Topsoil Re-Uptake of CO2 Is a Major Solution to Climate Progression

practicalhuman.org

13 points·sova··8 comments

I don’t think it’s an accident that many civilizations are built on annual crops. People who could move into an area and be fruitful in a few years have an advantage against invaders, or when invading.

We have selected many of the civilizations that relied heavily on cultivating perennials out of existence. And in the case of California we didn’t even see that cultivation was even happening.

Why does this matter here? Because the bulk (by landmass) of our crops are adapted to recently cleared land. In most places that means degrading the soil from day one to keep our chosen plants on top. There is almost no carbon above ground, and what is below ground declines every year.

Pumping more into the ground only solves part of the problem. It’s a start, but not the whole story.

Do you think wider application is possible of "no-till farming"? That is supposed to protect the subsoil ecosystem, but unfortunately I can't imagine it working at commercial agriculture levels, although "no-dig gardening" apparently is possible to market-garden scale.

please add any developed thoughts you may have on the matter!

I’m mostly alluding to Restoration Agriculture by Mark Shepard, and drawing on Tending the Wild, M Kat Anderson.

yup, Allan Savory talked about this in his TED talk and has already converted 15 million acres of desert to grass lands. He calculated that if all deserts are converted to grass lands, the CO2 problem is gone.

fantastic

I presume the title is a typo. Prorgression? Even dictionary.com doesn't know what that is.

The actual title of the page is... um... well, it doesn't seem to have one.

thank you for pointing that out

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