Not only is the soil the world's largest CO2 bank (i.e. it holds the biggest promise of substantial mitigation), the very actions that would bring this improvement about will also reflect on a myriad other aspects of our diseased modern ecology, and socio-economic issues.

The IPCC scientists made it clear that agriculture is the largest contributor to global warming - so it only makes sense that corrections in how we farm hold the potential to make the biggest improvements.

Our soil, however, holds more CO2 than all our vegetation and the atmosphere combined. Or, at least, they should do... :)

"To grow enough corn for ethanol to replace our oil addiction would require approximately 482 million acres of cropland, exceeding the current total of 434 million acres of cropland used for all food and fiber. This does not even account for projected growth of oil consumption in the U.S. There is already the push to put the marginal Conservation Reserve Program lands, vital for wildlife and water quality and quantity, into intense energy crop production.

Old school ethical farmers in the corn belt are already lamenting the destruction of soil saving windbreaks, some planted during the CCC years, the plowing under of hayfields to corn, highly erodable hilly lands being put into corn, and water drainages being reduced, hearkening back to the depression era insanity that squandered so much vital topsoil. Cellulostic ethanol scams will fare even worse for the soils as "residues" are scooped up, leaving virtually nothing to feed back to the soil.

"The nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself," said President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In the rush to burn our nation's dwindling soil resources, corn is king. Corn devours soil nutrients at 12-20 times the rate of soil renewal, meaning it is already a highly unsustainable crop. Corn is also highly dependent on fossil fuel based fertilizer and pesticide inputs. With the inevitable hybridization and Genetically Modified Organism corn crops, the soil nutrient depletion will accelerate. The Corn Cartel, led by the likes of Archer Daniels Midland and Monsanto, have been working for decades on their plans for corn dominion over the U.S. and are now reaping record profits and subsidies."

Ethanolics Unanimous:
http://www.counterpunch.org/haldeman06262007.html

Lester Brown of Earth Policy Institute released "LOSING SOIL" today.
http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Seg/PB2ch05_ss3.htm

And if you haven't already read it, Alice Friedemann's "Peak Soil: Why Cellulosic Ethanol, Biofuels are Unsustainable and a Threat to America," is excellent.
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_con ...

I just posted 'Losing Soil' today.

You may also enjoy this post (and this, and this).

I think one of our biggest problems is that the 'solutions' are provided/offered by a people wholly detached from natural systems. Politicians, and the industry leaders that influence them, are more detached from nature than any people that have ever existed before them on this planet.

Yet, we call ourselves 'developed'.

"Cellulostic ethanol scams will fare even worse for the soils as "residues" are scooped up, leaving virtually nothing to feed back to the soil."

Which is why we have to...

Derive most of our biomass for cellulosic biofuel -- not necessarily ethanol -- from mixed stands of native perennial grasses and forbs, as well as wood processing waste and wood products recycled to the point where fibers are broken down and no longer useful. Given that roughly 30% of a grassland's newly fixed carbon ends up underground, the soil will slowly be improved over time rather than depleted.

Feel free to assault corn (grain) ethanol. Feel free to assault irresponsible farming practices. But please don't condemn an otherwise useful means of expanding our energy options and reducing harm to the environment.

hee hee hee  : )

Grist readers who haven't seen the Celsias list of agrofuel articles, here's the link ~

Biofuels - It's Getting Annoying Now:
http://www.celsias.com/blog/2007/03/28/biofuels-its-getti ...

The student 'Stop BP-Berkeley' website also has a useful list of agrofuel articles and up to date news on what's happening with the BP-Berkeley deal
http://www.stopbp-berkeley.org/media.html

"Stop GE Trees" contains articles about Arbor Gens plans for GE tree fuel plantations in the Southeast U.S.
http://www.stopgetrees.org/

Tad Patzek's biofuel studies are on his website and he also puts up information not seen elsewhere.  

Such as this: Sugarcane Workers in Brazil speak ~
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/BiofuelQA/Materials/ ...
And this:
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/BiofuelQA/Brazil/bra ...

The Tad Patzek website:
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/patzek/index.htm

Back to Celsias website - Craig Mackintosh has an excellent series on animal agriculture and its' effect on the environment.

"Save the World With Your Fork."
http://www.celsias.com/blog/2006/11/22/save-the-world-wit ...

Cellulosic ethanol is not close to becoming commercially available, and faces technical barriers which may not be overcome in the foreseeable future. Much of the cellulosic ethanol R&D investment is going into genetic engineering, without any risk assessment having been done.

Fischer-Tropsch biodiesel faces different serious technological hurdles, and R&D in that
technology might inadvertently aid greater consumption of coal. There has been no assessment
of the consequences of using large amounts of biomass from so-called `plant waste', from tree
plantations, or from perennial crop plantations on food production, on ecosystems, global
greenhouse gas emissions, soil fertility or water supplies. This means that there is no evidence
that large-scale second-generation biofuels would be either sustainable or climate-friendly.

Read the full report on Biofuel Watch
http://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/inf_paper_2g-bfs.pdf

Is that over the entire US total emmisions.

Or total emmisions from ag?

-David Ahlport

If it's 10% total US then damn, thats a nobrainer.

-David Ahlport

Using prairie to restore soil, protect aquifers from drought, and as a location for wind farms as well as sequestration, added to sequestration from the mass conversion to organic farming could reverse GHG disaster.  If/when CO2 emmisions are cut to a fraction of the present level using distributed renewable electrical generation and storage and conservation from plugin hybrids and geothermal heating/cooling.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin