Agents of Habitat: Lesson 3 - Carbon Cycling

Visualize yourself as a pattern in the flow of organic molecules moving through your ecosystem.

You can begin to observe the characteristics of the pattern as it changes when you move. The flows in the city are different from the flows in the suburbs are different from the flows in the countryside. Each space has a mix of species and a mix of humans participating. Observe how you feel in one place compared to another place. What makes one place comfortable to you and another uncomfortable?

Think of it as a continuum of welcoming.

At one end of the continuum there are few species and few humans welcome. We think of this kind of place as sterile and barren. At the other end of the continuum there are many species and humans participating. The most beautiful places on earth have the greatest variety of participation. We think of this kind of place as healthy. Think of your task as an agent of habitat as moving those places where you have influence in the direction of health. Make your place more welcoming . . . one new relationship at a time.

Carbon Cycling is the Key to a Welcoming Place.

There is an exercise you can use to help visualize the flow of nutrients through a habitat. It is a story about carbon adventures. Hold up your hand in the shape of a “C”. Imagine it with googly eyes and floating eye brows. (This should be an animated short :-). If you have the talent to produce this kind of short video and want to contribute please contact us.)

“Hi, I'm C, and I want to tell you about my latest adventure.” 

“I was just floating around with a couple of oxygen buddies when we got sucked into the stoma of a leaf. I spent a whole summer doing support work for the sugar factory in that leaf. It could have been worse. I know Cs that become part of tree trunks for 100 years or more.”

“When fall came the leaf fell to the ground and a bacteria took me in as it absorbed the leaf. One thing led to another as I was pooped out of one thing, taken up by another, that was eaten by another and then pooped out again, taken up again . . . . I was nematode, grass, rabbit, mushroom, beetle, . . . "

( . . . this part can be extended as long as you can hold the attention of your audience . . . we are also looking for good story tellers. Write up your version of Carbon Adventures and we will share it with the animators.)

“Some time later I was part of a worm crawling through leaf litter and this chicken eats me. I came out of the chicken as part of an egg and the egg was eaten by a human. Then I was cruising through the blood stream of the human until I was absorbed by a muscle cell . . . the cell contracted . . . there in the muscle cell were two oxygen buddies . . . we grabbed a hold of each other flowed out through the lungs . . . and here I am ready for another adventure . . . “

The more participants in the pattern of flows of a place

the more carbon is tied up in organic molecules that make up the participants. The greater the variety of species the more ways the carbon can be retained in the system before it is returned to the atmosphere. The more there is flowing through the system the easier it is for individuals to find what they need to thrive . . . In other words, the more carbon cycling the more welcoming the place . . .

This is how we will heal nature, produce abundance and begin to pull carbon from the atmosphere.

Cycling carbon locally by welcoming all species to participate is by its very process healing nature. If we employ all the unrealized human potential on this planet in the process of cycling carbon we will provide what every one of those individuals need to thrive.

The living system on this planet has proven that it has the capacity to remove as much carbon as we want from the atmosphere. You will hear things about the ability of soils to capture carbon, for example, and that is true as far as it goes. You now know that carbon is captured in the living things participating in the flows of nutrients within a place . . . and you know that you can influence an increase in the number of living things participating in your place . . .

and it is really as simple as that . . .

we heal nature, produce abundance and pull carbon from the atmosphere as individuals work to create a welcoming space where they live.