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The world in 100 years and Biochar
If the world warms by 4 degrees Celsuis in the next hundred years, what does that mean in practical terms?
If you look at this map, then you'll see that about the only habitable (ie. capable of growing crops) places are Antartica, Patagonia, Northern Europe, New Zealand, a small part of central Africa, and a bit of Western and northern Australia. If you live in China, India, USA or most of South America, then you're pretty well stuffed. If you live in Polynesia, you're under water, so at least you don't need to worry about being a desert.
The areas that have habitable climates, however, will not necessarily have decent soil. Soil develops in conjunction with climate and vegetation and takes hundreds/thousands of years to develop to any decent depth.
A 4 degree rise is looking a lot more likely than it was even a couple of years ago. CO2 emissions are continuing to rise in spite of all warnings about the consequences.
The only good news that I can currently see (and it's only a small gain) is that there does seem to be one method of sequestering CO2 that could actually work. Biochar (essentialy buring at a low temperature with as little oxygen as possible) can use organic waste and convert it (sometimes even producing energy in the process) into charcoal which can then be added to soil to improve its fertility.
I have some confidence in this as a method without nasty potential side-effects, because soils produced by this method are already with us. When I was younger, one of the minor puzzles of the Amazon was the presence of pockets of terra preta (very deep, dark, fertile soil). Now, it's been shown to be anthropogenic and created by the original forest Indians. Whether this kind of charcoal production can be scaled up, and whether it will be equally beneficial to all soil types isn't yet certain, but it seems hopeful.
However, and it's a big however, common sense tells us that we need to sequester an amount of CO2 that approaches the amount of coal and oil that have been burnt in the last century. That's an awful lot of charcoal...
If you look at this map, then you'll see that about the only habitable (ie. capable of growing crops) places are Antartica, Patagonia, Northern Europe, New Zealand, a small part of central Africa, and a bit of Western and northern Australia. If you live in China, India, USA or most of South America, then you're pretty well stuffed. If you live in Polynesia, you're under water, so at least you don't need to worry about being a desert.
The areas that have habitable climates, however, will not necessarily have decent soil. Soil develops in conjunction with climate and vegetation and takes hundreds/thousands of years to develop to any decent depth.
A 4 degree rise is looking a lot more likely than it was even a couple of years ago. CO2 emissions are continuing to rise in spite of all warnings about the consequences.
The only good news that I can currently see (and it's only a small gain) is that there does seem to be one method of sequestering CO2 that could actually work. Biochar (essentialy buring at a low temperature with as little oxygen as possible) can use organic waste and convert it (sometimes even producing energy in the process) into charcoal which can then be added to soil to improve its fertility.
I have some confidence in this as a method without nasty potential side-effects, because soils produced by this method are already with us. When I was younger, one of the minor puzzles of the Amazon was the presence of pockets of terra preta (very deep, dark, fertile soil). Now, it's been shown to be anthropogenic and created by the original forest Indians. Whether this kind of charcoal production can be scaled up, and whether it will be equally beneficial to all soil types isn't yet certain, but it seems hopeful.
However, and it's a big however, common sense tells us that we need to sequester an amount of CO2 that approaches the amount of coal and oil that have been burnt in the last century. That's an awful lot of charcoal...
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screwing upinhabitting and terraforming other worlds.Thanks for the link.