Monbiot: Biochar, the Atkins plan of the low-carbon world

[GliderGuider]

Woodchips with everything. It's the Atkins plan of the low-carbon world

Biomass is suddenly the universal answer to our climate and energy problems. Its advocates claim that it will become the primary source of the world's heating fuel, electricity, road transport fuel (cellulosic ethanol) and aviation fuel (biokerosene). Few people stop to wonder how the planet can accommodate these demands and still produce food and preserve wild places. Now an even crazier use of woodchips is being promoted everywhere (including in the Guardian). The great green miracle works like this: we turn the planet's surface into charcoal.

In his otherwise excellent book, Ten Technologies to Save the Planet, Goodall abandons his usual scepticism and proposes we turn 200m hectares of "forests, savannah and croplands" into biochar plantations. Thus we would increase carbon uptake by grubbing up "wooded areas containing slow-growing trees" (that is, natural forest) and planting "faster growing species". This is environmentalism?

But that's just the start of it. Carbonscape, a company that hopes to be among the first to commercialise the technique, talks of planting 930m hectares. The energy lecturer Peter Read proposes new biomass plantations of trees and sugar covering 1.4bn hectares.

The arable area of the UK is 5.7m hectares, or one 245th of Read's figure. China has 104m hectares of cropland. The US has 174m. The global total is 1.36bn. Were we to follow Read's plan, we would either have to replace all the world's crops with biomass plantations, causing instant global famine, or double the cropped area, trashing most of the remaining natural habitats. Read was one of the promoters of first-generation liquid biofuels, which played a major role in the rise in the price of food last year, throwing millions into malnutrition. Have these people learned nothing?

As with so many technological "solutions" to the converging crisis, the problem is one of scale. Things that are are benign on a small scale become harmful at some point as the quantity scales up. A canonical example known to everyone in the climate chaos business is carbon dioxide concentrations themselves -- a little makes life possible, a lot destroys it.

Turning charcoal into a geoengineering project is yet another sign of desperation.

[tom_paine]

1. If I recall correctly, Atkins forces the body in a semi-toxic condition called "ketosis"

which is named after the chemical "ketone".

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Atkins+ketosis

The equivalent desperation of obese people poisoning themselves in a last desperate effort to get thin?

Primates...:rofl:

[lazer47]

2. BULLSHIT,, so much for your recall!!!!

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[GliderGuider]

4. Not that it has anything to do with biochar, but...

Ketosis is a naturally occurring state. We evolved it for a reason. It is not harmful in non-diabetics. Likewise, ketones are not harmful to non-diabetics. Read on:

Fact vs. Fallacy: Ketosis is Dangerous

One reason the Atkins Nutritional Approach has not been part of mainstream thinking (although the tide is beginning to change) has been misinformation. If you've heard that Atkins is dangerous, not to mention ineffective, you may have mixed feelings about starting a lifetime of controlled carbohydrate eating. Once doctors have adequate experience with Atkins, most of them agree that this program should be the treatment of choice not only for obesity but for diabetes and several other diet-related disorders. But sadly, the misinformation has prevented so many people in need from using and benefiting from the best treatment available, ultimately propagating epidemic, life-threatening conditions.

Fallacy: Ketosis is dangerous and causes a variety of medical problems. Fact: Our bodies have only two fuel delivery systems to provide us with energy. Our primary fuel is based on carbohydrate and is delivered as glucose. People who eat three so-called balanced meals every day get virtually all their energy from glucose. But the alternate backup fuel is stored fat, and this fuel system delivers energy by way of ketones whenever our small supply of glucose is used up (in a maximum of two days).

When a person doing Atkins releases ketones, he or she is in ketosis. Ketosis occurs when you are taking in a very low level of carbohydrate from the food you eat, as you will during much of the weight-loss phases of Atkins. Ketones are secreted in the urine (and at times in one's breath), a perfectly normal and natural function of the body. The more ketones you release, the more fat you have dissolved.

Part of this fallacy is the claim that ketones can build up to dangerous levels in the body. Studies show that ketone bodies are very tightly regulated in the body and will not increase beyond the normal range in healthy individuals. (Uncontrolled diabetics, alcoholics and people who have been on prolonged fasts might see an increase in ketones beyond the normal range.) The body regulates ketone levels the same way it regulates blood-glucose or pH levels1-4. And Dr. Atkins' medical practice repeatedly observed that overweight patients produce just enough ketones to meet their immediate needs for fuel—and no more. A person will have no more ketones after three months of controlling carbohydrates than they do after three days. It is highly unlikely that people, other than insulin-dependent diabetics, will build up ketones.

Confusion about ketosis often comes from people mistaking it for ketoacidosis, a condition found in Type I diabetics; this occurs when a person's blood sugar is out of control and he or she cannot produce insulin. No doctor should have trouble differentiating physiologic ketosis, which you will experience while doing Atkins, from ketoacidosis. Further, since people are often overweight specifically because of an overabundance of insulin, it is essentially impossible for them to be in ketoacidosis.

Some individuals at the ketogenic level of controlled carbohydrate eating may experience mild symptoms such as unusual breath odor and constipation. However, the vast majority of individuals do not develop problems. One study of a severely ketogenic diet showed that ketosis was benign, with no complications or side effects when studied in metabolic ward conditions. The month-long study documented heart, kidney, liver and blood-cell functions in the patients and found no adverse effects.

In other studies, it has been shown that bone health was not compromised and that renal (kidney) function was found to be stable on controlled carbohydrate diets. There is even scientific literature on hyperlipidemia (elevated blood fats, such as cholesterol and triglycerides), showing improved values on controlled carbohydrate diets.

Though the article is unabashedly pro-Atkins, it has has some decent references. As someone who has been a low-carber for 35 years and has read everything I could about low-carb diets, the above sums up my position. You and I often agree, tom_paine, but on this one you're wrong.

[tom_paine]

5. No worries, it was an off-the-cuff comment.

:hi:

Thanks for the article. I'll read it.

I still wonder what the long-term effects are over the years of cultivating this natural, yet "emergency" biological condition. I am sure that, even if there is a negative effect, statistically, it doesn't mean everyone who does Atkins/low-carb is going to experience these effects any more than the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer means everyone who smokes steadily for 30 years is certain to get cancer.

Let me read the article first, though, perhaps others as well, and inform myself better.

:hi: