Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
THE BIOCHAR DEBATE
Schumacher Briefing No.16
by James Bruges
published by Green Books November 2009
ISBN 978 1 900322 67 6
210mm x 148mm 96pp in b&w paperback
£8.00
available in the USA via Chelsea Green Books
“There is one way we could save ourselves [from global heating] and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste - which contains carbon that plants have spent the summer sequestering - into non-biodegradable charcoal and burying it in the soil ... this scheme would need no subsidy: the farmer would make a profit.” – James Lovelock
Charcoal-making is one of the oldest industrial technologies, and in the last decade there has been a growing wave of excitement about its potential for combating climate change.
This is because burying biochar, that is to say, fine-grained charcoal, is thought to be a highly effective way in which to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
In addition, so usage seems to show, it can increase the yield of food crops and the ability of soil to retain moisture.
Some people are concerned, though, that awarding carbon credits for biochar could have seriously damaging outcomes, and I can but agree with them.
The Biochar Debate agrees with this but describes an alternative approach to carbon credits called the Carbon Maintenance Fund (CMF) that avoids the dangers and pitfalls of the credits.
This would give every government the incentive to enable its businesses, farmers and individuals to increase their country’s carbon pool.
It is based on remote sensing by satellite, a tried and tested technology, which would be applied globally each year to measure the increase or decrease of carbon in plants, soil and roots.
The Biochar Debate sets out experimental and scientific aspects of biochar in the context of global warming, the global economy and negotiations for the future of the Kyoto protocol.
It concludes with suggestions for how any individual – you and me – can make our contribution to saving the Planet.
While it all sounds very nice indeed the question that stands out first and foremost in my mind is “where is all the material for the biochar come from?” And the other question is, obviously, “how well does this work.”
We must also not forget, and the author did not either, in fact, the living carbon sinks, the woods and forests, in my opinion, but then I am a forester.
We would not be in this dilemma today had politicians listened when already in the 1890s scientists warned that basing the economy on fossil fuels, a finite resource, was dangerous, with regards to pollution as well as to the fact that one day the supply would come to an end.
Had we then, and in subsequent decades, listened and begun developing renewables we would, more than likely, not be in the state that we are in today.
Had we also listened to those that were standing against the chemicalization of farming soils would be in a much better health and shape and would absorb carbon properly.
In addition to that we have created a consumer economy and -society where everything is made just no longer to last, where everything has obsolescence after a few years factored in, that we must buy new every few year. This is yet another totally unsustainable way of living. And that aside from the way that advertising leads people to want new things every few years if not even months, and the way people go through cell phones is one example here.
When a book that I am reviewing has about as many Post-It Notes stuck as annotations to the pages then there are pages in the book this is either a sign that it is a good book or one that requires a lot of comments because of errors or what-have-you.
The Biochar Debate falls into the former rather than the latter category and the notes are, in fact, primarily for my own future references.
The author makes a great and convincing point for the use of biochar as a soil enhancer and as a means of extracting carbon (and other greenhouse gases) from the atmosphere.
Remains but the question as to why nothing is being done so far. We do not have another 1,000 years.
The author's point against, basically, carbon trading and carbon credits and especially here about not incorporating biochar into that are well made and very valid indeed.
Carbon credits and the trade in them is nothing but a trade in modern day indulgences permitting rich countries to carry on business as usual with emissions buying credits from the poor nations. What a farce.
The author, James Bruges, was brought up in Kashmir until the age of twelve. He worked as an architect in London, Sudan and India before setting up the practice of Bruges Tozer Partnership with Howard Tozer in Bristol. His books include Sustainability and the Bristol Urban Village Initiative, The Little Earth Book, The Big Earth Book and part of What About China?. He participates in FEASTA and the Quaker Economics Issues Group. With his wife Marion he
keeps in touch with and visits Gandhian NGOs in southern India.
The Biochar Debate is another one of those books that should be made compulsory reading for politicians the world over but especially those in the developed world and here especially the USA and Britain. They may just learn something here in how the fouled up, their predecessors for sure, here and how they must not permit the fossil fuel lobby to block things yet again. And that aside from the fact that oil is way to valuable to be burned.
© 2010
