If we let it. The IPCC has issued another urgent warning: Misuse of land and soil contributes a great deal to Global Warming. Fixing that misuse would go a long way to solving the problem. How, then, do we make that profitable to all of the varied users and misusers of land?
Climate Change and Land: An IPCC Special Report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems.
tl;dr
An estimated one quarter of total anthropogenic GHG emissions arise mainly from deforestation, ruminant livestock and fertiliser application, and especially methane and nitrous oxide emissions from agriculture have been rapidly increasing over the last decades. Globally, land also serves as a large carbon dioxide sink, which was estimated for the period 2008–2017 to be nearly 30% of total anthropogenic emissions.
Due to the current magnitude of GHG emissions and carbon dioxide removal in land ecosystems, there is high confidence that greenhouse-gas reduction measures in agriculture, livestock management and forestry would have substantial climate change mitigation potential with co-benefits for biodiversity and ecosystem services
We have been getting bad news for decades from all sides in ecological research. The IPCC wants us to understand how much worse it has gotten, and how urgent it is to find and implement solutions. However the Good News about sequestering many tens of gigatons of carbon over several decades in soils and plants is new.
Land is a Critical Resource, IPCC report says
Land is already under growing human pressure and climate change is adding to these pressures. At the same time, keeping global warming to well below 2ºC can be achieved only by reducing greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors including land and food, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in its latest report on Thursday [Aug. 8, 2019].
Unlike the case with renewable energy and batteries and EVs, nobody is in a position to make any sort of detailed market analysis of where agricultural technology will go in the critical 30 years in front of us, in which we have to get to Net Zero Carbon, and make at least a good start on going Carbon Negative. However the details work out in all of the different countries and cultures and ecologies and markets involved, it will be worth the effort to push ahead, because any amount that we can accomplish will be worth it, for restoring nature, for food and other crops, and for as much carbon as we can stash away. And if we find we cannot sequester enough carbon in land and trees, we can then consider other forms of geoengineering (Yes, another Friday).
All over the world, actually, from Novaya Zemlya (New Land) and Arkhangelsk (Archangel City) in Russia to the Cape of Good Hope, from Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire) up to the north slope of Alaska and Baffin Island, across from Greenland in far northern Canada. No, we haven't thought of a way to sequester carbon in Antarctica.
The destruction of soil and related resources worldwide is deeply intertwined with Global Warming. Soils can hold or release vast quantities of carbon, making the problem far worse, or eventually taking us past Carbon Neutrality deep into going Carbon Negative. Plants, especially trees, growing in those soils can take up another large fraction of the carbon in the atmosphere and oceans, especially if we are able to bring the Trillion Tree Campaign to fruition. (Another Friday; but see Renewable Friday: The Great Green Wall of Africa for a down payment.)
Acting immediately and simultaneously on these multiple drivers would enhance food, fibre and water security, alleviate desertification, and reverse land degradation, without compromising the non-material or regulating benefits from land (high confidence).
Rapid reductions in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions that restrict warming to “well-below” 2°C would greatly reduce the negative impacts of climate change on land ecosystems (high confidence).
Nonetheless, there are many land-related climate change mitigation options that do not increase the competition for land (high confidence). Many of these options have co-benefits for climate change adaptation (medium confidence). Land use contributes about one quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, notably CO 2 emissions from deforestation, CH 4 emissions from rice and ruminant livestock and N 2 O emissions from fertiliser use (high confidence). Land ecosystems also take up large amounts of carbon (high confidence).
Many land management options exist to both reduce the magnitude of emissions and enhance carbon uptake. These options enhance crop productivity, soil nutrient status, microclimate or biodiversity, and thus, support adaptation to climate change (high confidence). In addition, changes in consumer behaviour, such as reducing the over-consumption of food and energy would benefit the reduction of GHG emissions from land (high confidence). The barriers to the implementation of mitigation and adaptation options include skills deficit, financial and institutional barriers, absence of incentives, access to relevant technologies, consumer awareness and the limited spatial scale at which the success of these practices and methods have been demonstrated.
Right now, humans are throwing away vast quantities of soil, and adding vast quantities of poisons and nutrients that wash into our rivers and seas, killing many beneficial plants and animals while supporting others that result in toxic algal blooms and oceanic dead zones.
Both disasters come from the same human shortsightedness. You have been warned, says the IPCC.
And as usual, the Denialists bleat,
Hoax! Hoax!
like the chorus of frogs in a Greek comedy by Aristophanes.
Brekkek, kekkek, kekkek, kekkek! Koax, koax, koax!
Bet you didn't know the Greek for "ribbet".
How public, like a frog
To chant your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog.
Emily Dickinson, I'm Nobody—Who are you?
In Related News
New paper points to soil pore structure as key to carbon storage
"Understanding how carbon is stored in soils is important for thinking about solutions for climate change," said Phil Robertson, University Distinguished Professor of Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, and a co-author of the study. "It's also pretty important for ways to think about soil fertility and therefore, crop production."
Over a period of nine years, researchers studied five different cropping systems in a replicated field experiment in southwest Michigan. Of the five cropping systems, only the two with high plant diversity resulted in higher levels of soil carbon. Kravchenko and her colleagues used X-ray micro-tomography and micro-scale enzyme mapping to show how pore structures affect microbial activity and carbon protection in these systems, and how plant diversity then impacts the development of soil pores conducive to greater carbon storage.
Recent evidence, however, shows that most stable carbon appears to be the result of microbes producing organic compounds that are then adsorbed onto soil mineral particles. The research further reveals that soil pores created by root systems provide an ideal habitat where this can occur.
Of particular importance are soils from ecosystems with higher plant diversity. Soils from restored prairie ecosystems, with many different plant species, had many more pores of the right size for stable carbon storage than did a pure stand of switchgrass.
March. 2019 floods in the rich agricutural grounds of the midwest has removed the crucial topsoil, along with fertilzers and will eventually funnel it all to the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River in early June. This will "kickstart" the dead zone in the Gulf. (See Brian Kahn's article in Earther).
But we know that sailors smoked worn-out rope ends. Hence the phrase
Money for old rope.
Or you could make biochar out of that and a lot of other organics that we treat as waste today.
Pictures
And a Video
Refilling the Carbon Sink: Biochar’s Potential and Pitfalls
Biochar improves soil in several ways: providing carbon for soil bacteria, aerating soils, and increasing their capacity to hold water. This in turn makes soils more resistant to both floods and droughts. This gives it an economic value to farmers. So we want to see whether that value can support an industry on a large enough scale to put a dent in excess atmospheric carbon.
The idea of creating biochar by burning organic waste in oxygen-free chambers — and then burying it — is being touted as a way to cool the planet. But while it already is being produced on a small scale, biochar’s proponents and detractors are sharply divided over whether it can help slow global warming.
One study shows that 12 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions could be offset with biochar production. (Johanness Lehmann, Cornell University)