1. These techniques can remove massive amounts of CO2.
In fact, it has been estimated by a number of researchers that rapidly scaling up their application worldwide could remove all the CO2 generated by human activity since the beginning of the industrial revolution! At the same time, they would generate a range of very important co-benefits, some of which are listed below. While this may sound too good to be true, it is documented by scientific research. Some of that research along with some results of on-the-ground demonstrations is posted on this site. So long as responsible land management practices are maintained (which should always be standard), this carbon in soils will be sequestered virtually indefinitely. For example, radiocarbon dating of carbon from soils in the Great Plains of the U.S. reveals that it was deposited thousands of years ago and is still there.
2. These approaches can remove CO2 far faster and cheaper than any other alternative.
CO2 sequestration in soils starts almost immediately. The many co-benefits these techniques generate more than justify the relatively small costs of adopting them. Solid proof of their effectiveness is the fact that they are being applied today on tens of millions of acres around the world solely to generate these valuable co-benefits that flow from sequestering CO2. These efforts are being undertaken completely independent of any climate change considerations.
3. Restoring ecosystem health and integrity, especially in the soil, is essential to sequestering this vast quantity of CO2.
As this restoration happens, many of the co-benefits actually follow “automatically.” Deteriorating ecosystem health and integrity and degrading environmental quality are the cause of many problems around the world and must be urgently addressed in their own right. No other approach to dealing with CO2 comes close to simultaneously creating so many important ecological and economic co-benefits benefits at little or no cost.
4. One vital co-benefit is greater food security and increased nutritional density.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization Deputy Director recently estimated that because of the deteriorating cropland base, the world may have less than 60 harvests left using current agricultural approaches. The win/win ecosolutions to restoring soil health relies on better and sustainable agriculture practices and would reverse this “famine clock.” Human and animal nutrition greatly improves because these win/win agricultural practices make vital macro- and micro-nutrients more available to plants.
5. Biodiversity is greatly increased.
High levels of biodiversity are a universal characteristic and a requirement for resilient and healthy functioning ecosystems. Since sequestering vast amounts of CO2 requires restoring healthy ecosystems, biodiversity increases.
6. These win/win approaches reduce the impact of droughts.
Soil carbon acts like a sponge. Each 1% increase in soil carbon levels can effectively store tens of thousands of gallons of water per acre and release it slowly as plants need it. Higher carbon soils help recharge springs and groundwater and continually feed clean water into watercourses. With changing weather patterns, drought resilience is a particularly critical benefit for both agricultural and natural systems as well as for securing domestic water supplies.
7. Soil infiltration rates are greatly improved, reducing flooding and runoff pollution.
Soil with higher carbon content is better able to absorb rainfall and hold the water in the ground. This means there will be much less surface runoff that causes flooding downstream. Greatly reducing or eliminating surface runoff reduces or eliminates the amount of silt, fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides that are washed into lakes, streams, rivers and the oceans. These agrichemicals in water are causing significant damage, ranging from increasingly serious algae blooms, including the annual “Dead Zone” created in the Gulf of Mexico and damage to coral reefs and marine and freshwater ecosystems around the world.
8. Fish and wildlife habitat is greatly improved.
Many of the co-benefits, including greater biodiversity, improved water quality and quantity and generally improved environmental quality have a direct and positive impact on marine and freshwater aquatic and terrestrial habitats including those of endangered and threatened species. A particular advantage for marine ecosystems is that reducing CO2 levels will stop the acidification of the oceans that is occurring as they absorb additional CO2 as a result of higher atmospheric loadings. This increasing acidification is affecting a number of marine species.
9. Improved forest health reduces wildfire danger.
Forests can be important carbon sinks but much of the carbon is sequestered in the above ground biomass unlike the carbon in grazing and croplands where it is largely sequestered in the soil. This means that CO2 and methane (an even more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) are rapidly released by wildfire. Largely due to poor forestry management practices in the U.S. and other countries, forest fires are currently becoming much larger and more intense, sterilizing the soil and creating a “hydrophobic crust” that is highly resistant to water infiltration often leading to devastating downstream flooding. These and other consequences of current wildfires make future regeneration of much of the burned forest (and thus the recapture of the released CO2) unlikely within any useful time frame. Creating healthy forests and protecting them is essential to make them a secure and effective carbon sink and healthy forests, in turn, generate a number of environmental and economic co-benefits.
10. The co-benefits are especially beneficial to rural people and their economies.
The harmful impacts of land and environmental degradation fall most heavily on the local people, so the improvements in land productivity and environmental quality that accompany intensive soil carbon sequestration activities especially benefit them as well. In developing countries the additional benefits of more abundant and secure food, fiber and water that are important co-benefits improve people’s health through better nutrition and sanitary conditions The increased disposable income these generate can improve the quality of life for them and their children in many other ways as well. In more developed countries, the higher profit margins generated by these carbon sequestering forestry, grazing and cropping practices can help revitalize struggling rural economies.
