gorilla
07-22-2006, 10:17 PM
This is a very worthwhile link. Caught an ad on a commercial.
http://fightglobalwarming.com
And, because this is a growing forum: Here's a page on the site about the science of agriculture behind global warming.
Agriculture: Acres of opportunity
Though worldwide agriculture and especially deforestation contribute a great deal to the problem of global warming, in the U.S. agriculture accounts for only about seven percent of the country's heat-trapping emissions. More importantly, because the industry has dramatic capacity to soak up global warming gases, American agriculture has the unique opportunity of offsetting its own emissions and those of other industries. If farmers and livestock owners voluntarily choose to modify some of their on-farm practices, they could access a new carbon market while improving their land and water quality at the same time.
Plants and trees thrive on CO2. That's why talking to your plants works—the CO2 we exhale is key to plants' development. On a larger scale, as plants and trees grow, they absorb CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and store it as carbon in wood, leaves, roots and soils.
While CO2 can be beneficial to plant life, it is also threatening our Earth's climate. What has happened since the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1700s is that the Earth's natural carbon balance (between what is stored on Earth in dead organic matter and what is emitted into the atmosphere through processes like photosynthesis) has been thrown out of whack. We're emitting too much of it and retaining too little of it. This is where agriculture can help. Farmers, tree farmers and other folks who work the land have powerful opportunities to slow global warming.
Troubles and opportunities of climate change
U.S. farmers have a great deal at stake in global warming. As the Jan. 11, 2006, Farm Journal pointed out, "Climate changes affect every aspect of how you farm and what you produce."
Global warming will likely cause more severe droughts in the Corn Belt and more pests and disease all over. The recent six-year drought in the West followed by torrential rains provides a taste of what a warmer world likely has in store for America's food producers. Some farmers might be able to take advantage of warming. For instance, "double-cropping"—the ability to produce two crops in the same year—could become possible in certain areas. But the losses could far outweigh any gains.
The real opportunity for growers lies in the technologies and techniques that can reduce heat-trapping emissions. These include using, producing and expanding renewable energy, increasing efficiency and storing more carbon in the soil. As business and government policies offer economic incentives for storing heat-trapping gases, farmers who adopt new practices can enter a whole new marketplace and get paid by private markets for how they grow in addition to what they grow.
Fixes for farming's potent heat-trapping gases
In the U.S., modern farming relies heavily on gasoline-powered, CO2-producing equipment such as tractors and harvesters. Yet CO2 is only the third biggest heat-trapping emission from the agriculture sector. The top two greenhouse gases in farming and ranching are nitrous oxide and methane. Both are emitted in relatively small amounts, but they are extremely potent global warmers. Thus, ton for ton, methane and nitrous oxide reductions have a great effect on the atmosphere.
Nitrous oxide stays in the atmosphere for about 120 years and traps heat about 300 times more effectively than carbon dioxide. It is produced through the interaction of soils with nitrogen fertilizer. By using less nitrogen fertilizer, farmers can both cut these emissions and keep their costs lower. Better management of the fertilizer they do use also means that fewer soil nutrients are washed into ground and surface waters.
Turning animal waste into energy
Methane is released mainly from animals and manure piles. It stays in the atmosphere for about 10 years and is 20 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. A carbon market would place a high value on these types of reductions.
Covering manure pits and changing animal feed can reduce animal-produced methane and provide a whole new market for the livestock industry. Larger operations can convert manure into a power source. Anaerobic digesters use heat and bacteria to eat animal waste; then they capture and burn the methane gas for energy. The process has been around since the 1920s and took off in Europe when petroleum was in short supply during World War II. Over the past decade, it has re-emerged.
Holsum Dairies, in Hilbert, Wisconsin, uses a waste-to-energy system that powers parts of its 3,700-cow farm. It also has enough left over to sell power to a local utility. The odorless solid and liquid remnants of the manure are used as fertilizer and cow bedding, respectively.
