon to current practices.

The Biochar Solution combines a detailed analysis of our global climate and food predicament with techniques for the production and use of biochar and practical carbon farming. The reintroduction of this time-tested agricultural practice can help:

• Bring new life to desert landscapes
• Filter and purify drinking water
• Derive efficient energy from biomass waste materials
• Increase world food reserves while drastically reducing reliance on fossil fuels
• Bring greenhouse gas emissions to below zero.

Stepping back from the brink of irreversible climate change will require deep and lasting social changes and significant industrial emissions reductions. Carbon farming practices could form an important part of a new agricultural paradigm, one that places priority on ecological restoration, protecting biodiversity, healing the atmosphere and oceans, and once again becoming a garden planet.

Bates has woven together a highly engaging interdisciplinary answer to climate change ... a lively page-turner that blends clear-headed analysis with nuts-and-bolts advice ... enough danger to wake us up, but enough opportunity to emerge feeling hopeful.
- Tracy L. Barnett , journalist and founder/editor of TheEsperanzaProject.org

Albert Bates teaches permaculture and appropriate technology and has written several books on energy and the environment including The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook .

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: New Society Publishers
• Seitenzahl: 208
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. Oktober 2010
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781550924596
• Artikelnr.: 38323122

Autorenporträt

Albert Bates was a delegate to the Copenhagen climate conference, trying to point the world back towards a stable atmosphere using soils and trees. His books include Climate in Crisis and The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook. Working with the Global Ecovillage Network he has taught appropriate technology, natural building and permaculture to students from more than sixty nations.

Inhaltsangabe

Acknowledgments
Foreword by Dr. Vandana Shiva
Introduction
BOOK I: Losing the Recipe
Chapter 1: The Roots of a Predicament
Chapter 2: Sombroek's Vision
Chapter 3: Conquistadors
Chapter 4: El Dorado
Chapter 5: The Great White Way
Chapter 6: The View from the Bluff
Chapter 7: Confederados
Chapter 8: Hartt's Breakthrough
Chapter 9: City Z
BOOK II: Agriculture and Climate
Chapter 10: Making Sand
Chapter 11: The Moldboard
Chapter 12: Changing the Paradigm
Chapter 13: The Amazon and the Ice Age
Chapter 14: Predicting Climate's Meander
BOOK III: Capturing Carbon
Chapter 15: Carbon Farming
Chapter 16: Understanding Soil
Chapter 17: The Soil Food Web
Chapter 18: The Role of Ruminants
Chapter 19: Compost
Chapter 20: Tea Craft and Designer Biochar
Chapter 21: From Biochar to Terra Preta
Chapter 22: Making Charcoal
Chapter 23: Stove Wars
BOOK IV: Gardening the Earth
Chapter 24: Milpas
Chapter 25: Chinampas
Chapter 26: Trees
Chapter 27: The Power of Youth
Chapter 28: Greening the Desert
Chapter 29: Sahara Forest
Chapter 30: Drey's Challenge
BOOK V: At the Turning Point
Chapter 31: The Biochar Critique
Chapter 32: Carbon Trading
Chapter 33: The International Biochar Initiative
Chapter 34: Permaculture Marines
Chapter 35: Carbon-Negative Communities
Notes
Index
About the Author