THE SOIL CARBON SOLUTION

               is now URGENT

Cut emissions or not? It means nothing.

It won't stop global warming and the tipping point to irreversibility is, at best a few short years away. We have to take out of the air, the past fifty year accumulation of carbon dioxide. And do it now.

We must sequester this excess into our agricultural soils. Nothing else has even a remote chance of working. That gets the air back to normal, and the heating stops. The Earth's average temperature quickly returns to normal. We pay our farmers at least $10 a ton for CO2 sequestered into stable humus and soil organic matter. And let them work out the best way of making their money. And we pay on results.

Big stable, democratic, agricultural countries are the key. Australia is the biggest, then the US and so on down. China is actually slightly bigger than Australia and the US.

If that doesn't work, We're Stuffed. If all the ice on land melts, and that's on the cards, then sea levels will rise 75 metres. That's 250 feet. Just one metre, three feet, and that along with all these strange new "freak" weather events will kill millions of us and cost billions.

Simultaneously we start the switch to non fossil carbon energy systems. If that takes twenty years, that's okay, just so long as it happens, so the levels can't go back up all over again.

But the soil fix can only be used once.

The SOIL CARBON SOLUTION

It is feasible and practical to stop global warming right now. We remove the excess carbon dioxide that's causing the problem and we totally halt climate change. And we do it with soil.

The now depleted mid-US prairie soils can rapidly be returned to the fertility and depth shown in this early photo. (From the papers of late Professor William A. Albrecht. University of Missouri College of Agriculture, and courtesy of Chuck Walters, Jr.)

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the blanket that sets the average temperature of our Earth's biosphere. It is now too thick and the biosphere is overheating. Merely decreasing the rate at which we continue to thicken the blanket is of little value. It's just academic. It'll just get hotter. Less light globes and smaller cars and trying somehow to lower emissions in an increasingly affluent world, just won't work.

Even a huge reduction in our rate of using fossil carbon fuels cannot stop constant, progressive, endless, global temperature rises. But we can take what's there out.

The air is overloaded with carbon dioxide, simple calculations show that there are, today 660 billion tonnes more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than before human beings ever existed on this planet, and back even beyond that for at least a million years. We put all that extra there in less than one hundred years.

At $10 per tonne for carbon dioxide the bill to totally eliminate the Earth's global warming problem is therefore $6,600 billion. And the problem is gone.

It has become glaringly obvious that our only hope to remove the accumulated excess greenhouse gasses is by the efficient and economical sequestration of carbon dioxide into agricultural soil. We convert the carbon in atmospheric carbon dioxide, into carbon in soil humus. And humus is the material that makes poor soils fertile. Strong agricultural chemicals hinder the rapid formation of fertile soil. You can see a simplified explanation of how soil carbon sequestration works at – Climate Change Terminated 2 http://www.youtube.com/user/AllanYeomans1

Each nation in the world pays approximately 1% of its GDP(Gross Domestic Product), for ten years to their farmers to significantly improve the health and fertility and productivity of the nation's soils. And global warming ends. Because a nation's historic responsibility for causing global warming correlates closely to its GDP the 1% figure is surprisingly consistent for all countries.

The recent report by Sir Nicholas Stern, who headed Britain's Government Economic Service and formerly served as the World Bank's chief economist, tells us very clearly that the consequences of global warming could cost between 5% and 20% of the world's gross domestic product (GDP), annually. That's a bill for between $1,200 billion and $4,800 billion annually for the next hundred years.

So 1% for ten years to halt global warming has to be economic common sense.

The US based Natural Resources Defense Council, the NRDC estimates global warming costs for the United States, and not the total, but just considering, hurricane damage, real estate losses, energy costs, water costs, and insurance costs will eventually reach $1,900 billion annually. In addition the US along with all other developed nations will be expected to supply massive aid to offset global warming damage and global warming manifestations in dozens of undeveloped countries.

Australia will also be an aid donator, adding to its own climate change problems. One estimate for Australia's, internal global warming damage bill is that it will likely exceed 1% of GDP or $10 billion per year, but at the very least $8 billion per year, and will be ongoing for probably at least a century or more. Another estimate for Australia is that the damage, just to The Great Barrier Reef, with its consequential fishing and tourism losses would be $37 billion.

Some more accurate examples of a nation's share of responsibility for the $6,600 billion are; the United States 27.13% that's $577 per person per year for ten years. For Australians it's $381 per year for ten years. But we should also understand that; you cannot decrease the wealth of a nation, by paying its farmers to increase the fertility of its soils. For China it's $40 per person per year for ten years. For Japan it's $246 and for India it's just $12.26. Not fixing the problem has the horrifying costs.

When the evidence shows global warming seems now to be proceeding faster than forecast, then the probability of extreme loss of life and property, the strong possibility of the destabilization of national states along with massive and desperate environmental migration is surely an illogical gamble to even consider. It is expected that the heating will soon become irreversible from, among other things, uncontrolled tundra methane releases.

Still, some say we should wait for more evidence. That is not wise. I say -- A global warming skeptic is somebody who believes, that the gun, he is holding at your head, is almost certainly not loaded.

If atmospheric carbon dioxide levels can be returned to preindustrial levels or near those levels and thus global warming be avoided and halted, then we must make the attempt. As well as being immeasurably self serving, it is also our moral, ethical and humanitarian responsibility to do so. Those accumulated greenhouse gasses must be removed and their removal is probably the most urgent necessity we all currently face.

In addition to their removal we must soon cease using fossil carbon material as our prime source of energy. Alternative fuel and energy systems are already available and these by economic necessity must surely include both large scale tropical grown biofuels and nuclear energy.

This complete change away from fossil fuels may take a few decades, but that can be tolerated provided we accomplish the removal of our current excesses of atmospheric carbon dioxide quickly and efficiently.

Why are we not doing it now? Sadly, all too often, the obvious is only obvious in hindsight. And of course some organizations, most notably agro-chemical companies, argue that soil carbon sequestration cannot be done, will not work, or will never be sufficiently effective. That opinion is possibly, biased as the petro and agro chemical industries are second only to the fuel transport industries in the world use of oil.

If the agrochemical industries are right in claiming that enhancing the fertility of the world's soils won't work, it means that governments would pay out nothing. There would be no costs. Costs occur only if it works. And if it does work, if it is as successful as indications show it probably will be, then we totally beat global warming, and chaotic climate change ends forever.

HOW WE MAKE IT HAPPEN

To end global warming we pay to our farmers a remuneration of $10 minimum per tonne for the carbon dioxide they remove from the air by converting it into soil organic matter.

On a land holder's nominated area a program would commence and run until the nation's historic carbon dioxide accumulations have been sequestrated - probably less than fifteen years. Alternatively an individual program should run for a minimum of ten years.

Trial areas and test depth would be nominated and delineated by the land owner. Depth would be not less than 300mm or 12 inches. Carbon levels would be checked at least biannually.

Initial test hole locations would be determined randomly and, as a recommendation, be at a distance not greater than 10% of the distance from the geometric centre of each nominated area. Subsequence test would then be located at a random distance, and in a random direction from previous tests.

Prior to carbon content testing, all fibrous material, specifically plant and animal material not yet decomposed would be removed by screening.

Where disputes occur the underlying principal must be that the objective is the removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Remuneration would be determined by a test measuring the carbon content of the soil at the pre-nominated depth then calculating the carbon dioxide equivalent per hectare, (or per acre), increase from the previous test.

Remuneration to participating land holders would preferably be in the form of tax credits otherwise in the form of a tax exempt payment, as a taxable deduction, or as a direct payment to be classified as taxable income. But whatever the nature or the reward it's essential it be extremely attractive to the land holder.

It is a worthwhile consideration for a higher remuneration to be paid, such as $50 per tonne for a period of say five years. This would be to significantly encourage wide spread initial participation in the program. Such a start up incentive would be equitable and just, for those first participants will be the ones experimenting and developing the best, most economical and most viable systems to end world global warming for all of us.