Cooling the Planet with Biomass? 350ppm CO 2 ?

Catastrophic climate change demands strong measures… Burning biomass and sequestering the carbon will reduce the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 500 million hectares of biomass plantations may be enough to re-freeze the Arctic and keep the methane locked up.

Terra preta: Charcoal has helped to lock carbon into the soil for millennia

Modern Biochar What Amazonian peoples achieved in centuries or millennia, modern agriculture and the forestry industry can do in a few years, locking decades worth of fossil fuel emissions into the soil forever.

Biochar can take 6 billion tonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere every year (Tim Flannery)

Bioenergy with CCS can cool the planet even more (J.Hansen)

What do we (not) know about biochar? There is no long-term study to show whether soil nutrients and carbon will stay in the soil. The longest study was abandoned after 4 years and no results were published. Nobody knows how to incorporate biochar into the soil without increasing soil erosion and depletion, which would emit even more CO2. In boreal forests, biochar has been shown to increase microbial activity, leading to original soil carbon being released into the atmosphere.

The biochar investment rush begins… Dynamotive pyrolysis plant Biochar is a by-product of pyrolysis. This means gasification of biomass, which yields bio-oil and syngas. Both can be used for heat and power, or converted to synthetic bio-diesel. Char is a by-product of pyrolysis. Revenues from selling it as a fertiliser, and possibly gaining future carbon credits would make pyrolysis firms more competitive.

Integrated biorefineries Biochar would be another lucrative product from future integrated biorefineries. Those would bring together the pulp and paper industry, agro- business and the chemical industry to produce transport fuels, heat and power, various chemical products and fertilisers.

500 million hectares of biochar plantations? Pictures by FSC Watch and Global Justice Ecology Project

Industrial monocultures accelerate climate change are not Monocultures are the main driver of deforestation. Monocultures of trees or crops deplete soil and water. They require large amounts of agro-chemicals made from fossil fuels. Nitrous oxide and methane from industrial agriculture accounts for 14% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Deforestation accounts for 18% - and peat drainage possibly for even more.

Climate change from ecosystem destruction: More than carbon emissions Nitrogen Cycle: Regulated by soil microbes and plants (controls levels of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide) Evapo-transpiration: Forests play a key role in regulating rainfall systems and storm- tracks jrscience.wcp.muohio.edu

Monocultures drive Amazon destruction

Storm clouds over the Amazon: How the forest drives rainfall The Amazon forest recycles 70-80% of its rainfall. Large amounts of energy are released and push rain clouds across much of Latin America and the southern US. Without enough dense canopy, that whole rainfall system could collapse.

NASA satellite Amazon Fires 72,000 Sept 2007 Para Up 39-85% Mato Grosso Up

Soya refugees today – biochar refugees tomorrow? Indigenous environmental refugees (climate change, soy expansion): Mbya Guarani people on the streets of Asunción, Paraguay,

Eviction for sugar ethanol in Brazil “We are well positioned to win the current land grab in next-generation fuels” (BestEnergies, leading investor in pyrolysis and biochar research)

No stable climate without biodiversity Biodiversity losses reduce the Earth’s ability to regulate the climate. If species are lost, the ability of ecosystems to function can suddenly collapse. We are around today because, during previous warming periods and mass extinctions, enough species survived to eventually stabilise the climate.

Conclusions 1 Fossil fuel burning and ecosystem destruction are the twin drivers of climate change. The industrial exploitation of the biosphere is not compatible with the surival of human and other species.

Conclusions 2 We may not be able to prevent catastrophic climate change. There are no known ways of cooling the planet. Planetary engineering of the biosphere is likely to trigger irreversible ecological and climate collapse. We need to stop the destruction of the biosphere and the burning of fossil fuels to give humans and other species a chance of survival.