Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Climate & Climate Change

Store Carbon as Biochar

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One solution to “carbon pollution” is biochar, but according to the Australian government’s policy on emissions trading, the science of biochar is not fully developed – so it can’t be included in any emissions trading scheme. 

According to Environmental Scientist, Professor Syd Shea:

Biochar is a fine-grained, highly porous charcoal that helps soils retain nutrients and water. The carbon in biochar resists degradation and sequesters carbon in soils for hundreds to thousands of years, providing a potentially powerful tool for mitigating anthropogenic climate change. When the biochar is made from agricultural and plantation wastes that would otherwise decompose within a few years, emissions of greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere are avoided and that carbon is permanently stored in the biochar.

The Rainbow Bee Eater team, named after a beautiful bird that lives in the regions where they work, has been working on biochar for several years. They are planning to implement a pilot scale operational biochar trial on a 23 thousand hectare wheat belt farm in Western Australia in 2009.

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Trading Carbon as a Belief

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“Australia’s Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has failed to see through the vested interests that promote anthropogenic global warming (AGW), the theory that human emissions of carbon cause global warming. Though masquerading as “science based”, the promoters of AGW have a medieval outlook and are in fact anti-science. Meanwhile carbon is innocent, and the political class is plunging ahead with making us poorer because they do not understand what science really is or what the real science is.”

This is the message from David Evans, former consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office, in an opinion piece first published by ABC Unleashed.  It continues:

“The Renaissance began when the absolute authority of the church and ancient texts was overthrown. Science then evolved as our most reliable method for acquiring knowledge, free of superstition and political authority. Suppose you wanted to know whether big cannonballs or small cannonballs fell faster. In medieval times you argued theoretically with what could be gleaned from the Bible, the works of Aristotle, or maybe a Papal announcement. In the Renaissance you ignored the authorities and simply dropped cannon balls from a tower and observed what happened – this was science, where empirical evidence trumps theory.

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Ten Worst Man-Made Disasters

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We’ve had the ten worst climate research papers, the ten worst blog posts, and now Cohenite has decided on ten of the worst man-made disasters.  I can’t say I agree with all his choices for the list, but we are all entitled to our own opinions.  So, here goes from Cohenite, with a preamble about global warming and western society:

The anthropogenic global warming (AGW) paradigm is that interference with nature will inevitably produce disastrous results.

Danish Statistician Bjorn Lomborg is castigated for even suggesting there has been progress in humanity’s living conditions and the destruction of nature to achieve this, on balance has been worthwhile.

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Australia Needs a National Climate Policy

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THE Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change model of dangerous, human-caused climate change has failed. Independent science relevant to supposed human-caused global warming is clear, and can be summarised in four briefpoints.

First, global temperature warmed slightly in the late 20th century and has been cooling since 2002. Neither the warming nor the cooling were of unusual rate or magnitude.

Second, humans have an effect on local climate but, despite the expenditure of more than $US50 billion ($70 billion) looking for it since 1990, no globally summed human effect has ever been measured. Therefore, any human signal must lie buried in the variability of the natural climate system.

Third, we live on a dynamic planet; change occurs in Earth’s geosphere, biosphere, atmosphere and oceans all the time and all over the world. No substantive evidence exists that modern rates of global environmental change (ice volume; sea level) lie outside historic natural bounds.

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What Warms the Oceans?

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Dear Jennifer,

You recently posted an article about a paper, entitled: ‘Oceanic Influences on Recent Continental Warming’, suggesting that it is warming of the oceans that has driven warming of the land since the 1970s.  

You commented, “But it does not tell us what has warmed the oceans!”

Do you realize that is has been postulated that long-term variations in solar/lunar tides control inter-decadal ocean surface temperatures by influencing the rate of up-whelming of cold deep-water?

Climate scientists have long known that it takes about three terra-watts of power to maintain the up-welling  of water in the great oceans. Two terra-watts of this power is provided by surface winds. The winds continually blow surface water off the top of cool deep water, allowing the cooler ocean water to rise to the surface.

The problem has always been finding the extra terra-watt of power that is necessary to maintain the up-welling.  One possible source for this extra power is tidal friction. 

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