Prof. David Manning on Rock Dust: Quarries, Breweries and Beyond
Soils are a critically important natural resource, providing us with 90% of our food, lumber for construction, and natural fibers like cotton. Through plant and microbial activity, soils also play an essential role in shaping Earth’s atmosphere. The amount of carbon cycled through the plant-soil interface every seven years is equivalent to all the carbon in the atmosphere. Soils do all of this while only covering about a quarter of Earth’s surface. Sustainable soil management is therefore essential to mitigating climate change while preserving soil as a resource for ...
XPrize Foundation to Award $100M for Climate Change Solutions
Earth Day 2021 will herald the beginning of the most ambitious XPrize yet, and this time, the target is climate change. The XPrize Foundation was founded in 1994 with the mission to explore new frontiers, unleash human potential, and secure a healthy planet. This year’s contest is no exception. Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation have offered $100M, the largest incentive in XPrize history, for the teams demonstrating the most effective carbon dioxide removal (CDR) strategies. The $100M will be split across multiple prizes: three top prizes of $50M, $20M, and $10M, ...
Minerals and Microbes: Remineralization on the Isle of Jersey
Glyn Mitchell carrying hemp grown at Jersey Hemp.
The island of Jersey juts out of the English Channel just off the coast of Normandy, France. The people who live there don’t consider themselves part of the UK any more than they consider themselves part of France. It should come as no surprise, then, that the people of Jersey are taking their own approach to managing the natural resources that make the island unique in fighting climate change.
One of the people at the forefront of moving Jersey toward a more sustainable future is Glyn Mitchell, a carbon farmer with ...
New UC Davis Center Paves the Way for Rock Dust Research
If the world were to judge soil remineralization based on what could happen, rock dust amendments might already be standard procedure for the world’s farmers. The potential to use rock dust as a carbon storage tactic for climate change mitigation is well known in the scientific community, in addition to its ability to improve agricultural yields and soil health. Benefits like these are enough to make any policymaker or farmer at least consider the use of soil amendment programs, but expectations alone are not adequate to persuade any party to go “all in.”
Stakehol...
High School Student Brings Regenerative Agriculture to His Local Community
Logan Saenz, Mrs. Spencer, and community volunteers tend the Pembroke Park Agro-Eco Orchard.
Logan Li Saenz, a senior at City of Pembroke Pines Charter High School in Hollywood, Florida, is passionate about many topics. He aspires to attend a college or university “up North” to study a mixture of physics, chemistry, and social justice issues dealing with student access to scientific education and challenging research opportunities. These issues hit close to home, as he is from a Hispanic family of Nicaraguan and Colombian descent. He has made a conscious effort to ...
Grow Your Own Nutrition: Jon Frank on Minerals, Biochar, and Ramial Chips
This article is based on an interview of Jon Frank conducted by Joanna Campe.
Nutrient dense foods are an essential component to a healthy diet, yet they can be difficult to come by. To address this issue, Jon Frank founded Grow Your Own Nutrition, a program focused on consulting people on growing their own nutrient dense foods wherever they are. This user-friendly program can be applied to any soil type. In an interview with Joanna Campe, Frank explained the methods he used to create this program, as well as the importance of soil fertility.
Dr. Reams and ...
Taste the Remineralization: Rock Dust Helps Canadian Vineyard Improve Soil, Wine Grapes
Potter Settlement Artisan Winery is pioneering grapes tailored to the cold Canadian climate, taking advantage of the minerality of central-eastern Ontario to bring award-winning flavor to the wine. Minerality is probably the most important aspect of wine making, aside from the actual grapes, says vineyard owner Sandor Johnson.
No matter where you go on Planet Earth, vineyard owners will tell you how ‘mineral’ their soils are. Minerality is extremely important when it comes to wine, because it’s scientifically proven that the more mineral the soil, the higher ...
Unf*cking the Future – Afforestation of Scotland with rock dust and biochar
(All photos courtesy of the Future Forest Company.)
Deep ecology inspires innovative business model
Founding a company committed to removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through forestry may not seem unexpected for someone who grew up on a dairy farm and studied ecology in university, but for Jim Mann, starting the Future Forest Company Ltd. marked a shift in his career. Mann spent decades as an entrepreneur focused on technology, retail, and leisure companies before turning his attention to climate change.
The initial idea behind the Future Forest ...
MIT’s New En-ROADS Simulator Gives Insight on the Impact of Remineralization on Climate
Dr. John Sterman presenting the En-ROADS Simulator.
Rock weathering removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and remineralizing the soil with silicate rock dust can speed this process up, but just how much of an impact can enhanced rock weathering have on global climate change?
To better understand the magnitude of the impact that remineralization could have on global climate change, we can turn to the En-ROADS simulator, developed by Climate Interactive, Ventana Systems, and MIT Sloan1. En-ROADS allows users to test scenarios that include changes in taxes, ...
Wild Urban Spaces: Growing Micro Forests for a Greener Planet
Completed forest trail walk project. Photo courtesy of Acacia Eco.
Overview
With over 30 years of horticultural experience, Wild Urban Spaces, founded by James Godfrey-Faussett, is working to improve our environment through rapid-growth micro forests, which range from small, urban forests all the way to larger hectare forests. Based in the UK, Wild Urban Spaces uses their knowledge of organic and innovative environmental processes to create these micro forests. Their efforts to regreen the Earth teach people how to make their own impact on the environment and create a ...
