John D. Hamaker
Encyclopedia
John D. Hamaker was an American
mechanical engineer, ecologist, agronomist
and science writer in the fields of soil remineralization, rock dusting, mineral cycles, climate cycles and glaciology
.
John Hamaker was born in St. Louis, Missouri
, United States
and graduated from Purdue University
in Mechanical Engineering
. Concerned for the environment
, he became a student of ecology
and agriculture
and was influenced by books such as Bread From Stones, which showed plants grow better in soils generated by mimicking natural soil-forming processes that take millennia, such as the advance and retreat of glaciers scouring over the Earth’s crust
, or rock weathering
of volcanic lava
. In the 1960s, Hamaker cultivated a strong interest in soil and climate issues, and began publishing articles about how the health of an individual, society and planet
ary ecology only thrive as an integrated interdependent whole. For 30 years, he wrote and campaigned for organic agriculture based on soil remineralization, and was the first to call for the remineralization of the Earth
to forestall the next glacial period
within the current ice age
cycle. Hamaker produced a notable book The Survival Of Civilization in 1982, republished in 2002 by Remineralize The Earth. http://www.remineralize.org
Early developments
In the 1970s, a series of scientific conferences concluded that the world's climate is cooling
. Books such as The Cooling, The Weather Conspiracy, The Weather Machine & The Threat Of Ice, Climates Of Hunger, Ice Ages and Climate: Present, Past & Future, warned of a coming ice age within decades. In 1975, Newsweek ran an article entitled "The Cooling World" that foretold the decimation of agricultural productivity based on a dramatic decrease in the Earth's temperature
. and the New York Times published the article "Scientists ask why world is changing; Major cooling may be ahead". In parallel, books such as A Blueprint For Survival
, The Limits To Growth, and The Population Bomb
, warned of multiple social
, economic, ecological and population
crises
. At the same time, Hamaker continued to generate articles and bulletins as well as campaign, on what was by now his main pre-occupation, the remineralization of the world’s soils.
According to his writings, in 1976, Hamaker spread rock dust on part of his 10 acres (40,468.6 m²) in Michigan
. The following year, his corn
produced 65 bushels per acre
, compared to yield
s of under 25 from other local farms, and also tested higher in many minerals. He calculated that remineralizing the soil with river
, seashore
, mountain
and glacial rock dust, would enable American
agriculture to produce four times as much food
or the same amount with a 25% reduction in cost, without the need for pesticides or chemical fertilizers.
The Survival Of Civilization
In 1982, he produced with California
n ecologist, Donald A. Weaver, The Survival Of Civilization, subtitled Carbon Dioxide, Investment Money, Population - Three Problems Threatening Our Existence, which was re-published by Remineralize The Earth in 2002 which was republished in 2006 by SoilandHealth.org Annotations and supporting evidence were provided by Weaver. The book which initially sold 14,000 copies, concerned the threat of an imminent ice age, remineralizing the world's soils on a local and global scale and reforesting the planet
to return atmospheric carbon dioxide
to a normal interglacial
level near 280 ppm, to help slow the glacial advance.
The treatise
was a synthesis of Hamaker's thinking that emerged from his studies and research in several disciplines including soil science
and paleoclimatology
. His message, dubbed the Hamaker Thesis, was that due to modern agricultural and agro-forestry practices, the soils were running out of minerals, causing the dying and burning of forests worldwide and nutrient
deficiencies in food. He offered soil remineralization as a solution, advocating regeneration of soil and forests with rock dusts as an economic and ecologically sustainable alternative to chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Hamaker regarded this as one of the most powerful ideas in human history. The book and its message was well-received by soil and nutritional scientists and regarded as a blueprint
for restoring the planet's ecological integrity by the worldwide remineralization movement.
Testimonials
Endorsing the book, Buckminster Fuller
, inventor of the geodesic dome
, author of the book Critical Path and Professor Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania
, wrote in a publicized letter to Donald Weaver in 1983: "I have received and read John Hamaker’s The Survival of Civilization. Well done. Completely convincing.... I will tell all those inquiring of me about matters relevant to our survival that they had best read Hamaker's book." Reviewing the book, writer Bertram Cohen expressed concern that a global
climate
shift
would make the temperate zone part of the sub-arctic
zone and deprive humanity
of its food supply. Cohen also pointed out that "Dr Herbert Shelton, both in his books and in Hygienic Review, emphasised the importance of soil remineralization in creating a Hygienic Agriculture."
In support of the book, The Earth Renewal Society presented a statement to a Congressional hearing
in Chicago
in March 1984.
Hamaker believed remineralizing the world’s soil with rock dust, a quarrying by-product
, could revitalise barren soil and reverse climate change. Rock dust nourished soil micro-organisms whose protoplasm
is the basis of all living things. When mixed with compost
, the dust created rich, deep soils which could produce high growth vegetation
free from pests and predators, at an accelerated rate. The idea was later confirmed by agricultural scientists such as Arden Andersen, who showed how high sugar
and mineral
levels in soil gave immunity
to soil bacteria
, stopping insect
and fungal attacks. For Hamaker and Andersen, minerals were the primal food for micro-organisms which provided life
and health
for the soil.
Rock grinders
Hamaker invented an autogenous rock grinder
, designed to grind rock upon rock with minimal wear of metal
parts, and a macro version, both for creating rock dust. The full design for the rock grinder was described in The Survival Of Civilization and Donald Weaver's To Love And Regenerate The Earth. On 19 October 1984, China
's Research Institute of Forests accepted a copy of Hamaker's rock grinder patent
papers, since at the time, China was taking the lead in reforestation
programs.
The Earth’s soil is demineralized during every interglacial period, the short 10,000-year warm period between every 90,000-year glacial period which is within the current current Ice Age or Quaternary Period encompassing the Pleistocene
and Holocene
, or current interglacial
. This causes a decline in the world’s forests and other vegetation which are carbon dioxide sinks, and so more carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere
. Carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere rose throughout the 20th century and continue to do so. Excessive heat
from the sun
is trapped by CO2 and other greenhouse gases, affecting global climate. Hamaker explained the 100,000-year cycle of major ice ages by postulating that the greenhouse effect
takes place mainly in the tropics
, which receives the most sun, instead of in polar region
s.
Polar expansion
When temperature differences between the poles
and the tropics increase, a cycle of heavy wind
, hurricanes, storms and tornadoes occurs. More evaporated moisture
is carried to higher latitudes where they are deposited in ice
and snow
, the eventual result being glaciation and another ice age. Record snow in the Northern hemisphere
and the shortening of the growing season
is a prevailing pattern. As glaciers advance
and recede during each ice age, they grind down rocks in their path. The mineral-rich dust is distributed over the Earth's surface, by powerful wind and water
systems, remineralizing soils and enlivening plant life.
Shorter growing season
Hamaker believed that within as little as a decade
, the growing season would decrease leading to mass starvation
in rich
and poor
nations alike. He therefore proposed the remineralization of the world’s soils and reforesting the land, to propagate carbon sinks, thereby absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and so contributing to general climatic stability. By assuming the task of remineralizing the Earth’s soils, just like glaciers do during an ice age, remineralization would create fertile soils - the basis for the re-creation of stable ecosystems.
Glacial threat
Hamaker believed in a distinct and imminent threat of a new glacial period, following a long series of glaciations in the geological and glacial-interglacial cycle timeframe. He felt that remineralizing the world’s soils and reforesting the land could generate a climax geosystem (as opposed to a pioneer one), through mass reforestation. This would solve the climate crisis as well as the food crisis, by assisting the planet’s ability to geophysiologically self-regulate, and potentially, postpone the next glaciation indefinitely.
Volcanic El Ninos
Hamaker also believed that increased tectonic activity occurring with snow and ice buildup, could heat up tropical oceans through sea floor volcanism
, and in addition to the intensified greenhouse effect, be a prime cause of the El Nino phenomenon.
and other UK scientists published an article in Nature
which stated that the last glacial period began when the in the atmosphere reached about 290ppm, and that the world was already ahead of that figure at a critical 343-345 ppm. Hamaker explained the significance of Shackleton's findings in Acres USA:http://www.acresusa.com " has its primary importance as the initiator of glaciation. Once an extensive ice field is established, its cooling effect maintains the temperature differential which keeps glaciation going. Variations in the amount of simply cause variations in the world albedo, but they do not stop or start glaciation. The world is committed to glaciation when the ice fields alone reflect enough sunlight to ensure cooling."
On 3 June 1984, Hamaker appeared on Ted Turner
's Atlanta Superstation
declaring that increased high-latitude albedo
is what initiates glacial advances/retreats. He was citing Sir George Simpson
's 1938 analysis on ice ages and later commentary by Richard Somerville
and Lorraine Remer of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
in their article in the Journal of Geophysical Research: "It's that cloud that you have to worry about because it's reflecting 80% of the sun's energy back into space and it's never becoming effective in warming the Earth. So we're getting cooling as the result of the carbon dioxide buildup." Around this time, Scientific American
summarized: "They (Somerville & Remer) suggest the global warming might be lessened by concurrent changes in the properties of clouds... Denser clouds will reflect a larger proportion of incoming solar radiation; the reduction in the energy reaching the surface will counteract the greenhouse effect."
Also in 1984, Robert Beckman produced The Downwave citing the studies of Dr. Raymond Wheeler and its climate-societal implications.
In 2007, climatologist George Kukla
, expressed support for the belief in an imminent ice-age.
Further benefits:
of people
to become involved in remineralization, including permaculturists
, organic farmers, biodynamic
farmers, gardeners, vegetarians, environmentalists, scientists, climatologists, journalists, religious groups, political groups, community organizations and ordinary citizens.
Remineralize The Earth
In the 1980s, Hamaker became a catalyst for the formation of Remineralize The Earth (RTE), set up by Joanna Campe, its President and Executive Director who produced the Soil Remineralization Newsletter in the 1980s and Remineralize the Earth magazine in the 1990s, before the non-profit organization's incorporation
in 1994.
RTE began promoting the regeneration of soils and forests worldwide with finely-ground rock dust as a sustainable alternative to chemical fertilizers and pesticides. As well as recycling
and returning organic matter
to the soil, the organization asserted that returning all of the mineral nutrients which create fertile soils and healthy crops and forests, was equally important. For RTE, remineralization was essential to restoring ecological balance and stabilizing the climate.
In 1994, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), U.S. Bureau of Mines, National Stone Association and National Aggregates Association co-sponsored a symposium
"Soil Remineralization and Sustainable Agriculture" at USDA headquarters in Washington DC.
In 1995, Campe coordinated a two-year research project with the University of Massachusetts
into remineralization.
In Campe's letter to Newsweek
Magazine in October 2006, she warned that global warming
could trigger an ice age and that soil remineralization and reforestation were the solutions. In the same period, major magazines expressed concern of a coming ice age including The Atlantic Monthly, National Geographic, Discover Magazine, The Spectator
and BBC Focus
Magazine. Institutes in Northern Europe
and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute shared the concern.
Campe was invited by the U.S. State Department to speak at the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference
2008.
In 2009, the Global Coral Reef Alliance invited RTE to produce a chapter for the DVD ROM book The Green Disk: New Technologies for A New World, being distributed to all U.N. delegates at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen
during December 2009.
RTE's Real Food Campaignhttp://www.realfoodcampaign.org directed by Dan Kittredge, is a project promoting nutrient rich food and creating a new standard for food quality. Award-winning ecological designer, Dr. John Todd
, of Ocean Arks International
directs RTE's Agroforestry Project in Costa Rica
, a project intercropping
commercial hardwoods, fruit trees and jatropha
, which produces a sustainable biofuel
while regenerating the soil.
Sustainable Ecological Earth Regeneration
Inspired by Hamaker, in the 1990s, Cameron and Moira Thomson set up the charitable trust
Sustainable Ecological Earth Regeneration (SEER)http://www.seercentre.org.uk in Scotland
, to develop the ideas which Hamaker founded.
In Paul Kelbie's article Remineralization Might Save Us From Global Warming, in The Independent
, he wrote that since the last ice age, three million years ago, the Earth has gone through 25 glaciations, each lasting about 90,000 years, and that we are now 10,800 years into an interglacial – a hiatus between ice–ages. Previous interglacials averaged 10 to 12,000 years in duration, with the most significant environmental change being interglacial soil demineralization and retrogressive vegetational succession. Since this meant modern soils were relatively barren, leading to the adoption of imbalanced and artificial fertilisers, it was SEER’s belief that by "By spreading the dust, we are doing in minutes what the earth takes thousands of years to do - putting essential minerals in the rocks back into the earth." SEER won funding from the Scottish Executive
to conduct the UK’s first official rock dust trials, and maintained that rock dust could fight climate change because calcium
and magnesium
in the dust converts carbon in the air into carbonates, in addition to enhanced bio-sequestration by soil organisms and vegetation. The theory captured the attention of NASA
who were researching the growing of plants on other planets.
For SEER, as well as producing high yields, and re-balancing the Earth’s ecology and geophysiology
, rock dusting also brought nutritional benefits due to the enrichment of crops, and so benefits to human health.
But the SEER centre has been frustrated in their hopes to provide scientific proof of their claims for higher yields and enriched crops, through the use of rock dust. Their 3 year flagship
research programme with Glasgow University (2009) found that rock dust made no difference to crop yield
or nutrient-content in the test conditions.
Regenerate The Earth
In 2002, 20 years after Hamaker’s book was published, Donald Weaver produced To Love And Regenerate The Earth, an update on Hamaker's book, which was published by Remineralize The Earth and re-published in 2006 by Soiland Health.org. The new book clarified ideas raised in the original book whilst providing new evidence from the 1990s and 2000s to show the direction of climate and environmental change.
Weaver considered Hamaker a broad synthesist in the fields of ecology and climate, who recognized how the forests and the trees integrated with the whole biological-tectonic-climatic Earth system. For Weaver and Hamaker, a new glacial period, one in a long series of glacial periods, was due in the geological and glacial-interglacial cycle timeframe. Weaver explained that Hamaker was convinced that human
ity was rushing into the next glacial period due to carbon dioxide build-up after the normal interglacial soil demineralization and retrogressive vegetational succession, as summarized by Johannes Iversen
and Svend Andersen, State
Geologists from Denmark
in the book The Holocene by Neil Roberts.
Institute For A Future
In the mid-1980s, author, and Harvard clinical psychologist, Dr. Larry Ephron, set up the U.S. based Institute For A Future and wrote The End: The Coming Ice Age & How We Can Stop It, which examined the theory and themes raised in Hamaker’s book citing climatologist Reid Bryson, of the University of Wisconsin: "Breakthrought never come from within the establishment."
The book specifically examined man's influence on nature
and climate change. Topics covered included astrophysics
, climatology, geology, glaciology, microbiology
, paleobotany
, paleontology
, palynology
, plate tectonics
, soil remineralization, seismology
, soil science, solar physics
and human survival.
Ephron showed how climatologists such as John Gribbin
and Stephen Schneider
who recognized the connection between global warming and the buildup of snow and ice, saw ice buildup only as a side effect of continued overall warming, rather than linking increase, global warming, ice buildup, glaciation and ice ages, together. An exception was Pierre Lehman, a Swiss atmospheric physicist who noted the important link between soil and climate. NASA climatologist James Hansen
was also noted as saying "it is not certain whether warming will cause the ice sheets to shrink or grow. For example, if the ocean warms but the air above the ice sheets remains below freezing, the effect could be increased snowfall, net ice sheet growth."
In the book, Dave Foreman, Founder of Earth First!
wrote: "An ice age is coming, and I welcome it as a much needed cleansing. I see no possible solution to our ruination of Earth except for a drastic reduction of the human population." Also quoted is S. W. Matthews, Assistant Editor, National Geographic: "The ice age, which has really not left the planet for two million years, is reasserting itself. The warm time... is over. The next great return of ice has begun." and Paul Gersper, Professor of Soil Science, University of California: "The actions recommended here are urgently needed to avoid global disaster."
A film was made of the book called Stopping The Ice Age in 1988, which Ephron co-produced and directed. Like the book, it carried endorsements from various scientists and universities including Kenneth Watt, Professor of Environmental Studies
, University of California
: "An astonishing service for humanity" and recording artist, Sting: "Everybody has to see this". Ephron's writing on the ice age threat also appeared in the Toronto Globe and Mail, the Los Angeles Weekly and Acres USA.
New Energy Movement
In the 1980s, a contemporary of Hamaker, Alden Bryant, founded a campaign organization called Earth Regeneration Society http://www.earthregenerationsociety.org with former IBM
engineer
Fred Wood, Barbara Logan and others, advocating global soil remineralization, reforestation, carbon dioxide reduction and a new energy
movement. After attending many international conferences on climate issues, Bryant set up the New Energy Movement organization.http://www.newenergymovement.org
In the late 1980s, Peter von Fragstein of the University of Kassel
, Germany, began researching remineralization with many different rock types as a slow-release fertilizer
and to deter insects.
Hamaker’s research also complemented work by Bill Mollison
on permaculture, John Jeavons and Masanobu Fukuoka
on sustainable organiculture, Emilia Hazelip
on synergistic agriculture and Rudolf Steiner
on biodynamic farming. It further brought interest from science writer Philip Callaghan who developed the rock dusting theme in his work on paramagnetism, a field related to radionics
, biophotonics
, bio-energetics, bio-resonance, Schumann waves, magnetometeorology and subtle energy.
In the 1990s, the Men of the Trees
organization in Australia
conducted remineralization trials on many species
of trees in Australia
with significant results, such as five times the growth of tree seedlings of one variety of eucalyptus
, compared to the untreated controls.
Barry Lynes wrote Climate Crime in 1985 chronicling the case for global cooling, and Robert Felix, author of Not by Fire But By Ice echoed concerns about re-glaciation, expressed by Hamaker and Bryant, which he documented at Ice Age Now. http://www.iceagenow.com
In the 2000s, NCAR scientist Dr. Lee Klinger http://www.suddenoaklifeorg.wordpress.com began to investigate the relationship between rock dust and plant growth to save dying trees, and NASA
began to experiment with lunar soil
, plant growth and hydrophonics.
In 2001, Alanna Moore wrote the book Stone Age Farming: Eco-Agriculture for the 21st Century which combined remineralization with permaculture for a new eco-agricultural paradigm
.
In 2005, Allan Yeomans documented in Priority One, the potential to bring atmospheric carbon to pre-industrial levels within 5 years, through remineralization of the world's agricultural lands. For Yeoman, as well as reducing global levels to safe levels, it would revitalize the soil and biological life on the planet, and increase human nutrition and health levels.
In 2006, British author, Graham Harvey, produced the book We Want Real Food which documented the results of remineralization, in terms of soil health and nutritional values in food, and documented major declines in the mineral content of crops.
, Río Grande del Sur (Brazil
), who translated Bread From Stones into Spanish
and gave conferences on remineralization in Colombia
, Brazil
and Mexico
; Peter Von Straaten from the University of Guelph
(Canada
); and Suzi Teodoro from the University of Brasilia
(Brazil
).
The group confirmed that a branch of geology called agrogeology, originating at the University of Guelph, was evolving, since Von Straaten published the book Agrogeology: The Use of Rocks for Crops and Rivera produced the book and video
, Manual Práctico ABC de la Agricultura Orgánica y Harina de Rocas, which described how to regenerate overcultivated soils with rock dust. The science was developing in Germany, Canada
and USA, and being researched in Brazil, Tanzania
and the Canary Islands
. Other university researchers included professors William Fyfe and Ward Chesworth.
The science of agrogeology is the study of natural geological materials suitable for restoring soils as an alternative to chemical fertilizers, particularly for worn out tropical soils. Due to intense tropical rainfall, chemical fertilizers are washed away from laterite
soils within weeks, and cannot be stored by the soils, are thus especially harmful to the groundwater
. Rock fertilizers supply nutrients over longer periods to cultivated plants. When the rocks break down, new minerals are made available to the soil micro-organisms and whole soil-food web. From the soil chemist's perspective, the process improves the ion-exchange capacity of soils while forming new clay minerals.
In November 2009, a Rocks for Crops conference was held in Brasilia with 170 participants to discuss the new science
. Further conferences were held in Rio de Janeiro
and in Mexico
, in December 2009 for the study and promotion of remineralization worldwide.
solution to the climate crisis not dependent on high technology, or on-going climate manipulation by man. Some scientists have postulated that technological solutions may exist to assist the remineralization process, such as converting carbon dioxide into organic carbon to be mineralized as sediment
before being weathered to soil.
Hamaker’s hypothesis is criticised because fossil fuel
energy is potentially required to create and distribute rock dust, and this generates when derived from fossil fuel, however, rock dust is predominantly a byproduct of the existing aggregate and quarrying industries Future rock dust production for broad-scale soil remineralization can be powered by renewable sources, such as wind enegy and bio-fuels grown on remineralized soils.
Climate control
Since land is naturally fertilized in glacial periods, remineralizing the Earth would emulate the glaciation process, allowing the reversal of what Hamaker and Weaver referred to as the interglacial soil demineralization and retrogressive vegetational succession (decline in the vegetative index). They reasoned that this would indefinitely sustain the interglacial ecosystem and climate, or at least slow down the speed of re-glaciation. However, scientists such as Mukul Sharmar, Charles A. Perry, Yuk Yung, Nigel Calder
, Henrik Svensmark
, Eigil Friis-Christensen
, Knud Lassen and Alexander Chizhevsky
who have cited variations in the sunspot cycle as the dominant mechanism in climate cycles on Earth, not vegetation, have yet to incorporate the demineralization dimension.
More than a mini ice age in 2013-2041, and, major ice age in 2500, as projected by Khabibullo Abdusamatov
and studied by NASA, Hamaker's immediate concern was the shortening of the growing season from the coming glacial period, which he believed could be forestalled through rock dusting, resulting in more abundant yields at harvest
. He believed the coming glacial period would preceded by an interglacial-to-glacial transition phase already underway since the 1970s, and strongly advocated an intensive global co-operative soil remineralization effort to maintain the quantity of food while improving its quality. To achieve this, he recommended simultaneous remineralization of dying forests and soils, also needed to grow bio-fuels, as part of a goal to return excessive carbon dioxide to stable interglacial levels of 280 ppm.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
mechanical engineer, ecologist, agronomist
Agronomist
An agronomist is a scientist who specializes in agronomy, which is the science of utilizing plants for food, fuel, feed, and fiber. An agronomist is an expert in agricultural and allied sciences, with the exception veterinary sciences.Agronomists deal with interactions between plants, soils, and...
and science writer in the fields of soil remineralization, rock dusting, mineral cycles, climate cycles and glaciology
Glaciology
Glaciology Glaciology Glaciology (from Middle French dialect (Franco-Provençal): glace, "ice"; or Latin: glacies, "frost, ice"; and Greek: λόγος, logos, "speech" lit...
.
Biography
BackgroundJohn Hamaker was born in St. Louis, Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and graduated from Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
in Mechanical Engineering
Mechanical engineering
Mechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...
. Concerned for the environment
Natural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
, he became a student of ecology
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
and agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
and was influenced by books such as Bread From Stones, which showed plants grow better in soils generated by mimicking natural soil-forming processes that take millennia, such as the advance and retreat of glaciers scouring over the Earth’s crust
Crust (geology)
In geology, the crust is the outermost solid shell of a rocky planet or natural satellite, which is chemically distinct from the underlying mantle...
, or rock weathering
Weathering
Weathering is the breaking down of rocks, soils and minerals as well as artificial materials through contact with the Earth's atmosphere, biota and waters...
of volcanic lava
Lava
Lava refers both to molten rock expelled by a volcano during an eruption and the resulting rock after solidification and cooling. This molten rock is formed in the interior of some planets, including Earth, and some of their satellites. When first erupted from a volcanic vent, lava is a liquid at...
. In the 1960s, Hamaker cultivated a strong interest in soil and climate issues, and began publishing articles about how the health of an individual, society and planet
Planet
A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
ary ecology only thrive as an integrated interdependent whole. For 30 years, he wrote and campaigned for organic agriculture based on soil remineralization, and was the first to call for the remineralization of the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
to forestall the next glacial period
Glacial period
A glacial period is an interval of time within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate within an ice age...
within the current ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
cycle. Hamaker produced a notable book The Survival Of Civilization in 1982, republished in 2002 by Remineralize The Earth. http://www.remineralize.org
Early developments
In the 1970s, a series of scientific conferences concluded that the world's climate is cooling
Global cooling
Global cooling was a conjecture during the 1970s of imminent cooling of the Earth's surface and atmosphere along with a posited commencement of glaciation...
. Books such as The Cooling, The Weather Conspiracy, The Weather Machine & The Threat Of Ice, Climates Of Hunger, Ice Ages and Climate: Present, Past & Future, warned of a coming ice age within decades. In 1975, Newsweek ran an article entitled "The Cooling World" that foretold the decimation of agricultural productivity based on a dramatic decrease in the Earth's temperature
Temperature
Temperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold. Objects of low temperature are cold, while various degrees of higher temperatures are referred to as warm or hot...
. and the New York Times published the article "Scientists ask why world is changing; Major cooling may be ahead". In parallel, books such as A Blueprint For Survival
Blueprint for Survival
A Blueprint for Survival was an influential environmentalist text that drew attention to the urgency and magnitude of environmental problems....
, The Limits To Growth, and The Population Bomb
The Population Bomb
The Population Bomb was a best-selling book written by Paul R. Ehrlich and his wife, Anne Ehrlich , in 1968. It warned of the mass starvation of humans in the 1970s and 1980s due to overpopulation, as well as other major societal upheavals, and advocated immediate action to limit population growth...
, warned of multiple social
Social
The term social refers to a characteristic of living organisms...
, economic, ecological and population
Population
A population is all the organisms that both belong to the same group or species and live in the same geographical area. The area that is used to define a sexual population is such that inter-breeding is possible between any pair within the area and more probable than cross-breeding with individuals...
crises
Crises
Crises is the eighth record album by Mike Oldfield, released in 1983. Oldfield's well known hit "Moonlight Shadow" appears on the album.- Album analysis :...
. At the same time, Hamaker continued to generate articles and bulletins as well as campaign, on what was by now his main pre-occupation, the remineralization of the world’s soils.
According to his writings, in 1976, Hamaker spread rock dust on part of his 10 acres (40,468.6 m²) in Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
. The following year, his corn
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
produced 65 bushels per acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
, compared to yield
Crop yield
In agriculture, crop yield is not only a measure of the yield of cereal per unit area of land under cultivation, yield is also the seed generation of the plant itself...
s of under 25 from other local farms, and also tested higher in many minerals. He calculated that remineralizing the soil with river
River
A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...
, seashore
Shore
A shore or shoreline is the fringe of land at the edge of a large body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake. In Physical Oceanography a shore is the wider fringe that is geologically modified by the action of the body of water past and present, while the beach is at the edge of the shore,...
, mountain
Mountain
Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...
and glacial rock dust, would enable American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
agriculture to produce four times as much food
Food
Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals...
or the same amount with a 25% reduction in cost, without the need for pesticides or chemical fertilizers.
The Survival Of Civilization
In 1982, he produced with California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
n ecologist, Donald A. Weaver, The Survival Of Civilization, subtitled Carbon Dioxide, Investment Money, Population - Three Problems Threatening Our Existence, which was re-published by Remineralize The Earth in 2002 which was republished in 2006 by SoilandHealth.org Annotations and supporting evidence were provided by Weaver. The book which initially sold 14,000 copies, concerned the threat of an imminent ice age, remineralizing the world's soils on a local and global scale and reforesting the planet
Planet
A planet is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
to return atmospheric carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
to a normal interglacial
Interglacial
An Interglacial period is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age...
level near 280 ppm, to help slow the glacial advance.
The treatise
Treatise
A treatise is a formal and systematic written discourse on some subject, generally longer and treating it in greater depth than an essay, and more concerned with investigating or exposing the principles of the subject.-Noteworthy treatises:...
was a synthesis of Hamaker's thinking that emerged from his studies and research in several disciplines including soil science
Soil science
Soil science is the study of soil as a natural resource on the surface of the earth including soil formation, classification and mapping; physical, chemical, biological, and fertility properties of soils; and these properties in relation to the use and management of soils.Sometimes terms which...
and paleoclimatology
Paleoclimatology
Paleoclimatology is the study of changes in climate taken on the scale of the entire history of Earth. It uses a variety of proxy methods from the Earth and life sciences to obtain data previously preserved within rocks, sediments, ice sheets, tree rings, corals, shells and microfossils; it then...
. His message, dubbed the Hamaker Thesis, was that due to modern agricultural and agro-forestry practices, the soils were running out of minerals, causing the dying and burning of forests worldwide and nutrient
Nutrient
A nutrient is a chemical that an organism needs to live and grow or a substance used in an organism's metabolism which must be taken in from its environment. They are used to build and repair tissues, regulate body processes and are converted to and used as energy...
deficiencies in food. He offered soil remineralization as a solution, advocating regeneration of soil and forests with rock dusts as an economic and ecologically sustainable alternative to chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Hamaker regarded this as one of the most powerful ideas in human history. The book and its message was well-received by soil and nutritional scientists and regarded as a blueprint
Blueprint
A blueprint is a type of paper-based reproduction usually of a technical drawing, documenting an architecture or an engineering design. More generally, the term "blueprint" has come to be used to refer to any detailed plan....
for restoring the planet's ecological integrity by the worldwide remineralization movement.
Testimonials
Endorsing the book, Buckminster Fuller
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, futurist and second president of Mensa International, the high IQ society....
, inventor of the geodesic dome
Geodesic dome
A geodesic dome is a spherical or partial-spherical shell structure or lattice shell based on a network of great circles on the surface of a sphere. The geodesics intersect to form triangular elements that have local triangular rigidity and also distribute the stress across the structure. When...
, author of the book Critical Path and Professor Emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, wrote in a publicized letter to Donald Weaver in 1983: "I have received and read John Hamaker’s The Survival of Civilization. Well done. Completely convincing.... I will tell all those inquiring of me about matters relevant to our survival that they had best read Hamaker's book." Reviewing the book, writer Bertram Cohen expressed concern that a global
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
climate
Climate
Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...
shift
Abrupt climate change
An abrupt climate change occurs when the climate system is forced to transition to a new state at a rate that is determined by the climate system itself, and which is more rapid than the rate of change of the external forcing...
would make the temperate zone part of the sub-arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
zone and deprive humanity
World population
The world population is the total number of living humans on the planet Earth. As of today, it is estimated to be billion by the United States Census Bureau...
of its food supply. Cohen also pointed out that "Dr Herbert Shelton, both in his books and in Hygienic Review, emphasised the importance of soil remineralization in creating a Hygienic Agriculture."
In support of the book, The Earth Renewal Society presented a statement to a Congressional hearing
Congressional hearing
Congressional hearings are the principal formal method by which committees collect and analyze information in the early stages of legislative policymaking. Whether confirmation hearings — a procedure unique to the Senate — legislative, oversight, investigative, or a combination of these, all...
in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
in March 1984.
Discoveries & inventions
Rock medicineHamaker believed remineralizing the world’s soil with rock dust, a quarrying by-product
By-product
A by-product is a secondary product derived from a manufacturing process or chemical reaction. It is not the primary product or service being produced.A by-product can be useful and marketable or it can be considered waste....
, could revitalise barren soil and reverse climate change. Rock dust nourished soil micro-organisms whose protoplasm
Protoplasm
Protoplasm is the living contents of a cell that is surrounded by a plasma membrane. It is a general term of the Cytoplasm . Protoplasm is composed of a mixture of small molecules such as ions, amino acids, monosaccharides and water, and macromolecules such as nucleic acids, proteins, lipids and...
is the basis of all living things. When mixed with compost
Compost
Compost is organic matter that has been decomposed and recycled as a fertilizer and soil amendment. Compost is a key ingredient in organic farming. At its most essential, the process of composting requires simply piling up waste outdoors and waiting for the materials to break down from anywhere...
, the dust created rich, deep soils which could produce high growth vegetation
Vegetation
Vegetation is a general term for the plant life of a region; it refers to the ground cover provided by plants. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic characteristics. It is broader...
free from pests and predators, at an accelerated rate. The idea was later confirmed by agricultural scientists such as Arden Andersen, who showed how high sugar
Sugar
Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...
and mineral
Mineral
A mineral is a naturally occurring solid chemical substance formed through biogeochemical processes, having characteristic chemical composition, highly ordered atomic structure, and specific physical properties. By comparison, a rock is an aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids and does not...
levels in soil gave immunity
Immunity (medical)
Immunity is a biological term that describes a state of having sufficient biological defenses to avoid infection, disease, or other unwanted biological invasion. Immunity involves both specific and non-specific components. The non-specific components act either as barriers or as eliminators of wide...
to soil bacteria
Bacteria
Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...
, stopping insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
and fungal attacks. For Hamaker and Andersen, minerals were the primal food for micro-organisms which provided life
Life
Life is a characteristic that distinguishes objects that have signaling and self-sustaining processes from those that do not, either because such functions have ceased , or else because they lack such functions and are classified as inanimate...
and health
Health
Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind, body and spirit, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain...
for the soil.
Rock grinders
Hamaker invented an autogenous rock grinder
Mill (grinding)
A grinding mill is a unit operation designed to break a solid material into smaller pieces. There are many different types of grinding mills and many types of materials processed in them. Historically mills were powered by hand , working animal , wind or water...
, designed to grind rock upon rock with minimal wear of metal
Metal
A metal , is an element, compound, or alloy that is a good conductor of both electricity and heat. Metals are usually malleable and shiny, that is they reflect most of incident light...
parts, and a macro version, both for creating rock dust. The full design for the rock grinder was described in The Survival Of Civilization and Donald Weaver's To Love And Regenerate The Earth. On 19 October 1984, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
's Research Institute of Forests accepted a copy of Hamaker's rock grinder patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
papers, since at the time, China was taking the lead in reforestation
Reforestation
Reforestation is the natural or intentional restocking of existing forests and woodlands that have been depleted, usually through deforestation....
programs.
Scientific basis
Climate cyclesThe Earth’s soil is demineralized during every interglacial period, the short 10,000-year warm period between every 90,000-year glacial period which is within the current current Ice Age or Quaternary Period encompassing the Pleistocene
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
and Holocene
Holocene
The Holocene is a geological epoch which began at the end of the Pleistocene and continues to the present. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period. Its name comes from the Greek words and , meaning "entirely recent"...
, or current interglacial
Interglacial
An Interglacial period is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age...
. This causes a decline in the world’s forests and other vegetation which are carbon dioxide sinks, and so more carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere
Atmosphere
An atmosphere is a layer of gases that may surround a material body of sufficient mass, and that is held in place by the gravity of the body. An atmosphere may be retained for a longer duration, if the gravity is high and the atmosphere's temperature is low...
. Carbon dioxide levels in Earth’s atmosphere rose throughout the 20th century and continue to do so. Excessive heat
Heat
In physics and thermodynamics, heat is energy transferred from one body, region, or thermodynamic system to another due to thermal contact or thermal radiation when the systems are at different temperatures. It is often described as one of the fundamental processes of energy transfer between...
from the sun
Sun
The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
is trapped by CO2 and other greenhouse gases, affecting global climate. Hamaker explained the 100,000-year cycle of major ice ages by postulating that the greenhouse effect
Greenhouse effect
The greenhouse effect is a process by which thermal radiation from a planetary surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases, and is re-radiated in all directions. Since part of this re-radiation is back towards the surface, energy is transferred to the surface and the lower atmosphere...
takes place mainly in the tropics
Tropics
The tropics is a region of the Earth surrounding the Equator. It is limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at S; these latitudes correspond to the axial tilt of the Earth...
, which receives the most sun, instead of in polar region
Polar region
Earth's polar regions are the areas of the globe surrounding the poles also known as frigid zones. The North Pole and South Pole being the centers, these regions are dominated by the polar ice caps, resting respectively on the Arctic Ocean and the continent of Antarctica...
s.
Polar expansion
When temperature differences between the poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
and the tropics increase, a cycle of heavy wind
Wind
Wind is the flow of gases on a large scale. On Earth, wind consists of the bulk movement of air. In outer space, solar wind is the movement of gases or charged particles from the sun through space, while planetary wind is the outgassing of light chemical elements from a planet's atmosphere into space...
, hurricanes, storms and tornadoes occurs. More evaporated moisture
Moisture
Humidity is the amount of moisture the air can hold before it rains. Moisture refers to the presence of a liquid, especially water, often in trace amounts...
is carried to higher latitudes where they are deposited in ice
Ice
Ice is water frozen into the solid state. Usually ice is the phase known as ice Ih, which is the most abundant of the varying solid phases on the Earth's surface. It can appear transparent or opaque bluish-white color, depending on the presence of impurities or air inclusions...
and snow
Snow
Snow is a form of precipitation within the Earth's atmosphere in the form of crystalline water ice, consisting of a multitude of snowflakes that fall from clouds. Since snow is composed of small ice particles, it is a granular material. It has an open and therefore soft structure, unless packed by...
, the eventual result being glaciation and another ice age. Record snow in the Northern hemisphere
Northern Hemisphere
The Northern Hemisphere is the half of a planet that is north of its equator—the word hemisphere literally means “half sphere”. It is also that half of the celestial sphere north of the celestial equator...
and the shortening of the growing season
Growing season
In botany, horticulture, and agriculture the growing season is the period of each year when native plants and ornamental plants grow; and when crops can be grown....
is a prevailing pattern. As glaciers advance
Glacial motion
Glacial motion is the motion of glaciers, which can be likened to rivers of ice. It has played an important role in sculpting many landscapes. Most lakes in the world occupy basins scoured out by glaciers...
and recede during each ice age, they grind down rocks in their path. The mineral-rich dust is distributed over the Earth's surface, by powerful wind and water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
systems, remineralizing soils and enlivening plant life.
Shorter growing season
Hamaker believed that within as little as a decade
Decade
A decade is a period of 10 years. The word is derived from the Ancient Greek dekas which means ten. This etymology is sometime confused with the Latin decas and dies , which is not correct....
, the growing season would decrease leading to mass starvation
Starvation
Starvation is a severe deficiency in caloric energy, nutrient and vitamin intake. It is the most extreme form of malnutrition. In humans, prolonged starvation can cause permanent organ damage and eventually, death...
in rich
Wealth
Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. The word wealth is derived from the old English wela, which is from an Indo-European word stem...
and poor
Poor
Poor is an adjective related to a state of poverty, low quality or pity.People with the surname Poor:* Charles Henry Poor, a US Navy officer* Charles Lane Poor, an astronomer* Edward Erie Poor, a vice president of the National Park Bank...
nations alike. He therefore proposed the remineralization of the world’s soils and reforesting the land, to propagate carbon sinks, thereby absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and so contributing to general climatic stability. By assuming the task of remineralizing the Earth’s soils, just like glaciers do during an ice age, remineralization would create fertile soils - the basis for the re-creation of stable ecosystems.
Glacial threat
Hamaker believed in a distinct and imminent threat of a new glacial period, following a long series of glaciations in the geological and glacial-interglacial cycle timeframe. He felt that remineralizing the world’s soils and reforesting the land could generate a climax geosystem (as opposed to a pioneer one), through mass reforestation. This would solve the climate crisis as well as the food crisis, by assisting the planet’s ability to geophysiologically self-regulate, and potentially, postpone the next glaciation indefinitely.
Volcanic El Ninos
Hamaker also believed that increased tectonic activity occurring with snow and ice buildup, could heat up tropical oceans through sea floor volcanism
Volcanism
Volcanism is the phenomenon connected with volcanoes and volcanic activity. It includes all phenomena resulting from and causing magma within the crust or mantle of a planet to rise through the crust and form volcanic rocks on the surface....
, and in addition to the intensified greenhouse effect, be a prime cause of the El Nino phenomenon.
Corroborated findings
In 1983, Nicholas ShackletonNicholas Shackleton
Sir Nicholas John Shackleton FRS was a British geologist and climatologist who specialised in the Quaternary Period...
and other UK scientists published an article in Nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
which stated that the last glacial period began when the in the atmosphere reached about 290ppm, and that the world was already ahead of that figure at a critical 343-345 ppm. Hamaker explained the significance of Shackleton's findings in Acres USA:http://www.acresusa.com " has its primary importance as the initiator of glaciation. Once an extensive ice field is established, its cooling effect maintains the temperature differential which keeps glaciation going. Variations in the amount of simply cause variations in the world albedo, but they do not stop or start glaciation. The world is committed to glaciation when the ice fields alone reflect enough sunlight to ensure cooling."
On 3 June 1984, Hamaker appeared on Ted Turner
Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...
's Atlanta Superstation
Superstation
Superstation in United States television can have several meanings. In its most precise meaning, a superstation is defined by the Federal Communications Commission as "A television broadcast station, other than a network station, licensed by the FCC that is secondarily transmitted by a satellite...
declaring that increased high-latitude albedo
Albedo
Albedo , or reflection coefficient, is the diffuse reflectivity or reflecting power of a surface. It is defined as the ratio of reflected radiation from the surface to incident radiation upon it...
is what initiates glacial advances/retreats. He was citing Sir George Simpson
George Simpson (meteorologist)
Sir George Clarke Simpson KCB CBE FRS was a British meteorologist, born in Derby, England.-Biography:George Clarke Simpson was born 2 September 1878 in Derby England, the son of Arthur Simpson, a proprietor of a department store in East Street, and Alice Lambton Clarke...
's 1938 analysis on ice ages and later commentary by Richard Somerville
Richard Somerville
Richard C. J. Somerville is a climate scientist who is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, USA, where he has been a professor since 1979.-Early life:...
and Lorraine Remer of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and earth science research, graduate training, and public service in the world...
in their article in the Journal of Geophysical Research: "It's that cloud that you have to worry about because it's reflecting 80% of the sun's energy back into space and it's never becoming effective in warming the Earth. So we're getting cooling as the result of the carbon dioxide buildup." Around this time, Scientific American
Scientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
summarized: "They (Somerville & Remer) suggest the global warming might be lessened by concurrent changes in the properties of clouds... Denser clouds will reflect a larger proportion of incoming solar radiation; the reduction in the energy reaching the surface will counteract the greenhouse effect."
Also in 1984, Robert Beckman produced The Downwave citing the studies of Dr. Raymond Wheeler and its climate-societal implications.
In 2007, climatologist George Kukla
George Kukla
George Kukla is a senior research scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.Dr. Kukla was a member of the Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences, prior to emigrating to the US, and a pioneer in the field of astronomical climate forcing...
, expressed support for the belief in an imminent ice-age.
Remineralization benefits
Primary benefits:- Provides slow, natural release of elementChemical elementA chemical element is a pure chemical substance consisting of one type of atom distinguished by its atomic number, which is the number of protons in its nucleus. Familiar examples of elements include carbon, oxygen, aluminum, iron, copper, gold, mercury, and lead.As of November 2011, 118 elements...
s and trace minerals. - Increases the nutrient intake of plants.
- Increases yieldCrop yieldIn agriculture, crop yield is not only a measure of the yield of cereal per unit area of land under cultivation, yield is also the seed generation of the plant itself...
s and gives higher brixBrixDegrees Brix is the sugar content of an aqueous solution.One degree Brix is 1 gram of sucrose in 100 grams of solution and represents the strength of the solution as percentage by weight . If the solution contains dissolved solids other than pure sucrose, then the °Bx is only approximate the...
. Brix is the measure of dissolved solids in the sapSapSap may refer to:* Plant sap, the fluid transported in xylem cells or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant* Sap , a village in the Dunajská Streda District of Slovakia...
of fruits and plants that correlate with greater nutritive value. - Rebalances soil pHPHIn chemistry, pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Pure water is said to be neutral, with a pH close to 7.0 at . Solutions with a pH less than 7 are said to be acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic or alkaline...
. - Increases the growth of micro-organisms and earthwormEarthwormEarthworm is the common name for the largest members of Oligochaeta in the phylum Annelida. In classical systems they were placed in the order Opisthopora, on the basis of the male pores opening posterior to the female pores, even though the internal male segments are anterior to the female...
activity. - Builds humus complex.
- Prevents soil erosionErosionErosion is when materials are removed from the surface and changed into something else. It only works by hydraulic actions and transport of solids in the natural environment, and leads to the deposition of these materials elsewhere...
. - Increases the storage capacity of the soil.
- Increases resistance to insects, diseaseDiseaseA disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...
, frostFrostFrost is the solid deposition of water vapor from saturated air. It is formed when solid surfaces are cooled to below the dew point of the adjacent air as well as below the freezing point of water. Frost crystals' size differ depending on time and water vapour available. Frost is also usually...
and droughtDroughtA drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...
. - Produces more nutritious crops (minerals are essential for human health).
- Enhances flavorFlavorFlavor or flavour is the sensory impression of a food or other substance, and is determined mainly by the chemical senses of taste and smell. The "trigeminal senses", which detect chemical irritants in the mouth and throat as well as temperature and texture, are also very important to the overall...
in crops. - Decreases dependence on fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.
Further benefits:
- Reafforestation.
- Increases forest and land resources.
- Sustainable forestry, farming and energy opportunities.
- Enhances ecosystems.
- Increases biodiversityBiodiversityBiodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
. - Carbon offsetting.
- Greater climatic equilibrium.
- Preservation of interglacial climate conditions.
Influence
John D. Hamaker's work inspired a growing movementSocial movement
Social movements are a type of group action. They are large informal groupings of individuals or organizations focused on specific political or social issues, in other words, on carrying out, resisting or undoing a social change....
of people
People
People is a plurality of human beings or other beings possessing enough qualities constituting personhood. It has two usages:* as the plural of person or a group of people People is a plurality of human beings or other beings possessing enough qualities constituting personhood. It has two usages:*...
to become involved in remineralization, including permaculturists
Permaculture
Permaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modeled on the relationships found in nature. It is based on the ecology of how things interrelate rather than on the strictly biological concerns that form the foundation of modern agriculture...
, organic farmers, biodynamic
Biodynamic agriculture
Biodynamic agriculture is a method of organic farming that emphasizes the holistic development and interrelationships of the soil, plants and animals as a self-sustaining system. Biodynamic farming has much in common with other organic approaches, such as emphasizing the use of manures and composts...
farmers, gardeners, vegetarians, environmentalists, scientists, climatologists, journalists, religious groups, political groups, community organizations and ordinary citizens.
Remineralize The Earth
In the 1980s, Hamaker became a catalyst for the formation of Remineralize The Earth (RTE), set up by Joanna Campe, its President and Executive Director who produced the Soil Remineralization Newsletter in the 1980s and Remineralize the Earth magazine in the 1990s, before the non-profit organization's incorporation
Incorporation (business)
Incorporation is the forming of a new corporation . The corporation may be a business, a non-profit organisation, sports club, or a government of a new city or town...
in 1994.
RTE began promoting the regeneration of soils and forests worldwide with finely-ground rock dust as a sustainable alternative to chemical fertilizers and pesticides. As well as recycling
Recycling
Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...
and returning organic matter
Organic matter
Organic matter is matter that has come from a once-living organism; is capable of decay, or the product of decay; or is composed of organic compounds...
to the soil, the organization asserted that returning all of the mineral nutrients which create fertile soils and healthy crops and forests, was equally important. For RTE, remineralization was essential to restoring ecological balance and stabilizing the climate.
In 1994, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), U.S. Bureau of Mines, National Stone Association and National Aggregates Association co-sponsored a symposium
Symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...
"Soil Remineralization and Sustainable Agriculture" at USDA headquarters in Washington DC.
In 1995, Campe coordinated a two-year research project with the University of Massachusetts
University of Massachusetts
This article relates to the statewide university system. For the flagship campus often referred to as "UMass", see University of Massachusetts Amherst...
into remineralization.
In Campe's letter to Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
Magazine in October 2006, she warned that global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
could trigger an ice age and that soil remineralization and reforestation were the solutions. In the same period, major magazines expressed concern of a coming ice age including The Atlantic Monthly, National Geographic, Discover Magazine, The Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
and BBC Focus
BBC Focus
BBC Focus is a British monthly magazine about science and technology published in Bristol, UK by Bristol Magazines Ltd, a BBC Worldwide company. Edited by Jheni Osman, it covers all aspects of science and technology and is written for general readers as well as people with a knowledge of science...
Magazine. Institutes in Northern Europe
Northern Europe
Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Northern Europe typically refers to the seven countries in the northern part of the European subcontinent which includes Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Sweden...
and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute shared the concern.
Campe was invited by the U.S. State Department to speak at the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference
Washington International Renewable Energy Conference
Washington International Renewable Energy Conference is a meeting of senior-level representatives from the Executive and Legislative branches of government at the national and subnational level, international organizations, the finance and business community, and civil society who are working to...
2008.
In 2009, the Global Coral Reef Alliance invited RTE to produce a chapter for the DVD ROM book The Green Disk: New Technologies for A New World, being distributed to all U.N. delegates at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
during December 2009.
RTE's Real Food Campaignhttp://www.realfoodcampaign.org directed by Dan Kittredge, is a project promoting nutrient rich food and creating a new standard for food quality. Award-winning ecological designer, Dr. John Todd
John Todd (biologist)
John Todd is a biologist working in what is sometimes considered the general field of ecological design, in that his ideas often involve applications that become the basis of alternative technologies. His principal professional interests have included solving problems of food production and...
, of Ocean Arks International
Ocean Arks International
Ocean Arks was founded in 1981 by John Todd and Nancy Jack Todd in the United States.It is a non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the creation and dissemination of the thinking and the technologies fundamental to a sustainable future...
directs RTE's Agroforestry Project in Costa Rica
Costa Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
, a project intercropping
Intercropping
Intercropping is the practice of growing two or more crops in proximity. The most common goal of intercropping is to produce a greater yield on a given piece of land by making use of resources that would otherwise not be utilized by a single crop. Careful planning is required, taking into account...
commercial hardwoods, fruit trees and jatropha
Jatropha
Jatropha is a genus of approximately 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees , from the family Euphorbiaceae. The name is derived from the Greek words ἰατρός , meaning "physician," and τροφή , meaning "nutrition," hence the common name physic nut. Mature plants produce separate male and female...
, which produces a sustainable biofuel
Biofuel
Biofuel is a type of fuel whose energy is derived from biological carbon fixation. Biofuels include fuels derived from biomass conversion, as well as solid biomass, liquid fuels and various biogases...
while regenerating the soil.
Sustainable Ecological Earth Regeneration
Inspired by Hamaker, in the 1990s, Cameron and Moira Thomson set up the charitable trust
Charitable trust
A charitable trust is an irrevocable trust established for charitable purposes, and is a more specific term than "charitable organization".-United States:...
Sustainable Ecological Earth Regeneration (SEER)http://www.seercentre.org.uk in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, to develop the ideas which Hamaker founded.
In Paul Kelbie's article Remineralization Might Save Us From Global Warming, in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, he wrote that since the last ice age, three million years ago, the Earth has gone through 25 glaciations, each lasting about 90,000 years, and that we are now 10,800 years into an interglacial – a hiatus between ice–ages. Previous interglacials averaged 10 to 12,000 years in duration, with the most significant environmental change being interglacial soil demineralization and retrogressive vegetational succession. Since this meant modern soils were relatively barren, leading to the adoption of imbalanced and artificial fertilisers, it was SEER’s belief that by "By spreading the dust, we are doing in minutes what the earth takes thousands of years to do - putting essential minerals in the rocks back into the earth." SEER won funding from the Scottish Executive
Scottish Executive
The Scottish Government is the executive arm of the devolved government of Scotland. It was established in 1999 as the Scottish Executive, from the extant Scottish Office, and the term Scottish Executive remains its legal name under the Scotland Act 1998...
to conduct the UK’s first official rock dust trials, and maintained that rock dust could fight climate change because calcium
Calcium
Calcium is the chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. It has an atomic mass of 40.078 amu. Calcium is a soft gray alkaline earth metal, and is the fifth-most-abundant element by mass in the Earth's crust...
and magnesium
Magnesium
Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg, atomic number 12, and common oxidation number +2. It is an alkaline earth metal and the eighth most abundant element in the Earth's crust and ninth in the known universe as a whole...
in the dust converts carbon in the air into carbonates, in addition to enhanced bio-sequestration by soil organisms and vegetation. The theory captured the attention of NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
who were researching the growing of plants on other planets.
For SEER, as well as producing high yields, and re-balancing the Earth’s ecology and geophysiology
Geophysiology
Geophysiology is the study of interaction among living organisms on the Earth operating under the hypothesis that the Earth itself acts as a single living organism ....
, rock dusting also brought nutritional benefits due to the enrichment of crops, and so benefits to human health.
But the SEER centre has been frustrated in their hopes to provide scientific proof of their claims for higher yields and enriched crops, through the use of rock dust. Their 3 year flagship
Flagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...
research programme with Glasgow University (2009) found that rock dust made no difference to crop yield
Crop yield
In agriculture, crop yield is not only a measure of the yield of cereal per unit area of land under cultivation, yield is also the seed generation of the plant itself...
or nutrient-content in the test conditions.
Regenerate The Earth
In 2002, 20 years after Hamaker’s book was published, Donald Weaver produced To Love And Regenerate The Earth, an update on Hamaker's book, which was published by Remineralize The Earth and re-published in 2006 by Soiland Health.org. The new book clarified ideas raised in the original book whilst providing new evidence from the 1990s and 2000s to show the direction of climate and environmental change.
Weaver considered Hamaker a broad synthesist in the fields of ecology and climate, who recognized how the forests and the trees integrated with the whole biological-tectonic-climatic Earth system. For Weaver and Hamaker, a new glacial period, one in a long series of glacial periods, was due in the geological and glacial-interglacial cycle timeframe. Weaver explained that Hamaker was convinced that human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
ity was rushing into the next glacial period due to carbon dioxide build-up after the normal interglacial soil demineralization and retrogressive vegetational succession, as summarized by Johannes Iversen
Johannes Iversen
Johannes Iversen was a Danish palaeoecologist and plant ecologist. He was born in Sønderborg and began studies in botany at the University of Copenhagen in 1923 under professor C.H. Ostenfeld, and with considerable inspiration from prof.em. Christen Raunkiær. At first he worked with macrophyte...
and Svend Andersen, State
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
Geologists from Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
in the book The Holocene by Neil Roberts.
Institute For A Future
In the mid-1980s, author, and Harvard clinical psychologist, Dr. Larry Ephron, set up the U.S. based Institute For A Future and wrote The End: The Coming Ice Age & How We Can Stop It, which examined the theory and themes raised in Hamaker’s book citing climatologist Reid Bryson, of the University of Wisconsin: "Breakthrought never come from within the establishment."
The book specifically examined man's influence on nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
and climate change. Topics covered included astrophysics
Astrophysics
Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...
, climatology, geology, glaciology, microbiology
Microbiology
Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are defined as any microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters or no cell at all . This includes eukaryotes, such as fungi and protists, and prokaryotes...
, paleobotany
Paleobotany
Paleobotany, also spelled as palaeobotany , is the branch of paleontology or paleobiology dealing with the recovery and identification of plant remains from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments , and both the evolutionary history of plants, with a...
, paleontology
Paleontology
Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
, palynology
Palynology
Palynology is the science that studies contemporary and fossil palynomorphs, including pollen, spores, orbicules, dinoflagellate cysts, acritarchs, chitinozoans and scolecodonts, together with particulate organic matter and kerogen found in sedimentary rocks and sediments...
, plate tectonics
Plate tectonics
Plate tectonics is a scientific theory that describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere...
, soil remineralization, seismology
Seismology
Seismology is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or through other planet-like bodies. The field also includes studies of earthquake effects, such as tsunamis as well as diverse seismic sources such as volcanic, tectonic, oceanic,...
, soil science, solar physics
Solar physics
For the physics journal, see Solar Physics Solar physics is the study of our Sun. It is a branch of astrophysics that specializes in exploiting and explaining the detailed measurements that are possible only for our closest star...
and human survival.
Ephron showed how climatologists such as John Gribbin
John Gribbin
John R. Gribbin is a British science writer and a visiting Fellow in astronomy at the University of Sussex.- Biography :John Gribbin graduated with his bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Sussex in 1966. Gribbin then earned his master of science degree in astronomy in 1967, also...
and Stephen Schneider
Stephen Schneider
Stephen Henry Schneider was Professor of Environmental Biology and Global Change at Stanford University, a Co-Director at the Center for Environment Science and Policy of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Senior Fellow in the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment...
who recognized the connection between global warming and the buildup of snow and ice, saw ice buildup only as a side effect of continued overall warming, rather than linking increase, global warming, ice buildup, glaciation and ice ages, together. An exception was Pierre Lehman, a Swiss atmospheric physicist who noted the important link between soil and climate. NASA climatologist James Hansen
James Hansen
James E. Hansen heads the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City, a part of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. He has held this position since 1981...
was also noted as saying "it is not certain whether warming will cause the ice sheets to shrink or grow. For example, if the ocean warms but the air above the ice sheets remains below freezing, the effect could be increased snowfall, net ice sheet growth."
In the book, Dave Foreman, Founder of Earth First!
Earth First!
Earth First! is a radical environmental advocacy group that emerged in the Southwestern United States in 1979. It was co-founded on April 4th, 1980 by Dave Foreman, Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, and less directly, Bart Koehler and Ron Kezar....
wrote: "An ice age is coming, and I welcome it as a much needed cleansing. I see no possible solution to our ruination of Earth except for a drastic reduction of the human population." Also quoted is S. W. Matthews, Assistant Editor, National Geographic: "The ice age, which has really not left the planet for two million years, is reasserting itself. The warm time... is over. The next great return of ice has begun." and Paul Gersper, Professor of Soil Science, University of California: "The actions recommended here are urgently needed to avoid global disaster."
A film was made of the book called Stopping The Ice Age in 1988, which Ephron co-produced and directed. Like the book, it carried endorsements from various scientists and universities including Kenneth Watt, Professor of Environmental Studies
Environmental studies
Environmental studies is the academic field which systematically studies human interaction with the environment. It is a broad interdisciplinary field of study that includes the natural environment, built environment, and the sets of relationships between them...
, University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
: "An astonishing service for humanity" and recording artist, Sting: "Everybody has to see this". Ephron's writing on the ice age threat also appeared in the Toronto Globe and Mail, the Los Angeles Weekly and Acres USA.
New Energy Movement
In the 1980s, a contemporary of Hamaker, Alden Bryant, founded a campaign organization called Earth Regeneration Society http://www.earthregenerationsociety.org with former IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
engineer
Engineer
An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...
Fred Wood, Barbara Logan and others, advocating global soil remineralization, reforestation, carbon dioxide reduction and a new energy
Alternative energy
Alternative energy is an umbrella term that refers to any source of usable energy intended to replace fuel sources without the undesired consequences of the replaced fuels....
movement. After attending many international conferences on climate issues, Bryant set up the New Energy Movement organization.http://www.newenergymovement.org
Further proponents
Several books citing remineralization have been published including The Tree War: How to Save the Earth and Bring Together the Nations, The Enlivened Rock Powders, The Secrets of the Soil Empty Harvest and The Secret Life Of Plants.In the late 1980s, Peter von Fragstein of the University of Kassel
University of Kassel
The University of Kassel, founded in 1970, is one of the newer universities in the state of Hesse. The university is in Kassel, and as of September 2010 has about 18,113 students...
, Germany, began researching remineralization with many different rock types as a slow-release fertilizer
Fertilizer
Fertilizer is any organic or inorganic material of natural or synthetic origin that is added to a soil to supply one or more plant nutrients essential to the growth of plants. A recent assessment found that about 40 to 60% of crop yields are attributable to commercial fertilizer use...
and to deter insects.
Hamaker’s research also complemented work by Bill Mollison
Bill Mollison
Bruce Charles 'Bill' Mollison is a researcher, author, scientist, teacher and naturalist. He is considered to be the 'father of permaculture', an integrated system of design, co-developed with David Holmgren, that encompasses not only agriculture, horticulture, architecture and ecology, but also...
on permaculture, John Jeavons and Masanobu Fukuoka
Masanobu Fukuoka
was a Japanese farmer and philosopher celebrated for his natural farming and re-vegetation of desertified lands. He was a proponent of no-till, no-herbicide grain cultivation farming methods traditional to many indigenous cultures, from which he created a particular method of farming, commonly...
on sustainable organiculture, Emilia Hazelip
Emilia Hazelip
Emilia Hazelip was a Catalan organic gardener, former Merry Prankster, and pioneer of the concept of synergistic gardening. Her farming methods were inspired by Masanobu Fukuoka after reading his book; "The One-Straw Revolution" in 1977 after it was first translated into English.-References:...
on synergistic agriculture and Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
on biodynamic farming. It further brought interest from science writer Philip Callaghan who developed the rock dusting theme in his work on paramagnetism, a field related to radionics
Radionics
Radionics is the use of blood, hair, a signature, or other substances unique to the person as a focus to supposedly heal a patient from afar. The concept behind radionics originated in the early 1900s with Albert Abrams , who became a millionaire by leasing radionic machines which he designed...
, biophotonics
Biophotonics
The term biophotonics denotes a combination of biology and photonics, with photonics being the science and technology of generation, manipulation, and detection of photons, quantum units of light. Photonics is related to electronics in that it is believed that photons will play a similar central...
, bio-energetics, bio-resonance, Schumann waves, magnetometeorology and subtle energy.
In the 1990s, the Men of the Trees
Men of the Trees
Men of the Trees is an international, non-profit, non-political, conservation organisation. It is involved in planting, maintenance and protection of trees. It was founded by Richard St. Barbe Baker. Also known as the International Tree Foundation....
organization in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
conducted remineralization trials on many species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
of trees in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
with significant results, such as five times the growth of tree seedlings of one variety of eucalyptus
Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia...
, compared to the untreated controls.
Barry Lynes wrote Climate Crime in 1985 chronicling the case for global cooling, and Robert Felix, author of Not by Fire But By Ice echoed concerns about re-glaciation, expressed by Hamaker and Bryant, which he documented at Ice Age Now. http://www.iceagenow.com
In the 2000s, NCAR scientist Dr. Lee Klinger http://www.suddenoaklifeorg.wordpress.com began to investigate the relationship between rock dust and plant growth to save dying trees, and NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
began to experiment with lunar soil
Lunar soil
Lunar soil is the fine fraction of the regolith found on the surface of the Moon. Its properties can differ significantly from those of terrestrial soil...
, plant growth and hydrophonics.
In 2001, Alanna Moore wrote the book Stone Age Farming: Eco-Agriculture for the 21st Century which combined remineralization with permaculture for a new eco-agricultural paradigm
Paradigm
The word paradigm has been used in science to describe distinct concepts. It comes from Greek "παράδειγμα" , "pattern, example, sample" from the verb "παραδείκνυμι" , "exhibit, represent, expose" and that from "παρά" , "beside, beyond" + "δείκνυμι" , "to show, to point out".The original Greek...
.
In 2005, Allan Yeomans documented in Priority One, the potential to bring atmospheric carbon to pre-industrial levels within 5 years, through remineralization of the world's agricultural lands. For Yeoman, as well as reducing global levels to safe levels, it would revitalize the soil and biological life on the planet, and increase human nutrition and health levels.
In 2006, British author, Graham Harvey, produced the book We Want Real Food which documented the results of remineralization, in terms of soil health and nutritional values in food, and documented major declines in the mineral content of crops.
Rocks for Crops
In 2007, the research organization Rocks for Crops http://www.uoguelph.ca/rocks was initiated by soil scientist, Jairo Restrepo Rivera of the University of PelotasPelotas
Pelotas is a Brazilian city and municipality , the third most populous in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. Pelotas is located 270 km from Porto Alegre, the capital city of the state, and 130 km from the Uruguayan border...
, Río Grande del Sur (Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
), who translated Bread From Stones into Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and gave conferences on remineralization in Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
; Peter Von Straaten from the University of Guelph
Guelph
Guelph is a city in Ontario, Canada.Guelph may also refer to:* Guelph , consisting of the City of Guelph, Ontario* Guelph , as the above* University of Guelph, in the same city...
(Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
); and Suzi Teodoro from the University of Brasilia
Brasília
Brasília is the capital city of Brazil. The name is commonly spelled Brasilia in English. The city and its District are located in the Central-West region of the country, along a plateau known as Planalto Central. It has a population of about 2,557,000 as of the 2008 IBGE estimate, making it the...
(Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
).
The group confirmed that a branch of geology called agrogeology, originating at the University of Guelph, was evolving, since Von Straaten published the book Agrogeology: The Use of Rocks for Crops and Rivera produced the book and video
Video
Video is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
, Manual Práctico ABC de la Agricultura Orgánica y Harina de Rocas, which described how to regenerate overcultivated soils with rock dust. The science was developing in Germany, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and USA, and being researched in Brazil, Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
and the Canary Islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
. Other university researchers included professors William Fyfe and Ward Chesworth.
The science of agrogeology is the study of natural geological materials suitable for restoring soils as an alternative to chemical fertilizers, particularly for worn out tropical soils. Due to intense tropical rainfall, chemical fertilizers are washed away from laterite
Laterite
Laterites are soil types rich in iron and aluminium, formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are rusty-red because of iron oxides. They develop by intensive and long-lasting weathering of the underlying parent rock...
soils within weeks, and cannot be stored by the soils, are thus especially harmful to the groundwater
Groundwater
Groundwater is water located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in rock...
. Rock fertilizers supply nutrients over longer periods to cultivated plants. When the rocks break down, new minerals are made available to the soil micro-organisms and whole soil-food web. From the soil chemist's perspective, the process improves the ion-exchange capacity of soils while forming new clay minerals.
In November 2009, a Rocks for Crops conference was held in Brasilia with 170 participants to discuss the new science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
. Further conferences were held in Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
and in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, in December 2009 for the study and promotion of remineralization worldwide.
Legacy
Hamaker conducted the groundwork for a mass movement of people concerned about the health of the world’s soils, sustainable forests, climate change and improved nutrition from food. His proposal, rock dusting, known to enhance plant growth by nourishing biological and chemical aspects of the rhizosphere, resulted in soil regeneration to boost global plant cover. This assisted Earth's self-regulation and offered a more natural geoengineeringGeoengineering
The concept of Geoengineering refers to the deliberate large-scale engineering and manipulation of the planetary environment to combat or counteract anthropogenic changes in atmospheric chemistry The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded in 2007 that geoengineering options, such...
solution to the climate crisis not dependent on high technology, or on-going climate manipulation by man. Some scientists have postulated that technological solutions may exist to assist the remineralization process, such as converting carbon dioxide into organic carbon to be mineralized as sediment
Sediment
Sediment is naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of fluids such as wind, water, or ice, and/or by the force of gravity acting on the particle itself....
before being weathered to soil.
Writings
Hamaker’s main book was The Survival Of Civilization (1983, 2002). He also produced various articles and publications from the 1960s to the 1990s. His ideas were further elucidated by Donald A. Weaver in his book To Love & Regenerate The Earth (2002), and in articles for publications including Living Nutrition magazine, resulting in the publication of the e-book "Regenerate the Earth!: Nature's Call to Remineralize Our Soil, Re-Green Our Land, Rescue Our Climate and Restore Our Health" by Vibrance!, in 2001. Weaver remains involved in education campaigns to alert humanity to the climate crisis and foundational rock dust solution.Criticisms
EnergyHamaker’s hypothesis is criticised because fossil fuel
Fossil fuel
Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. The age of the organisms and their resulting fossil fuels is typically millions of years, and sometimes exceeds 650 million years...
energy is potentially required to create and distribute rock dust, and this generates when derived from fossil fuel, however, rock dust is predominantly a byproduct of the existing aggregate and quarrying industries Future rock dust production for broad-scale soil remineralization can be powered by renewable sources, such as wind enegy and bio-fuels grown on remineralized soils.
Climate control
Since land is naturally fertilized in glacial periods, remineralizing the Earth would emulate the glaciation process, allowing the reversal of what Hamaker and Weaver referred to as the interglacial soil demineralization and retrogressive vegetational succession (decline in the vegetative index). They reasoned that this would indefinitely sustain the interglacial ecosystem and climate, or at least slow down the speed of re-glaciation. However, scientists such as Mukul Sharmar, Charles A. Perry, Yuk Yung, Nigel Calder
Nigel Calder
Nigel Calder is a British science writer.Between 1956 and 1966, Calder wrote for the magazine New Scientist, serving as editor from 1962 until 1966...
, Henrik Svensmark
Henrik Svensmark
Henrik Svensmark is a physicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen who studies the effects of cosmic rays on cloud formation. His work presents hypotheses about solar activity as an indirect cause of global warming; his research has suggested a possible link through the interaction...
, Eigil Friis-Christensen
Eigil Friis-Christensen
Eigil Friis-Christensen is an expert in space physics, and Director of the Danish National Space Center.- Career :Friis-Christensen received a Magisterkonferens in Geophysics from University of Copenhagen in 1971. In 1972, he was a geophysicist at the Danish Meteorological Institute...
, Knud Lassen and Alexander Chizhevsky
Alexander Chizhevsky
Alexander Chizhevsky was a Soviet-era interdisciplinary scientist, a biophysicist who founded “heliobiology” and “aero-ionization”...
who have cited variations in the sunspot cycle as the dominant mechanism in climate cycles on Earth, not vegetation, have yet to incorporate the demineralization dimension.
More than a mini ice age in 2013-2041, and, major ice age in 2500, as projected by Khabibullo Abdusamatov
Khabibullo Abdusamatov
Habibullo Ismailovich Abdussamatov is a Russian astrophysicist of Uzbek descent. He is the supervisor of the Astrometria project of the Russian section of the International Space Station and the head of Space research laboratory at the Saint Petersburg-based Pulkovo Observatory of the Russian...
and studied by NASA, Hamaker's immediate concern was the shortening of the growing season from the coming glacial period, which he believed could be forestalled through rock dusting, resulting in more abundant yields at harvest
Harvest
Harvest is the process of gathering mature crops from the fields. Reaping is the cutting of grain or pulse for harvest, typically using a scythe, sickle, or reaper...
. He believed the coming glacial period would preceded by an interglacial-to-glacial transition phase already underway since the 1970s, and strongly advocated an intensive global co-operative soil remineralization effort to maintain the quantity of food while improving its quality. To achieve this, he recommended simultaneous remineralization of dying forests and soils, also needed to grow bio-fuels, as part of a goal to return excessive carbon dioxide to stable interglacial levels of 280 ppm.
See also
- DemineralisationDemineralisation* Demineralization ** Bone demineralisation leading to osteoporosis** Tooth demineralisation that leads to dental caries* Demineralizing of silk worm cocoons* Soil demineralisation*Also* Soil remineralisation – John D. Hamaker...
- List of Scientists Opposing the Mainstream Scientific Assessment of Global Warming
- Immobilization (soil science)
- Mineralization (soil)Mineralization (soil)Mineralization in soil science, is when the chemical compounds in organic matter decompose or are oxidized into plant-accessible forms,. Mineralization is the opposite of immobilization....
- Noctilucent clouds
- Ozone depletionOzone depletionOzone depletion describes two distinct but related phenomena observed since the late 1970s: a steady decline of about 4% per decade in the total volume of ozone in Earth's stratosphere , and a much larger springtime decrease in stratospheric ozone over Earth's polar regions. The latter phenomenon...
- Remineralization (Biogeochemistry)RemineralisationIn biogeochemistry, remineralisation refers to the transformation of organic molecules to inorganic forms, typically mediated by biological activity....
- Remineralize The Earth, Bioenergy Wiki
- Rock DustRockdustRockdust, also known as rock powders, rock minerals, soil remineralization and mineral fines, is a non-synthetic organic fertilizer usually consisting of crushed limestone but which may also be crushed basalt containing minerals and trace elements, used in organic farming.-Background:Rockdust is...
- Rock FlourRock flourRock flour, or glacial flour, consists of fine-grained, silt-sized particles of rock, generated by mechanical grinding of bedrock by glacial erosion or by artificial grinding to a similar size...
- Soil MineralizationMineralization (soil)Mineralization in soil science, is when the chemical compounds in organic matter decompose or are oxidized into plant-accessible forms,. Mineralization is the opposite of immobilization....
- Solar VariationSolar variationSolar variation is the change in the amount of radiation emitted by the Sun and in its spectral distribution over years to millennia. These variations have periodic components, the main one being the approximately 11-year solar cycle . The changes also have aperiodic fluctuations...