Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Reproducing the Amazon's black soil could bolster fertility and remove carbon from atmosphere
Cornell ^ | 02/18/06 | Cornell

Posted on 02/18/2006 10:15:42 PM PST by Moonman62

click here to read article


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-45 next last
Today's CO2 is tommorrow's fertilizer.
1 posted on 02/18/2006 10:15:43 PM PST by Moonman62
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Moonman62

Yea, we are saved!!! I won't kill myself now....


2 posted on 02/18/2006 10:21:35 PM PST by There You Go Again
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Moonman62

I thought this was a thread about Ray Nagin. ;-D


3 posted on 02/18/2006 10:23:30 PM PST by fieldmarshaldj (Cheney X -- Destroying the Liberal Democrat Traitors By Any Means Necessary -- Ya Dig ? Sho 'Nuff.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Moonman62

more hyperbole built on an idea.

I think that world peace can be spread with pre-marital male promiscuity!!!

But I'm not getting published.


4 posted on 02/18/2006 10:23:43 PM PST by wickedpinto (The road map to peace is a straight line down an Israeli rifle.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: cogitator

ping


5 posted on 02/18/2006 10:36:32 PM PST by Moonman62 (Federal creed: If it moves tax it. If it keeps moving regulate it. If it stops moving subsidize it)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Moonman62

Heck, concrete pulls CO2...


6 posted on 02/18/2006 10:37:36 PM PST by endthematrix (None dare call it ISLAMOFACISM!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Moonman62

So we are going to be saved by a farming technique used by savages thousands of years ago. Wonderful. And all of our energy needs will be met by cold fusion, and that perpetual motion machine invented by that guy in the 1700s will finally be figured out and save us, too.


7 posted on 02/18/2006 10:40:19 PM PST by KellyAdmirer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Moonman62

Did this article just advocate burning down rain forests?


8 posted on 02/18/2006 10:49:14 PM PST by coconutt2000 (NO MORE PEACE FOR OIL!!! DOWN WITH TYRANTS, TERRORISTS, AND TIMIDCRATS!!!! (3-T's For World Peace))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: KellyAdmirer
So we are going to be saved by a farming technique used by savages thousands of years ago.

After seeing the replies on this thread I'm wondering who the savages really are. I don't know for sure whether CO2 is causing global warming, but my guess so far is that it is not. However, CO2 is increasing year after year. That's a fact. If this technique works it could have a very positive impact on agricultural productivity as well as lowering CO2 atmospheric concentration, whether that matters or not. This or any other technological adaptation certainly beats giving into the anti-capitalists and signing something stupid like Kyoto.

If you have some knowledge on why this technique won't work, please share your knowledge instead of joining the peanut gallery and making a smartass comment.

9 posted on 02/18/2006 10:50:52 PM PST by Moonman62 (Federal creed: If it moves tax it. If it keeps moving regulate it. If it stops moving subsidize it)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Moonman62

Oh, but I love making smartass comments. Go do some slash and crash or whatever it is and show us the way to salvation.


10 posted on 02/18/2006 10:51:51 PM PST by KellyAdmirer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: coconutt2000
Did this article just advocate burning down rain forests?

No, but slash and burn is already happening, so why not do it a better way?

11 posted on 02/18/2006 10:53:46 PM PST by Moonman62 (Federal creed: If it moves tax it. If it keeps moving regulate it. If it stops moving subsidize it)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Moonman62

Sure, but if it works so well.... Why stop with what is normally slash and burned! ;-)

Who needs rain forest anyway?


12 posted on 02/18/2006 10:56:18 PM PST by coconutt2000 (NO MORE PEACE FOR OIL!!! DOWN WITH TYRANTS, TERRORISTS, AND TIMIDCRATS!!!! (3-T's For World Peace))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: Moonman62
The search for El Dorado in the Amazonian rainforest might not have yielded pots of gold, but it has led to unearthing a different type of gold mine: some of the globe's richest soil that can transform poor soil into highly fertile ground.

