More Fading Carbon Sinks

European and British Soils Seriously Degraded by Intensive Farming 0525.rtf

Climate Change “Will Accelerate” Owing to Decline in Natural Carbon Storage 0325.rtf

Poorest Areas Have Zero Harvests Left – UN Chief 0624.rtf

Shaky Ground 0723.rtf - Selling sequestration credits is shaky, for several reasons.  1. Carbon may only move from the lower solis layers to the top foot.  2. Carbon may not stay in the ground nearly as long (a century) as the soil credit is sold for.  3. The error bars for measurements or claims are very wide, and include zero. 4. Sampling is relatively costly, so samples from a few sampled fields are combined in a computer model to estimate savings for many more unsampled fields. 5. Other lesser issues.

No-Till May Not Be the Agricultural Panacea We Thought It Was 0822.rtf - With no-till, more carbon is found in the top 10 cm of soil, but even less (than before) 10-60 cm down, for less carbon (0.28 to 2.29 tonnes / hectare) stored aross the whole soil profile.  Based on 144 studies over the last 50 years.  Un-tilled soil becomes compacted over time.

Soil-Science Revolution Upends Plans to Fight Climate Change 0721.rtf - Many, more recent, studies indicate that, when soil carbon building practices (no-till, cover crops, etc.) are used, more carbon shows up in the top.  "When farmers skipped the tilling and instead drilled seeds into the ground, carbon stores grew in upper soil layers, but they disappeared from lower layers.  Most experts now believe that the practice redistributes carbon within the soil rather than increases it.”
    Moreover, what the researchers found — or, more specifically, what they didn’t find — was shocking: there were few or no long “recalcitrant” carbon molecules — the kind that don’t break down.  Almost everything seemed to be small and, in principle, digestible.

Rice Paddies Spew Methane. New Variety Makes Them Much Less Gassy. 0225.rtf

Oil Companies Leaked Less Methane in West Texas, Report. Enviros Doubt It. 0125.rtf

Methane Emissions in Permian Basin Fall as Drillers Plug Leaks 1224.rtf

CO2 Pollution in the West Could Drop with Expansion of Electrical Grid 1024.rtf

How Factory Farming Ends, Cutting Greenhouse Gas Emissions 0824.rtf

The World Agreed to Ban Hydrochlorofluorocarbons— and It’s Working 0624.rtf