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Monday, September 30, 2019

Reincarnation & Climate Change: Pause and Reflect

If reincarnation is real, then what impact might climate change have on your ‘future’? What venues will be available (or not) for succeeding incarnations? So, when you ask of yourself if you have a soul, a spirit, the answer takes on greater import in the ‘now’.

Reincarnation has been discussed for over a thousand years and experts, like the late Canadian Psychiatrist Dr Ian Stevenson, researched the subject and wrote books showing that there was much evidence to prove that reincarnation existed.

Search: Ian Stevenson Reincarnation

Ten Reincarnation Stories (15 min):
https://youtu.be/pq_AbsnAgH8

If the above interests you, then also search ‘Dr. Raymond Moody’ and his books. You have a lot to look forward to.

Sunday, September 29, 2019

When Localized Greenhouse Effect Works For You

One evening, while living in the Rio Grande Valley and helping my father cover his citrus trees to help protect them against a freeze predicted for later that night, I found myself hoping and praying for heavy overcast to replace the current clear skies. We’d never heard of the greenhouse effect at that time, but we knew that a blanket of clouds (water vapor) would slow down the escape of Earth’s heat.

My dad had already flooded the ground around the trees and prepped his smudge pots to be lit at the appropriate moment (for the blanketing effect of carbon laden air).

As the thermometer continued to slowly but surely drop, we nervously sat listening to the reports on the radio. Then, just as temperatures neared freezing, a bank of clouds moved in over the region and the rate of temperature decrease slowed and stopped at 30 degrees (F.). An hour later, the sun peeked over the horizon and very slowly the temperature began to rise. Damage to the fruit and trees was avoided.

My point is that even though some people may not believe in the greenhouse effect, they’re almost certainly not citrus growers.

Friday, September 27, 2019

Visible Light, Infrared Radiation and the Greenhouse Effect Defined

Visible light (short wave, higher frequency photonic energy) and infrared radiation (long wave, lower frequency photonic energy) are  part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Search:
‘electromagnetic spectrum quantum physics’

When visible light strikes the surface of the Earth, that which is not reflected back into space is absorbed and converted into heat and is conducted throughout the material that absorbed it. 
Search:
‘what is heat temperature’

Any air that comes into direct contact with it absorbs some of it via conduction and is then convected away. 
Search:
‘what is heat transfer’

The remainder of the heat from the material’s surface is steadily emitted away as long waved infrared radiation. 
Search:
‘Infrared radiation’

It passes freely through the small molecules of the atmospheric gases nitrogen, oxygen and argon. However, the larger atmospheric molecules such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, etcetera have a ‘quantum mechanics’ based affinity for absorbing and re-emitting infrared radiation — thus, slowing down its escape into space. It is this ‘blanketing effect’ on infrared radiation that makes life on Earth possible — for without it there could be no liquid water on the planet. But, of course, it’s possible to have “too much of a good thing”.

Understanding the Greenhouse Effect:
https://samslair.blogspot.com/search?q=Greenhouse+effect&m=1

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/climatesciencenarratives/what-is-the-greenhouse-effect.html

https://science.nasa.gov/ems/13_radiationbudget

https://skepticalscience.com/Second-law-of-thermodynamics-greenhouse-theory.htm

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Agroforestry in Amazon (and other tropical forests)

“For thousands of years tropical rainforests have been managed to sustain productive agriculture and, at times, to support dense human populations. Studies suggest that perhaps 12 percent of Amazonian terra firme (upland) forests are anthropogenic in nature, resulting from prolonged management by prehistoric populations. The fact that certain forms of agriculture are possible is a vital consideration for the sustainable, economic development of tropical rainforests.”
In short, the harmonious regenerative agricultural practices of indigenous farmers is desirable — whereas the monoculture industrialized agribiz requiring heavy use of artificial fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides and genetically modified crops is not.

Furthermore, the fact that the Amazon makes its own rain (self sustaining hydrological rain cycle) benefits all, including the agribiz operation. Clearing the land of the rainforest weakens that cycle. The Amazonians farming there before Columbus relies heavily on perennials more than annuals and did not clear cut vast expanses. The rain cycle was maintained. 

The Chinese, who will be including Brazil in their Belt and Road Initiative, in order to secure long term food sources, need to realize this and work with Brazilians so as to not ‘kill the goose that lays the golden eggs’.

https://rainforests.mongabay.com/1002.htm

Monday, September 23, 2019

Greenhouse Effect Is A Good Thing

Visible light is electromagnetic, short wave photonic energy. When it strikes the surface of the Earth, that which is not reflected away into space is absorbed and converted into heat (infrared energy). This heat is conducted throughout the material that absorbed it. Any air that comes into direct contact with it absorbs some of it via conduction and is then convected away. The remainder of the heat from the material’s surface is emitted away as infrared long waved radiation which passes freely through the small moleculed atmospheric gases of nitrogen, oxygen and argon. However, the larger atmospheric molecules such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, etcetera have a quantum mechanics based affinity for absorbing and re-emitting this infrared radiation — thus, slowing down its escape into space. It is this blanketing effect on infrared radiation that makes life on Earth possible — for without it there could be no liquid water on the planet.

Search:
‘samslair blogspot greenhouse effect

Understanding the Greenhouse Effect:



Sunday, September 22, 2019

Global Warming: Religion, Spirituality and Nature’s Laws

"More than ever, it is time for us to move from religiosity to spirituality, which means supplementing the belief in God with the knowledge of divine laws – that is, universal, natural, and spiritual laws. The well-being we seek, including on a material plane, is to be found in this knowledge and in the wisdom that ensues. An ancient Rosicrucian adage says, “It is from ignorance and ignorance alone that humans must free themselves.” Ignorance is at the origin of the worst things a person can do to oneself, to others, and to one’s environment. It is also the source of different superstitions that demean humanity and prevent it from finding complete fulfillment. Therefore give a spiritual direction to your life. Do not just be a living thing, be a living soul." 

In my mind, this includes denying basic physical laws such as those that describe the blanketing of infrared radiation by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Also included is understanding cycles such as the carbon cycle, hydrological cycle, Milankovitch cycle, etcetera which are important in understanding of natural climate cycles.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/climate-basics/climate-primer/natural-climate-cycles

Saturday, September 21, 2019

Evil and Ignorance...

...often achieve the same results.

Those who knowingly speak untruths are called liars, and all liars are thieves — whether to steal your trust or what’s yours. Meanwhile, those who unknowingly speak untruths are either ignorant, self-delusional or assuaging their fears. 
We should note that the further one strays from the truth, the more unreal is their personal reality and the more libelous their nature becomes. They become more and more of a liability to themselves and to others. An example of such is demonstrated by the inability or unwillingness of some to comprehend the blanketing effect that carbon dioxide has upon infrared radiation. 
Search:
‘samslair blogspot greenhouse effect’ 

‘samslair blogspot drawdown solutions’

Real World Observations of Water Vapor as a Greenhouse Gas

Have you ever noticed that deserts are often colder at night than forests, even if their average daytime temperatures are the same? Without much water vapor in the atmosphere over deserts, the infrared radiation they give off escapes readily into space. However, in more humid regions, radiation escaping from the surface is slowed down considerably by water vapor in the air. Similarly, cloudy nights tend to be warmer than clear nights because more water vapor is present so much so that citrus growers know that when a ‘severe frost warning’ is given, an influx of heavy cloud cover will save their crop. [I know, because lived surrounded by miles of citrus orchards in the Rio Grande Valley for thirty years.]

Citrus Farmers Understand Greenhouse Effect:
http://samslair.blogspot.com/2019/09/citrus-farmers-understand-greenhouse.html?m=1

Global Warming: Comeasurement of Water Vapor and Carbon Dioxide:
http://samslair.blogspot.com/2019/08/global-warming-comeasurement-of-water.html?m=1

Friday, September 20, 2019

Global Warming: The Physics of the Greenhouse Effect (and more)

For adults wanting to understand what the greenhouse effect is all about, begin by watching the educational series of short video clips that begins with:
https://www.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/phy03.sci.phys.matter.greenhouse2/global-warming-the-physics-of-the-greenhouse-effect/#.XYQmICVOnDs

To summarize, short wave, radiant, visible light travels unimpeded thru the atmosphere striking and heating the Earth’s surface which then radiates heat back into the atmosphere as long waved infrared radiation where large atmospheric molecules like water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane slow down the escape of infrared radiation back into space. We had been living in the Goldilocks Zone of ‘not too much’ and ‘not too little’ of CO2. Not so, anymore.

