Soil carbon sinks: How quickly can regenerative development reverse runaway climate change?

11 views
Skip to first unread message

Thomas Goreau

unread,
Dec 15, 2016, 7:24:33 PM12/15/16
to Soil Age, coralreef-...@yahoogroups.com, Lal, Rattan, John Liu
Soil carbon farming can remove the 40% overshoot of today’s excess atmospheric CO2 and stabilize levels for today’s climate, but in the narrowly shrinking time window for effective action this can be achieved with current carbon farming methods in decades only if both quantity and quality (lifetime) of soil carbon removal are increased greatly above current (land and carbon degenerative) practices. 

New calculations show that there is critical need to focus on storing carbon in the two soil types with the most long lived carbon, biochar that can be produced and applied in any soil, and restoring wetlands, especially marine wetlands like mangroves, salt marshes, and sea grasses. Large-scale, long-term carbon sequestration efforts such as the Commonwealth Secretariat’s proposal for Regenerative Development to Reverse Climate Change are critically needed. 

The new soil carbon drawdown information was presented for the first time at the World Soil Day event in Harvard Square, Dec 5 2016, sponsored by Soil4Climate (https://soil4climate.org), Green Cambridge (http://www.greencambridge.org) and the Soil Carbon Alliance (http://www.soilcarbonalliance.org). 

This talk follows up on presentations two weeks before at the Conference on Marine Biodiversity and Climate Change, held at Harvard by Biodiversity for a Livable Climate (https://bio4climate.org), which showed that oceans could become significant carbon sinks only by turning them into dead zones. but that new Biorock methods produce effective restoration of marine ecosystem services by rapidly restoring coral reefs, oyster reefs, sea grasses, salt marshes, fisheries habitat, and severely eroded beaches. 

The complete talks at those events are on the web at:

Marine Biodiversity and Climate Change: https://bio4climate.org/conferences/oceans-2016-program/

Separate videos of T. Goreau talks:

TG talks on soil carbon to reverse climate change: https://www.youtu.be.com/watch?v=0JZUKrw5Vac
TG talk on The Oceans, Global Warming, and the Carbon Cycle: https://www.youtu.be.com/watch?v=j1YXs8IoOso
TG talk on Large Scale Marine Ecosystem Restoration: https://www.youtu.be.com/watch?v=y7GcOetYZpk

Another video of the material presented in a TG lecture at Oxford University in November entitled “Saving Coral Reefs from Global Warming” can be found at:

Special thanks to Werner Grundl and Julie O’Neill of Videosphere!

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance
President, Biorock Technology Inc.
Coordinator, Soil Carbon Alliance
Coordinator, United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development Small Island Developing States Partnership in New Sustainable Technologies
37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

The Green Disc, New Technologies for a New Future: Innovative Methods for Sustainable Development

No one can change the past, everyone can change the future

Thomas Goreau

unread,
Dec 18, 2016, 6:23:22 AM12/18/16
to Soil Age, coralreef-...@yahoogroups.com, Lal, Rattan, John Liu
Dear colleagues,

Attached is the pdf of the White Paper on rates at which regenerative development soil options can stabilize climate at safe levels for coral reefs and low lying coasts in a much smaller file.

I apologize for sending a huge Word file, which was due to mistakenly copying and pasting figures from a powerpoint presentation instead of my original figures. 

Bes wishes,
Tom

Rapid CO2 stabilization.pdf

Thomas Goreau

unread,
Dec 18, 2016, 1:57:46 PM12/18/16
to Soil Age, coralreef-...@yahoogroups.com, Lal, Rattan, John Liu


Sorry about that, the links all worked when I checked before posting. Please try: 
World Soil Day December 5 2016 (Studio Recording)

If anyone has problems with the links please let me know.

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance
President, Biorock Technology Inc.
Coordinator, Soil Carbon Alliance
Coordinator, United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development Small Island Developing States Partnership in New Sustainable Technologies
37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

The Green Disc, New Technologies for a New Future: Innovative Methods for Sustainable Development

No one can change the past, everyone can change the future

On Dec 18, 2016, at 1:29 PM, Alfredo Quarto <alf...@mangroveactionproject.org> wrote:

Hi Tom,

How are you doing. Ir's freezing cold here with snow still not melting 2 weeks after snowfall. 

Thanks for sending your file, but I cannot open the video link: https://www.youtu.be.com/watch?v=0JZUKrw5Vac

Ciao,
Alfredo



Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance
President, Biorock Technology Inc.
Coordinator, Soil Carbon Alliance
Coordinator, United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development Small Island Developing States Partnership in New Sustainable Technologies
37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

The Green Disc, New Technologies for a New Future: Innovative Methods for Sustainable Development

No one can change the past, everyone can change the future

Best wishes,
Tom


Rapid CO2 stabilization.pdf

Gill Jacobs

unread,
Dec 18, 2016, 3:31:04 PM12/18/16
to soil...@googlegroups.com
DAD doesn’t want the bedspreads.

Please pay me for BT Sport!
Gill x

--
Also on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/Soil4Climate/
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "soil-age" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to soil-age+u...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to soil...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/soil-age.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/soil-age/661E6A85-2501-4631-9250-EEBEC92CB7E7%40bestweb.net.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
<Rapid CO2 stabilization.pdf>


Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance
President, Biorock Technology Inc.
Coordinator, Soil Carbon Alliance
Coordinator, United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development Small Island Developing States Partnership in New Sustainable Technologies
37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

The Green Disc, New Technologies for a New Future: Innovative Methods for Sustainable Development

No one can change the past, everyone can change the future

On Dec 16, 2016, at 8:22 PM, Thomas Goreau <gor...@bestweb.net> wrote:

A new Soil Carbon Alliance White Paper presents the first calculations of how fast climate can be stabilized at safe levels as a function of regenerative management carbon drawdown, and the fraction of carbon that remains in the soil:

<Rapid CO2 stabilization.docx>




Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance
President, Biorock Technology Inc.
Coordinator, Soil Carbon Alliance
Coordinator, United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development Small Island Developing States Partnership in New Sustainable Technologies
37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

The Green Disc, New Technologies for a New Future: Innovative Methods for Sustainable Development

No one can change the past, everyone can change the future

On Dec 15, 2016, at 7:24 PM, Thomas Goreau <gor...@bestweb.net> wrote:

Soil carbon farming can remove the 40% overshoot of today’s excess atmospheric CO2 and stabilize levels for today’s climate, but in the narrowly shrinking time window for effective action this can be achieved with current carbon farming methods in decades only if both quantity and quality (lifetime) of soil carbon removal are increased greatly above current (land and carbon degenerative) practices. 

New calculations show that there is critical need to focus on storing carbon in the two soil types with the most long lived carbon, biochar that can be produced and applied in any soil, and restoring wetlands, especially marine wetlands like mangroves, salt marshes, and sea grasses. Large-scale, long-term carbon sequestration efforts such as the Commonwealth Secretariat’s proposal for Regenerative Development to Reverse Climate Change are critically needed. 

The new soil carbon drawdown information was presented for the first time at the World Soil Day event in Harvard Square, Dec 5 2016, sponsored by Soil4Climate (https://soil4climate.org), Green Cambridge (http://www.greencambridge.org) and the Soil Carbon Alliance (http://www.soilcarbonalliance.org). 

This talk follows up on presentations two weeks before at the Conference on Marine Biodiversity and Climate Change, held at Harvard by Biodiversity for a Livable Climate (https://bio4climate.org), which showed that oceans could become significant carbon sinks only by turning them into dead zones. but that new Biorock methods produce effective restoration of marine ecosystem services by rapidly restoring coral reefs, oyster reefs, sea grasses, salt marshes, fisheries habitat, and severely eroded beaches. 

The complete talks at those events are on the web at:

Marine Biodiversity and Climate Change: https://bio4climate.org/conferences/oceans-2016-program/

Separate videos of T. Goreau talks:

TG talks on soil carbon to reverse climate change: https://www.youtu.be.com/watch?v=0JZUKrw5Vac
TG talk on The Oceans, Global Warming, and the Carbon Cycle: https://www.youtu.be.com/watch?v=j1YXs8IoOso
TG talk on Large Scale Marine Ecosystem Restoration: https://www.youtu.be.com/watch?v=y7GcOetYZpk

Another video of the material presented in a TG lecture at Oxford University in November entitled “Saving Coral Reefs from Global Warming” can be found at:

Special thanks to Werner Grundl and Julie O’Neill of Videosphere!

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance
President, Biorock Technology Inc.
Coordinator, Soil Carbon Alliance
Coordinator, United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development Small Island Developing States Partnership in New Sustainable Technologies
37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

The Green Disc, New Technologies for a New Future: Innovative Methods for Sustainable Development

No one can change the past, everyone can change the future





--
Also on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/groups/Soil4Climate/
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "soil-age" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to soil-age+u...@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email to soil...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/soil-age.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/soil-age/661E6A85-2501-4631-9250-EEBEC92CB7E7%40bestweb.net.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages