Dr. James Lovelock, the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis - the idea of the Earth as a self-regulating organism - said in an interview with NewScientist that he believes that humanity's only chance to save itself from the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and global warming lies in biochar, and its ability to draw carbon down from the atmosphere and sequester it permanently.
Reducing emissions is essential, but it won't save us by itself, Dr. Lovelock says, as too much CO2 has already been dumped into the atmosphere for the climate to return to its preindustrial state - to which both Nature and human civilization is adapted - on its own. Even if GHG emissions were reduced to zero tomorrow, the planet would continue to warm up until reaching a new thermal equilibrium at as much as 4-5 degrees C above the preindustrial average, comparable to the Eocene Thermal Maximum that occurred around 25 millions years ago, when most of the planet was covered by desert and the polar regions were a tropical paradise.
Dr. Lovelock rejects proposed cap-and-trade schemes as a futile waste of money, being more likely to simply make polluters even richer - and at taxpayer expense no less! - and high-tech approaches to sequestering carbon as unproven and requiring too much time to matter given the narrow and shrinking window of opportunity. Even nuclear power, which Dr. Lovelock has controversially embraced as cleaner than fossil fuels, is not suitable for combating global warming.
Dr. Lovelock's vision for the future if business goes on as usual is grim. He believes that while the ecosystem as a whole will eventually recover, with species adapting to the higher temperatures and altered wind and rainfall patterns by moving and evolving, humanity's fate is much less rosy: as much as 90% of the human population could be dead by 2100, and famine will be the culprit.
Fortunately, making biochar need not be a sacrifice. Not only does biochar sequester carbon permanently, but it serves as a powerful soil amendment, helping compost and manure to increase crop yields to levels comparable to artificial fertilizers. Biochar helps keep soil fertile by significantly reducing the rate at which water and nutrients are drained from the soil by natural processes, as well as providing a substrate for beneficial bacteria.
Making biochar also has the benefit of producing a small amount of flammable gas that, depending on the level of purification, can substitute for natural gas in stoves, furnaces, and even engines.