Burn Charcoal to Help Reverse Climate Change?

Burning something organic is usually seen to be dirty--not, porn "dirty" but pollution dirty. However, science is finding that a form of charcoal might actually help reduce greenhouse gases:

As much as 12 percent of the world's human-caused greenhouse gas emissions could be sustainably offset by producing biochar, a charcoal-like substance made from plants and other organic materials. That's more than what could be offset if the same plants and materials were burned to generate energy, concludes a study published August 10 in the journal Nature Communications. "Biochar offers one of the few ways we can create power while decreasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. And it improves food production in the world's poorest regions by increasing soil fertility. It's an amazing tool."

Biochar is made by decomposing biomass like plants, wood and other organic materials at high temperature in a process called slow pyrolysis. Normally, biomass breaks down and releases its carbon into the atmosphere within a decade or two. But biochar is more stable and can hold onto its carbon for hundreds or even thousands of years, keeping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide out of the air longer. Other biochar benefits include: improving soils by increasing their ability to retain water and nutrients; decreasing nitrous oxide and methane emissions from the soil into which it is tilled; and, during the slow pyrolysis process, producing some bio-based gas and oil that can offset emissions from fossil fuels.

Green man: It's going to take a patchwork of ideas and revolutionary science to tackle the vast scale of the problem. There is no "magic elixir" to change this trend and threat to not just our environment but our very lives. It's simply a reality that not every place gets enough sun for solar energy, not enough wind for wind energy and hydrogen is still expensive and volatile. Another idea that I like is using algae to power our cars. The problem isn't the ability to solve this problem but rather the lack of political willpower to see the dire need for these technologies. No where is this more evident than in the United States where a large chunk of the problem stems from with emissions. We Americans unfortunately know a lot about war and coming up with a multi-tiered plan is essential and something of a strong suit for us. We need to convince other Americans that this climate issue is a major national security issue--it's a war and thus demands an immediate and diverse battle plan. And it needs to be set into motion, frankly, immediately.

The irony of using biochar is that the environmental benefits of it have long been known to ancient man but modern man's arrogance took over and the assumption was that nearly everything the ancients knew was to no longer beneficial. "Amazonian Indians mixed a combination of charcoal and organic matter into the soil to improve soil fertility, a fact that got the scientists interested in studying biochar's modern potential." The renaissance brought about many wonderful benefits to civilization; not the least of which being science itself!! The very science that is now rediscovering the benefits of charcoal. Rediscoveries like this always make me sober in one respect because of all the genocide modern man is committing by cutting down the rain forests. How many cures for various cancers could be destroyed? Or cures for HIV/AIDS?

~The Green Man has Spoken~

Saving the Amazon may be the Most Cost-Effective Way to Cut Green House Gases.

An hour outside Manaus, the Amazon's biggest city, the blackened remains of a virgin forest smolder. Chain saws whine. And Jonas Mendes tosses logs, one after another, into his kiln. "I know it's wrong to cut down the trees," said Mendes, 48, sweat streaming down his neck and torso. "But I have no other way to make a living." If the Obama administration succeeds in its pledge to curb climate change, billions could flow from the U.S. to help forest dwellers such as Mendes change their ways. Governors of the Brazilian Amazon's nine states are pushing the U.S. and other industrial nations to invest in projects under rules known as REDD -- or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation -- that are being designed through the auspices of the United Nations.

Under pending legislation to cap greenhouse gases, the U.S. government would auction emission allowances, funneling as much as $3 billion from the annual proceeds into rain forest protection. U.S. companies facing carbon controls could meet part of their obligations by investing as much as $13 billion a year by 2020 to preserve forests. The reason? Slash-and-burn deforestation accounts for about 15% of humanity's carbon dioxide emissions. Despite activists' efforts, forests have been disappearing at the rate of about 34 million acres a year for the last two decades. Globally, Indonesia and Brazil are the third- and fourth-largest emitters respectively of greenhouse gases, after China and the U.S., because of their breakneck pace of forest destruction.

Saving the Amazon, Earth's largest tropical jungle, can be a cheaper and faster way to avoid greenhouse gas emissions than replacing coal-fired power plants with renewable energy or switching to electric cars -- although all such measures are considered necessary by climate experts.

Green Man: I first heard about this idea when the government of Guyana announced that some European countries are buying emission allowances to protect the forests there, which are some of the last virgin stands in the world. Some people in the United States though don't see the upside to this idea--they think we're just redistributing wealthy to poorer countries with nothing in exchange. That is a myopic way of looking at the situation though because if we just continue to allow the free market to go unfettered without pollution controls then there will be no world for these companies to live in, work, in and enjoy their money upon. In the rich countries we don't see the consequences of our everyday actions so much as the places who are getting hit first with environmental degradation. We don't see on a daily basis the island nations whose rural livelihood is being directly threatened but yet they did nothing to bring such trouble upon themselves. Yet in the cruel twisting of fate they have to pay for our mess first.

What's in it for the wealthier countries? A clean environment where our children and grandchildren can thrive. I never understood how the American Conservatives are so against protecting the environment when it has direct repercussions for their families. I say this because, ironically, they are very much in support of strong families and protecting their posterity!!

The Amazon along with all the other big forests around the world are our lungs as well as our liver and kidneys, filtering out the toxic gases and it should be starkly clear that any organism can't survive without its physiological systems intact. Well, the Earth is just as alive as any other being on Earth. It's constantly moving, growing, changing and just like all organisms it can get sick. The Earth has "physiological systems" at work in the air, water, earth and fire. It all has to be balanced or the perfect conditions for ALL life to thrive within will die. This should have been plainly made clear in school for most people when discussing the basic "food chain" concept. If one of the animals in the food chain goes extinct (say a predator) then it throws the balance of nature completely off and you get over-population of species, which in turn depletes the grasses and on and one the domino effect goes. How would it be any different for the plant life growing on Earth?

We need to stop looking at the environment as optional and realize that NOTHING, literally NOTHING else is possible in this life without it. I don't care how big your house is, how much money you have or how healthy you are right now because if we don't clean up our environment and get the cycles back in order then we'll all be dead. I'm not being hyperbolic on this--It's a really crisis. There won't be another chance to make up for missing the boat on this one. It's not like we can always revisit the issue like other issues before governments such as health care programs and such. We have one shot, one opportunity and it would be a shame if we humans were the ones to fuck it all up. It would be shame because it would be our own damn fault. We'd be nothing better than a stupid parasite who killed off its host and thus it as well.

And isn't it better to be safe than sorry? If for some reason ALL the scientists in the world are wrong and Earth will be just fine then at least we protected the last natural places on the planet. Open air museums for our children and grandchildren to visit. And if nothing else we will have created a whole new economy for the world in green energy, which will also free us from foreign oil imported from countries who don't like us anyway!! It's win-win situation either way if you ask me!! I really encourage you to read the rest of the article because it goes into so many great points that I don't have space or time to extrapolate upon them here. Click here for the full article.

---The Green Man has Spoken---

2010 Environmental Performance Index Released.

Green Man: Happy Imbolc!! I am posting this in honor of early shoots of Spring:

Environmental experts at Yale and Columbia universities released their biannual Environmental Performance Index at the World Economic Forum. The index ranks 163 nations according to their performance on 25 indicators that fall into ten policy categories, which are as follow: environmental burden of disease, air pollution (effects on humans), air pollution (effects on ecosystem), water (effects on humans), water (effects on ecosystem), biodiversity and habitat, forestry, fisheries, agriculture, and climate change. Iceland came in first: Iceland snatched the top spot with its performance on environmental public health, controlling greenhouse gas emissions, and reforestation. According to the Iceland Review, the decision ultimately came down to the fact that nearly all the country's energy comes from renewable resources, such as this geothermal plant:

Green Man: In earning my minor degree in Geography at university I took a class on natural energy and did a research paper on Iceland's use of geothermal energy. It may evoke white winter weather but it is one of the "greenest" countries in the world. In the winter the geothermal energy is so abundant that it actually warms up the asphalt roads near these plants, which helps keep them clear of ice. A quarter of Iceland's energy comes from geothermal and it meets the heating and hot water demands of 87% of Icelanders. However, Iceland's green energy doesn't stop there--75.4% of their energy comes from hydroelectric sources and only 0.1% from fossil fuels. It is one of the youngest places on Earth and also one of the most pristine natural environments in the world. So, it's easy to see why this small but technologically advanced country tops the list. Next, is meticulously clean and beautiful Switzerland:They have done much to invest in and build up environmental infrastructure as well as strong and aggressive policies to increase their green energy use and reliance. It is a mountainous country, which gives them a very clean and clear water source and the recreational options in those mountains and hills offer a great quality of life for the Swiss. As of 2007, Switzerland's overall electric production comes primarily from hydropower at 96.5%. In addition, the European alpine country have laid out an aggressive framework for rapidly increasing and investing in green energy:

In a surprising move, Switzerland has adopted one of the world's most aggressive systems of Advanced Renewable Tariffs. The Swiss, famed for conservative traditions, stodgy bankers and trains that run on time, have joined a growing list of countries using feed-in tariffs to promote the rapid development of renewable energy. Not content to start with a timid program incrementally raising the bar year by year, the Swiss federal government this spring launched a full-system of feed-in tariffs differentiated by technology, size and application. There are tariffs, or payments per kilowatt-hour (kWh), for solar photovoltaics, wind, hydro, geothermal and biomass.

Green Man: The final one that I'll mention in this post is the only non-European country in the top three--Costa Rica. It is one of the most bio-diverse environments in the world. Costa Rica has invested aggressively in its environmental tourism, which demands protection of their rain forests:

Costa Rica is looking to capitalize on its forests in ways other than eco-tourism. In 2005, Costa Rica joined a coalition of tropical developing countries that proposed a "rainforest conservation for emissions" deal at the December United Nations summit on climate change in Montreal. The plan, which was accepted by the UN, called for wealthy nations to compensate poor nations for rainforest conservation. Costa Rica already had a similar program in place which protected rainforest by selling allowances to emit greenhouses gases. In 1999, the program generated some $20 million.

Green Man: That's a very smart and understandable way to leverage their assets (nature) to gain business from it while protecting it at the same time. They have become leaders in the eco-tourism business and is part of the reason why my wife and I will be going there for our 10th wedding anniversary in April of this year. We're excited to explore the dense, green, old growth, primal cloud forests and rain forests especially.

It isn't any wonder then why Costa Rica is so proud of its environment and why so many flock to experience it from all over the world. If you go, please do your best to stay with reputable eco-lodges who are actually devoted to protecting the environment rather than cashing in on the "eco-tourism" label. Please leave it the way you found it so that humans can experience this special place for generations to come. It is a jewel in an environmentally devastated world and serves as an example of how to preserve nature while still keeping a vibrant economy.