How interesting, I remember a decade ago how the enviromentalists stated that the soil in the Amazon jungle was to poor in nutrients for farming crops.

13 posted on 02/18/2006 10:56:30 PM PST by Paul C. Jesup
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Paul C. Jesup

It is very poor in its natural state, but these patches of black earth are man made and thousands of years old.


14 posted on 02/18/2006 11:19:53 PM PST by Moonman62 (Federal creed: If it moves tax it. If it keeps moving regulate it. If it stops moving subsidize it)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: coconutt2000
IMO, I would be all for it.

In the next few years the countries near the rainforests are going to become agricultural powerhouses by using already existing agricultural technology from the United States. They have growing seasons that last all year.

15 posted on 02/18/2006 11:24:07 PM PST by Moonman62 (Federal creed: If it moves tax it. If it keeps moving regulate it. If it stops moving subsidize it)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: coconutt2000
Did this article just advocate burning down rain forests?

I think it advocates charring the rainforest into wholesome black dirt. Apparently this is completely different from burning it into evil black cinders. Gee, I thought everybody knew this... /sarcasm

16 posted on 02/19/2006 12:48:05 AM PST by XHogPilot (Islamophobia is NOT an illness. They really are out to kill us!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Moonman62
Watch these suckers succeed! Then we get to hear about Repubs causing another Ice Age!

Bushes fault!

17 posted on 02/19/2006 12:49:53 AM PST by rawcatslyentist ("If it's brown, drink it down. If it's black, send it back" -Homers guide to drinking in Springfield)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Moonman62
Amazonian Dark Earths: Origin, Properties, Management
I knew there must be a good reason I didn't read the book. Its 523 pages about dirt for $149 buckeroos on Amazon.com!
18 posted on 02/19/2006 12:54:47 AM PST by XHogPilot (Islamophobia is NOT an illness. They really are out to kill us!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Moonman62

Some useful comments on slash and char.

There was a very interesting story on public television a few months ago. It seems that when Pizarro and his men invaded Peru in the 1500's, he ran into some trouble and sent a group of men down the Amazon in boats to try to get some help from the Atlantic coast. One of the officers of this expedition wrote in great detail about this very difficult trip.

The thing that amazed me was that there were very large quantities of people living rather well along the shore. I could be wrong, but I think the figure several million was mentioned in the program. Apparently, Pizarro's men were treated well by some of these people. Then of course the Old World gave the New World the gift of Measles and Smallpox and all these towns and cities disappeared. Now in the jungles of the Amazon, the only natives are small very hidden primative tribes. Probably they survived because of their isolation.

In all fairness I should mention that the New World gave the Old World the gift of Syphilis (known in those days as the Pox), but I still think the Americans got the worst end of the deal. At any rate these soils are probably a remnant of what was once a very successful civilization.


19 posted on 02/19/2006 1:24:55 AM PST by gleeaikin (Question Authority)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: KellyAdmirer
So we are going to be saved by a farming technique used by savages thousands of years ago.

I'm very interested in how you know that these people were savages, since no living person has ever had any contact with these peoples. They died out from diseases indavertantly brought to the New World by explorers. They died of these diseases spreading through the indigenous populations without these remote peoples ever knowing where the diseases came from or how to deal with them.

What we do know is that they maintained populations of millions in areas that are now near wilderness. There isn't any reason to think that they were savages, as they were settled agricultural peoples who built massive earthen causeways and raised hillocks for settlement - often nearly a mile across. They lived in villages and towns with populations numbering well into the thousands. They terraformed the Amazon basin, leaving their man-made fertile soils for us to marvel over. They are the exact opposite of the "noble savage" leftists like to fantacize over.

Among all the evidence available to us, I'm not aware of a single element that would lead me to call these ancient peoples savages.

20 posted on 02/19/2006 1:25:14 AM PST by John Valentine
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-45 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson