CS2. Manila as Climate Change City

MANILA - Today, on my initiative, Manila will lay claim as the Climate Change City of the World. And I'm only half joking.

26 September 2009; in Marikina, when it rained, it didn't pour - it spilled, too much water too soon, a month's supply of rain in 6 hours. It looked as if Mother Nature had gone berserk, and in fact she had. We made her insane.

Today, how do I explain Climate Change? It's Mother Nature, her temperatures rising.

Temperatures Rising
She can't take it anymore,
children.
We shot the arrows into the air;
Our Mother was stung,
we know not where.
Take that! Carbon dioxide,
one heat-seeking missile.
And that! Nitrous oxide,
two heat-seeking missiles.
And that! Methane,
three heat-seeking missiles.
~!@#$%^&*()_+{}:"?
Finally, she got the idea.
She got mad.
So, she made the planet hotter,
the waters on the islands
and in the seas rise faster
into the air.
She loaded the clouds more,
snapped her fingers,
and down went the heavier rains
in lesser time
than the lands could take it.
Take that!
And that!
And that!
She couldn't take it anymore.
We can't take it anymore.

Mother Nature is mad; Homo sapiens is madder, for making her mad.

Extreme sports, extreme videos, extreme crimes, extreme affairs, extreme exploitation and extreme arrogance - we are in The Age of Extremes. But those are nothing.

The assaults on the Twin Towers and Pentagon were nothing.
The war in Iraq is nothing.
The military rule in Burma is nothing.
Hunger in the whole of Africa is nothing.
HIV/AIDS in the whole hedonistic world is nothing.
The assault on gender freedom is nothing.
The attack by the White House on Fox News is nothing.
The runaway population is nothing.

Temperatures rising is everything.

Coolly, I am reading the September 2009 issue of the Aggie Green & Gold, the official quarterly publication of the College of Agriculture, CA, of the University of the Philippines Los Baņos based in College, Laguna, some 60 km south of Manila. On page 6, LHF Vergara reports on the 1st CA Symposium-Workshop on Climate Change that was held 06 July 2009. I note: It took the College to first notice temperatures rising, or the College is interested in climate change but the University is not? It must be that the farmers are affected but the professors are not.

In the plenary session, Professor of Statistics and Co-Chair of the University Interdisciplinary Program on Climate Change, IPCC, Felino P Lansigan said that the global temperature had increased by 0.2°C in the last 10 years. He said:

Here in Los Baņos alone, a 0.5°C increase was recorded, making low-lying areas vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

Temperatures rising, waters rising, clouds dropping rains too much too soon. That's climate change.

In the same occasion, Dean of the School of Environmental Sciences and Management and Chair of the University's IPCC Ma Victoria Espaldon talked about 'a number of finished studies and projects as well as plans on how to catch up with climate change.'

I'm not entertaining any planning; I'm entertaining any doing. We can't plan to catch up with climate change; it's already here, and it surrounds us. We must do something, anything.

During the second session of the Los Baņos symposium-workshop, the Agricultural Systems Cluster of the College proposed technology interventions in response to climate change. But the report stopped short of mentioning those interventions, except to say 'information and technology transfer' (I suppose, where the experts tell the non-experts what they don't know and exactly what they have to do), and 'development of models for appropriate production systems' (I suppose, computer modeling of the growing of crops and raising of poultry & livestock species that can tolerate soils and weather that are becoming badder and badder). I want to go beyond suppose.

In the same issue of the Aggie Green & Gold, among other people, Teodoro 'Ted' Mendoza, Professor of Crop Physiology, is reported by LB Lanosia Jr & EC Ros as having been appointed UP Scientist I, the title being actually an award:

A specialist in crop physiology, he has authored 53 technical papers and designed courses which are currently offered at UPLB. He is also a recipient of international awards for (the last) eight consecutive years and other numerous citations.

Remarkable enough, but more than that, Ted Mendoza is to me the true-blue 1st Climate Change Scientist of the University of the Philippines, period. He has written audaciously about it; for instance, I published one of his papers, 'Are Biofuels Really Beneficial for Humanity?' in the Philippine Journal of Crop Science, December 2007 issue, when I was Editor in Chief of that journal. (The answer: It depends.) He estimates that he has written 40 papers published in refereed journals here and abroad related to climate change. He has also been invited to speak in many public forums on such topics.

And he has put his foot where his mouth is. What he did in the middle of this month prompted my new blog, The Moncada Initiative, which is dedicated to Big-Ani (big harvest), his current pet project, where he is Consultant, which is dedicated to climate change agriculture. (For more details on the project, click these links: 'Moncada Initiative. BIG-ANI as climate change farming' and 'Pro-Rich! The poor we have always with us.')

For climate change, Project Big-Ani begins with organic fertilizer. That's what Ted Mendoza has come up with that the farmers can do in the farms.

What about us in the non-farms? Now, I have been searching here and there in the World Wide Web about what you and I and they can do about climate change. I just stopped at the point where some experts are saying we don't have much lead time and that if we had just a little time to mitigate climate change, we need to capture carbon dioxide a thousand times faster than we have shot it into the air already.

For this purpose, soil carbon has been proposed as the way to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rapidly. Soil carbon is 'the fastest way of sequestering carbon,' Tim Flannery said (as quoted by Michael Kiely, 03 July 2009, thefifthestate.com). We only have a short while to solve the problem. 'Unless it is resolved in the next two decades, it will destroy our global civilization.'

I half-believe him; the problem is that he didn't tell us how we could do it; and the rest of the article merely talked about the Carbon Coalition and the selling of carbon credits.

Not so fast, Carbon Coalition! If you're talking about planting native perennial grasslands plus new methods of growing crops plus new soil treatments plus regrowth of native vegetation as your soil carbon plan to sell for carbon credits, you're not so fast.

But if by 'new soil treatments' you mean organic fertilizer which results in an organic matter soil (OMS), I'm listening. But if you're looking for the fastest single solution to climate change, I'm sorry I don't think soil carbon is the one; I rather think OMS is better. In any case, soil carbon is only part of an organic matter soil, and it comes without saying, no big deal.

OMS likes it hot! I mean, if you create organic matter soil in all hot spots, those cultivated as well as the deforested lands and open fields all at once - even without planting native grasses, even without new methods of growing crops, even without reforestation - you have already created a carbon sink that is as massive as you can't imagine.

You can make OMS in 3 weeks or less; ask Ted Mendoza if you don't know how. You can use plant refuse; there's plenty of sawdust, or coconut husk, or coir dust, or rice hulls, or rice straw, or pig manure, or poultry manure, wild grass or any vegetation growing or not. Think of all that garbage that comes out of your home or office. Collect them as organic matter and apply that on all those thirsty and hungry soils and what have you got?

(a) A mulch that stops water evaporating from the land.
(b) A rich, organic fertilizer for growing rich crops.
(c) A carbon sink; that organic matter traps the C that O needs to make CO2.
(d) Cooler surroundings. Instantly. No time to wait.

I'm extremely careful saying ' organic matter soil' and not 'soil organic matter' - the point is that that organic fertilizer should be produced right on top of the soil, not in a compost pit or pile, to make the topsoil an organic layer instantly. When organic matter decays, among other things, the water oozes out; when that organic matter happens to be on top of the soil, that water stays where it is; it neither evaporates to the atmosphere nor percolates to the deeper parts of your compost pit. That water is crucial - it has those plant nutrients released by the decay of that organic matter.

So, it's just a matter of quickly adapting Ted Mendoza's Big-Ani organic fertilizer - or adapting any organic fertilizer for that matter - as mulch on the topsoil of all those deforested lands, grasslands, croplands, open lands, gardens and backyards.

And after that, it's just a matter of quickly populating all those organic matter soils with crops, any number of species of plants.

That is to say, you harvest carbon dioxide from the air by putting it in growing plants (photosynthesis) and keeping it on the soil (organic matter soil) all at the same time. Repeat as necessary. It's called the cycle of life and death; it's called loss and renewal.

So in fact, when you create a quick organic matter soil and plant a quick crop, you have a quick double carbon sink: (1) all those plants growing and (2) all that organic matter on all those soils in all those sites growing all those plants. Simultaneously, with very little sweat, you are sequestering carbon on both dead and living matters - you zero in on death to maximize life.

Thus, crops plus organic matter soils make carbon sink times 2. In short, CS2. By nature, CS2 is the fastest carbon sink on Planet Earth. (CS2 is also the fastest agent for soil erosion control you can find anywhere.) The concept is Manila's claim to fame today.

For CS2, remember not to leave any open or degraded or denuded lands without organic matter and without some greens growing.

Quick crops plus quick organic matter soil is the key.
Quick question: To fight climate change, are we using our gray matter quick enough?