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Biochar: The Viagra of Mitigation
arduous blog —
The Guardian has had a nice series of articles on that possible mitigation wonder: biochar. The basic idea is explained here. Basically, it involves cooking wood into charcoal in order to sequester the carbon. By planting fast-growing trees, and then cooking the wood, we could potentially suck carbon out of the atmosphere. The Guardian subsequently published several opinion pieces on the matter: James Lovelock and Chris Goodall are for it (along with NASA climate scientist James Hansen, but he didn't write a Guardian op-ed), and George ...
Biofuels & biochar - Mar 25
Energy Bulletin - —
... components (which can be used as fuel), then the residue - the charcoal - is buried in the soil. According to the magical thinkers who promote it, the new miracle stops climate breakdown, replaces gas and petroleum, improves the fertility of the soil, reduces deforestation, cuts labour, creates employment, prevents respiratory disease and ensures that when you drop your toast it always lands butter side up. (I invented the last one, but give them time). (24 March 2009) Related: Reply from James Lovelock ...
Biochar is No Climate Change Miracle Cure: George Monbiot
TreeHugger —
... million or even more than a billion hectares—as in, so much of the planet that he wonders where the land would come from without "causing instant global famine, or double the cropped area, trashing the remaining natural habitats." Which is fair criticism of such proposals, to be sure, but you can imagine how scientists who have made their life's work in considered, sober and reasoned statements might object to be tarred with that same brush. Lovelock: You Don't Have to Plant Trees... Lovelock responded: Yes, it is silly to rename charcoal as biochar and yes, it would be wrong ...
Biochar Wars
Peak Energy —
... James Lovelock has a reply in The Guardian, noting that most sensible people would agree that creating plantations in the tropics in order to create charcoal is a bad idea, but that processing some existing crop wastes and using them for carbon sequestration is an entirely sensible idea - Lovelock replies to Monbiot on biochar. ...
Pyrolising the Planet
Monbiot.com —
The debate over biochar hots up. By George Monbiot. Published on my Guardian blog, 27th March 2009 Well that got ‘em going. So far James Lovelock , ...
Pyrolising the Planet
Permaculture Research Institute of Australia —
Pyrolising the Planet Biodiversity , Deforestation , Food Shortages , Global Warming/Climate Change , Soil Erosion & Contamination — by George Monbiot The debate over biochar hots up. by George Monbiot - journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist [image] Well that got ‘em going. So far James Lovelock , Jim Hansen and Pushker Kharecha , Chris Goodall and Peter Read have all responded in the Guardian to my column on biochar . Reading their responses, I ...
Renewables & biofuels - Apr 1
Energy Bulletin - —
... , and James Lovelock . IBI sent The Guardian the response below written by IBI staff members Stephen Brick and Debbie Reed. George Monbiot is right on the mark about our seemingly irresistible tendency for embracing miracle cures. And it is refreshing to have the press remind us that the laws of thermodynamics will continue to apply in our quest to reduce global carbon emissions. But his diatribe against biochar-like most such screeds-would have us throw the baby out with the bathwater. This has been said often, but it needs to be said again: there is no magical pathway for ...
The Biochar Question–Part I
FUTURISM NOW —
... but first here is part of Monbiot’s recent Guardian column. He’s been writing lately about what he sees as an over-dependence on the idea of using biochar to soak up CO2.
“Charleaders must cool enthusiasm for setting fire to the planet
Reactions to my ‘biochar’ stance got a lot of people fired up, but I was too soft on one champion of so-called development.
(March 27 2009) — “Well that got ‘em going. So far James Lovelock, Jim Hansen and Pushker Kharecha, Chris Goodall and Peter ...
Biochar as the new black gold
Grist - the Latest from Grist —
... along with the IBI, pushed hard to include biochar in the draft negotiating text for the upcoming Copenhagen climate talks. This means that biochar and other methods of employing agriculture to mitigate carbon emissions may well lead to the issuing of offset credits for these methods. This is the big prize that could lead to the massive deployment of biochar production worldwide.
Biochar has been embraced by worthies such as Chris Goodall and James Lovelock. Tim Flannery, in his foreword to Biochar for Environmental Management, ...
Turning Charcoal Into Carbon Gold
Worldchanging: Bright Green —
... of carbon capture and storage. Carbon, in the form of wood from trees and agricultural waste, can be turned to charcoal and buried in the ground, so storing it away from the atmosphere. If enough carbon can be buried in this way, then it could bolster so-far feeble global attempts to address climate change through cuts greenhouse gas emissions. Making and burying biochar to help reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere has some heavy green backing, including scientist and author James Lovelock and ...
