"THE CARBON CYCLE" For millions of years the ecosystem has been spinning carbon gases into black gold. Great pressure and heat over time transformed gases into solids forming vast banks of coal and oil beneath the earths' surface. 150 years ago the engine of the Industrial Revolution was bankrolled by the black gold and the steam engine industrialized the western world - and great wealth and prosperity came from changing those fossilized solids and liquids back into gases. Now that's how to exploit the Carbon Cycle. Dig up millions of years of planet pressure at work, burn it and sell the energy. Apparently, we are over-doing he CO2 in the atmosphere, producing more CO2 than we want, why? because it's not clearing, it's hanging around becoming a blanket warming up the planet - a blanket we just don't know how to kick it off. What is to become clear, the way we use the land has led to the soil releasing into the atmosphere more CO2 than all the power stations and cars put together. Dr Rattan Lal, Professor of Soil Science at Ohio State University and Director, Carbon Management and Sequestration Center, USA, has calculated that 476 Gt of carbon has been emitted from farmland soils due to inappropriate farming and grazing practices, compared with 270 Gt emitted from over 150 years of burning of fossil fuel. We have misunderstood the role of systems within systems. We have not connected the dots. Producing greenhouses gases isn't the problem - it's half the problem - the world can handle far more - but unwittingly we have sabotaged ourselves - we haven't taken care of [pardon the analogy but I think it works] the plumbing. The plumbing is blocked and nothing will go down the sink analogy - and we are not conscious that we have a blockage in the sink because we are looking up at the smoke stacks - but we need to call a plumber! In this case we need a soil expert - like the Earthworm - the healthier the soil the better the sink - carbon sequestration - and carbon as a food enriches soil. It is to our great advantage that we determine the cause of global warming is NOT excess CO2 from burning fossil fuels, that is only one source. We need to expand this view to include soil. As complex as it is, it appears there are a few causes. Naming the cause is an opportunity to deal with it, indeed recognizing that soil is depleted, one can make valued judgements, and return the soil to good health. To cool the planet it's best to identify the major polluter is soil and ask questions to understand why the soil is acting this way. Then to go about remedying the problem and make soil healthy again. It's a win win. The soil becomes healthier absobs all the excess CO2 and the planet is greened. The better solution is to treat the root cause - anythingis is a temporary fix. The root cause is the sink is blocked. It's the same for heart operations, they don't change the heart and leave the arteries blocked, they unblock the arteries before changing the heart. I say fix the cause - the blockage is in the Carbon Cycle. Soil has the answers There's quite a lot of talk about doubling our energy useage by the year 2050. There's compelling reason enough to take advantage of every CO2 sequestration means available to man. The persistant reliance on electricity to run machines that society is based and intertwined makes our world turn - we cannot let go. We have tried to tame soil, but all we have done is suck the life out of it, and with its' last gasp - breathed out all its' stored CO2. "The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself" (Roosevelt 1937) Worms are King If soil is the throne then worms are King - and that they rule is beyond any sensible banker - but in another way it's just bringing them forward a few years when your 6 foot under... and being buried (sequestering) is probably more green that being cremated (emissions) - so the worm will get you in the end - whenever. We might as well give in to them now, let them do their work and enrich the soil and save the planet. It is one of the primary, if not the primary solution to global warming. CO2 is fuel, an energy supply to soil and in balance we have - soil carbon sequestration - which allows the gas to move from the atmosphere into the soil as the start of its million year journey to become solid carbon again. The Carbon Cycle includes sinking the gases in soil, which improves yield productivity through promotion of healthy soil bacteria - and restores and sustains land useage - cools the planet by sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere - and making it a very productive renewable soil. *Dig a pond near a power station that has a carbon problem - fill it with water and algae - capture and pump CO2 from the power station into the pond and let the algae party until it's never gonna stop - and they make a lot of furtilizer for the soil. It's really simple, as soon as the penny drops and someone pulls the plug, carbon and its' respective wealth will flow again. The planet is greened, food production is up, there's plenty of water, the weather's fine - and let's keep some oil for a rainy day and switch to Renewables.