Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Eliminating global hunger and poverty with terra preta

When all is said or done, it is reasonable to say that on average that we are burning approximately one ton of geological carbon for each human on earth each year. That finally scopes out the real human scale of our problem. If every human being becomes responsible for sequestering one ton of carbon, then the globe becomes carbon neutral. It is easy to piece together the economic models from that core idea.

What I think we have also accomplished is to show that this is very feasible. Imagine 2,000,000,000 subsistence farmers annually sequestering three tons per head while producing terra preta soil and hugely upgrading the fertility of their land and generating a crop of corn to feed their family also.

It we subsidized this process at only $20.00 per ton of carbon, we will augment family and farm income also. The total global budget would be as little then as $120 billion dollars. If we are generous and take this figure to $50.00 per acre we end up with a trillion dollar annual budget. This is all within the operating parameters of the carbon credit system.

This is likely the cheapest way available to eliminate the carbon problem and certainly the best way since we simultaneously are creating new capital in the form of fertile lands and well fed and healthy families. Such a program can eliminate global hunger and global poverty, and we have a wonderful check and balance in the need to produce enhanced soil. A simple assay can prove out performance as needed.

The truth is is that these farmers will not need these credits at all to justify the creation of terra preta once they know that it is possible. However, the money is certainly there already and it will sharply kick start the whole process. Knowing that switching to corn on some of his acreage and making biochar will double his family's income will motivate them all. And once the benefits are throughly understood there will be no going back.

You may want to reread my many posts on using corn stover to make an earthen biochar kiln without any outside tools found in this blog.


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