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The biochar solution to global warming
Global Warming
By JurriaanKamp | Published: December 18, 2009
The Ode team that is distributing our special issue with solutions to global warming in Copenhagen ran into an old friend.
We featured Thomas Harttung in our November 2008 issue. Harttung established an organic produce delivery service in Denmark that now has 45,000 members (about 1% of the Danish population) and annual revenues of about $55 million. Time recently named him a “hero of the environment”.
Harttung had come to Copenhagen for various meetings around the current UN Climate Conference. He has an interesting story about a solution to global warming. His new solution is, in fact, a very old one: biochar.
Biochar is a charcoal-like product made from organic waste.
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It has been used for thousands of years to create rich, fertile soils in the Amazon by the natives there. “Terra Preta de Indio” or black earth of the Indians in Portuguese, was made by the Pre-Columbian Indians.
They produced it by setting fire to organic waste, then piling earth on top of it and allowing it to smolder. Today, the biochar that they created is still in the earth.
Evidence from soil sampls in the Amazon shows large concentrations of biochar remaining ater they were abandoned thousands of years ago. Moreover the tests show that the biochar has retained its ability to store nutrients and water.
The great thing about biochar is that it is good for both the soil and the climate: it fertilizes the soil and it captures carbon. In fact, it is probably the best method for carbon sequestration. A common estimate is that the CO2 that is captured is stored for centuries. Furthermore: biochar can be created from different sources of organic waste, so it can practically be made everywhere.
The biochar solution to global warming
Thomas Harttung is producing biochar on his organic farm and he had come to Copenhagen to tell the story about this successful global warming solution. There is an International Biochar Initiative. Harttung’s story about the modern promise of ancient biochar is just one more example of the solutions that are available to fight global warming and clean up the planet. Whatever challenge global warming poses, there is really no lack of solutions.
The biochar solution to global warming
By JurriaanKamp | Published: December 18, 2009
BiocharThe Ode team that is distributing our special issue with solutions to global warming in Copenhagen ran into an old friend. We featured Thomas Harttung in our November 2008 issue. Harttung established an organic produce delivery service in Denmark that now has 45,000 members (about 1% of the Danish population) and annual revenues of about $55 million. Time recently named him a “hero of the environment”.
Harttung had come to Copenhagen for various meetings around the current UN Climate Conference. He has an interesting story about a solution to global warming. His new solution is, in fact, a very old one: biochar. Biochar is a charcoal-like product made from organic waste. It has been used for thousands of years to create rich, fertile soils in the Amazon by the natives there. “Terra Preta de Indio” or black earth of the Indians in Portuguese, was made by the Pre-Columbian Indians. They produced it by setting fire to organic waste, then piling earth on top of it and allowing it to smolder. Today, the biochar that they created is still in the earth. Evidence from soil sampls in the Amazon shows large concentrations of biochar remaining ater they were abandoned thousands of years ago. Moreover the tests show that the biochar has retained its ability to store nutrients and water. Read More »
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There is plenty renewable energy to fight global warming
By JurriaanKamp | Published: December 17, 2009
greenglobeThe shift from our current fossil fuel based economies to sustainable renewable energy economies is usually presented as a great challenge. That is also the message coming from the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen. Oil companies tell us that it can be done but that we need decades to get there. The numbers tell a bit of a different story. Total world energy consumption is about 15 terawatts (2005). All that energy can be generated by today’s solar panel technology on a sunny piece of land of about 550 by 550 kilometers (340 square miles). That is for instance about 3% of the surface of the United States and China, 4% of the surface of Australia, 3.5% of Brazil and 9% of India. And we just need to capture about 20% of the solar energy that hits such an area. Of course the beauty of solar energy is that it can be generated locally. So we are not going to see such a centralized production. But the numbers clearly convey that the challenge is not as huge as it is often presented. Read More »
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Global warming was not created by developing countries
By JurriaanKamp | Published: December 16, 2009
Photo: Earth Negotiations Bulletin
Photo: Earth Negotiations Bulletin
Leaders of developing countries walked out of the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen yesterday to protest what they called an attempt to kill the Kyoto Protocol. Rich nations are trying to reach a new climate agreement that includes emissions targets for the developing world. Developing countries are not legally bound by Kyoto emissions targets and support its extension beyond 2012, when the protocol’s first commitment period ends.
Let’s look at this for a moment from the perspective of a developing country, say Bangladesh. Bangladesh stands to lose a lot when sea levels continue the rise. The country has a large open, unprotected delta that faces the Indian Ocean. Bangladesh is already regularly hit by devastating cyclones that kill thousands and thousands of people. But what has Bangladesh contributed to global warming? The country is listed as number 144 on the list of CO2 emissions per capita per country. The average Bangladeshi emits 0.2 metric ton per capita. By comparison: the average Western European country emits 10 metric tons per capita and the United States tops the list (if we exclude a few small oil states in the Gulf) with about 20 metric tons per capita. In other words an American emits 100 times as much CO2 per capita that a Bangladeshi. Read More »
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The power that businesses have in this movement
By MarcoVisscher | Published: December 16, 2009
pharox-led60Agreements between countries “would never do enough,” California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said today at the Climate Conference in Copenhagen. Yes, these negotations are important, but Schwarzenegger rather puts his faith in people, not international laws. “I believe in the power of the iconoclast, the entrepreneur and the indivuals,” he said, adding scientists, capalists and activists to the list. After all, each great movement begins with people not governments, he says: the labor movement, women’s suffrage, civil rights, the Vietnam anti-war movement.
Schwarzenegger did not give many examples, but he could have refered to the makers of the Pharox, the LED bulb produced by Dutch technology firm Lemnis Lighting that uses at least 90 percent less energy than a 40-watt regular bulb, and lasts for more than 50,000 hours—that’s more than 30 years. Consider that 20 percent of the world’s energy bill is spent on lighting, and you don’t need to be a genius to realize how enormous the environmental and energy savings from LED bulbs could be. Read More »
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Notes from Copenhagen
By MarcoVisscher | Published: December 15, 2009
THE NETHERLANDS LIMATE TRAINAn Ode reader in New Delhi sent us a scan of a page from her copy of the India Times. There was an article on the Climate Conference in Copenhagen, but it wasn’t the text that had urged her to send us an email; it was the photo of two activists—with their hats well-prepared for the cold winter—in a “special climate-summit train” that arrived at Rotterdam: one of them held a copy of our special edition on solutions to global warming. (Get your free digital copy here.) What a nice surprise to find that photo in our email box!
These two women are part of our growing army of volunteers who have been handing out many thousands of copies of Ode at the Climate Conference. Our volunteers—some from Denmark, others all the way from the Netherlands where Ode was founded—report a lot of enthusiasm from the people who have received the issue. It seems that the stories we offered confirm the sense that “yes, we can” solve the challenges we’re facing. (Though, during the demonstration this weekend, activists seemed less interested in Ode’s special edition than the delegates, politicians and business leaders in and around the main venue for the summit: read here our Editor’s take on why that is.) Read More »
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We need to end climate anger
By JurriaanKamp | Published: December 15, 2009
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For the past week, a team of Ode volunteers has been handing out free copies of our special “Solutions We Need Now” issue, which presents a series of inspiring and innovative solutions to the challenge of global warming. Our volunteers have given away thousands of copies, and received great enthusiasm in return. They were looking forward to meeting with many more people over the weekend as Copenhagen witnessed large demonstrations. Interestingly enough, their meetings with the “broad coalition of hundreds of environmental groups, human rights campaigners, climate activists, anti-capitalists and freelance protesters from dozens of countries,” as one report described them, were not nearly as successful as the meetings with the delegates, politicians and business leaders in and around the Bella Center, the main venue for the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
There was quite a bit of anger in the crowds on the streets this weekend. I’m not referring to the relatively few violent troublemakers, many of whom were arrested by the Danish police. Unfortunately, such radicals will always misbehave at these events. No, our experience was that the many participants in the largely peaceful marches were not interested in solutions—what Ode’s special issue is about. They wanted their anger and frustration with governments and their leaders to be heard. It seemed that they were not (yet) up for meeting the challenge and solving the problem. Or maybe they cannot believe governments will ever act the way these protesters hope.
I sympathize with that frustration. Many people from many organizations have worked tirelessly for years, if not decades, to raise awareness around the issue of global warming. And the political reaction, so far, has been largely disappointing. There is a radical challenge and we have seen nowhere near a radical response.
Yet at the same time, the one thing we don’t need is more discord. We need to close ranks and join hands. We are facing a unique global challenge and, I would argue, an even more unique and inspiring global opportunity. It occurs to me that we need two radical responses. One has to come from the world leaders who need to plan, swiftly, the transformation from our fossil-fuel-based economies to sustainable clean energy economies. The other must come from environmentalists who need to embrace all the people they fear stand in the way of the progress the planet needs: the politicians and industrial leaders.
I’m sure there are people out there who have but one focus: to protect their vested interests. Yet my point would be that these people have children and grandchildren, too. These folks would also like to live in a cleaner world and go to their offices without negotiating exhaust fumes in their congested cities. Ultimately, we share the same interests. Copenhagen is building momentum for radical climate action. That is very good news. “Old” anger and “old” frustration—understandable as these sentiments are—should not become obstacles.
I suggest that the environmentalist, who have led on the issue for so many years, step up once more and open themselves to the idea that those industrial leaders and politicians may be ready to join them, now more than ever. I think everybody may be surprised.
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Meat is the primary cause of global warming
By MarcoVisscher | Published: December 15, 2009
flank-steak-ck-614032-xI wonder what’s on the menu for the Copenhagen delegates. One thing I’m pretty sure of: It will include meat. For a conference that aims to halt climate change that should be seen as a pretty controversial choice. More than all the airplanes that flew the delegates there, it’s eating meat that is the biggest cause of global warming.
While livestock farming is responsible for “only” 9 percent of total CO2 emissions, it’s mainly its contribution to other greenhouse gases that are leading the meat-eaters to lead the list of climate polluters. Nitrous oxide and methane respectively contribute 300 and 23 times more to the greenhouse effect than CO2—and livestock is responsible for 65 percent of nitrous oxide emissions and 37 percent of methane emissions.
These numbers come from a 2006 United Nations report, “Livestock’s Long Shadow.” The authors concluded that the livestock industry accounts for 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. That’s more than is produced by the various forms of transportation combined. In addition, 265 gallons (1,000 liters) of fossil fuel are needed to produce the meat consumed annually by the average family of four. When this fuel is burned, according to Jeremy Rifkin, author of Beyond Beef, more than 2.5 tons of extra CO2 enters the atmosphere—as much as the average car emits in six months. Read More »
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Invictus and Global Warming
By JurriaanKamp | Published: December 15, 2009
1013518.largeLast night I went to see the new movie Invictus and I learned an important lesson about the challenge of global warming. That may seem an unexpected experience as the movie is about rugby in South Africa. The film tells the true story of the world championships rugby in South Africa in 1995, about a year after the Nelson Mandela had been elected president for the first time by the black majority of the country. After Mandela’s party, the African National Congress (ANC) had come to power Mandela resisted pressure to change the name and colors of the national rugby team, the Springboks. The Springboks had become a much-hated symbol of the Apartheid policies of the white minority in South Africa. Against the deeply felt sentiments of his black supporters Mandela took a huge gamble to let the Springboks keep their name and colors. More so he aligned himself with the captain of the Springboks, François Pienaar and inspired him to lead South Africa against many odds to the world championship. Mandela realized that he would alienate the white minority by taking ‘their’ Springboks away. He also saw in the rugby world championships a great opportunity to unite his country behind a common national goal. His gamble brilliantly paid off as South Africa took the championships and the vent triggered national celebrations never seen before indeed bringing together South Africans. It is a beautiful film with Morgan Freeman (Mandela) and Matt Damon (François Pienaar). And it’s a lesson in statesmanship. As Freeman says in the film to his angry black supporters who don’t understand why he wants to keep the Springboks (and Mandela might have well said the same): “You elected me to lead you. Now let me lead you”. Mandela withstood vested interests and built a new nation. Read More »
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Global warming skeptics: What about air pollution?
By JurriaanKamp | Published: December 15, 2009
1013504.largeWhen most people agree on something there will always be a few challenging the consensus. It is a kind of unavoidable balancing act. So despite the overwhelming evidence that human activities are causing global warming, there will be skeptics questioning the science. I suggest that we change the debate. Let’s not argue about science. We may not even need the dire scientific messages about climate change to start transforming our fossil fuel based economies into sustainable renewable energy based economies. There is another, I think, far more compelling argument to shift to clean energy.
When I worked at Ode Magazine in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, I used to bike to our offices in the center of the city. Rotterdam is a big harbor city and I had to fight my way over the bike paths through the morning and evening rush hours. Biking was nice, but it was not nice to inhale all the exhaust fumes from the congested roads full of cars. Air pollution is a major problem. It kills millions of people worldwide every year—a fact that, as far as I know, is not much disputed. Read More »
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In praise of creative destruction
By Hermann Scheer | Published: December 12, 2009
COP Hermann Scheer layout.inddTo unlock the economic and environmental benefits of renewable energy, dismantle the conventional power industry.
Humanity stands on the threshold of an era of unprecedented opportunities. In the past decades, many innovative new technologies have become available and affordable that can transform our economies, which are based on polluting fossil fuels, into sustainable renewable-energy economies. This transformation will provide millions of new jobs. It will halt global warming. It will create a more fair and just world. It will clean our environment and make our lives healthier. However, for all this positive change to happen, we don’t need an international climate treaty. We don’t need a Copenhagen Protocol, just like we didn’t need a Kyoto Protocol. In fact, these international attempts stand in the way of the progress almost all of us need. Read More »
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