Let's Fight Climate Change

Most climate activists think in terms of reducing carbon emissions as a solution to rising carbon dioxide levels.  It is true that levels will rise more slowly if man reduces emissions but if the goal is to stop the rise or lower levels then carbon sequestration or removing carbon dioxide from the air is essential.  The majority in the climate discussion  don’t give the natural sinks of carbon much credit for being able to sequester more carbon than they currently do.  Instead some propose expensive devices and schemes to remove carbon from the air and place it underground etc.  Almost no one acknowledges that carbon dioxide is essential for plant life and is really the limiting factor in plant growth if all other needs are met as far as soil nutrients.  Sadly most of the world’s soil is demineralized and many other nutrients limit plant growth with many soils so depleted as to be unable to support vigorous plant growth or even healthy plants.  To make things worse man treats the soil with great disrespect with his long time intent to keep the soil bare most of the time when it isn’t growing a single crop and then preventing any other plant from growing other than the crop.  This makes farm land a carbon emitter on average as soil life that needs carbon compounds to live attacks stores of carbon in the soil as food instead of gaining nutrition from growing plant roots.  Man further hurts soil life by using chemical fertilizers and pesticides that wipe out much soil life and encourage the decomposing microbes to release more carbon back into the air along with oxides of nitrogen.  

What is amazing is that a lot of the carbon man emits is sequestered by plants and ocean life so that atmospheric CO2 levels don’t go up as much as they could.  The good news is that the level could go down while we still use oil and natural gas if we increased the sequestration on land and sea.  In fact the atmospheric level could go down while we still use coal but, because coal is so high in carbon and coal for power is so inefficient as well, it is desirable to phase out coal as fast as possible.  America has reduced its carbon emissions by cutting the percentage of electricity generated by coal in half but sadly some supposed climate activists are keeping the remaining coal plants in business by blocking new natural gas power plants to replace them and to backup solar and wind.  

The Get Real Alliance as its name says is all about getting real about the climate issue and other topics.  It is a wishful dream to think that solar power can be reliable 24/7 power when the sun only is strong enough to make power for about six hours a day depending on time of year and weather.  Power output is about half in the winter than summer.  Solar is fine to add to the power mix but it needs to be backed up 100% by fast acting natural gas powerplants.  Battery proponents think they have a solution but battery systems are generally sized and designed for short term power delivery with frequent recharges not providing power for days of cloudy weather.  No one talks about how many extra solar panels and batteries will be needed to provide reliable power for even one cloudy day..  Here is a graph of a week of Winter weather in Dallas Texas that shows the availability.  Note how short and low the peak power is and how short the time is.  See how many days have basically no power production.

solar output

Note all the days of minimal power and how brief the sunny days output is.  Hardly enough to charge a battery.  We measured the sun for a year and this week is not exceptional but rather representative.  Some weeks are worse with clouds for most of the week straight. The vertical lines are when clouds block the sun instantly cutting power production dramatically with no notice. Back in my ranching days I used solar electric fence chargers to do holistic grazing and they had a car battery that was charged by a solar panel.  We would have to take the batteries to the shop to recharge them in the winter as the solar panel could not keep them charged enough due to clouds and low solar radiation. 

What if there is a way to make the world carbon negative while we still use oil and gas that costs less and actually solves other very tangible problems of declining fertility, growing deserts, dying forests and massive soil loss.  A large number of people don’t think carbon dioxide is a problem worth fundamentally changing our way of life to solve.  The people who do think carbon dioxide is a big problem really just propose super expensive and life changing solutions that just minimize the rise and potential damages.  They propose no solution to the big problem of sick forests full of dead wood.  There is a lot of talk about how bad things could be at the end of the century as far as climate but very little on the fact that much of the world’s topsoil could be gone by then and deserts could be much bigger further reducing productive land.  We need to make soil a priority and if we restore the soil to a mineral rich condition with remineralization and changes to agriculture we will solve the climate issue.  The opportunities are great in America as we have a large amount of good soil left and huge potential to sequester more carbon than we emit with the proposed program.  To really make the world carbon negative takes a global effort but it can be done affordably with great positive benefits.

