Backyard Utopias is a network of endeavors rooted in the urban landscape with the aim of interweaving in the urban fabric a capillary system of sustainable food production at the community level. The network promotes the exchange of aid, knowledge, and products among disparate initiatives that share common goals of environmental stewardship, mutual aid and sustainable production within the urban landscape.  

The focus of Backyard Utopias is to lessen the footprint of humanity on the natural world through education about and experimentation with biochar. Whether from emissions from the cars we drive, the buildings we construct, the food we eat, or the byproducts of nearly everything we do – humans are a carbon producing species. With increased infrastructure and public buy-in, the availability and scalability of biochar has the potential to reduce future emissions and sequester the carbon which is already troubling our atmosphere.

The production of biochar is a carbon negative process that reduces/reuses waste, it functions to amend soils in conjunction with compost and it is highly effective in soil and water remediation. Biochar is charcoal made by pyrolysis of biomass. In the absence of oxygen, the carbon cannot be released into the atmosphere in the form of CO2 and the carbon in the biomass is transformed into a more stable form in the carbon rich biochar. As charcoal does not degrade and can retain this form for thousands of years it is an effective form of carbon sequestration.