Make Charcoal, Solve Global Warming

by Patrick Di Justo · 2008-12-09 12:13:00 UTC
Topics:

How do we get fossilized carbon out of our atmosphere and back into the ground where it belongs? By making coal!

Well, charcoal. Cornell University professor Johannes Lehmann suggests reviving and expanding an ancient bit of soil management – plowing charred plants back into the soil.

Giving this material the new nifty name "bio-char", Lehmann hopes to use it to replicate the "terra preta" or "dark Earth" of the Amazon basin, where he studied the practice.  "Soils with biochar additions are typically more fertile, produce more and better crops for a longer period of time," Lehmann said.

Lehmann reports that biochar improves soil fertility because nutrients adsorb to the charred carbon readily. It's a long term solution because biochar is extremely stabile, and persists in the soil for a long time. He also suspects that biochar assists in the growth of soil microbes and helps to maintain stable levels of soil moisture.

But, as Lehmann explains on his website, bio-char is not a silver bullet, "but it can provide an important tool that contributes to a comprehensive approach that must include policy guidance."

Patrick Di Justo
PREVIOUS STORY:
Bandwidth for Climate Change
NEXT STORY:
Stopping the Water Grab in Nevada

COMMENTS (3)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.