Here is a great article from Holistic Management Canada Newsletter September 2018 Whether you believe in Climate Change or not: If you store more carbon in your soil, you will be more profitable, pastures more productive, and your land will be more resilient. As Blain states it is a WIN-WIN solution.
Climate Change Solutions by Blain Hjertaas
Several months ago, I wrote about the history of the climate change and the limited success of change to date. In fact most people are disengaged and feel powerless to effect change on the single greatest event that we have ever faced as a species. This focuses on some of the practical solutions that we are doing and could all be doing.
If you look into climate issues one of the first things you will come across is the Keeling Curve. In 1958 Dr. Charles Keeling set up an observatory on Mauna Loa in Hawaii high on the side of a mountain facing into the Pacific trade winds. He wanted samples that would be representative of world levels. In 1958 the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere was 312 parts per million (PPM). The observatory is still working today and levels are 409PPM (as of July 2). (See attached photos from previous post)
If we look at a single year the levels are the highest in the winter and the lowest in the summer. The reason for this is more land mass in the northern hemisphere. As we green up in the spring the green growth uses a tremendous amount of C02 which brings the curve down. There isn’t an equivalent amount of land in the southern hemisphere to offset our winter period so the curve oscillates being the highest in winter and lowest in summer.
How much? On an annual basis the natural cycles remove about 120 billion tonnes of C02 in the spring and in the fall about 130 billion tonnes are released back into the atmosphere from vegetation dying, land use, fire and burning fossil fuel. Hence the gradual slow increase in the curve which is currently at 409PPM.
If we want to become serious about climate change we need to ramp up photosynthesis, so that we are removing 130 billion tonnes every spring or better yet 140 billion tonnes so we begin to remove the legacy load from the atmosphere. Over time our C02 levels will begin to decline and our climate will become more stable.
The question is how do we do this? Most of our discussions over the last 60 years have focused on limiting our burning of fossil fuels as the solution to climate change. Fossil fuels contribute about 6% of the 130 billion tonnes that move annually in C02 cycle. I’m not saying we shouldn’t burn less fossil fuel. If we want to have an effect why wouldn’t we do something that has a major effect not a 6% effect?
We can see from the above chart, how we have changed the surface of our home over the last 10000 years with agriculture. Instead of 13 billion ha doing photosynthesis, we now have 8.5 billion ha doing photosynthesis and some of that is not very efficient. Crops are only green for 70 or 80 days of the year and the desert is doing nothing. If all 13 billion ha of our surface were functioning effectively we would not be having this discussion.
To solve the problem we need to ramp up photosynthesis worldwide so we are cycling at least 130 billion tonnes per year and better yet 140 billion.
As nature did, we only have one means to do this. That is to maximize plant growth so as to:
• A) Draw down carbon from the air to fix it via plant photosynthesis and then…
• B) Minimize how much of that fixed carbon is oxidized back to CO2 and instead allow it to be…
• C) Converted via soil fungi into stable soil carbon to restore the Earth’s carbon ‘sponge’.
This A, B and C process is simple and natural, but what matters is that we do it, now.
How do we do it on a world scale? I don’t know but part of it is knowledge. The good news is that most of us are already doing it. With our grazing management we are maximizing photosynthetic capture which relates to C02 cycling. The beauty of it is that it gives us more production and makes our system more resilient as we build our soil carbon sponge. It’s a win/ win for everyone as we begin to regenerate our soils using holistic principles.
Spread the good news about what you are doing on your farms and ranches. It is critical we get our good news story out, that we are the solution to climate change.
The above is a very brief summary of the work that Dr. Walter Jehne is doing. HM Canada recently sponsored him at a meeting in Regina.
For more on Dr. Walter Jehne’s work: