Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
With more careful measurements, I or others could see if we could use these techniques on some kind of fast-growing wood, like willow, and see if we could do with terra preta in temperate climates what Amazonian tribes did in the rainforest.
We are surrounded by allies who want nothing more than to heal the planet and take us back to the garden. It is time we got out of their way and stopped giving them more work than they can reasonably handle all at one time.
We know enough right now to start doing biochar: making it, getting it into the soil, and getting it into the hands of “regular farmers”. We’ll improve as we go along, but just using what is now known, the farmers, soil, crops, and atmosphere will all benefit.
In 2004, Kathy Voth had an out-of-the-box idea: teach cows to eat weeds.
As Daniel Quinn, author of Ishmael, reminds us, "If the world is to be saved, it will not be by old minds with new programs, but by new minds with no programs."
Charcoal retains the carbon cell structure of plants from which it is made and, when buried, the carbon can stay in the ground for hundreds or thousands of years. Most fertile soil contains charcoal from ancient or recent forest fires and, until the introduction of synthetic fertilisers, charcoal was widely used by cultivators for enhancing the soil. The most remarkable example of soil modified by charcoal is the deep ‘terra preta’ from a previous civilisation in the Amazon that transformed infertile earth into rich loam.
