- A Scottish couple who believe volcanic rock dust can
revitalise barren soil and reverse climate change have won research funding
from the Scottish Executive.
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- Over a 20-year period, Cameron and Moira Thomson, both
former teachers, have converted six acres of exposed, infertile land in
the foothills of the Grampian mountains near Pitlochry into a modern Garden
of Eden, using little more than the unwanted by-product from a nearby quarry.
The application of rock dust mixed with municipal compost has created rich,
deep soils capable of producing cabbages the size of footballs, onions
bigger than coconuts and gooseberries as large as plums.
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- Before the pair began their experiment, erosion and leaching
were so severe that nothing had been grown in the glen for almost 50 years.
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- The basis of the Thomsons' theory is simple - adding
the dust mimics glacial cycles which naturally fertilise the land. Since
the last ice age three million years ago the earth has gone through 25
similar glaciations, each lasting about 90,000 years. We are currently
10,000 years into an interglacial - a hiatus between ice ages - meaning
modern soils are relatively barren and artificial fertilisers are needed.
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- "We've been dismissed as cranks and loonies, and
now it looks as though people are starting to listen," said Mrs Thomson,
42. "Farmers and scientists have seen what we have achieved and are
willing to look into how it can be used for everything from growing crops
to turf for golf-courses." The couple established the Seer Centre
charitable trust in 1997 to test their ideas and have been grantedmore
than £95,000 by the Scottish Executive to conduct Britain's first
rock dust trials.
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- The Thomsons' technique may also play a significant role
in the fight against climate change, as the calcium and magnesium in the
dust they use converts atmospheric carbon into carbonates. "We are
walking into another ice age unless we do something now," said Mr
Thomson, 56. "If we burn fossil fuels at today's rates, atmospheric
carbon could be kept stable if we covered the earth soils with between
0.8 and 3.2 tons of rock dust per acre."
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=489728
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