I'M AN EMERGENCY PLANETARY TECHNICIAN.
I am founder (1974) and president of Global Village Institute for Appropriate Technology, a non-profit scientific research, development and demonstration organization with projects on six continents. I am also Chief Permaculture Officer (2015) for Qi, a COOL DESIGN services company focusing on trillionization, climate stabilization, metabiophysical entanglement and stranded investment rescues.
“We transform CO2 in the air into non-fuel ecommodities that replace fossil products at a lower price. We create sustainable yields, while fixing CO2. We are cooling the planet.”
The tools in my kit include biophysical economics, biochar, circular economy, ecovillage, ecodistrict, cool labs, climate ecoforesty, leaf protein, biomass energy, terra preta, carbon cascades, food security, sustainable development goals, permaculture, organic and biodynamic gardens, and holistic management.
Burn: Igniting a New Carbon Drawdown Economy to End the Climate Crisis, with co-author Kathleen Draper, is now in Kindle, paperback and audiobook from Chelsea Green Publishers. Project Drawdown founder Paul Hawken calls Burn "a brilliant, climatic coup that uplifts biochar to an entirely new level of substance and urgency." In Regeneration, Hawken writes:
"According to biochar advocates Albert Bates and Kathleen Draper, switching 10% of our cements and mortars from silicates and carbon would cancel out another 1% of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Other uses for biochar include highways and paved roads, internal building material, roofing tiles, insulation and humidity control, plaster, batteries, recyclable plastics, sports clothing, paper, packaging, tires, housewares, air fresheners, greywater filters, electromagnetic radiation absorption, 3D printer ink, cosmetics, paints, medicine and many others. If practical, after its initial use the biochar can then be recycled into another useful product or turned into an amendment for soil, from which it originated, closing the circle. With its focus on biological principles and the promotion of life, biochar is as much an attitude as it is a practice.”
"This book is a big deal. It argues persuasively that carbon has been vilified far too long. Biochar, a hard, crystal-like form of carbon, can reanimate tired soils and help to mop up vast amounts of C02 from the atmosphere. The authors speak as seasoned scientists as well as practitioners, and their arsenal of arguments offers more than a glimpse of hope in a world threatened with climate doom. If there is a way out, here is a bunch of keys to the door at the end of the tunnel."
— Herbert Girardet, co-founder World Future Council; executive council member, Club of Rome
"Reading Albert Bates is always a delight. He challenges us in his humorous, outside the box, style with deep, practical and original carbon insights based on years of experience as one of the world's leading permaculture experts. His solutions are low-cost, scalable and doable—right on."
— Ross Jackson, Chair, Gaia Trust, Denmark, author of Occupy World Street: A Global Roadmap for Radical Economic and Political Reform
"Carbon is the element that likes to hold hands and collaborate. We can learn a lot from carbon if we stop demonizing it. Burn does an exceptional job telling the vital story of carbon in a form that can address the interconnected crises in waste, energy, food, soil, water and most pressingly, climate. This book plays a critical role in educating us to reorient with carbon math, reimagine the role of carbon cascades and redesign the carbon cycle."
— Amanda Joy Ravenhill, Executive Director of Buckminster Fuller Institute and Co-Founder of Project Drawdown.
"Brilliant in its range and depth, Burn offers an integrated approach to addressing climate change and biodiversity loss, providing potential solutions for tackling the full range of activities that negatively impact climate. it is a groundbreaking sequel to The Paris Agreement and gives hope to a world facing a multiplicity of interlinked crises."
— Feargal Duff, formerly with UN Environmental Programme, Irish Doctors Environmental Association and International Society of Doctors for the Environment
I went to The Farm as soon as I got to America, saw it in 1995. I was looking for The Spirit of the 1960s. What I found was burned out old hippies who all hated each-other, and a few seriously massive wizards like @peaksurfer who defined the course of my life from that point on.
— Vinay Gupta, who launched $70bn @EthereumProject, now CEO of @mattereum and inventor of the hexayurt
The four stages
an interview with Albert
Each stage of our lives has is a unique facet. In this April 2023 interview on Permaculture Visions I spoke about my 4 stages of life and how I stay hopeful.
