COMMON SENSE ON HOW TO RE-INHABIT THE EARTH youtube/watch?v=KamMRhlu9dA You may have heard that we’ve recently crossed the scary threshold of 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide (CO2). What does this actually mean? It means we are in excess of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHG) in the atmosphere that are causing the planet to heat up and climate to become unstable. Our challenge is to rebalance the system as best we can by reducing GHG emissions and storing or “sequestering” carbon. One of our biggest climate allies is directly under our feet: soil. Healthy, living soil has an enormous capacity to store carbon. In fact, carbon stored in soil accounts for roughly three times the amount stored in the atmosphere! Improving the health of degraded soil holds tremendous potential to mitigate climate change. To realize this potential, we must start rebuilding soil organic matter (SOM). Building SOM increases soil fertility. The more plant life or biomass soil can support, the more carbon it can store (until it reaches a state of equilibrium). There are many ways for everyone to help increase SOM. Composting food leftovers, kitchen scraps and garden waste are primary methods. Cost-effective local, municipal composting programs are on the rise. On farms, cover crops and agroforestry methods work to increase SOM. The regeneration of natural grasslands and reforestation are other strategies to improve soil health. We’ve not treated our soils as living entities, and this resulted in a dangerous loss of soil carbon. We’ve paved over prime farmland, mismanaged rangelands. and assaulted soil with ever-expanding arrays of increasingly toxic chemicals. As a result, many of our best soils are thin and exhausted, and unable to hold carbon efficiently. This soil carbon that is lost is transferred to the atmosphere. For human, soil, and climate health, we must wean ourselves off fossil fuel fertilizers and synthetic pesticides and herbicides. Synthetic fertilizers deplete SOM, contaminate groundwater with nitrates, and linked to nitrous oxide (N20) emissions; a GHG many times more potent than C02. We must accelerate the transition away from monocultures. They don’t nourish soils, but instead lead to declining soil quality and erosion. Also, monoculture crops like corn and soy are genetically engineered (GE), and a vast majority of GE varieties planted today are herbicide-resistant. GE, herbicide-resistant crops are dominated by one popular herbicide—glyphosate (Roundup). Rather than soil conservation practices GE crops are touted to support, proliferation of glyphosate-resistant weeds is driving many farmers back to tillage, and older, more toxic chemical herbicides, thus increasing soil erosion. In short, monocultures are no longer a viable strategy because they are neither soil-smart nor climate-smart. Healthy soils are amazingly complex, one of our largest reservoirs of biodiversity. In addition to storing carbon, healthy soils provide other direct climate benefits. A study by Arkansas Water Resources Research Center found that for every one percent increase in soil organic matter, 16,500 gallons of water per acre can be held in soil up to one foot deep. This stabilizes soil against erosion, reduces runoff, helps control flooding. Building soil organic matter also minimizes soil temperature fluctuations, insulating crops against excess heat and unseasonable cold in a way that less robust soils cannot. Clearly, taking care of our soils is in our best interest. Growing food, our most vital human activity, depends on climate stability, and now more than ever, this requires pulling excess GHGs out of the atmosphere. Healthy soil is the foundation of crop production, animal forage and the key to global food security. An under-utilized carbon sink, soil also has the potential to play a significant role to sequester carbon and mitigate climate change.
Posted on: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 04:44:48 +0000
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