Mature trees are biocarbon heavyweights
With CO2 levels surpassing safe limits, carbon storage may be the most important life-supporting function Northwest forests provide the planet.
Northwest Biocarbon Initiative

This Climate Solutions program is no longer active.

The Northwest Biocarbon Initiative elevates the essential role that natural systems play in reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. By galvanizing the region’s emerging biocarbon community to develop strategies that increase natural carbon capture and build a vibrant restoration economy, we are positioning the Northwest as the nation’s leading incubator for biocarbon solutions.

 

Biocarbon Solutions
 

 
coastal wetland

Blue carbon goes big Down Under

Australia is launching one of the most ambitious ‘blue carbon’ mapping projects ever.  ‘Blue carbon’ is the capture and storage of carbon pollution from the atmosphere in ocean plants and sediments on the seabed.

Ecoroof

The business case for greening our cities

We know ‘green infrastructure’ can provide low-cost solutions for communities to better handle those big pulses of water gushing over roads and into pipes when the big rains come… and we know greening our cities is good for biocarbon and for the human spirit. 

Old Growth Forest, Oswald West State Park, Oregon. Photo by David Patte/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Ecosystems capacity to store carbon in future depends on emissions reductions now

How much carbon is stored in natural systems of the continental western US?  How much will be stored in future decades? A new US Geological Service survey provides some sobering answers.

California redwood forest

Guest Blog: AB 32 - Funding a greener world while building jobs and a robust economy

Imagine a world where we invest billions of dollars in improving ecosystem resilience to help combat climate change, all because doing so sucks up vast amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) and provides pure oxygen in return.

Cattle grazing

Guest Blog: Reflections on Savory: The science and the philosophy

This blog was originally posted Nov 20, 2012 by Chad Kruger here.

flood in California

Pacific coast readies for climate superstorm

While the East Coast still struggled to recover from Superstorm Sandy, a Nov. 13th Climate Risk Roundtable convened in San Francisco to explore the challenges of keeping society’s vital systems running as the climate grows more turbulent.

soil carbon challenge

Literal grassroots leadership: The Soil Carbon Challenge

The Soil Carbon Challenge is a “competition to see how fast land managers can turn atmospheric carbon into soil organic matter. If you want to find out how fast a human can run 100 meters, do you build a computer model, do a literature search, or convene a panel of experts on human physiology to make a prediction? No, you run a race. Or a series of them.”

sea otter

Little known fact: sea otters are biocarbon Ninjas!

On a marine wildlife cruise in Alaska recently I got to touch a sea otter pelt–it was so luxuriously soft my knees almost buckled with pleasure. A new study found that these critters are not only super-cuddly, they also play an outsized role in sucking up carbon from the atmosphere and storing it safely away in the sea.

Guest blog: The Northwest is a biocarbon powerhouse

Lost in the current debate over how best to control greenhouse gas emissions from combustion of fossil fuels is the simple fact that it won’t be enough.

Biochar

Inspired by the carbon-rich soils of Amazonia

Biochar has had an interesting run over the past several years. As with so many other emerging climate solutions, biochar burst into public awareness a few years back with a wave of grassroots

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earth

The 400 ppm threshold

Submitted by Rhys Roth on

The only way back to Target 350 is to stop putting so much carbon pollution in the air and at the same time to remove a lot of the accumulated carbon from the air.

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Biocarbon in forest soils: A lot more than meets the eye

When you envision a forest, what do you picture? A lot of trees, right? But what you probably don’t picture is what’s under the forest floor: soil. In most forests, the amount of carbon stored in the soil is greater than the amount stored in the trees. But how does it get there?

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Building natural carbon: five policy principles

Carbon dioxide levels hit 395 parts per million in 2012, the highest in four or five million years when sea levels were around 80 feet higher and temperatures up to 10° Fahrenheit hotter. If we sustain those CO2 levels, or go higher as we are doing, a completely different world will emerge. 

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