Debating the Climate Benefits of ‘Biochar’

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/15/debating-the-climate-benefits-of-biochar/

April 15, 2009, 9:40 am

Debating the Climate Benefits of ‘Biochar’

By James Kanter

…

Advocates for biochar say those emissions are sustainable, and that the material provides additional greenhouse savings by capturing carbon dioxide. http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/govt-is-not-ignoring-biochar-says-burke-20090130-7tcd.html">Malcolm Turnbull, the leader of the Liberal Party in Australia and the country’s former environment minister, for example, has said the process could be used to absorb one-fifth of emissions in his country and raise agricultural productivity.

But some critics say the hype around biochar is undeserved, and that it is mainly driven by financiers who are seeking to generate emissions-reduction credits that can be bought and sold under the Kyoto climate treaty.

Those groups have released a “declaration,” titled http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/news.php?id=1226">“Biochar, a New Big Threat to People, Land and Ecosystems,” which aims to block biochar producers from credits they say would have questionable value for curbing global warming.

The campaigners warn that a boom in biochar could turn vast areas of land into plantations, displacing small farmers and indigenous peoples. They also warn that some companies creating biochar from discarded tires and factory waste may not produce material that helps fertilize the earth as effectively as other materials, and they say there is no conclusive proof that spreading charcoal on the earth will lock up carbon over the long term.

[kestrel91316]

1. It's a sad day when Terra Preta haters come out of the woodwork.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. It was news to me that "Terra Preta haters" existed

However, these people don't seem to be "Terra Preta haters" per se…

http://www.regenwald.org/international/englisch/news.php?id=1226

Declaration: ‘Biochar’, a new big threat to people, land, and ecosystems

26.03.2009

Keep ‘biochar’ and soils out of carbon trading

Caution urged against proposals for large scale use of charcoal in soils for climate change mitigation and soil reclamation

Adding charcoal (‘biochar’) to the soil has been proposed as a ‘climate change mitigation’ strategy and as a means of regenerating degraded land. Some even claim that this could sequester so much carbon that the Earth could return to pre-industrial carbon dioxide levels, i.e. that all the global warming caused by fossil fuel burning and ecosystem destruction could be reversed. Such large-scale production of charcoal would require many hundreds of millions of hectares of land for biomass production (primarily tree plantations). This is an attempt to manipulate the biosphere and land use on a vast scale in order to alter the global climate, which makes it a form of ‘geo-engineering’.

As the unfolding disaster of agrofuels clearly demonstrates, such major land-conversion poses a major threat to biodiversity and ecosystems that play an essential role in stabilising and regulating the climate and are necessary to ensure food and water security. It threatens the livelihoods of many communities, including indigenous peoples.

…

Eleven African governments have called for agricultural soils in general and ‘biochar’ in particular to be included into carbon trading. Their submission indicates that they seek to increase “private sector financing” (and by implication corporate control) over rural areas in the South, and to link this to proposals for including forests in carbon trading (i.e. the mechanisms for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation or REDD being negotiated at present). Those REDD proposals have met with opposition on the basis that they commodify forest ecosystems with dire implications for indigenous peoples and biodiversity. The inclusion of soils into those mechanisms would further extend such serious impacts.

…

It is not yet known whether charcoal in soil represents a ‘carbon sink’ at all. Industrial charcoal is very different from Terra Preta, the highly fertile and carbon-rich soils found in Central Amazonia which were created by indigenous peoples hundreds and even thousands of years ago. ‘Biochar’ companies and researchers have not been able to recreate Terra Preta.

…

[GliderGuider]

3. There are only two recognized positions on such issues:

There is unqualified acceptance, and there is hatred. Anyone who does not hew fully to one camp is automatically cast into the other.

Shades of gray are for intellectuals, relativists and losers, doncha know?

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. I'm told artists appreciate shades of gray

But, really, I mean… they're artists!

[Nihil]

5. Very biased approach too ...

... I mean, some of them *use* charcoal to create their shades of grey!

You can't tell me that they aren't just part of the Big Charcoal lobby?!