Also, search:
samslair blogspot greenhouse effect

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

Tropical Rainforests Are the Most Imperiled Forests and ...

“....each day at least 80,000 acres of forest disappear from Earth. At least another 80,000 acres of forest are degraded. Along with them, the planet loses untold numbers of species to extinction, the vast majority of which have never been documented by science. As these forests fall, more carbon is added to the atmosphere, climatic conditions are further altered, and more topsoil is lost to erosion...”

Behind Forest Loss:
https://amp.mongabay.com/rainforests/0801.htm

Search:
samslair blogspot amazonia

Monday, September 16, 2019

Global Warming: We’ve Been Warned for Past 50+ Years

Until now, every USA president since 1965 has warned about global warming. Even oil companies did so until the early 90s. Here are some  videos documenting that we’ve known about global warming since the 1950s:

1984 Documentary “The Greenhouse Effect and Planet Earth” (31 minutes):
https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/the-greenhouse-effect-and-planet-earth

Shell Oil's Stark Climate Change Warning from 1991 (28 minutes):
https://youtu.be/vTlYYlRN0LY

Climate Science 1956: A Blast from the Past (10 minutes):
https://youtu.be/sdALFnlwV_o

1980: Walter Cronkite on Climate Change (2 minutes):
https://youtu.be/MU9s0XyEctI

Climate Change 1958 (2 minutes)
https://youtu.be/m-AXBbuDxRY

If you enjoyed the above, then consider a look at Earth’s Climate History —
“Richard Alley: "The Biggest Control Knob: Carbon Dioxide in Earth's Climate History" (56 minutes):
https://youtu.be/RffPSrRpq_g

Sunday, September 15, 2019

Citrus Farmers Understand Greenhouse Effect

Citrus growers have, perhaps, understood the reality of greenhouse effect better than anyone else for a long time. When freezing conditions threaten their trees, they all pray for skies overcast with heavy clouds. Why? Because water vapor is a greenhouse gas many more times potent than carbon dioxide. This didn’t stop them from breaking out the smudge pots and burning diesel to enhance the ‘infrared blanketing effect’ over their orchards. 


Saturday, September 14, 2019

Global Warming: Time, Faith, Hope and Charity

The reluctance and inability to understand and accept that carbon dioxide and other large molecular gases like water vapor and nitrous oxide have a ‘blanketing effect’ upon infrared radiation’s heat transfer is due to inadequate physical science education and fear engendered neuroses.
The only known antidotes are time and faith, hope and charity. Time for truthful information to be accurately disseminated and time for it to be assimilated. Faith that enough people will see the truth. Hope that they will assimilate it in time to help make a difference, and the charity to give them the time they need to grow past the fears that obscured the truth.

[Meanwhile, here are dozens of 
“Doable Drawdown Solutions” that will improve our quality of life:
https://www.drawdown.org/solutions]
Humor:
https://www.liveabout.com/thmb/4vc6we6yx1cwMgLEYRUos2ZhJqo=/500x334/filters:fill(auto,1)/What-If-Its-A-Hoax-56a74f4c5f9b58b7d0e8f300.jpg

Thursday, September 12, 2019

Oceanic Hydrate Off Gassing: Yet Another Tipping Point

There is such an over abundance of well documented effects of global warming in relation to ocean acidification, melting glaciers and ice sheets, melting permafrost and oceanic hydrate, etcetera that unless someone has been hiding ‘under a rock’ all of their lives, they know that ‘climate change’ is upon us and that greenhouse gas levels are not decreasing. The oceans have, thus far, been absorbing most of the heat and the CO2, hence ocean acidification.
https://www.ucsusa.org/global-warming/global-warming-impacts/co2-ocean-acidification
However, warmer water can hold less dissolved gases and will someday be off gassing. This is but one of a variety of tipping points that will converge as a consequence of higher than normal CO2 levels.

Search:
global warming tipping points
Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipping_points_in_the_climate_system#Tipping_points_for_global_temperature
Environmental Defense
http://blogs.edf.org/climate411/2017/11/01/everything-you-need-to-know-about-climate-tipping-points/

Carbon Drawdown: Regenerative Agriculture

“Industrial agricultural techniques like deep tilling, mono-cropping and an overuse of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, have diminished our soil’s natural ability to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. This means that the C02 that would normally be drawn down into a healthy, carbon-pumped soil, is now staying in the atmosphere and contributing to the warming planet.
Switching to regenerative practices will restore soil health and function, reboot plant activity aka photosynthesis, and enable nature to re-balance our currently out-of-whack carbon levels. Regenerative agricultural techniques include: using cover crops and perennials to protect the soil, no tilling, no pesticides or synthetic fertilisers, multiple crop rotations and bringing grazing animals back on the land in ways that mimic natural cattle migration. Regenerative agriculture also offers many benefits beyond carbon storage! It increases the soils water holding capacity, stops soil erosion, protects the purity of groundwater and sets up the conditions for crops to become more disease and pest resilient. The benefits are many-fold.
This kind of farming system improves our health by increasing the nutritional value of our food, the health of our planet by regenerating our soils and increasing the ability for soil to sequester carbon from the atmosphere, and the livelihoods of the farmers by providing better yielding crops in the long term.”

https://whatsyour2040.com/regenerative-agriculture/

https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/what-regenerative-agriculture

https://regenerationinternational.org/why-regenerative-agriculture/

Search:
walter jehne + regenerative agriculture

Re: Cattle and Methane
It is not the pastured cattle causing the problem. It’s those in feed lots being fed unnaturally. And there are other factors — watch three minutes of video starting at the 02:22 minute mark:
Regenerative Agriculture-
https://youtu.be/mMFNqaBXBwo
Search:
grass fed cattle regenerative agriculture methane

Supplemental:
Approaches to the “Drawdown of Carbon Dioxide”
https://samslair.blogspot.com/2019/06/doable-approaches-to-drawdown-of-carbon.html?m=1

Universal Misconceptions About the Greenhouse Effect

Many global warming deniers and believers both have misconceptions about the Greenhouse Effect.

The popular term ‘greenhouse effect’ is merely an analogy used to help describe the blanketing effect that carbon dioxide has on infrared radiation (even the term ‘blanketing effect’ is an analogy’). To better understand the science of how carbon dioxide slows down the escape to space of infrared radiation, one needs to understand that CO2 absorbs and re-emits this long wave form of energy. Extra CO2 increases this dynamic.
https://scied.ucar.edu/carbon-dioxide-absorbs-and-re-emits-infrared-radiation

‘Thermal radiation’ is the emission of energetic electromagnetic waves otherwise known as ‘infrared radiation’. 
This is sometimes confused with ‘thermal conduction’ (heat transfer within objects).
Note that, yes, objects do radiate heat, but it is in the form of long wave infrared radiation. However, when you touch a warm object, the heat that you feel is physically and directly thermally conducted; and your ‘now warmer hand’ will radiate an increase of infrared radiation into the atmosphere. Thus, you have absorbed and re-emitted heat just as carbon dioxide does. 
[Note: It is only the larger atmospheric gases that can absorb and re-emit infrared energy. Nitrogen and oxygen do not.]
http://samslair.blogspot.com/2019/08/carbon-dioxide-absorbs-and-re-emits.html?m=1

Thermal Radiation:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_radiation

Thermal Conduction:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_conduction

Another difficulty for some is to comprehend how a trace gas such as CO2 could have such a powerful influence in the greenhouse effect.
Well, saying that CO2 is "only a trace gas" is like saying that arsenic is "only" a trace water contaminant. Small amounts of very active substances can cause large effects. 
https://skepticalscience.com/CO2-trace-gas.htm
Also, consider the co-measurement of water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere such that if you could bring all the clouds and water vapor in the atmosphere to the surface, it would form a ‘liquid’ layer less than an inch deep, and clouds alone would create a layer no deeper than a coat of paint. And if just this past year’s carbon dioxide emissions alone could be confined to an undiluted layer of pure CO2 at the surface of the Earth, the layer would be about 1.5 inches thick. Now, multiply that times the number of years.....

Carbon Dioxide and Water Vapor As Greenhouse Gases:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/if-carbon-dioxide-makes-u/

Supplemental Information: 
“Debunking Myths About CO2, Global Warming and Greenhouse Effect”
(26 minutes):
https://youtu.be/rs3JSF5_0as

Advanced study of greenhouse effect
(62 short videos):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLX2gX-ftPVXUNpoyWX5PeZQy5CNlPh0r3

Search:
greenhouse effect quantum physics

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Political Satire Netflix Series: Patriot Act

While researching the backstory to the forest clearing fires in Brazil, I accidentally stumbled upon a delightfully informative and comically entertaining political satire. Though I was busy with other things, I kept pausing YouTube and coming back to finish it. Then, later, I wound up hitting their channel button and watching more on other subjects. I learned more watching a comedy satire than if I’d watched a documentaries.
“Brazil and the Amazon” 
(20 minutes):
https://youtu.be/xt8EcSyjPY8
Or, if you don’t want to click on the link, search:
‘patriot act Amazonia’

This show about Brazil is an episode from a greatly delightful TV series called “Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj”. “It explores the modern cultural and political landscape with depth and sincerity that is both timely and timeless.”

There are a dozen other episodes on  YouTube. Just search for “Patriot Act”.

There are 32 episodes in four seasons on Netflix.

Netflix:
https://www.netflix.com/title/80239931

Search:
‘patriot act netflix’

Supplemental:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act_with_Hasan_Minhaj

More on the subject of Amazon Deforestation:
https://samslair.blogspot.com/search?q=Amazon&max-results=20&by-date=true&m=1

Shortsightedness of Agribiz in the Amazon Basin

While being interviewed, a soybean farmer in the Amazon basin haughtily ridiculed environmentalists for having predicted that the tropical rainforest soil would rapidly be deleted after being cleared and farmed. He proudly proclaims that he’s raised 18 crops of soybeans in 9 years and is still going strong. However, he fails to mention his heavy use of artificial fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, genetically modified seeds and huge loans necessary to sustain the yields. He doesn’t foresee that, as the Amazon shrinks and its hydrological cycle weakens, so will his yields. The banks won’t be there to bail him out, and neither will the Chinese. Instead, when he can’t pay back his agribiz loans, they’ll pick his bones as clean as those of the wildlife he left bleaching in the equatorial sun of the privatized Amazon.

Note: Artificial fertilizers are used to bolster tired and depleted soils in non-regenerative farming. Nitric oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, is released in both its production and its usage. So, not only is the world’s most  concentrated display of nature being destroyed and all of its carbon released, but what replaces it will bring about an increased rate of global warming.

Search:
nitric oxide greenhouse gas
https://grist.org/article/2010-02-23-new-research-synthetic-nitrogen-destroys-soil-carbon-undermines/

Search:
monsanto bayer amazonia soybeans

Note: Pesticides and genetically modified soybean seeds are produced by Monsanto (Bayer).  
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto

Comment: All of this is indicative of minds that are, also, unable and unwilling to  understand that carbon dioxide has a blanketing effect on infrared radiation. 
Perhaps one reason that our military minds have a better grasp of our planet’s precarious future is that they understand and rely on infrared technology. Indeed, judging from the curriculum of our military academies, they understand more than just the physics of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

There Are No Natural Fires In Tropical Rainforests

Since the Amazon fires are focusing our attention more on the destruction of the rainforests, let me note that there’s no such thing as “natural” tropical rainforest wild fires. Any rare natural fires that do occur only burn forest floor leaf litter with flames no more than a few inches in height. People who live in tropical rainforests know this and take it for granted that we do too. 

Paleoecology, the study of ancient environments, offers unique insights into how the first Amazonian peoples manipulated fire in the landscape, the effects of those fires on the forest’s ecology over time, and lessons for today. Layers of charcoal buried below the rainforest’s surface reveal that for ‘thousands of years’, the Amazon’s ancient inhabitants used fire to clear the ‘forest floor’ for agriculture—and that it had a lasting effect, making ‘those areas’ more fire prone today. But unlike many of the current fires, set to flatten the forest entirely, those indigenous fire practices left trees standing.

Search:
no natural fire tropical forests

Note: When you see televised footage of Amazonian grass and brush burning in the news, you’re seeing what was once tropical forest that has been forcibly cleared previously at some point in time. 
         I personally remember when only 1% of the rainforest had been cleared. We’re now at about 20% gone and during that time Brazilian weather stations have recorded decreasing rainfall. With a further 5 - 15% of deforestation, the positive precipitation water cycle feed back loop that keeps 50-80% of the ecosystem’s moisture in play will be broken. Once that happens, the Amazon will get drier and drier (and that’s not even factoring in any climate change variables). Not only will the plants and animals disappear, but the agriculture that crowded them out will also wither.

Monday, September 9, 2019

Skeptics and Believers Agree: Amazon’s Diminishment Has Disruptive Implications

As global climate change proceeds, generally speaking, dry areas will become drier and moist areas wetter.
And even though Amazonia is noted for its rains, its hydrological cycle is becoming glitchy as evidenced by a series of record breaking floods and droughts. With this in mind, think about how the various ways that the continued deforestation of the Amazon basin will interplay with global warming. 
Note: You can be a climate change skeptic and still recognize that the Amazon’s regional hydrological cycle depends on the existence of the rainforest. Furthermore, weather patterns indicate that the diminishment of the atmospheric water vapor exiting South America will even impact the Southwest in the  USA and even Asia. Everything is connected.

Search:
samslair blogspot hydrological dieback

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/11/how-cutting-the-amazon-forest-could-affect-weather/

https://rainforests.mongabay.com/amazon/rainforest_ecology.html

Sunday, September 8, 2019

Will China Be Amazonia’s Ultimate Destroyer?

China is securing the resources of the Amazon for itself, especially those that will feed the Chinese in the precarious future imposed by climate change. To do so, China is including the countries of the Amazon in its Belt and Road Initiative, which will accelerate the final destruction of Amazonia. China is already experiencing water shortages as desertification encroaches on them from the north. Thus, for two decades they have been securing farmland and food sources around the world to feed their people in a precarious future. 
What’s tragically ironic for all of us is that the disruption of the Amazonian hydrological cycle will both directly accelerate China’s desertification and strengthen global warming. Meantime, the loss of the Amazon’s natural wonders is on all of us.

Saturday, September 7, 2019

Slash-and-Char: Boost Crop Yields for Subsistence Farmers

Slash-and-Char (instead of slash-and-burn) is one of many, many ways of doing things in an improved manner that can benefit all life. To the degree that this is implemented by subsistence farmers, they can gradually reduce the amount of new tillable land that they need to clear each year — instead of slash-and-burn and then having to move on again and again and eventually coming back to the first plot and repeating the process, they can gradually lengthen the time that they can utilize a spot before it becomes depleted. Eventually, they can continuously farm just one spot and allow the other spots to be used to raise nut or fruit trees or whatever else that doesn’t require tilling. Thus, food production expands.
Note: This practice can be encouraged by international organizations that work to improve the lives of poor people, especially in the education of women.
Search:
international groups educate women
Also:

Friday, September 6, 2019

Making Biochar: Slash-and-Char Instead of Slash-and-Burn


As a side note for the not so distant future, replacing ‘slash-and-burn’ with ‘slash-and-char’ could be encouraged “thru the nascent carbon trading market that sponsors carbon sequestration projects and could supplement the subsistence farmer’s income while building up a more sustainable agriculture and slowing deforestation.”

