Carbon Sequestration Workbook

CHAPTER 1:   Mechanisms of Global Warming – how methane and carbon dioxide keep infrared heat in the atmosphere – how plants absorb carbon - percentage of global climate change to greenhouse and solar irradiance. Before deciding what to do about climate change, it’s important to understand the physics and biology that are involved. While the consequences are complex, both basic mechanisms are simple: Carbon dioxide and methane are transparent to visible light, but opaque to the infrared radiation light becomes when it’s re-radiated from the surface of the Earth, so when they are at higher concentrations they trap more of the sunlight’s energy in the atmosphere and warm it up.  Plants obtain the energy they need to grow, and the substance of their bodies, by absorbing carbon dioxide and entraining energy from sunlight in carbon compounds, initially sugars, by photosynthesis, which releases oxygen. When their bodies are eaten or burned the carbon the photosynthesis has “fixed” into org

CHAPTER 2:   Past Sequestrations Ever since photosynthesis gave the Earth an oxygen atmosphere in the Precambrian, there have been fluctuations in the CO2 levels in the atmosphere. When you have an era called the Carboniferous, you know carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere must have decreased.  

CHAPTER 3:   HOW TO...  increase the area of peatlands & other wetlands, raising their outlet sills 1 cm/year to promote the formation of organic soils & peat

CHAPTER 4:   HOW TO...  replace lawns not needed for open-space human activity with stands of trees, favouring depleted native species  

CHAPTER 5:  HOW TO...  bias agricultural tillage towards practices that increase soil organic matter

CHAPTER 6:   HOW TO...  manage roadsides, right-of-ways, and other open areas for deep-rooted native tall-grass prairie plants

CHAPTER 7:   HOW TO...  direct runoff as much as possible into terrestrial & wetland communities, where the nutrients in drainage will grow biomass, rather than letting them into streams & lakes where they are pollutants

CHAPTER 8:   HOW TO...  manage forests to promote characteristics of “oldgrowth”: large trees, coarse woody debris, organic soils, and a diverse community of forest-floor herbs and fungi  

CHAPTER 9:   Reduced Emissions - a summary of the other side of the problem, emphasising household contributions to the project.

 Conclusions: