Canada, a huge carbon sink

[AlbertaFarmer5]

[QUOTE=LWeber;442961]

Why weren't the Conservatives hammering these points to counter Trudeau's carbon tax during last election campaign.

Better yet:

How did farmers go from getting paid for carbon sequestering to paying for carbon emissions?

The short answer, is also the one that exposes the true nature of the entire movement. It isn't, and never was about saving the planet. It is the same reason why the supposedly revenue neutral CO2 tax is already no longer revenue neutral, etc etc.

[chuckChuck]

https://scied.ucar.edu/imagecontent/carbon-cycle-diagram-nasa https://scied.ucar.edu/imagecontent/carbon-cycle-diagram-nasa

This diagrams illustrates Earth's carbon cycle. It shows how carbon atoms 'flow' between various 'reservoirs' in the Earth system. The sizes of reservoirs are in units of gigatons of carbon (GtC). Flows between reservoirs are in units of gigatons of carbon per year (GtC/yr). The values for human influences such as fossil fuel use and cement production represent the state of the carbon cycle in the mid-1980s.

[chuckChuck]

"As you know virtually no one uses conventional tillage in western Canada anymore."

Many areas with high residues still use tillage in Manitoba and parts of Saskatchewan and Alberta. Many of the crop acres in North America are in corn soybeans with quite a lot of tillage.

Direct seeding, reduced tillage, cover crops, and grazing systems are effective at reducing soil emissions, but once carbon sinks get to equilibrium, decomposition of residues and organic matter still produce emissions equal to inputs.

It takes awhile to build soil organic mater and store carbon in soils.

If all the residues left after direct seeded crops weren't breaking down and releasing some CO2, you would have an incredible pile of residue left on the surface.

In perennial pastures a lot of the carbon is in the below ground root systems.

[mcfarms]

So I take it you are Biodynamic farming then Chuck?