back to the garden - carbon and humus

permaculture is about discovering nature/god's patterns and implementing them in our agriculture, and indeed our culture as a whole. if life has a number, it's the number six: carbon.

carbon exists in many forms. of course, it is concentrated in fossil fuels, the burning of which puts carbon into the air as greenhouse gases.

but carbon is also found in living things. the burning of forests and the erosion of living soil, or humus, also puts carbon into the air.

david holmgren, in Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability, writes that a "valuable storage of carbon is created when we simply allow plant material to rot back into the soil. Organic matter, especially carbon-rich bulky plant materials, is the fuel for soil micro-organisms, which in turn are the key to the cycling and availability of plant nutrients." p. 36.

"Changing the management of farmland to use organic and permaculture strategies and techniques can rebuild this storage of carbon... It is arguably the greatest single contribution we can make to ensure the future survival of humanity." p. 37.

"Alan Yeoman ... has arguewd that loss of humus from agricultural soils is as large a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions as motor cars, and that achievable increases in humus across the world's farming soils could reabsorb the whole of the damaging imbalance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere." p. 39

to be continued...