Nature Knows Best - Carbon Farming

For the past 20 years, since Ed Mazria calculated that buildings use almost 50% of energy consumed in this country, I have been on a quest to make buildings super energy efficient, while producing any additional energy needed from site-generated renewables. But now I am coming to believe that there is another option for reducing greenhouse gases that is equally, if not more, important.

A carbon experiment on a small number of ranches in Northern California is establishing a simple, benign way to remove carbon dioxide from the air. UC Berkeley scientists have measured the impact of a one-time spreading of compost ( ½ “ layer) on rangeland and found, to their surprise, that it boosted the soil’s carbon sequestration capacity on average one ton per hectare per year for each of the 8 years they have been testing. They forecast that this sequestration process will continue for at least two decades.

Grazing is the largest land use on the planet and most grazing lands are degraded. If this one-time thin application of compost were applied to a quarter of California’s rangeland, the soil would absorb ¾ of California’s greenhouse gas emissions for the year, and since the effect is cumulative, it would keep doing so for a number of years.

For centuries humans have been bleeding soil-stored carbon into the atmosphere through plowing, overgrazing and poor agricultural practices. These recent compost applications can reverse this and create what scientists call a positive feedback loop. Plants pull carbon dioxide from the air through photosynthesis and transfer a portion of the carbon to the soil through their roots and soil microorganisms, then turn that carbon into a form commonly known as humus. This process improves soil fertility, boosts plant growth and captures even more carbon, while enhancing the soil’s ability to absorb and retain water.

Where is all this compost going to come from and who is going to pay to have ranchers spread it on their land? The compost has to come primarily from cities. San Francisco composts 700 tons of residential and commercial organic waste everyday—the largest such operation in the world. This can become a great resource for ranches. As for compensation, key efforts are being made to incorporate soil carbon offsets in California’s cap-and-trade system as a way to make it profitable for ranchers to restore their land.

Although only recently recognized as a carbon sequestration strategy, “carbon farming” has already captured the attention of the White House and officials as far away as Brazil and China. This inexpensive, low-tech harnessing of natural systems holds the potential to turn the vast rangelands of California and the world into a weapon to reverse climate change.

More Seaweed to Tackle Climate Change and Feed the World

We often think that human activity, however well intentioned, negatively impacts nature. This need not be the case, nor has it always been the case in the past. For example, the tallgrass prairies of our Great Plains and their enormous productivity can be attributed to the fire ecology practiced by Native Americans.

Development of large-scale seaweed farming in our oceans can be another type of human activity to enhance nature’s bounty. An increasing body of research is documenting the potential of growing kelp and phytoplankton forests to provide food, feed, fertilizer, fiber and biofuels to most of the world, while efficiently storing carbon, offsetting or even reversing acidification and increasing oxygen. Kelp grows many times faster than trees, and even fast-growing bamboo.

Human industrial practices and consumption patterns have led to hotter waters and expanding “deserts” in our oceans. Think of dying coral reefs, extensive dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere and sea floors carpeted with plastic microfibers but devoid of life. Scientists have found that 99 percent of tropical and subtropical oceans are almost totally lacking in marine life. With warming, the oceans’ currents and winds are being turned off one by one. These and other changes to our oceans are laid out alarmingly in the recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Proponents of marine permaculture propose building light-weight lattice structures to which seaweed can attach. Near coastlines, they could be tethered to the ocean floor, or be submerged about 80 feet and allowed to drift in the open sea. With kelp and phytoplankton forests come a great diversity of fish as well as crustacean, sea mammals and birds. Fish populations will soar. These kelp farms will also be fish farms without boundaries or outside inputs. The fish will be diverse, wild, untainted and full of omega-3 fatty acids.

Most of the carbon emitted by human activity is contained within the top 500 feet of the ocean. Any farmed seaweed not consumed by ocean creatures or harvested for biogas or fertilizer would die off and sink to the deep ocean floor, sequestering carbon for centuries. Oceans naturally do a good job of moving carbon from surface water to the depths.

Besides mitigating climate change and restoring the health of our oceans, large-scale kelp farms offer the prospect of big returns on investments: increased seafood catches, fertilizers, medicines, biofuels, beauty products and as an additive to livestock feed. In animal feed, it can reduce potent methane emissions from cows and other grazing livestock by as much as 70 percent, while transitioning land for uses other than growing soy, corn and grass for ruminants.

Europe Is Serious About Dealing with Plastic Waste

Placing Responsibility on Producers for Their Plastic Waste Is Yielding Results

 In the natural world, every bit of waste is a food or input for another creature or process. Contrast that with plastics in our society. Almost all our plastics litter, pollute, and harm creatures and habitats.

 Starting a few years ago, the European Union (EU) launched major efforts to handle the 28 million tons of plastic waste it generates annually. Its approach is to create a circular plastics regime. The EU is already driving investments and innovations toward circular solutions in many sectors of its economy, lessening their carbon footprint and, according to experts, making them increasingly competitive worldwide. A circular economy is one in which products and materials are kept in use along their entire life, from design and manufacture to reuse or recycling — much like with natural systems. Europe’s closed-loop plastics system means every product will be designed and made so that it and its components will be used for as long as possible, repaired or refurbished if broken, and recycled into secondary raw materials multiple times without losing quality.

 Plastics is big business, employing 1.5 million people in Europe and generating $410 billion in 2019. By pushing money and innovation into the design, use, and recyclability of plastic products, the EU was able to set industry-wide targets: All plastic packaging in the EU market must be recyclable by 2030. Starting this year, companies will no longer be allowed to dump plastic waste on poorer countries. The EU has just this year banned the sale of 10 plastic products — those that most commonly litter its beaches and shores, including cutlery, straws, plates and Styrofoam food and beverage containers. By 2030, there will be a total ban on throwaway plastics, a comprehensive reuse system for all other plastics, and a large and potentially lucrative continental market for recycled plastics.

 Perhaps the most powerful aspect of the EU’s plastics strategy is creating producer responsibility. Any company introducing packaging or packaged goods will be responsible for the full cost of the collection, transportation, and recycling of its products. In essence, the polluter pays. Extended producer responsibility is already widespread in Northern and Central Europe. For example, German companies are paying $1.75 billion in fees annually to finance the transport, sorting, and recycling of their plastic waste end-materials. Since January this year, plastic producers in Europe now pay $940 per ton for non-recycled plastic waste. Producer responsibility is leading to the redesign of products with circularity in mind. Already, plastic recycling has soared to three times what it is in the U.S.

 The EU’s strategy for plastics will help it reach its ambitious climate target: cutting greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) 55 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. Reducing oil-based plastics production is projected to shave 3.4 million tons of CO2 from their carbon footprint. Imagine the impact on climate change if producer responsibility were applied to GHG emissions.

Energy Upgrades for Existing Homes

Information on how to build an energy efficient home is easy to come by these days—but what if you can’t start from the ground up? What about the 18 million homes that already exist in California? Are those of us living in existing homes relegated to changing light bulbs and adjusting thermostats?

Not at all. Enter the Home Performance contractor. Home Performance is the discipline of applying building science and retrofit techniques to existing buildings, and the results can be dramatic; numerous case studies cite total measured energy used by the home reduced by as much as 70%!

Building science developed in the 1980s along with sophisticated equipment making possible the measurement and study of buildings. By applying these tools and scientific principles, we now know how to transform the energy performance of buildings.

The good news doesn’t stop there. It turns out that many of the same retrofit measures that reduce energy use also improve the quality of indoor air, humidity and moisture levels plus the overall longevity of the structure itself. The benefits are many and varied, from reduced indoor allergies to less frequent dusting to decreased home repair work.

But what goes into an energy upgrade? Since every home is unique, a good Home Performance contractor starts by running tests to understand exactly what is needed for the specific building. With this data, the contractor then recommends the upgrade measures for maximum improvement.

Because most homes are “leaky”—that is, air can pass more or less freely between indoors and out, the first priority is to stop the leaks. Typically, we spend energy (and money) to heat or cool our indoors, but, because of leaks, we end up heating or cooling the outdoors. Home heating and cooling is by far the biggest use of energy in homes, so stopping this energy wastage represents a key first step used by the Home Performance contractor.

Most of us think of windows when we think of building air leaks, but the science shows us that windows are usually not the main culprit. Because warm air rises (the stack effect), most air escapes at the top and bottom of buildings, through the attic and the crawlspace. Consequently, air sealing is one of the most important strategies. With this single measure, both energy use and indoor air quality can be improved.

One caveat, this work should be done by a professional trained in building science and home performance. Tightening a home can have unsafe side effects. For example, if gas appliances are present, there is a danger of trapping noxious, life-threating fumes inside the home. A professional will understand these risks, and will use test equipment to verify that they’ve been avoided.