By cutting methane and nitrous oxide and producing electricity from captured methane, some farm operations have begun selling credits for reduced emissions to companies and individuals who wish to cut their own pollution. (Find out more about carbon offsetting.)
"Growing" fuel for energy
Biofuels are animal waste and plant materials that can be burned to generate energy or converted into fuels. For example, ethanol, the much discussed biofuel made from corn and other crops, can be used instead of gasoline in some cars. Biodiesel made from soybeans is a substitute for diesel. While producing biofuels does release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it can be better than burning coal or other fossil fuels, depending on how it is produced.
Burning fossil fuels releases carbon that has been stored in the earth for millennia. Burning plants releases the carbon dioxide that they absorbed while they were growing, but heat-trapping gases are also emitted during cultivation and production of the biofuel. Thus, a key factor in how effective biofuels are in fighting global warming is the energy efficiency of their production methods. These include everything from running plows and harvesters to manufacturing pesticides and fertilizer to converting the material into fuel and transporting it. Improving land use through sustainable practices such as no-till farming, and boosting energy-efficiencies make biofuels more effective at reducing heat-trapping pollution.
Farmlands: A storage space for carbon dioxide
If managed in certain ways, forests and farmlands can store large amounts of carbon. Both tilling soil and clearing forests for cropland and roadways release carbon dioxide into the air. But reducing soil disturbance, conserving or planting forests, and restoring grasslands all remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Taking advantage of this storage capacity is often referred to as "carbon sequestration."
U.S. farmers can profit from storing more carbon in their soil. For example, the Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Association, which represents 300 farmers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho who own about a half million acres, joined with Entergy, a Louisiana-based energy company. The association promotes direct seeding, a technique that minimizes tilling and keeps more carbon in the soil. Direct seeding has other benefits, too—the soil is more productive, erosion is reduced and wildlife habitat is better. The farmers make money by switching to direct seeding—Entergy will lease 30,000 tons of carbon offsets over a 10-year period from them. (More about carbon offsets, including how to buy them.)
http://fightglobalwarming.com
And, because this is a growing forum: Here's a page on the site about the science of agriculture behind global warming.
Agriculture: Acres of opportunity
Though worldwide agriculture and especially deforestation contribute a great deal to the problem of global warming, in the U.S. agriculture accounts for only about seven percent of the country's heat-trapping emissions. More importantly, because the industry has dramatic capacity to soak up global warming gases, American agriculture has the unique opportunity of offsetting its own emissions and those of other industries. If farmers and livestock owners voluntarily choose to modify some of their on-farm practices, they could access a new carbon market while improving their land and water quality at the same time.
Plants and trees thrive on CO2. That's why talking to your plants works—the CO2 we exhale is key to plants' development. On a larger scale, as plants and trees grow, they absorb CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and store it as carbon in wood, leaves, roots and soils.
While CO2 can be beneficial to plant life, it is also threatening our Earth's climate. What has happened since the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1700s is that the Earth's natural carbon balance (between what is stored on Earth in dead organic matter and what is emitted into the atmosphere through processes like photosynthesis) has been thrown out of whack. We're emitting too much of it and retaining too little of it. This is where agriculture can help. Farmers, tree farmers and other folks who work the land have powerful opportunities to slow global warming.
Troubles and opportunities of climate change
U.S. farmers have a great deal at stake in global warming. As the Jan. 11, 2006, Farm Journal pointed out, "Climate changes affect every aspect of how you farm and what you produce."
Global warming will likely cause more severe droughts in the Corn Belt and more pests and disease all over. The recent six-year drought in the West followed by torrential rains provides a taste of what a warmer world likely has in store for America's food producers. Some farmers might be able to take advantage of warming. For instance, "double-cropping"—the ability to produce two crops in the same year—could become possible in certain areas. But the losses could far outweigh any gains.