Nothing in life is free despite the irrational thinking there is a free lunch sometimes.  Even the miracle of photosynthesis needs soil nutrients to do its job of creating biomass and food from air and water with sunshine as the power source.  It takes money to change the world for the better and the best way to solve the climate crisis is to not to rely on inefficient and wasteful government action on carbon emissions but to fund voluntarily a charity Get Real About Climate that goes to pay people to naturally remove more carbon from the air than total carbon emissions, versus by expensive and unproductive technical means.  We need  faster growing forests and marine ecosystems in addition to better soil and sea conditions generally which can hold more carbon. Unlike most proposals that focus on reducing emissions to slow the rise in very expensive and unrealistic way thru trying to eliminate the use of fossil fuels, this practical plan allows continued use of oil and natural gas but does advocate for a rapid phaseout of coal unlike the Democratic plans which generally keep coal in use for political reasons. The only government action that is needed is for the federal government to start managing the national forests and lands to make them carbon sequestering lands instead of being carbon emitting with so much dead wood rotting and burning up forests in massive fires.  The Forest Service needs to have a sharply higher budget to convert dead wood to biochar permanently remove the carbon from the carbon cycle and preventing forest fires.  You can see www.fullofideas.com for more info on ways to clean up the forests.  Unlike most climate activist we solve the problem of rising carbon dioxide levels mostly by private charity funded by concerned citizens and companies looking to have a negative carbon footprint.   We can lower America’s carbon footprint dramatically with a phase out of coal in favor of more natural gas backing up solar most of the time.  After the US plan there will be a discussion of what a bigger global plan might entail.

The Plan in the US

Now let’s assume we want to sequester 2 billion tons of carbon, which is more than America emits. American fossil fuel consumption is 1.5 billion tons of carbon right now. There is even more from cement production. If all the concerned citizens and companies gave the euquivalent of a dollar a gallon of gas for their fossil fuel use and cement manufacturers gave 100 dollars a ton of carbon emissions we could make America carbon negative.  The poor would be unaffected.  The majority of people who don’t think carbon dioxide is a problem worth sacrificing would hopefully donate with positive messaging instead of the gloom and doom that is the messaging now.  How should we spend it to get the most good? Here is a list of benefits:

  1. Holistic grazing and improvement of grassland: Management changes alone can offer huge gains and increase soil carbon levels. But more can be done with remineralization. Soil carbon increases of ten tons per acre per year have been accomplished just with a change to regenerative grazing in Mississippi which has virtually year-round growing conditions. Pay $20 per ton of proved increased carbon level. Potential: a billion tons of carbon or more. Cost of testing: $100 per test on 20 acres per test for small farms and $1000 per test for a large farm of 500 acres. A billion acres is about 25-30 million tests or $3.0-3.6 billion a year. Assume low added carbon sequestration per acre of one ton average. Program cost: about $25 billion or less for a billion tons of carbon sequestered. The carbon sequestration levels could be a lot higher, which would be great, but would increase cost. A sliding scale of pay may be necessary.
  2. Pay Brazil to quit burning the Amazon rainforest and rebuild it: Brazil currently gets no value out of leaving the rainforest alone—they don’t get paid for the carbon it sequesters—and they aren’t held accountable for destroying it—they don’t get charged for the large amount they emit to the atmosphere by burning and clearing. Twenty million people live a subsistence existence doing great environmental harm for very little money earned. It is necessary to pay Brazil and its settlers to quit clearing the rainforest and an additional amount for replanting and remineralizing it. Part of the reason why more is burned and cleared each year is that the land cleared quickly declines in production. Remineralizing open acres will boost productivity and cause soil to sequester more carbon. This program really needs international support to do more to restore the rainforest such as initiating a large-scale remineralization. Program cost: $20 billion a year to keep a million hectares or 250 million tons of carbon from being burned back into air and allowing 10 million tons of carbon to be sequestered each year by the saved rainforest. Ideally, this program is funded by other countries, and U.S.  money is allocated to more rock dust and biochar in America.
  3. Solar biochar-production grant programs: Buy a half million solar biomass cookers a year at an annual cost of $10 billion. Ongoing operating payments start at a billion dollars and rise a billion every year. Sequestration amounts would be five million tons of carbon the first year. Advantage: permanent removal from carbon cycle and increased retention of soil nutrients with less runoff into the ocean. Program will add to soil carbon sequestration payments due to increased soil life. At the time of publication, this is a conceptual invention and needs validation before being adopted as a major program; it may be found that other methods will prove to be more practical. Program cost: $11 billion for first year with long lasting value, sequesters 100-million tons over 20 years with ongoing maintenance fees.
  4. Rock Dust remineralization: Rock dust remineralization will increase photosynthesis and soil life leading to more carbon sequestration. Estimated cost: $100 per ton of rock dust applied or more depending on freight. Estimate one extra ton of carbon sequestered per ton of rock dust per year with increased soil and plant life plus 100 pounds of permanent carbon removal from the cycle due to enhanced weathering as a one-time event. Very cost effective as sequestration continues and trees stay healthy longer preventing carbon from returning into the air. Start at 100-million tons and increase (starting on lowest cost per ton land that is close to mines). This program is a major jobs and business booster with many trucks and even a fleet of airships required to deliver rock dust to forests and inaccessible areas that would profit from the improved growth. A Rock Dust program needs to grow substantially over time to be a bigger part of the sequestration program. Program cost first year: $10-billion dollars. Needs to increase substantially to be able to remineralize all American land.
  5. Cover crops: Cover crops help in two ways. First, the growing crop sequesters carbon in its biomass. But most of that carbon returns to the atmosphere, only to be reabsorbed by the following crop. The second advantage provided by cover crops is that having living roots feeding soil microbes, insects and animals prevents  from consuming soil carbon compounds and primary crop root mass for food. They continue building organic compounds that can permanently keep carbon in the soil. An estimated 5 tons of extra carbon and prevented soil oxidation per year per acre for 300-million acres, equates to 1.5-billion tons of carbon sequestered or not emitted to the atmosphere. Pay farmers $100 per acre for cover crops. Soil testing cost: $1 billion (with some savings with simultaneous testing for holistic grazing/managment tests for joint owned/managed acreage). Program cost: $11 billion per year initially rising to $31-billion dollars for up to 1.5-billion tons sequestered. With a several year ramp up, the program would have reduced payments over time to allow more biochar and remineralization. Cover crops are a net gain for farmers but have startup costs and require change from traditional multi-generation farming methods that will take multiple seasons to fully implement. Grants or subsidies will be needed for a short time.
  6. Arid land rejuvenation in America: Restoring fertility and modifying land to trap and store water with increased planted vegetation is a worthy cause for man’s long-term survival, but it is expensive per acre. Much of the American West has various desert scrub bushes on it that have very slow growth rates. Hand-trimming them and making biochar using solar cookers will be slow, but it has an added benefit of providing biochar for enhanced water catchment to sustain more carbon sequestering grasses or other plants. Money needs to be expended on research and plant development. There is a question of whether to improve land with an eye towards holistic grazing and/or biofuel production as well. The use of airships and other innovations could enable large-scale rejuvenation at a lower cost per acre. One of the challenges of arid land reclamation is where to house and take care of all the people needed to work on land to improve fertility, water absorption, and planting on land that may be far from a road. Much of the arid western states are very rugged and unsuitable for improvement because there is literally no soil, and the land is steep. Program cost: first year $1 billion for research and trial work. More in later years as other programs wind down.
  7. Carbon reduction programs and displaced workers: One of the problems with most proposals  is that it hits the poorer segment of our society very hard. Nearly 40 percent of America is estimated to be unable to come up with $500 without borrowing because they are operating with so little cushion and large debt.  The Get Real about climate program leaves the poor unaffected but it is hope that with positive education that they will choose to emit less carbon dioxide.  Right now most feel that there is no affordable positive solution only draconian punitive proposals so they do nothing to reduce their emissions.

Displaced workers such as coal miners will need some assistance to transition to new better jobs, and new jobs will need to be created in coal mining states. Hopefully, there will be basalt rock deposits that can be mined for rock dust that should be a growing industry that uses mining skills. There are about 50,000 coal miners still working, and 32,000 of them work underground. A lot of American coal is exported. Some of those countries that have no immediate option to shift from coal burning for their power will continue. Another issue is coal miner pensions as many miners are covered by a company pension. Factories to build solar biochar machines could be done in coal mining country to provide new jobs. Paying generous retraining benefits is probably needed, politically and ethically.

The reduction in carbon emissions by switching from coal burning to a mixture of renewables and natural gas is enormous and makes paying miners a very cost-effective atmospheric CO₂ reduction method. Paying $100,000 per worker is $5 billion over several years to get them working sustainably. Politically, and humanely, we need to fund the coal miner pension program as well perhaps not with a lump sum but agreeing to pay in, as needed, in the future. As part of the program, the coal companies should be bought at a low, but fair, price based on current values. The mines could be saved/preserved for posterity in case there is ever a need for coal. Program cost: $10 billion dollars. A coal buyout is a transitional expense that is short term for the most part, and the funds can be used for remineralization in later years.

  1. Foreign arid land improvement and food programs: Paying people in Africa and Latin America to do soil improvement and remineralization is very cost effective and humanitarian. People can’t work if they are malnourished and providing food to people in exchange for work—like making water catchments and biochar—does a lot. Fighting desertification is vital for humanity to thrive. Instituting large-scale adoption of holistic grazing will rebuild grasslands. Program cost: $10 billion a year to treat 100 million acres. Improve carbon sequestration by one ton per acre per year or more. This would be a program that should be funded at a much higher rate by countries with little land available for carbon sequestration. With a global program, this money would be used for more remineralization of America.
  2. Ocean and marine wetland improvements: Remineralizing the ocean and marine wetlands, as well as bringing restoration, offers great benefits on a lot of levels. The proven biorock technology really creates and stimulates reefs and other carbon sequestering life. Large-scale remineralization with the right minerals can really increase carbon sequestration and marine growth. We need to make the ocean more productive to sustainably provide more food for a growing population. Program cost: $2 billion dollars to start, more after the initial first year ramp up. This would and should be funded more with a global charitable funding effort.
  3. Temperate but demineralized country remineralization: Soil that is leached and has year-round growth gets very demineralized, and many countries to the south of the U.S. suffer low agricultural productivity in areas where there is not volcanic soil. Spending money on remineralization with basalt rock dust and other amendments can sequester carbon and boost income with more food production. This economic boost will help diminish the need to immigrate. Program cost: Estimate at least 10-million acres at $100 per acre for $1 billion. This is merely a pilot program that is a fraction of what a global program would do.
  4. Forest land carbon sequestration: Healthy forests are essential for carbon sequestration and rewarding tree planting is important. Estimating additional growth from remineralization is tricky, and to be effective and cost efficient, we can’t pay much for tree growth. Perhaps $5 per ton on private lands with a repayment clause when logged. This is fair since most forests are already in place and doing their part to sequester man’s emissions. Payments to use rock dust when replanting would also be good. Restoring U.S. federal forest land is also badly needed and will increase costs. Program cost: Allocate $10 billion for timber programs but more could be needed.

So, for less than $150 billion a year we can estimate sequestration of 3-billion tons or more of carbon a year for an average cost of less than $50 per ton. Now remember this is carbon being sequestered, not CO₂ being removed.  CO₂ is two-thirds oxygen so that translates to removing twice as much CO₂ as America emits with its fossil fuel use, or nearly a third of global fossil fuel emissions. Some measures are not permanent removal from the carbon cycle but are cheap processes per ton, and if sustained, do lower atmospheric levels until reversed—if they are ever reversed. Others, such as biochar, are more expensive but their benefits are nearly permanent. Now, the expensive programs that don’t sequester much carbon in the first year have lasting valuable benefits that can grow over time as the carbon tax revenue falls due to less fossil fuel use. Things like holistic grazing and cover crops take money and a management mindset change to get started, but they produce substantial economic gain once they’re implemented that will further improve rural life and profitability. This estimate is pretty conservative but shows the incredible potential that nature has to reverse atmospheric carbon rise. There have been numerous reports generated that offer much lower carbon sequestration numbers, but there is a widespread lack of knowledge about the benefits of remineralization or even holistic grazing. Despite decades of success restoring grasslands, Allan Savory’s methods are still not widely adopted.

This proposal is just a start on what a national program will do and needs a lot of input and research to optimize it.  Many of the programs to help get the program enacted like supporting the coal miners and compensating the coal companies for being put out of business are humane and necessary to avoid political opposition in coal states, but will go away in future years and allow more to be spent on remineralization and forest reclamation.  Emissions will go down a lot with improved efficiency and elimination of coal in the US. 

A global program

A Global Program is needed with much larger amount spent on remineralization as so much of the world is very badly demineralized including the precious Amazon.  Sharply higher timber growth can play a big part in making the world carbon negative.  We can eliminate world hunger in a sustainable and carbon negative way with a move to regenerative agriculture and holistic grazing.  The world is big place with a wide range of economic conditions, energy use and potential for carbon sequestration.  WE truly need energy consuming high density countries with little fertile ground to subsidize carbon sequestration efforts in countries that have lots of land but very little money.  The easiest way to collect a global carbon donations fund is from the seller of fossil fuel or large carbon emitter such as a cement factory and distribute the money to areas of  high carbon sequestration potential.  Here are some solutions to rising carbon dioxide and other more obvious problems.  It should be a global priority for all to have adequate healthy food. Making the world carbon negative isn’t cheap but very doable if many people come together to fund 1.2 trillion dollars a year which can really change the world for the better over some years.  We can have a strongly carbon negative atmosphere while we still use oil and natural gas and even some coal for a while with  a bold program outlined briefly here.

  1. Increasing arable land size and quality

We need more fertile land not by clearing forests or reducing wildlife refuges but by fighting desertification and improving the quality of the soil with soil testing and remineralization with both focused and broad spectrum minerals.  The amount of arable land is very large although it is sadly decreasing by over a million acres a year due to growing deserts. Man has actually hurt soil quality thru millennia of not remineralizing and harmful agricultural practices globally.  Entire civilizations have disappeared due to loss of arable land.  Deserts once were few and small but have grown to be more than a third of the land mass.

Restoring soil minerals is essential for a  healthy world and safe atmosphere where no one can raise alarm about carbon dioxide due to rising levels.  Ideally soils should have major minerals in the proper proportion along with all the trace elements.  Calcium and magnesium are the essential major nutrients but sadly deposits of them are not everywhere so it may not be possible to bring all the world’s soil into ideal balance of nutrients. Remineralizing the land is a huge project that will be the largest global effort undertaken by man but have so many positive benefits that make it a bargain.  Because the area needing help is so large, we need to devote a large majority of carbon sequestration tax revenue to it in two ways.  One is doing soil testing on land suitable for growing crops and adding needed major nutrients along with concentrated trace elements as well as broad spectrum basalt rock dust.  This will sharply boost food production in quantity and quality.  We will go from being a world with hunger to one of plenty. This is a huge project requiring a major expansion of mining the needed rocks, transporting and spreading the powdered rock.  Grinding rocks to powder creates a large surface area that soil life can attach to and extract the rock minerals for other soil life and plants to use.  However most methods of grinding rocks use lots of energy and create small dust that can cloud the air perhaps hurting people and nature.  Rock that are useful for remineralizing land are not everywhere and are often most badly needed where they are not found.  So rock dust will have to be transported from where it can be mined to the needed areas.  New methods of transporting and grinding rocks are needed that are not major users of fossil fuel and are environmentally benign. While our program eliminates the need to phase out fossil fuel use there isn’t an excess and a massive remineralization program would take lots of energy to mine, grind and move hundreds of millions of tons a year.  Building the machinery needed would be a big chunk of the carbon dollars but have lasting effects from decades of remineralization to cover all the arable land.  Wind and solar as intermittent power sources can be used to grind and transport rock dust especially with innovative ocean ships that rely on wind, solar and wave energy to move and grind medium sized rocks into fine powder.  Because very fine rock dust can remain in the air for nearly infinite time until washed from the air by rain a good use for it would be to blow the dust filled air after it has been filtered to remove all the particles that can be separated into the surface of the ocean where it can remain suspended nearly indefinitely to feed microorganisms at the base of the ocean food chain.  To undertake man’s greatest task will take real innovation and the Get Real Alliance has lots of good innovations discussed in the upcoming book and your donations can help fund research and development.  A large fleet of ocean going vessels will be needed.  For example a vessel holding 100,000 tons of mid sized rock crushing 100 tons an hour will need 1000 hours to crush it.  If the crushing is powered by solar energy for six hours a day, that is 160 sunny days of crushing.  So the vessel can travel very slowly and be designed to have nice housing for its workers.  In reality the vessel may be a very different marine design that resembles a collection of floating structures rather than a traditional ship.

