Unrelated, but those Russian peat samplers they show in the picture SUCK ASS to work with.

You punch them into the peat using your body weight. You turn it exactly 180 degrees, then you pull it up, fighting the whole time with grip and peat suction. If you turn 179 degrees or 181 degrees, you miss the slot for the fin that you created on the way down and now have to pull 10x harder.

It only takes 50 cm bites, and you need 50 cm increments to describe the peat profile. The deepest peat I dug was 780 cm.

If you push it into the underlying mineral soil, it gets stuck, and you need 2 or more people to help pull. We once devised a system of ratchet straps to help pull it up and that barely worked.

Oh and the sampler and it’s extensions are heavy as fuck, and the threads jam up. Now carry this god forsaken torture device though kilometers of spongey peat hummocks…

They probably aren’t actually doing this though - native seeds are a pain in the dick to collect - you’re not going to waste them strapping them to a dog lol

That squealing sound you will be hearing are my tires as I peal out of my driveway to go watch the northern lights tomorrow

Unfortunately, it’s vital for steel production since it’s a reducing agent and used in blast furnaces. There are other options out there but they are pretty far from being implemented AFAIK

The thing that we don’t consider in the current models is storage time when it comes to cost/credits. There’s no distinction between storing new carbon and old carbon.

I think your point still holds water in that storage is not the answer, but reduction is

No the truck is 240T I think

Honestly, I was mildly apprehensive about posting this here, since mining is generally frowned upon by environmental orientated groups. However, mining is central to renewables, whether we like it or not. It’s also been around as long as humanity. I’m not defending it’s environmental issues by any stretch. I’m very much for responsible mining and more regulation.

However, electrification of mining vehicles is a win. In some cases, it’s not going to make much difference on net emissions, but in other cases, where to have a greener grid, it most certainly will. If you have a network of solar or wind power generators nearby, it’s a no-brainer. In some cases, old waste rock piles or TSFs can be progressively reclaimed and green power generators and installed on them. While electrification doesn’t solve emissions or env. Impact on the whole but it gives the opportunity to harness other sources of power than just fuel

Poetic

@Five@slrpnk.net mod me

I don’t know why you were downvoted; you are right. Plant based is the way to go, and I say this as your typical omnivorous white dude. Until we get more buy in from people (changing diets) and from corporations, it’s unlikely to change, though.

A few points I would like to make:

1. Soil degradation of corn:soy systems is largely due to tillage. No till is better, but perhaps not as good as agroforestry

2. Proponents of agroforestry often gloss over the changes required to actually practice it. Where a farmer can use large combines to harvest corn and soy relatively easily, he now has trees interrupting harvest, or its harder to harvest the diverse cropping systems (e.g., food bearing trees). While the benefits of argo forestry are real, so are the challenges.

3. Soil C sequestration from these systems is most likely temporary, and net neutral, but will reduce input costs

4. We need to switch away from beef - eat more chikn

No, just fingers. You can do it using instruments, but they are slow and expensive.

If you want ‘accurate’ texture, you have to take the soil, put it in a cup of water, blend it up with a milkshake machine, and then measure it with a hydrometer over 24 hrs. If you’re lucky, you’ll get with in 15% of the actual value for that particular sample. The thing is, though, soils vary drastically even over short distances (or depths).

This is why I drink.

Hand texturing is rolling and molding a bit of soil between your fingers to determine texture, which is a proxy of particle size distribution (e.g. sand, silt, clay percentage). Texture lets you know soil drainage and such.

You texture each horizon to get an understanding of the profile (whole vertical slice of soil, comprised of several layers).

Since the soil slowly dries out your hands, they get pretty rough by the end of a day (or 12, 14, or 21, in my case)

Welcome to the club. Every pedologists I know is hanging on for dear life to the last tattered edges of their sanity.

Idk, I use the Canadian system

One minor point of clarification: they talk about the soil profile - in backyard settings this has been removed, and then topsoil has been brought in so you’re left with 4 inches of topsoil over your C horizon. The topsoil you have is not the topsoil that was there.

You’re very much on point.

An aside: have you heard of the Gleason rivet hypothesis?

This is it: it takes about 8 spp to hold up an ecosystem. Because we don’t know what those spp. Are, we want to maintain biodiversity, similar to how we want to have all the rivets on a plane.

Now I think Gleason was a bit off. I think there are spp that can move in and fill the function of dominant spp if they leave. Look at how coyotes fill in the niche of extripated wolves in Yellowstone - they got bigger, started hunting in packs. however you most certainly want to keep everything you have, in terms of BD

What is interesting is that plant communities diverge and converge over 100k+ year timeframes. The boreal or what have you might have looked a bit different in terms of composition a few 100k years ago. Most env. Scientists (myself included until I learned this) tend to think of ecosystems as relatively static, but that’s not the case. They, like the organisms they contain, adapt to external pressure, or die.

They say right in the article that decline in veg resulted in worse and longer climate change.

Degradation of ecosystems with invasive spp. Likely just increases the rate of veg removal

The Siberian Traps event released some 40,000 gigatons (Gt) of carbon over 200,000 years. The resulting increase in global average temperatures between 5 - 10°C caused Earth’s most severe extinction event in the geologic record”.

We are emitting more carbon than any volcanic event

Nonchalant whistling of oil executives can be heard in the background