The real opportunity for growers lies in the technologies and techniques that can reduce heat-trapping emissions. These include using, producing and expanding renewable energy, increasing efficiency and storing more carbon in the soil. As business and government policies offer economic incentives for storing heat-trapping gases, farmers who adopt new practices can enter a whole new marketplace and get paid by private markets for how they grow in addition to what they grow.
Fixes for farming's potent heat-trapping gases
In the U.S., modern farming relies heavily on gasoline-powered, CO2-producing equipment such as tractors and harvesters. Yet CO2 is only the third biggest heat-trapping emission from the agriculture sector. The top two greenhouse gases in farming and ranching are nitrous oxide and methane. Both are emitted in relatively small amounts, but they are extremely potent global warmers. Thus, ton for ton, methane and nitrous oxide reductions have a great effect on the atmosphere.
Nitrous oxide stays in the atmosphere for about 120 years and traps heat about 300 times more effectively than carbon dioxide. It is produced through the interaction of soils with nitrogen fertilizer. By using less nitrogen fertilizer, farmers can both cut these emissions and keep their costs lower. Better management of the fertilizer they do use also means that fewer soil nutrients are washed into ground and surface waters.
Turning animal waste into energy
Methane is released mainly from animals and manure piles. It stays in the atmosphere for about 10 years and is 20 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide. A carbon market would place a high value on these types of reductions.
Covering manure pits and changing animal feed can reduce animal-produced methane and provide a whole new market for the livestock industry. Larger operations can convert manure into a power source. Anaerobic digesters use heat and bacteria to eat animal waste; then they capture and burn the methane gas for energy. The process has been around since the 1920s and took off in Europe when petroleum was in short supply during World War II. Over the past decade, it has re-emerged.
Holsum Dairies, in Hilbert, Wisconsin, uses a waste-to-energy system that powers parts of its 3,700-cow farm. It also has enough left over to sell power to a local utility. The odorless solid and liquid remnants of the manure are used as fertilizer and cow bedding, respectively.
By cutting methane and nitrous oxide and producing electricity from captured methane, some farm operations have begun selling credits for reduced emissions to companies and individuals who wish to cut their own pollution. (Find out more about carbon offsetting.)
"Growing" fuel for energy
Biofuels are animal waste and plant materials that can be burned to generate energy or converted into fuels. For example, ethanol, the much discussed biofuel made from corn and other crops, can be used instead of gasoline in some cars. Biodiesel made from soybeans is a substitute for diesel. While producing biofuels does release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, it can be better than burning coal or other fossil fuels, depending on how it is produced.
Burning fossil fuels releases carbon that has been stored in the earth for millennia. Burning plants releases the carbon dioxide that they absorbed while they were growing, but heat-trapping gases are also emitted during cultivation and production of the biofuel. Thus, a key factor in how effective biofuels are in fighting global warming is the energy efficiency of their production methods. These include everything from running plows and harvesters to manufacturing pesticides and fertilizer to converting the material into fuel and transporting it. Improving land use through sustainable practices such as no-till farming, and boosting energy-efficiencies make biofuels more effective at reducing heat-trapping pollution.
Farmlands: A storage space for carbon dioxide
If managed in certain ways, forests and farmlands can store large amounts of carbon. Both tilling soil and clearing forests for cropland and roadways release carbon dioxide into the air. But reducing soil disturbance, conserving or planting forests, and restoring grasslands all remove CO2 from the atmosphere. Taking advantage of this storage capacity is often referred to as "carbon sequestration."
U.S. farmers can profit from storing more carbon in their soil. For example, the Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Association, which represents 300 farmers in Washington, Oregon and Idaho who own about a half million acres, joined with Entergy, a Louisiana-based energy company. The association promotes direct seeding, a technique that minimizes tilling and keeps more carbon in the soil. Direct seeding has other benefits, too—the soil is more productive, erosion is reduced and wildlife habitat is better. The farmers make money by switching to direct seeding—Entergy will lease 30,000 tons of carbon offsets over a 10-year period from them. (More about carbon offsets, including how to buy them.)