Once a vessel gets close to the dust’s destination new methods of moving the rock dust to its final destination are needed as well as such a large marine transport device would not be able to come into a harbor and many areas of the world don’t even have a harbor.  The needed solar panels would cover acres of ocean but it may be better to harness wave energy for power.  Wave energy would allow round the clock grinding sharply reducing the time needed to grind the rock.  Faster rock grinding would allow a ship to grind much more rock a year which is good because grinding 500 million tons a year would mean 500 wave energy powered vessels but 2500 solar powered ones! 

As most of the world has no roads, ports or railroads using new design lighter than air craft to transport and distribute the pelletized rock dust seems like a solution.  Some of the most demineralized land is the ancient soils of Africa which are millions of years old while the very fertile American upper Midwest is just over ten thousands years old and is derived from a wonderful mixture of fine rock dust left behind by the glaciers that covered the land before that grinding the bed rock to powder.  The author of this paper has decades of experience in agriculture but is also an inventor who has conceived of many solutions to the massive undertaking proposed.  Clearly there is no way using existing products to move that much rock, crush it to powder and apply it to the land in a very energy efficient way that is sustainable.  The good news is that the carbon tax money is more than enough to undertake the very productive project that will have lasting profitable value for a long time.  You can read more about comprehensive effective soil testing that I used to boost production of my commercial grass fed beef opertations to very high levels of quantity and quality at www.kinseyag.com.  Sadly most soil researchers use chemical farming methodology that often produces large quantities of deficient and sickly crops that need toxic rescue chemistry to survive.  Researchers often focused on expensive proprietary products not inexpensive rock dusts.  Healthy soil produces healthy plants that resist disease and parasites. 

The second use of rock dust in particular basalt rock dust as promoted by www.remineralize.org is on grasslands and forest.  Amazing increases in production and quality have been measured in demonstrations.  It is for this work that new design airships are really needed as it is only at low speed over a forest that rock dust can be spread.  Due to the large number of airships needed we must overcome our fear of the use of hydrogen as the lifting gas.  With modern technology the airships can be remotely piloted so they can operate around the clock transporting and spreading the rock dust.

On demineralized soils growth rate increases of several hundred percent have been measured in seedling trees so the ability to fundamentally increase carbon sequestration by forests can send carbon dioxide levels back to pre industrial levels even while we use fossil fuels.  The unexpected problem maybe reducing carbon dioxide levels so much that food yields are reduced but that problem is some time off. 

As an estimate and to reflect its critical importance use 50% of the carbon funds to accomplish remineralization over perhaps 15 years with supplemental work continuing on to improve things further.  That is a billion tons a year at 600 per ton initially. While that sounds high to be really effective the rock dust needs to be mixed into the soil and some of that work maybe manual in forests. For example in the Brazilian rainforest paying people to remineralize will preserve and enhance the growth.   Much of the expense is front loaded building all the vessels and airships etc that are needed with lower expenses in future years.  That is good as a more rational world will use less fossil fuel due to improved efficiency and truly reliable renewable energy. 

  1. Biochar as discussed in the national program is a miracle product that was discovered thousands of years ago in Latin America but largely lost until recently.  Biochar is biomass that is plants and trees that has been burned in a oxygen deprived low temperature fire that leaves only pure carbon as char. Biochar is a sponge for nutrients and water as well as a habitat for soil life. Biochar can be made in many ways and needs to be widely adopted globally.  As a lot of the world uses wood for fuel biochar making stoves and heaters can be funded to create biochar as a byproduct.  Sharply higher timber growth from remineralization will allow fuel wood plantations to be planted that fight off desertification with water efficient trees.  The increased use of agroforestry will increase the amount of wood available for making biochar. 

