CO2 Watch

[kenneal - lagger]

My Tory MP lives in a house so posh it was built by a bloke with the same name 500 years earlier. He is something to do with making weapons to kill brown people. People who have met him say he is very nice.

Well if he is very nice he will write you a nice note back. But you have to write to him first so that he knows that you are concerned about what his awful government is doing to the environment. At the moment he thinks that you don't care and will vote for him next time.

[woodburner]

The climate and environment don't exist for most politicians because their constituents don't write to them about these subjects. People on this board are constituents of an MP but how many of you write regularly to that MP to remind them of the latest science or pick over the latest change in policy. You're all too willing to pick a fight here, where we're mostly agreed on the science, but why the f**k are you too bloody lazy to get on at your MP, someone who needs to be got at!! Are you frightened of your MP?

Once their email address in your address book it only takes the same time to write them a short letter as it does to write a post on here, and we get enough posts on here to bombard the whole House of Commons for a year. I've asked before, many times, and I'll ask again but please write to your MP, and a Minister, when you see them ignoring the science or calling it into question instead of bleating to the rest of us on this forum and, quite frankly, wasting your time on us instead of being useful and knocking some sense into your MP.

Ahem!! who are you calling "bloody lazy"? I accept that I am, but I have written to my MP about the excessively high road fund licence for my 20 year old car which is so inefficient and fuel wasteful it does 52mpg tank to tank full. More than many present day models. He wrote back to say it was a matter of fairness and that people buying modern cars (like VWs I suppose) are less polluting.
I have written to my MP about Beynon and his shooting friends wanting to destroy buzzard eggs so they can have their £30,000/day/gun shooting parties where they pretend they are shooting one of 50,000,000 annually imported pheasants, but in reality if it happens to be unlucky enough to take flight it could be a wood pecker or a barn owl. It's all the same when you're pissed or a total dickhead.
I have written about glyphosate and GM crops, and he and his mate Owen Patterson, said it was good that the government explore all options to make money (oops I mean to grow crops for a growing population even it is bad for them).
I have written about fracking and the wider environment, and he and his mate, Gideon Osbourne (George to people who don't know why he changed his name) wrote back to say the government needs to explore all options to make money (there I go again, I mean to provide energy security for people and there is no possibiity of pollution because the operators will be closely regulated) yada yada yada.
I've written about other bad policies the government dabbles in too. He won't care though, he's in a safe tory seat.

[kenneal - lagger]

Good on you for that. Do you write to your local paper as well to put public pressure on him?

[woodburner]

For all the good it does, I might as well bang my head against something hard. With important climate related things, not many people are interested, if it was a cat chucked into a wheelie bin there would be thousands of letters and questions asked in the house.

Ecocide is acceptable.

Ponder this, just to get off topic for a change, if you see a clear river or stream, the system is working fairly well, if it's turbid, then that's topsoil on its way to the sea, but what happens? Clamour for more ditching and dredging to increase the flow to get it down to the sea faster, while catchment areas lose topsoil what needs doing is to have trees on the uplands to hold the water and release it slowly. When someone suggests that (Carlisle is a case in point) they are ridiculed and everyone else wants local "flood defences" built. Well that doesn't heal the wound, it just applies a sticking plaster. Politicians sell sticking plasters and give out sweeties. If they rot your teeth you can't bite.

[Lurkalot]

The biochar acts to retain any nutrients, such as nitrogen washed out of the atmosphere by rain, and make them available to soil fungi. The biochar keeps soil fertile for millennia by holding the soil nutrients in its pores whereas composted carbon only acts over a few years.

Seems there is evidence of bio char helping to combat ash die back.
http://www.permaculture.co.uk/news/2302 ... sh-dieback

[biffvernon]

Seems there is evidence of bio char helping to combat ash die back.
http://www.permaculture.co.uk/news/2302 ... sh-dieback

I'd like to see that in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

[BritDownUnder]

A Grauniad link about carbon depletion in Australian soils and a small mention of biochar as a possible remedy.

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable- ... -australia

[woodburner]

Soil is so much more than just a carbon injection.

In 1935,when Paul Sears set out to write his book, Deserts on the March, drought gripped much of the United States, and the Dust Bowl was at its worst. Great dust clouds were blowing as far east as New York and Washington, D.C. The publication of Deserts on the March had a profound impact in awakening America to the task of controlling soil erosion through proper land management and understanding of ecological relationships.

Today, global desertification and deforestation continue on a grand scale. Each year about 42,000 square miles of forests are lost - an area the size of Tennessee. International studies show that desertification - the expansion of desert-like landscapes into semi-arid environments due to the impact of human influences - now threatens about one-third of the world's land surface and affects the livelihoods of at least 850 million people.

