Remember the good old days when biochar was something that few had heard of and was never mentioned by either the carbon market opportunists or the green weenies? Only a segment of soil scientists and growers talked of it and worked to discover its properties and best uses.

Then the political types got wind of it and started hyping it as a climate change mitigation strategy (meaning a rent bonanza), followed by the malthusians and emo activists who saw profits in opposing biochar. The ants and roaches of society discovered the happy picnic and have all but overrun the place.

Consider one of the roach queens.

“Biochar” is basically the next new trick of global investors to make money on the global market of carbon trading. As the biochar website www.biochar.org clearly states “A prerequisite for the above mentioned management practices is access to the global carbon trade.” The global carbon market which has a potential to grow to $ 1 trillion by 2020, and this is what is driving “biochar” -- not love for the soil, nor the wisdom of indigenous people.

No, that isn't what is driving biochar. But, it is also not the airy-fairy pseudo love of emo activists. It's pragmatic agronomic value that attracts users. That it is an ancient method used in many parts of the world, that it is in fact carbon negative, and that it can be done in a small scale distributed fashion are all pluses. But, it is the agronomic value that attracts those who actually do agriculture rather than politics or entertainment. Even if there were no climate issues the use of charcoal as a soil amendment would still be attractive, and given that so much material is burned rather than pyrolyzed - just to get rid of it - there is potentially a large supply at no environment cost yet large environmental and agronomic benefit.

But there are many other reasons for not falling into the biochar trap. It is based on a scientific fraud.

The central argument for promoting the burning of biomass to make charcoal to put into soil is based on totally false assumptions such as only “2% of carbon from plant biomass enter the soil as carbon through humus” and “30% of soil carbon from humus escapes in the first year and 80-90% in the second year in organic practices which return soil carbon through recycling of biomass.”

These assumptions go against all scientific evidence that shows that organic farming increases soil carbon, and the carbon stays in the soil.

There may be political advocates who says these things, but it is fraudulent to claim that this is a mainstream view held by biochar advocates. One of the strongest arguments for the use of biochar is that it not only sequesters carbon durably when used, it also increases the rate of accumulation of organic carbon by stimulating plants and soil microorganisms such as fungi and bacteria. It's an increasing returns sort of argument that isn't merely organic, it is beyond organic, better than organic, and works even with industrial agriculture that produces the overwhelming majority of food, fiber and fuel on this planet.

The true conflict here IMV is that organic nutters are being outed for their past exaggerations and evasions as well as their flatly false claims. Increasing agronomic knowledge in general, accelerated by the focus on biochar, reveals that the claims of organic believers are nonsense. Any agronomic system can achieve all the soil benefits of organic methods, and a great deal more. It's the same sort of resistance they mount against no-till cultivation.

In total ignorance of the living soil and its complex ecological processes, the “biochar” proponents are proposing a solution based on killing and burning trees and turning living carbon into dead carbon.

Actually, it is increasingly sophisticated knowledge of living soil that propels biochar. It complements existing interest in VAM fungi and glomalin - another form of durable soil carbon produced by VAM - as well as interest in rhizobia, which live symbiotically with plants and fix atmospheric nitrogen. The "wee beasties" connection validates biochar in ways that are important to those most interested in soil health.

Organic farming is the lasting and sustainable solution to climate change and food security, not blanketing the planet with charcoal.

Organic farming solves nothing. It is insufficient. It's a boutique activity that charms emo activists, but it's a cruel joke for the food insecure of the world. Nothing is sustainable except the struggle, and simple decency requires one to plainly state that the poverty, misery and hunger of developing nations is not something that ought to be sustained in any event. Not surprisingly, even better informed organic growers are biochar enthusiasts since it helps overcome some of the chief impediments they face, helping their soil make better use of limited nutrients and water.

I can sympathize with opposition to biochar opportunists seeking to exploit society. Like biofuel opportunists in recent decades they take a good idea to absurd extremes. It's no trick to identify the culprits, they are the ones doing politics and seeking rents. . . just like vocal biofuel and biochar opponents. A pox on all their houses.