The Charcoal Project

July 2010

Video animation of black carbon emissions over Asia

Posted on by Jean Kim Chaix

This short YouTube video shows how tiny air pollution particles known as black carbon move throughout our planet. We reported on Asia’s Atmospheric Brown Clouds earlier.

Though global distribution of soot remains difficult to measure, NASA researchers use satellite data and computer models to better understand how these short-lived particles influence Earth’s climate, cryosphere, and clouds.

This scientific data visualization uses data from the GEOS5 GOCART climate model to show black carbon’s atmospheric concentration from August to November in 2009.

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Madagascar’s vanishing biodiversity: “We’re all in,” says USAID

Posted on by Jean Kim Chaix

Via Surfbirds News — Twenty-five years of environmental assistance in Madagascar by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has achieved major progress in the biologically spectacular nation, but the gains are at critical risk of being reversed – and will likely be lost all together – if the international community continues to punish its government for the ongoing political situation.

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Biochar: Panacea or peril?

Posted on by Jean Kim Chaix

The problem stems not so much from the science as from the business model for biochar. Bringing biochar into the market for trading carbon credits – which is being considered by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)  for inclusion in UN Certified Emission Reductions (CER) and Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) – would kickstart biochar production on an industrial scale. It would create a market for biochar carbon offsets that polluters would buy. That means biochar companies would need enough biomass to fuel their furnaces – and their bottom lines. That could mean more than a billion hectares worldwide devoted to biochar.

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Peace Corps launches site providing resources for improved cookstoves and ovens

Posted on by Jean Kim Chaix

This post comes to us via the good people at the IAP (Indoor Air Pollution Updates). We thought it might be of interest to our visitors as a resource.

Peace Corps – Improved Stoves and Ovens – Welcome to the Peace Corps Clean Indoor Air/ Improved Cooking Toolkit, your one-stop source for reliable and relevant information about improved cookstoves, ovens and biogas applications appropriate for Volunteer communities.

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A kiln that boost crops, cuts CO2 emissions, and generate income? Now we’re talking!

Posted on by Jean Kim Chaix

A scrappy four year-old startup thinks it can improve the livelihood of the world’s energy poor by converting 6 billion tons of agricultural farm waste produced annually in developing countries into sustainable biomass fuel (like briquettes or biodiesel, for example) and biochar, a valuable soil additive that can dramatically boost a farmer’s crop yields.

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