14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists have revealed that an ancient plowing technique can be successfully employed in the fight against global warming and climate change. Burying charred plants into the soil during plowing season virtually stores them indefinitely, while at the same time provides cultures with an abundant source of fertilizers that can maximize production.
The remains of the burnt plants are known as biochar, a high-carbon compound that can be obtained by heating wood and other vegetation in airtight conditions. The byproduct can engulf and store impressive amounts of carbon dioxide, and, if buried in the soil, keeps the dangerous greenhouse gas in for thousands of years.
Predictions of the International Energy Agency (IEA) say that plowing using this technique can store anywhere between 0.2 and 1 billion tones of carbon annually, depending on how optimistic is the man who does the planning. Considering that the level of GHG emissions was as high as 8.7 billion tones in 2007, being able to trap 1 billion of them would be a great achievement, experts agree.
In addition, some 28 of the world's industrialized countries have cited biochar as one way of reducing their carbon footprint at the UN Climate Change Conference, which is currently underway in Poznan, Poland. 187 nations are trying to find out a viable way of significantly reducing the amounts of pollution they emit in the atmosphere every year.
However, experts say that this method of capturing carbon dioxide should not be used by states as an excuse to keep emitting huge amounts of GHG. It simply helps the fight against ever-increasing amounts of carbon in the air, which traps sunlight inside the atmosphere and causes the global warming effect that has significant repercussions, from the Equator to the Poles.
There may still be some time before this new technique is implemented, because, until now, only 10 farms have been studied, as researchers have attempted to better understand what is going on inside the soil when biochar is mixed.