What do we really know about biochar - the technique touted to recapture carbon from the atmosphere, as a "solution" to climate change? In this interview for Radio Ecoshock by Earthbeat reporter Daphne Wysham we find out: not much testing has been done, and claims have been overblown.

Especially when a big oil company starts promoting biochar as a way to "offset" the emissions from the world's largest-single source polluter, the Canadian Tar Sands. Even if it worked, much of the northern Canadian forest would have to be bull-dozed and buried or burned. Crazy stuff.

Good investigative interview with Rachel Smolker from globaljusticeecology.org.

Then Daphne takes on GE Trees, with Exec Dir Anne Petermann. Big corporations are trying to get genetically engineered eucalyptus in plantations in the U.S. They are not native there, could go into the wild forests, are highly flammable, and destroy native habitat.

This sampler from Daphne Wysham ends with a short interview from 2009 with Helen Caldicott - who predicts (well before Fukushima) the coming nuclear power disaster.

Find out more on Earthbeat Radio at  http://www.earthbeatradio.org