Columbia Science Review
  • Home
  • About
    • Our Team
  • Blog
  • Events
    • 2022-2023
    • 2021-2022
    • 2020-2021
    • 2019-2020
    • 2018-2019
    • 2017-2018
    • 2016-2017
  • Publications
  • COVID-19 Public Hub
    • Interviews >
      • Biology of COVID-19
      • Public Health
      • Technology & Data
    • Frontline Stories >
      • Healthcare Workers
      • Global Health
      • Volunteer Efforts
    • Resources & Links >
      • FAQ's
      • Resource Hubs
      • Student Opportunities
      • Podcasts & Graphics
      • Mental Health Resources
      • Twitter Feeds
      • BLM Resources
    • Columbia Events >
      • Campus Events
      • CUMC COVID-19 Symposium
      • CSR Events
    • Our Team
  • Contact

Saving the Soil can Radically Reverse Climate Change

3/26/2021

21 Comments

 
Picture
By Hannah Prensky

With the rapid progression of climate change, scientists envision two different versions of the future. In the first, humans adopt sustainable, eco-friendly technologies to promote living in a green, flourishing environment. In the second, we don’t tackle climate change and pollution aggressively enough and suffer in a desolate dust bowl, like the Earth depicted in Wall-E or Interstellar. Interestingly, based on new theories proposed by microbiologists, both versions of the future may depend almost entirely on the health of the soil. ​

Microbiologists are investigating how agriculture can either accelerate or mitigate the harmful effects on the environment of greenhouse gas emissions. Their research can improve human health, reverse climate change, and change our future. 

Today, modern farming practices contribute around 20 to 40 percent of all atmospheric CO2, but research is showing that simple changes in the way we treat fields will allow soil to remove 100 percent or more of all global human-made carbon emissions from the atmosphere. This suggests that the answer to climate change isn’t as complex as developing elusive multi-billion-dollar air-cleaning machines: it’s actually as simple as changing the way we treat dirt. 

Around 6 billion microorganisms live harmoniously in a single teaspoon of healthy soil, almost the same as the number of people who live on all of Earth. These populations, including bacteria, fungi, protists, archaea, and nematodes, all feed on the same carbon sugars that we find in our Valentine’s Day chocolates. We get our sweets at Mondel, but they get their sugars from plants, which get theirs from the CO2 in the air. During photosynthesis, plants convert atmospheric CO2 to sugar, but they can’t retain any of this sugar without organic soil, so they use their roots to store it in the ground. In this way, plants feed the soil microbiome, though not for free. In exchange, microorganisms provide the plant roots with the necessary nutrients with which to  grow, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.    

Because of how robust this plant-root ecosystem is, ecologists have begun to think of healthy soil as living tissue, similar to the tissue that makes up our organs. Modern farming techniques that smooth out fields, like power tilling, abruptly and violently disrupt these communities in a manner akin to passing a steel blade through any tissue. Importantly, tilling releases the carbon stored underground into the atmosphere, which is why agriculture contributes so much to the increase of greenhouse gases. Tilling isn’t the only issue: harsh pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics, and other synthetic chemicals poison those communities and cause long-lasting damage too. 

While several feet of topsoil could be killed within minutes during tilling, it takes over one hundred years to re-create just one centimeter. Current farming practices cost us 24 billion tons of our top layer of organic soil per year. Without a global transition to more sustainable farming practices, there could be no more soil left to grow anything within the next 60 years. 

On the other hand, regenerative farming practices often involve no-till, organic growing, relying on crop rotation to continuously enrich and fertilize the healthy soil. The game-changer is that using these techniques, farmers create two centimeters or more of new topsoil in a single year—200 times the rate of conventional farming—even in arid desert ecosystems. Regenerative farming is a revolutionary climate change-mitigating technology for several reasons. Healthy soil can extract all the man-made CO2 emissions from the atmosphere, it can save water by absorbing it more efficiently, and it can even prevent disease. 

Economically, organic farming is significantly more profitable and creates 30 percent more jobs per hectare compared to non-organic farms. Yields for corn, soybeans, and wheat, three of the most commonly grown crops in America, are the same at organic and non-organic farms. Genetically modified seed companies have influenced conventional wisdom to dictate that lab-designed crops are the only way to get high yields when in reality, better soil means healthier, more plentiful plants. 

If regenerative agriculture is so great for the environment and economy, why isn’t it more widespread? While it is getting more mainstream, implementing regenerative practices can be a major financial risk for farmers. The hands that feed us also need to feed themselves, so farmers often buy crop insurance in case of drought, fire, freezes, or sudden price changes. The insurance plans with the highest payouts are corn and soybean insurances, the two crops that deplete the soil the most. 

To be sure, the implementation of regenerative practices does not come without challenges. There is still a lot of work to be done to determine how these tools can be put into place on a widespread scale, including teaching farmers new protocols and supporting new legislative policies. Collaborations between soil scientists, farmers, and food producers should be encouraged in order to ensure that we take advantage of the opportunity to reverse climate change before it’s too late.

21 Comments
Doug Hadley
4/9/2021 09:46:58 am

Thanks for this great article. You provide a great overview of how interconnected humanity is with our earth. Next step is to effect policy and practice change. I am curious about your comment about profitability of organic farming. Seems like short term costs would be higher than conventional methods, but less so in the long term?

Reply
lovejili link
4/7/2024 03:42:02 am

You absolutely nailed the ending. It was so satisfying.

Reply
ye777-casino link
4/7/2024 04:35:10 am

The beginning really hooked me. You know how to grab a reader’s attention.

Reply
77ph-casino link
4/7/2024 04:40:19 am

I love your writing voice because it’s engaging and approachable.

Reply
aurora-game link
4/7/2024 04:43:32 am

I think this plot really works because of how well you’ve paced the story.

Reply
jl777 link
4/7/2024 04:45:43 am

Your writing is so beautiful because you always know the right word for the right moment.

Reply
king-777 link
4/7/2024 04:49:20 am

I’ve studied your work a lot, and I’m trying to get better at writing myself!

Reply
wagi77 link
4/7/2024 04:52:56 am

Your writing always makes me want to become a writer, too.

Reply
gcash77 link
4/7/2024 04:57:16 am

This story means a lot to me.

Reply
abcjili link
4/7/2024 05:00:43 am

This is so well-researched and thorough. I’m impressed.

Reply
tala888-casino link
4/7/2024 05:03:38 am

You make it seem so effortless, but I know you must have worked hard on this.

Reply
ye7-invite-a-friend link
4/7/2024 05:07:23 am

Your hard work really paid off here.

Reply
ye7-login link
4/7/2024 05:10:56 am

This sentence really grabbed me. I love the way you structured it.

Reply
dali777 link
4/7/2024 05:15:40 am

It was an interesting choice to describe the setting the way you did.

Reply
win-for-life link
4/7/2024 05:18:46 am

How did you learn to write when you were just starting out?

Reply
dali77 link
4/7/2024 05:24:35 am

Is there anything I should be doing if I want to write like you?

Reply
new-member-register-free-100 link
4/7/2024 05:29:57 am

I’d really love to learn from you!

Reply
gold99 link
4/7/2024 05:34:36 am

Your writing made me recall my own childhood in such vivid detail.

Reply
phjoin-app link
4/7/2024 05:39:16 am

I went and told all my friends about your article after I read it.

Reply
new-member-register-free-100-in-gcash link
4/7/2024 05:45:10 am

Your writing changed the way I looked at this.

Reply
phjoin link
4/7/2024 05:48:26 am

You have such a unique perspective.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    Artificial Intelligence
    Halloween 2022
    Winter 2022-2023

    Archives

    April 2024
    January 2024
    February 2023
    November 2022
    October 2022
    June 2022
    January 2022
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    July 2009
    May 2009

Columbia Science Review
© COPYRIGHT 2022. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Photos from driver Photographer, BrevisPhotography, digitalbob8, Rennett Stowe, Kristine Paulus, Tony Webster, CodonAUG, Tony Webster, spurekar, europeanspaceagency, Christoph Scholz, verchmarco, rockindave1, robynmack96, Homedust, The Nutrition Insider
  • Home
  • About
    • Our Team
  • Blog
  • Events
    • 2022-2023
    • 2021-2022
    • 2020-2021
    • 2019-2020
    • 2018-2019
    • 2017-2018
    • 2016-2017
  • Publications
  • COVID-19 Public Hub
    • Interviews >
      • Biology of COVID-19
      • Public Health
      • Technology & Data
    • Frontline Stories >
      • Healthcare Workers
      • Global Health
      • Volunteer Efforts
    • Resources & Links >
      • FAQ's
      • Resource Hubs
      • Student Opportunities
      • Podcasts & Graphics
      • Mental Health Resources
      • Twitter Feeds
      • BLM Resources
    • Columbia Events >
      • Campus Events
      • CUMC COVID-19 Symposium
      • CSR Events
    • Our Team
  • Contact