Note: After reading about using ‘slash-and-char’ (that produces soil amending, crop boosting biochar) instead of ‘slash-and-burn’ (that leaves only ash), it’s obvious that slash-and-char is the desirable field clearing method. 
“It sequesters considerable quantities of carbon in the safest and most beneficial fashion, as opposite to the negative effects of the slash-and-burn. Switching to slash-and-char can sequester up to 50% of the carbon in a highly stable form.” 

There are two problems. One is the labor intensitivity of doing so (at least initially / in the long run though, it pays huge dividends), and the other is that biochar is NOT a fertilizer. Indeed, it’s like a sponge that retains organic matter, nutrients and moisture to prevent their loss. Fresh char made from cellulose first absorbs nutrients from the soil, then later begins releasing what it has kept from leeching away. It works best in acidic soils like tropical rainforests. The practice allows annual cultivation of the same fields, rather than slash-and-burn practices necessary to eke out crops on new land every few years. Given a stable location for agriculture and soils made fertile by char, a steady food supply is possible.

One big advantage with slash-and-char is that you’re not cutting down forests to produce char. You’re merely preventing the almost complete wastage of the biomass that slash-and-burn would have resulted in. 
[I do not support purposely raising, logging trees to create biochar.]
Search: wikipedia biochar

Though I haven’t made biochar ‘per se’, I had a lifetime of experience hand clearing and burning brush and trees in the monte of south Texas. While living on my ranch, I also burned our household trash — which I did using a pit. Burn trash, backfill with dirt from the new pit dug next to it, repeat. As I watch videos of biochar being made and in thinking of how subsistence farmers around the world are ruining their topsoil using slash-and-burn, it occurs to me that if they’d use hoes to scoop long, very shallow depressions with minimal sloping, stack their detritus in them instead of into piles on level ground, and then burn — they could easily shovel the dirt back into the depression and onto the now smoldering wood. Or, avoiding high temperature charring, simply build not so big piles on open ground and begin tossing dirt onto the smoldering char at the appropriate rate and time. I can visualize how I’d do it; but, it’s hard to describe. After a few years of doing it and laying the successive trenches side by side, as the years went by and tilling proceeded over the years, experience would teach one what more was needed to refine the technique. For example, I don’t know how long it is before crop yields would be boosted after introducing char to the soil, though I believe that once the char is imbued with the nutrients that it has kept from being washed away that the yields will remain higher in perpetuity. I would hope that there are individuals and organizations already engaged in developing the production and use of biochar in areas like the Amazon — I just haven’t read about any.

Note: Though the Amazonians who made Terra Preta famous were wiped out by diseases that the Spaniards with Orellano spread and, thus, their techniques were lost, I’m guessing that some of the NGOs in the Amazon today could work with the indigenous people to revive the methodology / especially in this new age of finding  carbon drawdowns. This includes ‘regenerative farming’ and the use of biochar.
https://samslair.blogspot.com/2018/10/el-dorado-biochar-and-conquistador.html?m=1

http://samslair.blogspot.com/2019/09/amazonias-subsistence-farmers-why-and.html?m=1

Thursday, September 5, 2019

Spirituality and the Greenhouse Effect

The advancement of humanity may very well depend upon our realizing that we each have a soul/spirit and, also, upon our intellectual ability to understand the greenhouse effect. Ironically, both involve understanding at inner levels that which we cannot physically and directly sense. 

Let us then describe the greenhouse effect first, since the failure of mankind as a whole to appreciate it may bring the human race face-to-face with spiritual reality all too soon. Though perhaps, contemplating our spiritual nature might help raise our level of consciousness sufficiently such that we might better understand the interplay of Newtonian Physics and Quantum Mechanics in the Greenhouse Effect. 

Actually, I only understand some of the quantum functions. Not enough to try to explain it, so I’ll post some links at the end to help with that. Instead, I’ll content myself with the following —
Visible sunlight (short wave electromagnetic radiation) passes through the atmosphere and strikes the surface of the Earth and is either reflected back into space or converted to heat. This heat is conducted throughout the object. This is called ‘thermal conduction’. As the object gives off heat in the form of long wave electromagnetic energy (infrared radiation) called ‘thermal radiation’.  As this infrared radiation radiates outward, it passes thru the atmosphere. It does not interact with the smaller air molecules such as nitrogen and oxygen. It does, however, interact with the larger molecules such as carbon dioxide and water vapor. These greenhouse gases absorb and re-emit this ‘thermal radiation’, thus slowing down the heat’s escape into space. This is the ‘greenhouse effect’ and is what  keeps the Earth from being a frozen ball of ice
https://scied.ucar.edu/carbon-dioxide-absorbs-and-re-emits-infrared-radiation

How Quantum Mechanics Explains Global Warming (5 minutes):
https://youtu.be/-EJOO3xAjTk

Wednesday, September 4, 2019

Destruction of the Amazon

For the best balanced and succinct backstory to the Brazilian fires, either click on the link(s) below or search:
the week + briefing + destruction of amazon

https://theweek.com/articles/861886/destruction-amazon-explained

https://www.google.com/amp/s/theweek.com/articles-amp/861886/destruction-amazon-explained

Additionally:
Global and regional climate change is causing an increasing frequency and intensity of floods and droughts in the Amazon. We all know about global climate change; but, some of us are just now learning about the hydrological cycle in the Amazon.
Search:
amazon floods droughts increasing

Additionally:
Brazil’s privatized deforestation policy has allowed the burning of the Amazon rainforest. The current rash of fires is the result of a rush to plant soybeans that brought ‘land-grabbers’ to raze Amazonia so it can be used to feed hogs and chickens in China. The boom in the soy market threatens not only the Amazon rainforest, but is causing grasslands too to be converted to rows of soybeans, pushing cattle ranchers off the savanna and into the forest, where they too burn down trees to make pasture.
Search:
samslair blogspot Amazon soil

Additionally:
The thousands of fires burning the Amazon rainforest are the result of a rush to plant soybeans that brought land-grabbers to burn the woods so it can be used to feed hogs and chickens in China.

Both Argentina and Brazil have dramatically increased areas in which to grow even more soybeans as the Chinese came calling after they stopped buying from American farmers due to President Trump’s trade war.

The boom in the soy market threatens not only the Amazon rainforest, but is causing grasslands too to be converted to rows of soybeans, pushing cattle ranchers off the savanna and into the forest, where they too burn down trees to make pasture.

https://www.courthousenews.com/land-grab-for-soybeans-blew-up-the-amazon-rain-forest/

Additionally:
Meanwhile, the loggers first rip off the big bucks, and then the ranchers and big biz farmers clear, burn and deplete the soil which is already the poorest and most infertile in the world. When one cuts down the forest, it is irretrievably lost. The humus layer is all too soon washed out. Hence, the evil of destroying the Amazon rainforest is exponentially increased.
Because of corruption that circumvents environmental safeguards, buying ‘any’ imported beef, timber, soybeans or palm oil from Brazil is irresponsible.
‪https:fightingthebiocrisis.wordpress.com/2013/12/18/how-can-the-amazon-support-so-much-life-is-it-due-to-soil-fertility/

The farms created by destroying the Amazon can only grow crops for about 10-15 years (even with the use of fertilizers, pesticides and genetically modified crops)  before they turn into equatorial desert, and new land needs to be cleared. But it’s all about short-term profits.
https://eblnews.com/video/how-one-rich-american-helping-burn-amazon-profit-738258

“What If We Cleared the Amazon?” 
(8 minutes):
‪‪https://youtu.be/hb3b-A6QAc8‬‬

“Amazon Tropical Forest ‘Dieback’ As Hydrological Cycle Disrupted”
https://samslair.blogspot.com/2019/08/amazon-tropical-forest-dieback-as.html?m=1
Search:
“Amazon Forest Dieback Scenario”

My Comment:
I can remember when only 1% of the Amazon jungle had been deforested and oil companies explained the science of the Greenhouse Effect.
I can, also, remember when there were no reliable contraceptives. Some things get better; some things get worse. The battle between ‘good and evil’ continues.