The great strength of Deserts on the March does not lie so much in its precise predictions or policy prescriptions. Rather, this beautifully written book should be read for Sears' ecological wisdom and his sweeping story of man's destruction of the earth.

[emordnilap]

Ahem!! who are you calling "bloody lazy"?

Today I've emailed every senator & TD (MP) in our present governmental shambles asking for their support in the creation of a ministry for the environment with special emphasis for climate change.

It was a short, sharp (but polite) email, which took little time, then copying their email addresses into the BCC field and addressing the email to the head of government.

There has been virtually zero interest in the biosphere in the corridors of power here and it's getting less and less important. Plenty of interest in creating heavily financially-orientated ministries of course, the only thing that matters.

They really just need the one ministry and then they'll be very happy: a minister for growth-and-fúck-the-rest will do them.

[biffvernon]

Biochar comes to the Flower Show:
http://climategardens.co.uk/near-future ... ng-climate

[woodburner]

And what exactly is it going to do?

From 8 years ago http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/wp-conte ... 080908.pdf

And from 7 years ago http://www.i-sis.org.uk/bewareTheBiocharInitiative.php

Why do people listen so easily to unsubstantiated claims think it's something new just because it's the sort of thing they want to hear?

[kenneal - lagger]

If you knew a bit more about this woodburner you would realise that this conference and the ideas behind it are a commercialisation of the biochar initiative and when things are commercialised they usually go wrong.

There is nothing wrong or unsubstantiated about what biochar can do but there is plenty wrong with the commercial idea that biochar can power the world, replace all fertilizer use and not have any adverse effect on the environment. Biochar can contribute to carbon sequestration, can power the world or can reduce environmental hazards but it can't do all three at once. The higher the amount of carbon sequestered and the more carbon is used for a fertilizer the less carbon is available to make fuel.

The people wanting to commercialise the system were after selling a lot of biofuel and using the sequestration and fertilizer aspects as green wash to add power to their presentation. It was widely pointed out at the time that this was what was being done so you are a bit late in jumping on the bandwagon. Biff and I pointed this out a long time ago.

You are again looking for the negative points in a proposal rather than finding the ways that we can be positive about something. I understand that you are probably in the depressive state of climate change appreciation but you will get over it sometime. When you do you will realise that the only things you can do about the huge problem that we face is to do what you can yourself, every little helps, encourage others to do what they can and, most importantly, badger the people in charge at every opportunity you get to do something. The final thing is to get yourself and as many friends as possible prepared for a future with a lot less.

[emordnilap]

woodburner makes some excellent points and I always take note of what s/he says.

Bit of a miserable fúcker though.

[kenneal - lagger]

Soil is so much more than just a carbon injection

And biochar is so much more than just carbon injection. It won't work without the mychorrizal fungi to extract the moisture and nutrients that are held in the pores of the carbon.

[woodburner]

If you knew a bit more about this woodburner you would realise that this conference and the ideas behind it are a commercialisation of the biochar initiative and when things are commercialised they usually go wrong.

There is nothing wrong or unsubstantiated about what biochar can do but there is plenty wrong with the commercial idea that biochar can power the world, replace all fertilizer use and not have any adverse effect on the environment. Biochar can contribute to carbon sequestration, can power the world or can reduce environmental hazards but it can't do all three at once. The higher the amount of carbon sequestered and the more carbon is used for a fertilizer the less carbon is available to make fuel.

The people wanting to commercialise the system were after selling a lot of biofuel and using the sequestration and fertilizer aspects as green wash to add power to their presentation. It was widely pointed out at the time that this was what was being done so you are a bit late in jumping on the bandwagon. Biff and I pointed this out a long time ago.

You are again looking for the negative points in a proposal rather than finding the ways that we can be positive about something. I understand that you are probably in the depressive state of climate change appreciation but you will get over it sometime. When you do you will realise that the only things you can do about the huge problem that we face is to do what you can yourself, every little helps, encourage others to do what they can and, most importantly, badger the people in charge at every opportunity you get to do something. The final thing is to get yourself and as many friends as possible prepared for a future with a lot less.

I wonder why you need to reply in such a personal way to what was a couple of open questions.

You need to read my second link above. I wouldn't be so rude as to say you don't know much about it, but I suspect there are some things you know that I don't, and vice-versa. Stop making assumptions anbout what state I might be in, you just might be wrong. Stop saying that because a view doesn't agree with yours, it is "negative". That is an emotional word and does not help debates.

Your last sentence is too late, I've done that, but most people you tell won't listen, as they think it will be BAU, which is the way most of us behave if we are honest.

Despite the knowledge of the damage the human race has been doing for millenia, it's still doing it, and it aint going to stop any time soon, except by a catastrophe. Ours will not be the first civilisation to topple, the problem is, it is in some respects a world wide civilisation, and it's collapse will be a teeny weeny bit bigger than that of, for example the Romans.