I’m delighted that an article I’ve done on biochar for Grist went “live” today. If you don’t know about the extraordinary potential here, check out the article, Biochar as the new black gold. Even if you do, I think it’s worth a visit. It’s part of a Grist Special Series, What’s the deal with offsets?
Further to the Grist piece, here’s some more material that I assembled for the story.
In talking about what’s going on at the Department of Agriculture, I noted that the new Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, has climate change high on his agenda. Vilsack was a keynote speaker at the North American Biochar Conference 2009 that took place earlier this week. It was cosponsored by the University of Colorado’s Center for Energy and Environmental Security (CEES) and the International Biochar Initiative (IBI).
Debbie Reed, IBI’s Executive Director, based in Washington, sees carbon credits from biochar as critical to providing the “economic leverage” necessary to build the knowledge, financing and infrastructure to begin to fully realize biochar’s enormous potential. She’s got an active schedule on the Hill, at the federal agencies, and at the White House. Reed has also met with World Bank staff. She and the network of researchers and activists that the IBI has created are hard at work briefing public officials and top staff at environmental organizations far and wide. The IBI has organized international conferences at which government representatives from countries with vigorous biochar initiatives, such as Japan, New Zealand and Australia, among others, along with scientists and farmers from all over the world, have been actively exchanging vital information.
Johannes Lehmann, IBI’s Chairman and a professor at Cornell, fully recognizes the steep hills that are yet to be climbed. Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) has only recently gained the full attention of climate policy makers. He sees that now “There are a lot of groups interested in making agricultural sustainability issues tied to carbon trading and mitigation part of the agenda.”
As the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization reminds us, in its policy brief Anchoring Agriculture within a Copenhagen Agreement, “Agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gases (GHG), contributing 14% of global emissions. When combined with related land use changes, including deforestation (for which agriculture is a major driver), this share becomes more than one-third of total GHG emissions.” FAO goes on to say “Technical mitigation potential for the sector is high and 74% of this potential is in developing countries.”
Activist David Yarrow is working hard to make things happen by teaching farmers and gardeners about the virtues of biochar and by coordinating the efforts of the Carbon-Negative Network. He is steeped in decades in the organic food and permaculture movements. In his outreach in the Northeast, he is encountering hundreds of excited farmers, gardeners, and landscapers. He is using the network to develop a body of useful information including how to create reliable, durable hardware for pyrolysis. He is not only focused on reducing GHG but on the properties of biochar that help it regenerate the biota in soil and in making more “nutrient-dense” food.
From the activist farmer in the field to the highest reaches of the international negotiations on climate change, from rural America to rural Africa, from think tanks to university agricultural science programs to international governmental organizations, from carbon traders to development specialists, agricultural sustainability is gaining currency, and biochar is one of the critical elements in what Worldwatch characterizes as the movement for “Farming and Land Use to Cool the Planet.”
