Denial
There has been so much debate about whether climate change is real, despite the growing evidence (i.e. melting glaciers, rising seas, changes in weather patterns, extreme storms, severe drought, increasing fire storms, decline in food security).
Once people started to acknowledge the fact our climate was changing, the argument was that it was a natural phenomenon, we didn’t cause it so we can not fix it.
Scientists know!
Guess what? The assumption that we are not responsible for the climate change has been proven wrong! Global warming has set off a chain of events in reaction to human behavior.
The scientists have pieced together the evidence to present a clear explanation of what is causing global warming and the resulting climate change.
To put it simply we have overfilled our atmosphere with CO2. Human activities such as the burning of oil, coal and gas, agricultural burning of crop waste, forest fires as well as deforestation, use of fossil fuels in manufacturing and industrial processes, all contribute to the imbalance we are now experiencing.
What can we do?
The most effective way to regain a balance is to stop adding CO2 to the atmosphere! That means we need to replace our reliance on fossil fuels to sustainable, non-polluting sources, such as solar, wind, and biodiesel fuels, for starters.
This is not going to happen overnight. In fact, even if the world were to stop using fossil fuels today, it is not enough. We have created such an imbalance we need to start removing carbon that is already in our atmosphere.
Carbon Removal
Different approaches to removing carbon from the atmosphere are being developed and tested. Most proposals are expensive and ineffective, and are taking way too long, we need to start drawing down carbon now, today!
We are in a climate crisis. Our solutions need to have an immediate impact, and be , inexpensive, effective, and replicable.
We have found that addressing the CO2 emissions from agricultural open field crop burning is not only an effective way to bring down CO2 levels, it also creates many side benefits when the solution is applied.
“There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste – which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering – into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO2 down quite fast. ” ~ Dr. James Lovelock, Founder of “Gaia Theory”
Who knows? We know!
Warm Heart has been working with smallholder farmers providing them an alternative to open field crop burning. The immediate result is the reduction of CO2 being released into the atmosphere.
The second result is drawing down CO2 through carbon sequestration, the process of capturing, removing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide. This practice is now viewed by the scientific community as an essential part of solving climate change.
How do we do it?
We go out in the fields to teach smallholder farmers how to turn their crop waste into biochar. The process is inexpensive and can be done by anyone. It does take more time and effort than simply “flicking a bic” to remove crop waste quickly from a field, but the farmers are finding the benefits are well worth the trouble.
When farmers use the method we teach, they end up with biochar. Adding the biochar to their soils crops grow bigger, stronger, and healthier. Crops need less water when using biochar. Fed to their livestock and chickens it reduces disease, and increase milk and egg production.
And they have sequestered carbon in the process, accomplishing one of our main goals to draw down CO2.
How many smallholder farmers?
There are over 530 million smallholder farming families across the globe, producing 33% of the world’s food supply. They are among the poorest and most impacted by climate change.
So far we have trained 10,000 smallholder farmers.
In March of 2022 Warm Heart’s Biochar training was accredited by the Ithaka Institute, allowing our farmers to sell their carbon sequestration as carbon credits. 505 of our trained farmers worked on a special project with Biochar.Life. “The farmers have applied more than 1,000 ton of biochar helping improve soil health and crop yields all while preventing the emissions and health risk of open field burning.” This translates in to removing 2,100 tons of CO2eq .
We have teams working in Thailand, Kenya, Malawi, Congo Republic, Nigeria, Ghana, and Tanzania, going out to farming communities in rural areas to provide training..
Public funding
Since we are a small grassroots organization we are always looking for funding to expand this solution to more countries, work with more farmers.
One of our staff members has launched a membership site to help raise funds. She explains why she set up the Patreon Community and how for as little as $10 a month members can help our efforts to mitigate climate change.
Need more convincing? Read our Journey to Tackle Climate Change.
If you care enough to take action to stop climate change, this is the easy, perfect way to have an impact.
We need your support to to spread this solution across the globe.
Join today – Biochar Training – best, most productive $10 a month you can spend!
