Good News and Bad News About the Ozone Hole
Good news: The hole is getting smaller. Bad news: It was keeping temps lower.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/12/good-news-and-bad-news-about-the-ozone-hole.php?campaign=th_rss

This just shows the intricacies and double binds that have presented themselves as we pollute and cleanup after our selves.
NOX & SOX clean up caused an increase in warming also, ( by reducing reflective particles)

Now we must clean up the CO2, the root cause of warming , which the Ozone hole & air pollution were just marginally hiding. To figuratively & literally fix the CO2 problem into elemental carbon for the soil.

Erich

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2010-ozone-layer-will-thin-even-as-holes-heal.html

Methane has risen 1ppm since 1750 and is relatively static
CO2 has risen 100ppm in the same period, is currently rising at 2ppm

The Molina PNAS paper is great with one small blemish. Where does all the ozone come from? What is its main precursor? Globally its methane.

http://www.pnas.org/content/103/11/3988.abstract

But when the Copenhagen diagnosis authors looked at short term reduction strategies, they picked black carbon and ozone, but forgot methane (p.53). A deliberate omission? There were plenty of authors to pick this up. Why did nobody spot this? Was it for the same reason that Tim Flannery “forgot” to mention the biggest cause of deforestation in his “Now or Never” essay?

Biochar provides the tool powerful enough to cover Farming’s carbon foot print while lowering cost simultaneously.

Another significant aspect of bichar is removal of BC aerosols by low cost ($3) Biomass cook stoves that produce char but no respiratory disease emissions. At Scale, replacing “Three Stone” stoves the health benefits would equal eradication of Malaria.
http://terrapretapot.org/ and village level systems http://biocharfund.org/
The Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF).recently funded The Biochar Fund $300K for these systems citing these priorities;
(1) Hunger amongst the world’s poorest people, the subsistence farmers of Sub-Saharan Africa,
(2) Deforestation resulting from a reliance on slash-and-burn farming,
(3) Energy poverty and a lack of access to clean, renewable energy, and
(4) Climate change.

The Biochar Fund :
Exceptional results from biochar experiment in Cameroon
http://scitizen.com/screens/blogPage/viewBlog/sw_viewBlog.php?idTheme=14&idContribution=3011
The broad smiles of 1500 subsistence farmers say it all ( that , and the size of the Biochar corn root balls )
http://biocharfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=55&Itemid=75

Mark my words; Given the potential for Laurens Rademaker’s programs to grow exponentially, only a short time lies between This man’s nomination for a Noble Prize.

This authoritative PNAS article should cause the recent Royal Society Report to rethink their criticism of Biochar systems of Soil carbon sequestration;

Reducing abrupt climate change risk using
the Montreal Protocol and other regulatory
actions to complement cuts in CO2 emissions
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/10/09/0902568106.full.pdf+html

There are dozens soil researchers on the subject now at USDA-ARS.
and many studies at The up coming ASA-CSSA-SSSA joint meeting;
http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2009am/webprogram/Session5675.html

The Clean Energy Partnerships Act of 2009
The bill is designed to ensure that any US domestic cap-and-trade bill provides maximum incentives and opportunities for the US agricultural and forestry sectors to provide high-quality offsets and GHG emissions reductions for credit or financial incentives. Carbon offsets play a critical role in keeping the costs of a cap-and-trade program low for society as well as for capped sectors and entities, while providing valuable emissions reductions and income generation opportunities for the agricultural sector. The bill specifically identifies biochar production and use as eligible for offset credits, and identifies biochar as a high priority for USDA R&D, with funding authorized by the bill.
To read the full text of the bill, go to: http://www.biochar-international.org/sites/default/files/END09F94.pdf.

Senator Baucus is co-sponsoring a bill along with Senator Tester (D-MT) called WE CHAR. Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvesting and Restoration Act! It focuses on promoting biochar technology to address invasive species and forest biomass. It includes grants and loans for biochar market research and development, biochar characterization and environmental analyses. It directs USDI and USDA to provide loan guarantees for biochar technologies and on-the-ground production with an emphasis on biomass from public lands. And the USGS is to do biomas availability assessments.
WashingtonWatch.com – S. 1713, The Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvesting and Restoration (WECHAR) Act of 2009

Individual and groups can show support for WECHAR by signing online at:
http://www.biocharmatters.org/

Congressional Research Service report (by analyst Kelsi Bracmort) is the best short summary I have seen so far – both technical and policy oriented.
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40186_20090203.pdf .

United Nations Environment Programme, Climate Change Science Compendium 2009
http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/

Al Gore got the CO2 absorption thing wrong, ( at NABC Vilsack did same), but his focus on Soil Carbon is right on;
http://www.newsweek.com/id/220552/page/3

Research:
The future of biochar – Project Rainbow Bee Eater
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/features/20090211-20142.html

Japan Biochar Association ;
http://www.geocities.jp/yasizato/pioneer.htm

UK Biochar Research Centre
http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/sccs/biochar/

Carbon to the Soil, the only ubiquitous and economic place to put it.
Cheers,
Erich