There needs to be a massive program to remove dead wood from forests to make biochar instead of letting it release its carbon back into the air by rot or fire.  There is a need for lots of innovation to harvest the dead wood, make into biochar and move it to land that needs it.  New designs of aerial timber management systems and airships for transport seem likely solutions.  As a crude guess perhaps 25% of funds goes to biochar and timber rescue or 300 billion a year.  Man has neglected and abused forests for his history creating a huge desert with the Sahara where once a huge rainforest existed.  We must invest in trees and the benefits will be great.  A good bit of these funds can go to preserve rain forests around the world making them a benefit for the host country instead of just unused land. 

  1. Holistic grazing is the most effective way to upgrade grassland and fight their loss to desert.  It is perhaps the cheapest way to sequester a lot of carbon but takes a mind change in the way we manage grazing animals. Around the world herdsman aren’t well paid and so engage in labor saving practices that destroy the grass land.  Providing supplemental pay for herdsman to follow holistic grazing which requires more people to keep the animals moving to new pasture and allowing the grazed area to recover fully before being grazed again is needed.  The great news is that far more animals can be grazed so food supply is increased.  Combining remineralization with holistic grazing makes the grasslands a carbon sponge.  Estimate just 5% for holistic grazing support mostly for herdsman which will really help in very poor countries.  The proven methods of Allan Savory need to be taught globally.
  2. Marine improvements 

So much can be do with improvements to marine wetlands and reefs to increase carbon sequestration and marine life.  WE face a crisis in the overfished and abused oceans.  Many acres of marine wetlands have been destroyed or degraded.  Applying rock dust to them can really help boost productivity.  The proven effective Biorock technology uses low voltage DC power on a light steel lattice to sharply boost coral and marine life.  Biorock even boosts marine plants.  We need a massive Biorock construction program on existing reefs, new artificial reefs and some marine wetlands.  Assume 5 to 10% for boosting the marine environment to be a bigger carbon sponge and boost production. 

  1. Improved agriculture   Paying farmers globally to sequester more carbon by keeping the soil growing and becoming more regenerative can really lower atmospheric CO2  Much is lost with bad typical agricultural practices of keeping the soil bare for most of the year and not growing a polyculture of plants.  Great increases in productivity can be had while sequestering billions of tons of carbon.  We need to pay our global farmers better to preserve the soil and boost soil carbon levels dramatically. Estimate 20% for a huge drop in carbon levels combined with remineralization and holistic management which includes grazing animals in more farming situations.

You will notice some similarities between the national and international program but also some differences.  The big difference is that globally the big emitters often don’t have productive land to improve so there needs to be big transfer of money from high emitters to high potential rural countries.  Both programs are just starting points that need a lot more research, development and improvement before there is a chance of legislation passing.  But unlike things like the Paris accord we use natural forces to really change the atmosphere while also improving life.  Sadly so many just focus on demonizing fossil fuel emissions thinking that everything will be alright if we just stop using them but actually the really serious problems of soil disappearance and environmental degradation need to be addressed and solving them makes it impossible for carbon levels to remain high no matter how much fossil fuel we use. 

Your help is needed to change the mindset of climate policy advocates away from the impractical and harsh proposals to cut carbon emissions to zero and focus instead on the positive and productive plan proposed with sensible increased use of renewables that actually make reliable power such as biogas, algae fuel, new wind power-gas turbine designs, wave energy and geothermal.  Turning the world carbon negative while we still use oil and natural gas takes away the urgency to make rash mandated changes towards unreliable power like current wind and solar designs. We need your support so sign up on the website at www.getrealaboutclimate.org and social media and spread the word!!!  We are starting small but with support and publicity can grow to be a huge charity sequestering much carbon to stabilize and lower the carbon dioxide level in the air unlike draconian proposals which only slow the rise at enormous cost and sacrifice of quality of life.