Last Thursday, Science published a very important article by a group of prominent scientists and ecologist about a common error in accounting for carbon from biomass and bioenergy. This might seem really boring at first but it's critically important to stopping global warming and protecting our wild forests and grasslands.
My colleague, Dan Lashof, did a great blog on this report last week. In an effort to explain the accounting error in a potentially more gripping format and suggest some solutions, I prepared the the following video. Homemade, you bet! Watch out for bad lighting and bad drawing. But I hope that it helps.
In the video, I mentioned how many make the common error of pointing to past carbon absorption by plants as an excuse to assume that all biomass emissions are carbon neutral. Here's a timely example in a statement released last week by Bio.
I also talk about how getting this wrong threatens all the world's wild forests and grasslands. Another study in Science from earlier this year (here's a bit more info with a key graphic), actually modeled the balloon effect I demonstrate so vividly.
Wondering what I'm talking about? Check out my video below: