ACTION PLAN TO COOL THE EARTH, DRAW DOWN CO2, MITIGATE FLOODS AND DROUGHTS, MITIGATE THE RISE OF OCEAN LEVELS
We can increase the water holding capacity of our soils, by applying microbes and planting deep rooted plants. These deep rooted plants in conjunction with their microbe partners will dramatically increase organic matter in the soil, increasing the capacity of the soil to hold water. Water retained in the soil increases the ground water storage. The plants transpire and the soil evaporates water locally. Provided there are trees, clouds form and precipitate from local water vapor. A raindrop in this system might remain in the local system for 10 years. With these methods we are restoring what is referred to as the small water cycle. This would significantly increase CO2 draw down, decrease drought and flooding as well as decrease rising ocean levels. Additional benefits would be that the plants fertility needs would be supplied by their microbe partners, (as they are currently in the forests that are still functioning) alleviating problems caused to the ground water by fertilizers. Additionally plants grown with their microbe partners enhance nutrition for the human biome.
Our plan is to increase carbon holding capacity in the private sector with lawns, and in the public sector with roadside grass, golf courses, churches and businesses with lawns. Farmers with pastures is another group to look at for an easy way to increase the carbon storing capacity of the soils. Farmers with annuals, orchards and other perennial crops, would benefit from this system as they too would have little inputs and great outputs, significantly increasing their bottom line as well as restoring their soils.
I am not a scientist. I am a farmer, a permaculturist, a whole systems thinker, and a shaman. What I am proposing is a plan for massive ecosystem restoration by the old time methods of a recreating the carbon sponge found in ecosystems to draw down the CO2 in the atmosphere.
The science for this comes from Walter Jehne a microbiologist who worked for years on this model and has drawn from every science. We would love for there to be a lot more scientific investigation of all these concepts.
The program needs to take off immediately as the solution for CO2 draw down, flooding, droughts and cooling needs to come now. All of these solutions will give results locally immediately which can be observed, so they are not a waste of time even if the science is not perfect.
The overall concept here is that the functioning ecosystems on the earth have been the solution to carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere throughout time. These ecosystems have been drastically stripped by industrial agriculture, toxins, and radiation and are no longer functioning.
EARTHS WATER CYCLES
The water cycles on our planet are divided into two parts.
The small water cycle: This can be divided into blue water and green water. Blue water is the water that rains into the creeks, streams and rivers or gets to these waterways. Water planners usually focus on this water. The green water includes the rain that falls on the land outside of the waterways. This water has been largely ignored. There are 3 types of this water.
1) Water falling on bare ground as well as water falling on plants and forests
2) Water retained below the surface.
With the loss of our ecosystems, primarily from industrial farming – chemicals, tilling, and bare ground — most of the water is running off the ground and the plants and even the forests (the acid rain, radiation and other toxins are affecting the microbial life in the forests) directly into the waterways. Before the land was tilled and the microbes destroyed, water that fell on the forests and plants was retained deep in the soil. This water was then transpired and evaporated back into the air. With the help of microbes from the trees, this water then precipitated down from the clouds. This cooled the area. This also meant that the same drop of water could be recycled cooling the plant and watering the plants for 10 years and more. Without microbe partners and the carbon sequestering tunnels created by the glomalin of thmycorhizzae, the water is not retained in the soil
Droughts, flooding and increased ocean levels are one result of our practices which interfere with the small water cycle.
The large water cycle. This is the cycle where the water evaporates from the ocean and is carried to the land. This has been thought to be caused by wind patterns. The wind patterns might only bring the rain inward 200 miles. So what bring the rain to the heart of the country?
Biotic pump: If you cut your forest (or otherwise inhibit massively plant growth) , the rain will not go to the interior of the continent. This is because the forests create a pressure differential which attracts the rain.
Walter Jahne, Australian microbiolgist states: As the increased transpiration flow from the forest takes water vapor up into the higher atmosphere it creates low pressure zones above the forest. Other high pressure air with high water contents <coming from the ocean> can then flow into these low pressure zones to create the biotic pump effect. This is driven by the massive rising flows of humid air above actively transpiring forests creating low pressures that effectively ‘suck in’ more humid air laterally to perpetuate this biotic water flow or pumping effect.
OUR PLAN OF ACTION
Add microbes on all surfaces that have perennial plants. Microbes especially mycorhizzals fungi are what forms the sponge which sequesters carbon. Things which stop these microbes: Bare land, tilling, chemicals including fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides. The sponge will hold up to 20,000 gallons of water per acre per percentage of organic matter. 10% organic matter means 200,000 gallons of water per acre. Holding the water in the soil means we do not need to water our lawns and holding the carbon in the soil means we do not need to fertilize. Another advantage is that the plants growing in this sponge will transpire the water to cool the planet.
We are forming an organization called YIMBY gardens (Yes In My Back Yard) with the goal of doing this plan across the U.S. People in the Boston area began this project as a response to a severe drought which was occurring there. We expect to rapidly expand it around the U.S. There is interest in Oregon and we would expect California to be especially interested.
We believe we can easily get the 0.04 % increase in soil carbon suggested by the CAP 21 and 22.
- Lawns. 40-45 million acres of lawns in the U.S.
1. Private lawns: Clover, other legumes and deep rooted grasses can be planted among the lawn as well as trees planted around the edges. (a) We can do this by early in the spring or late in the fall broadcasting perennial clover seeds. (b) Another way would be to make small cuts every 3 feet in the grass and plant the clover in these cut. Deepening the roots of the existing lawns is only one of the methods YIMNY will use. Growing of native and perennial plants can help detoxify local lawns. Also they can be a source of food. Many residents are interested in these type of plants as well.
2. Churches, public building, highways, again we need to add clover and microbes to all these lawns.
3. Up to 600 million acres of pasture (perennial grasses and legumes). We are hoping that these mainly ranchers will allow microbe introduction as this will help their pastures grow more luxuriant.
4. Because of acid rain, toxins in the air, and radiation, a lot of the forests microbes have been decimated. Without their microbe partners trees are getting diseases and are being attacked by insects. - 300 million acres of farm land. Most of this land is currently not sequestering carbon due to tilling of soils, bare land, chemical fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides. Terra Linga Farm is a demonstrating of growing methods that will yield the farmers a better bottom line while restoring the carbon sponge. They will have less inputs and better yields.
facebook group for this is lets do it.
This short video from michael pollan describes the big picture.
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/…/soil-solutions-to-clim…#