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PARADIGM SHIFT
“Before the white man came,
we never had to weed our gardens.”
108-year-old Chuska woman
native American, California
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Confronting Our
Climate Change
Challenge
The Biochar Strategy
introduction to an emerging technology
PARADIGM
HOW TO SHIFT
Reduce Burning Fossil Fuels
Produce Renewable Energy
Sequester Carbon negative
neutral?
X
BONUS: Create Sustainable Soil Fertility
Reduce Water Pollution
BONUS:
BONUS:
Grow Nutrient Dense Foods
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Confronting Our
Climate Change
Challenge
Biochar Strategy
The Biochar
NEW VOCABULARY
for the paradigm shift
Reduce Burning Fossil Fuels
Produce Renewable
Pyrolysis Energy
negative
Sequester Carbon Negative
Increase
Soil Fertility
Full
Spectrum
Reduce
Pollution
SoilWater
Food Web
Grow Nutrient Dense Foods
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Dr. Arden Anderson
Keynote
Speaker
3
day training
program
Organic
Beyond Organix™
superior food nutrition
How
to grow
Nutrient Dense food
NOFA
Conference
early
December
2008, eastern MA
August
8-12, 2008
20
certified
growers for 2009 marketing
UMASS
Amherst
Health
Nutrition
Bodies
Food
Soil
The Real Food Campaign
Dan Kittredge
Remineralize the Earth
150 South Street, Northampton, MA
978-257-2627
[email protected]
www.remineralize.org
Nutrient Dense
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Soil Minerals
Carbon
State of Emergency
Strategy for Survival
in a climate of change
How do we put fertility in our soils?
… to grow food to feed our communities?
… when the price of oil is over $100 a barrel?
How do we keep fertility in our soils?
… long term, sustainable fertility?
… not another annual addiction?
… all 90 elements in a balanced blend?
How do we put Carbon in our soils?
… out of Earth’s atmosphere?
… to reverse global warming?
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Soil Minerals
Carbon
Cycle
where are the
micro-organisms?
micro-organisms
… that
created
the atmosphere?
created
Earth’s
atmosphere
… in
in the
the
atmosphere?
…
Carbon
Cycle?
PARADIGM SHIFT
In 2007,
Australian
researchers
In the
80s, the
first scientific
field tool
documented
that biochar
addedintosoil
soil
to evaluate biological
activity
reduces NO
measured
conversion
ofby
O2over
into 50%
CO2
x emissions
NOx of
is soil
350 samples
times more
potent
sealed
in athan
vial CO2
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Photosynthesis
Soil Minerals
Carbon
how plants produce Oxygen
is the source of sweetness
photon
green plants turn sunshine into sugar
storing energy in chemical molecules
photon
photon
Carbohydrate
S2
e-
H+
electron
hydrogen
proton
ion
S1
photon
hydrogen
proton
ion H+
e-
electron
electron e-
S3
4Asecond
electrons
Last,
A
photon
third
one
This
of
photon
hydrogen
photon
is
sunlight
ais5-step
is4iscaptured
is
protons
is
captured
cycle
released
captured
AA
fourth
photon
captured
releasing
one
one
hydrogen
thatas
begins
create
areleasing
proton
an
with
electric
two
water
current
molecules…
releasing
anhydrogen
electron
as
an
electron
as an
electron
and
one
oxygen
molecule
used
by the cell
and
a
proton
a proton
isand
toreleased
make
carbohydrate
hydrogen
proton
ion
proton
hydrogen ion
H+
+
H
oxygen
- electron
e
H
S4
water
H
O
O
S0
O O
O
H
H
+H
water
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O
O
O
H
O
H
Soil Minerals
Carbon
Photosynthesis
how plants produce Oxygen
is Carbon
the sourceFixation
of sweetness
Small Intestine
Heart
S2
FIRE
e-
H+
Liver
Gall Bladder
S1
TREE
Five
Photosynthesis
e-
is a Hydrogen fuel cycle:
sunlight is the spark H+
water is the fuel
Element
Law
PARADIGM SHIFT
e-
Spleen
Stomach
S3
SOIL
of
Oriental Philosophy
& Medicine H+
+
H
O
O
H
Kidneys
Bladder
0
METAL
S
O O
4Lungs
Colon
H
WATER
S
oxygen
H
e-
O
water
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H
+H
O
O
O
O
H
H
Soil Minerals
Carbon
hotosynthesis
Chlorophyll
Carbon Fixation
Chlorophyll—the green pigment in plants—
intercepts sunlight
to release hydrogen from water
as an electric cascade of electrons and protons.
Photosynthesis uses this electric charge
to remove CO2 from the air
CO2 combines with water
to create carbohydrates
CO2 + H2O = sugar
eSweetness is only made by plants
H+
Photosynthesis is carbon-fixation
—one of Earth’s 3 main carbon-fixing paths
Plants connect simple sugars into complex sugars
Cellulose is complex sugars
linked in long spiral chains
to form fibers
Plants spin and weave cellulose fibers
to build their bodies with cellulose threads
—microscopic homes for living plant cells
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Soil Minerals
Carbon Cycles
Carbon
At night, without sunlight, plants burn sugar
and breathe out up to half of each day’s CO2.
— Respiration
Chlorophyll
Respiration
When a plant dies, carbon fixation stops.
— conversion of sunshine, CO2 & H2O
into carbohydrates and cellulose stops.
The plant body slowly decays into soil
Its carbon fiber skeleton returns to the air
as CO2 & H2O
20% of the CO2 plants remove from the air
is secreted as sugar by roots into soil.
These least of all life feast on this sweet treat.
Thus, solar sweetness becomes food for microbes.
In return, microbes feed plants
water, minerals, enzymes & hormones
an underground economy of nutrient exchange:
The Soil Food Web
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Soil Minerals
Carbon
Carbon Sinks
Some carbon stays in soil
as dark, spongy organic matter—humus.
Organic farms must have 4˗5% soil organic matter
Soil is a carbon sink
—holding carbon out of the atmosphere.
When a forest is cut, no new carbon is fixed.
Carbon is quickly digested by microbes
and oxidized into CO2 & H2O
Without annual additions,
organic matter decays in a few years
Carbon returns to the air as CO2 plus H2O
Conventional organic matter
is short-term carbon storage:
— a few years, maybe two decades
When plants are burned,
Carbon and minerals oxidize
into CO2, H2O & ash
Ash is soluble, quickly dissolves in water,
and leaches out of soil
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Soil Minerals
Carbon
Carbon
Sequestration
Pyrolysis —
burning
with low
or nolong-term?
oxygen
How can
we store
carbon
Cellulose
For centuries?
burned with minimal oxygen
— smoldered
For millennia?
— reduces organic matter to char
instead
of oxidation
to this?
ash.
How
does
nature do
Charcoal is left in the burner
— Biochar
Pyrolysis
This reduced carbon
isn’t easily broken down by chemistry
or digested by microbes
and thus remains in the soil
Carbon is removed from the air
stored safely for centuries & millennia
— a long-term carbon sink
— sequestered
Scientists estimate soil can store
as much carbon as is released yearly
burning fossil fuels
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Carbon
Negative
In the Amazon,
replacing slash & burn
by slash & char
can end rainforest destruction
and create sustainable agriculture
our question is:
Can this work in our “temperate” zone?
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