Red Baron Farms
Philosopher
Here is a reprint of a post I made on the website Conservation is Conservatism. On Freeman Dyson's thoughts about global warming. Hope you all enjoy it.
As a general rule of thumb I largely agree with your debunking of Dyson. AGW most certainly is a serious threat. However, maybe even accidently, Dyson has stumbled onto something that can solve AGW to the benefit of all, and the last couple "debunkings" of Dyson are short sighted.
It comes down to the carbon cycle and the CO2 fertilization effect. He is correct BTW that there is more carbon in the soil than in biomass and atmosphere combined. Also correct about the fertilization effect on plant growth. This is what is called a stabilizing feedback. The debunkers are also correct about the increasing emissions from the labile fraction of soil carbon as temperature increases. Called a reinforcing feedback.
Here is where it gets interesting. BOTH Dyson AND the vast majority of the debunking sources cited have focused on the wrong biome. It is NOT the forest plants that have the capability to mitigate AGW. It's the grassland/savanna biome that actually can be a forcing for global cooling, and counter the current global warming trend.
In a forest, the stabilizing feedbacks and the reinforcing feedbacks largely counter each other, and little is done long term to mitigate rising CO2 levels. But grasslands sequester carbon very differently than forests. Most grassland carbon is not sequestered in biomass, nor labile carbon in the top O horizon of the soil, but rather the newly discovered liquid carbon pathway.
Most terrestrial biosphere carbon storage is in grassland (mollic) soils. Where trees store most their products of photosynthesis in woody biomass, grasslands instead of producing a woody tree truck, secrete excess products of photosynthesis (exudates) to feed the soil food web, especially mycorrhizal fungi. Those fungi (AMF) in turn secrete a newly discovered compound called glomalin deep in the soil profile. Glomalin itself has a 1/2 life of 7–42 years if left undisturbed. The deepest deposits even longer with a 1/2 life of 300 years or more in the right conditions. Then when it does degrade a large % forms humic polymers that tightly bind to the soil mineral substrate and can last thousands of years undisturbed. Together they all form what is called a mollic epipedon. That’s your really good deep fertile soils of the world and they contain far more carbon, even in their highly degraded state currently, than all the terrestrial biomass and atmospheric CO2 put together. This LCP is what built those famously deep and fertile midwest soils.
Even though wood is resistant to decay, the biomass of forests is still considered part of the active carbon cycle (labile carbon) Fossil fuels are considered stable carbon, so adding fossil fuel carbon increases atmospheric CO2, while the active carbon cycle, including all that woody biomass, taken on a long term view approaches net zero. That litter layer on the forest floor is relatively shallow, and most that decay ends up back in the atmosphere, unless locked in some kind of peat bog or permafrost. Tightly bound soil carbon in a mollic epipedon is considered differently than the labile carbon pool. It is the stable fraction of soil carbon, and grassland biomes pump 30% or more of their total products of photosynthesis into this liquid carbon pathway.
The importance of this recent discovery of the Liquid Carbon Pathway (photosynthesis-root exudates-mycorrhizal fungi-glomalin-humic polymers-mollic epipedon) to climate science AND agriculture can not be stressed enough.
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-06668-4_5#page-1
https://web.anl.gov/PCS/acsfuel/preprint archive/Files/45_4_WASHINGTON DC_08-00_0721.pdf
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080629075404.htm
http://amazingcarbon.com/PDF/JONES-LiquidCarbonPathway(AFJ-July08).pdf
http://blogs.uoregon.edu/gregr/files/2013/07/grasslandscooling-nhslkh.pdf
So while specifically Dyson was wrong, he has identified in the most general terms the pathway forward. "Plants" is too general. Forests is categorically wrong, although we still need them for their rapid buffering capability on climate as well as many other important ecosystem services, not to mention lumber. But the forcing of CO2 mitigation long term comes from the grassland biome, now largely under agricultural management and that is plants after all. Dyson got the wrong plants and the wrong soils, but he did hit on the right concept.
The real question is can this mitigation strategy work within the conservative ideals and infrastructure to allow "green growth"
I believe it is possible, yes. But certain areas will take dramatic change for that to happen. Most importantly energy and agriculture. Right now both those sectors have already overgrown what can be sustained. Quite predictable since they were never really sustainable since the industrial revolution anyway. Just took a while for people to realise it.
For it to happen though, agriculture production models will need to be changed to regenerative systems, energy will need technological fixes like solar and nuclear etc. and overall since population has already exceeded environmental capacity, a large amount of ecosystem recovery projects will be needed as well. All of these are possible, however I personally believe they are unlikely to happen given social and institutional inertia.
My focus is on agriculture. Having studied it quite intensely for years, I believe we currently have the ability to fix that one. Only a few minor gaps remain. I can only hope others committed to the other two big ones meet with similar success. But then comes the hard part, actually doing what we know how to do before these unsustainable systems currently in effect start failing world wide, collapsing even our ability to do what we know how to do! That's the actual tricky part. I am new to this site, but it looks like the people here have the other two well in hand.
For example, if agriculture fails before we fully institute regenerative models and the infrastructure changes needed, civilization collapses. Not much going to be done about it then. AGW will see to it that all three will fail if changes are not done soon enough. Once again with the potential to collapse civilization, or at least many nations including ours. Again making it near impossible to implement what we already know how to do.
So how do we institute the changes needed in a conservative free market growth based economic base beneficial to the United States?
The other experts on this site have the energy and ecosystem down pretty good actually. That leaves the most important leg, agriculture. The answer may be more simple than you think. The rise of "king corn" can be seen as a direct result of a series of changes in agriculture instituted by Earl Lauer Butz, Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Most important to this policy change was the Buffer stock scheme (ever full granary) combined with urgings to farmers to "get big or get out". Which happened by the way. Now there is actually a crisis from too few family farmers, average age being 60. That lead to huge surpluses which we then were able to successfully use for many purposes, including major grain sales to Russia and China and many humanitarian aid projects.
Something has changed though. Now China has opened up beef sales. This is a value added commodity over grain. It makes more sense to drop the buffer stock scheme on grain, and instead I propose a buffer stock scheme on grass fed beef instead. You can do this on the same amount of subsidies that we currently use for grain, and instead put them on restoring the great prairies....raising beef. This would positively affect carbon sequestration, pesticide use, erosion, seasonal dead zones in our productive coastal waters, biodiversity, energy budget, economic growth, international trade balance, rural economic development, etc... AND if done properly, as many case studies at the USDA-SARE & USDA-NRCS clearly show, even increase total yields.
There is hope, but it gets smaller every year. Conservatives found here are the only ones with the capability of implementing the changes needed. We are the only ones with a workable plan. Next step is take the GOP so that real conservatism can push this through.
As a general rule of thumb I largely agree with your debunking of Dyson. AGW most certainly is a serious threat. However, maybe even accidently, Dyson has stumbled onto something that can solve AGW to the benefit of all, and the last couple "debunkings" of Dyson are short sighted.
It comes down to the carbon cycle and the CO2 fertilization effect. He is correct BTW that there is more carbon in the soil than in biomass and atmosphere combined. Also correct about the fertilization effect on plant growth. This is what is called a stabilizing feedback. The debunkers are also correct about the increasing emissions from the labile fraction of soil carbon as temperature increases. Called a reinforcing feedback.
Here is where it gets interesting. BOTH Dyson AND the vast majority of the debunking sources cited have focused on the wrong biome. It is NOT the forest plants that have the capability to mitigate AGW. It's the grassland/savanna biome that actually can be a forcing for global cooling, and counter the current global warming trend.
In a forest, the stabilizing feedbacks and the reinforcing feedbacks largely counter each other, and little is done long term to mitigate rising CO2 levels. But grasslands sequester carbon very differently than forests. Most grassland carbon is not sequestered in biomass, nor labile carbon in the top O horizon of the soil, but rather the newly discovered liquid carbon pathway.
Most terrestrial biosphere carbon storage is in grassland (mollic) soils. Where trees store most their products of photosynthesis in woody biomass, grasslands instead of producing a woody tree truck, secrete excess products of photosynthesis (exudates) to feed the soil food web, especially mycorrhizal fungi. Those fungi (AMF) in turn secrete a newly discovered compound called glomalin deep in the soil profile. Glomalin itself has a 1/2 life of 7–42 years if left undisturbed. The deepest deposits even longer with a 1/2 life of 300 years or more in the right conditions. Then when it does degrade a large % forms humic polymers that tightly bind to the soil mineral substrate and can last thousands of years undisturbed. Together they all form what is called a mollic epipedon. That’s your really good deep fertile soils of the world and they contain far more carbon, even in their highly degraded state currently, than all the terrestrial biomass and atmospheric CO2 put together. This LCP is what built those famously deep and fertile midwest soils.
Even though wood is resistant to decay, the biomass of forests is still considered part of the active carbon cycle (labile carbon) Fossil fuels are considered stable carbon, so adding fossil fuel carbon increases atmospheric CO2, while the active carbon cycle, including all that woody biomass, taken on a long term view approaches net zero. That litter layer on the forest floor is relatively shallow, and most that decay ends up back in the atmosphere, unless locked in some kind of peat bog or permafrost. Tightly bound soil carbon in a mollic epipedon is considered differently than the labile carbon pool. It is the stable fraction of soil carbon, and grassland biomes pump 30% or more of their total products of photosynthesis into this liquid carbon pathway.
The importance of this recent discovery of the Liquid Carbon Pathway (photosynthesis-root exudates-mycorrhizal fungi-glomalin-humic polymers-mollic epipedon) to climate science AND agriculture can not be stressed enough.
http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-06668-4_5#page-1
https://web.anl.gov/PCS/acsfuel/preprint archive/Files/45_4_WASHINGTON DC_08-00_0721.pdf
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080629075404.htm
http://amazingcarbon.com/PDF/JONES-LiquidCarbonPathway(AFJ-July08).pdf
http://blogs.uoregon.edu/gregr/files/2013/07/grasslandscooling-nhslkh.pdf
So while specifically Dyson was wrong, he has identified in the most general terms the pathway forward. "Plants" is too general. Forests is categorically wrong, although we still need them for their rapid buffering capability on climate as well as many other important ecosystem services, not to mention lumber. But the forcing of CO2 mitigation long term comes from the grassland biome, now largely under agricultural management and that is plants after all. Dyson got the wrong plants and the wrong soils, but he did hit on the right concept.
The real question is can this mitigation strategy work within the conservative ideals and infrastructure to allow "green growth"
I believe it is possible, yes. But certain areas will take dramatic change for that to happen. Most importantly energy and agriculture. Right now both those sectors have already overgrown what can be sustained. Quite predictable since they were never really sustainable since the industrial revolution anyway. Just took a while for people to realise it.
For it to happen though, agriculture production models will need to be changed to regenerative systems, energy will need technological fixes like solar and nuclear etc. and overall since population has already exceeded environmental capacity, a large amount of ecosystem recovery projects will be needed as well. All of these are possible, however I personally believe they are unlikely to happen given social and institutional inertia.
My focus is on agriculture. Having studied it quite intensely for years, I believe we currently have the ability to fix that one. Only a few minor gaps remain. I can only hope others committed to the other two big ones meet with similar success. But then comes the hard part, actually doing what we know how to do before these unsustainable systems currently in effect start failing world wide, collapsing even our ability to do what we know how to do! That's the actual tricky part. I am new to this site, but it looks like the people here have the other two well in hand.
For example, if agriculture fails before we fully institute regenerative models and the infrastructure changes needed, civilization collapses. Not much going to be done about it then. AGW will see to it that all three will fail if changes are not done soon enough. Once again with the potential to collapse civilization, or at least many nations including ours. Again making it near impossible to implement what we already know how to do.
So how do we institute the changes needed in a conservative free market growth based economic base beneficial to the United States?
The other experts on this site have the energy and ecosystem down pretty good actually. That leaves the most important leg, agriculture. The answer may be more simple than you think. The rise of "king corn" can be seen as a direct result of a series of changes in agriculture instituted by Earl Lauer Butz, Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Most important to this policy change was the Buffer stock scheme (ever full granary) combined with urgings to farmers to "get big or get out". Which happened by the way. Now there is actually a crisis from too few family farmers, average age being 60. That lead to huge surpluses which we then were able to successfully use for many purposes, including major grain sales to Russia and China and many humanitarian aid projects.
Something has changed though. Now China has opened up beef sales. This is a value added commodity over grain. It makes more sense to drop the buffer stock scheme on grain, and instead I propose a buffer stock scheme on grass fed beef instead. You can do this on the same amount of subsidies that we currently use for grain, and instead put them on restoring the great prairies....raising beef. This would positively affect carbon sequestration, pesticide use, erosion, seasonal dead zones in our productive coastal waters, biodiversity, energy budget, economic growth, international trade balance, rural economic development, etc... AND if done properly, as many case studies at the USDA-SARE & USDA-NRCS clearly show, even increase total yields.
There is hope, but it gets smaller every year. Conservatives found here are the only ones with the capability of implementing the changes needed. We are the only ones with a workable plan. Next step is take the GOP so that real conservatism can push this through.
