A group of UN scientists believe the answer to global warming lies in the ground beneath our feet – or, more specifically, the soil. Rather than investing time, money and other resources into carbon-capture technologies, the researchers say that we should be storing carbon in the world’s soil instead.
The catch is that so much of the world’s soil has lost its biological efficacy due to over-exploitation, but the scientists say that – at an estimated cost of $300bn – it is possible to restore soil’s natural health and use it to lock in enough carbon to buy the world an extra 20 years to implement permanent solutions to global warming.
The UN estimates that 2 billion hectares of soil globally has degraded due to misuse, over-grazing, deforestation and other human activity; but of this, 900 million hectares could be revitalised. By then turning this land to pasture or for the cultivation of plants and trees, enough carbon dioxide would be absorbed by plant life – with the carbon stored in the plants themselves or the soil in which they grow – to offset global CO2 emissions for up to 20 years.
Such an endeavour would involve the halting of desertification – caused by deforestation and exacerbated by climate change – and the application of fertiliser, in the correct quantities, onto the degraded soil to restore its nutrients. The crops that would then be planted would be chosen for their suitability for the locality in terms of both ecology and people, with the aim being a sustainable combination of trees, edible plantlife, and pasture for livestock.
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A group of UN scientists believe the answer to global warming lies in the ground beneath our feet – or, more specifically, the soil. Rather than investing time, money and other resources into carbon-capture technologies, the researchers say that we should be storing carbon in the world’s soil instead.
The catch is that so much of the world’s soil has lost its biological efficacy due to over-exploitation, but the scientists say that – at an estimated cost of $300bn – it is possible to restore soil’s natural health and use it to lock in enough carbon to buy the world an extra 20 years to implement permanent solutions to global warming.
The UN estimates that 2 billion hectares of soil globally has degraded due to misuse, over-grazing, deforestation and other human activity; but of this, 900 million hectares could be revitalised. By then turning this land to pasture or for the cultivation of plants and trees, enough carbon dioxide would be absorbed by plant life – with the carbon stored in the plants themselves or the soil in which they grow – to offset global CO2 emissions for up to 20 years.
Such an endeavour would involve the halting of desertification – caused by deforestation and exacerbated by climate change – and the application of fertiliser, in the correct quantities, onto the degraded soil to restore its nutrients. The crops that would then be planted would be chosen for their suitability for the locality in terms of both ecology and people, with the aim being a sustainable combination of trees, edible plantlife, and pasture for livestock.