Reversing Carbon Emissions- Why Soil Could Save The World

Can we do it?
Is it already too late?

Many of us are wondering how we can possibly turn the juggernaut of limited industrial profit-based materialism around.

Time to stop wondering and worrying—yes it is possible—and we are already doing it.  Although the statement “the answer lies in the soil” seems too simplistic, this time it is true.

Healthy, fully functioning soils are the living skin of the planet. They provide highly nutritious food, hold huge amounts of water and lock away tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and in so doing, help solve the health crisis by strengthening the human biome. They also help us manage flooding caused by heavy downpours and the ever increasing occurrence of droughts caused by climate change.

Building good soils globally will help reverse the climate crisis by removing more greenhouse gas each year than we produce through the process of carbon sequestration in the soil. These soils will also allow us to build functioning local communities, help resolve the growing unemployment crisis, detoxify polluted water over huge areas of our precious planet and maintain healthy river systems.

Combined with the awakening consciousness of our interconnectedness with everyone and everything, the growing awareness of soil as the foundation of life on earth is opening a new chapter in human and planetary evolution.

Furthermore, they will help provide the foundations for stable political systems across the troubled regions of the world. Our politico-economic model of corrupt corporate power, driven by a mindless combo of quarterly profits and global market domination, seems to be unstoppable.  However, like the dinosaurs, size without adaptability is a recipe for extinction.  After the tidal waves of planetary change removed the dinosaurs it was the small adaptable birds and mammals that emerged as the new leading species on earth. In the same way the tidal waves of change now beginning to sweep our world will cause the corrupt mega corporations to sink in the morass of ethical and moral bankruptcy, which they have created (VW seems to be struggling with this already). The agile, socially and environmentally responsible companies, along with the regenerative and local resilience movements erupting across the planet, will emerge as the new status quo.

All of these movements are linked to the soil, often in ways that they do not yet recognize. Food is so much more than a way to satisfy the physical and emotional hungers we use it for. Good food shared is the foundation of happy families and communities. Fully nutritious food builds physical and emotional health by maintaining a healthy human biome (an intestinal microbial population of approximately 100 trillion cells which is linked to a minor brain in the digestive system that governs our immune system).

As a species we have been ignorantly “mining” the soil for millennia. Our farming practices have been disrupting and dissipating the living soil food web. Ploughing the soil, over grazing, exposing soils to sun wind and rain, all of these destroy the fragile life in the soil. With the advent of blind industrial agricultural after the Second World War, however, we accelerated this process exponentially. Most modern agricultural soils are close to becoming lifeless dirt with very little carbon in it.

In many cases soils are now treated as a way to anchor plants, while we practice a form of hydroponics—feeding the plants with chemically created nutrients then using massive doses of toxic agents to kill the pests, diseases and “weeds” that quite naturally emerge into this dead environment.

While this has been a great model for short term profits, it is clearly not sustainable.

Soils, it turns out, are so much more than a physical support system for plants.  They are the second biggest reservoir of carbon on the planet after the oceans. We have already lost more than half of this carbon to the atmosphere where it will stay for hundreds, even thousands of years, exacerbating the global climate crisis.

Ironically, it is this very climate crisis that may save us from ourselves. What else could force governments and organizations everywhere to act? What is only now emerging, however, is the fact that optimistic projections for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions are not enough to avert a climate melt down.

The only way to avert this nightmare situation, is to remove huge amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and the only cost effective way to do that, is to convert global agriculture and forestry to a natural system based on fully functioning healthy soils. As soils improve, plants will transfer increasing amounts of the carbon that they have extracted from the atmosphere during photosynthesis, into the soils. The living soil food web will then lock this carbon into the soils where it will remain for millennia.

While we do this we will be solving the climate water crisis, the human health crisis, the breakdown of society and the de-escalate the global terrorism threat. So perhaps the climate crisis is our planet’s way of forcing us to switch to a sane and balanced civilization. If we ignore this signal, civilization, in any form will almost certainly disappear.

Virtually all soils, even desert sand and inert agricultural dirt, contain a full spectrum of essential minerals. When there is no balanced living soil food web present, these minerals are locked up in the soil particles so that plants cannot access them. This forces us to provide artificial nutrients to the plants for their growth and survival. However, once the soil is a fully functioning living system, these soil minerals are converted to available nutrients that the plants can draw on as they need them throughout their growth and fruiting cycles, simultaneously increasing plant health and resilience.

In this way plants grown in fully functioning healthy soils have a complete spectrum of nutrients in them with no toxic residues.  When we eat the food derived from such plants we no longer need to take vitamins and supplements and many diseases, even premature aging, cease to be a problem. As the human biome returns to normal functioning, depression and despair will give way to happiness and optimism. Good soils everywhere provide better quality and quantities of food. Localized food systems will create regional resilience and wealth, dissolving the threat of terrorism and war.

So the answer does lie in the soil after all. Perhaps the universe is more intelligent than we imagine. Could it be that the very threat of a global climate melt down is the only way to force us to change our ways so that all the other threats to our continued evolution melt away?

You can help accelerate this trend towards global healthy soils and sanity by joining our Crowd Funding Campaign

We are preparing to train thousands of farmers and people across the globe to become local soil experts and help restore soils everywhere. We are starting in South Africa where we are working with a large retailer who is committed to converting it’s local farmers to sustainable farming practices-- those that sequester large amounts of carbon while restoring the life in the soil, thus growing abundant food disease and pest free the natural way.

This is just the start of our mission.

Together, with your networks and contributions, we can bring forth the solution that no one at the upcoming Climate Conference in Paris is even considering– we need to be sequestering carbon into our soils in order to avoid a climate disaster, we cannot hope to achieve this by only cutting out carbon emissions. We need to team up with biology to rise up and succeed.

By helping us in any way you can,

you will be contributing to the biggest environmental redemption of our time.

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Our crowd funding campaign, click here

Written by Jimmy Sinton © The Fair Carbon Exchange, Inc. Nov. 2015

This article was designed by the Valhalla Movement production team.

This article was originaly posted: http://valhallamovement.com/reversing-climate-change-why-soil-will-save-...