Elon Musk donated $1 Million to plant trees. A gesture to safe the planet. We believe that reducing our CO2 emission and increasing CO2 sequestration will have a positive impact on our climate crisis.
If you like the idea of planting trees to conserve CO2 and to take it out of the atmosphere you gonna love to the fact that soil, the earth we grow our food on, is the biggest terrestrial reservoir of carbon dioxide. 58% of the soil is carbon. Different grounds store different amounts of organic carbon.
Pictures of different grounds and their amount of organic carbon (content in 0-100 cm depth and 1 hectare surface in t)
Mother nature needs 1.000 years to grow 3cm of top soil. Soil organisms like bacteria and fungi metabolize plant remains and organic fertilizer (animal sh*t). Only a very small amount of carbon dioxide is permanently bond in the soil due to the work of the tiny workers. The most of the metabolized CO2 is released into the atmosphere again. So we consider soil to be a NON-renewable resource. That means we have to protect it.
But we don’t. We lose soil because of chemical-heavy farming techniques, deforestation and global warming. You might see the vicious cycle. We destroy our soil, which heats earth, which destroys even more soil.
Please don’t cry now: We only have 60 years of farming left if soil degradation continues, according to a senior UN official (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-farming-left-if-soil-degradation-continues/, date 12/8/20). They said that in 2014. So we have 54 years left.
Now is the time to freak out though: „We could sequester 100% of our annual CO2 emissions if all global cropland and pasture were transitioned to a regenerative system.“, recording to the Rodale Institute (https://rodaleinstitute.org/education/resources/regenerative-agriculture-and-the-soil-carbon-solution/, date 12/08/20).
Our hope and solution is regenerative agriculture.
I want to make one thing clear before I move on: I am very grateful for all the pesticides and fertilizers. You might wonder, how that can be a good thing. Agriculture can be done by a very small amount of people when using pesticides and fertilizer. It’s a hard work to collect potato beetles all day long or to chop weeds when you see nothing but fields. I am thankful I don’t have to work on the fields to secure my food.
Nevertheless we have to be aware that using only fertilizer and pesticides diminishes our soil and we can’t survive without it.
It’s time to improve the method.
The Rodale Institute compared organic and conventional agriculture. Those are their results: „The FST (Farming Systems Trial, est. 1981) has shown that, in comparison with conventional methods, organic systems:
- PRODUCE competitive yields with a good management plan
- YIELD up to 40% more in times of drought
- EARN 3-6x greater profits for farmers
- IMPROVE soil health and build soil organic matter over time
- USE 45% less energy
- RELEASE 40% fewer carbon emissions
- LEACH no atrazine, a toxic chemical, into waterways“
(Source: PDF: regenerative agriculture and the soil carbon solution, Jeff Moyer, Andrew Smith, PhD, Yichao Rui, PhD, Jennifer Hayden, PhD, Rodale Institute, 2020)
I hope you understand what that means: We don’t have to plant trees to have a positive impact on the climate crisis. Only by choosing food and cloth (cotton) from regenerative agriculture we can have the biggest positive impact one single person can have on the climate crisis.
The thing you have to do, is to buy organic products.
Visit the website of the Rodale Institute. They offer great help on how to find organic.
I find it a lot easier to buy organic, when I buy non high-processed foods. If you don’t know how to prepare and put vegetables, noodles, legumes or meat together in a healthy, balanced and efficient way, you can learn about it in my online course „Wisdom of food providing“.
This topic is reason why I am so passionate about teaching people a healthy, balanced diet. A healthy body and a healthy soil go hand in hand. By choosing a healthy balanced diet you have a positive impact on your own health, your longevity, the welfare of animals and the climate crisis.
If you like what you read on my blog, you can subscribe to my weekly newsletter and you will exclusively receive all the post in your inbox.