Workshops at COP26

---

Global warming: The future lies in the soil

Indigenous peoples who are protecting the forests and natural farmers around the world are showing the way. They must be defended from attacks by governments corporations and their militaries.

Governments have focused on decreasing CO2. But this is not enough because the oceans are overflowing with carbon.

Heat on our blue planet is determined mainly by water: plants together with microbial life in the soil manage water, and in managing water, they manage heat. Climate change results, first of all, from destroying the land through deforestation and industrial agriculture: 95% of global heating is caused by undermining the earth’s plant cover.CO2 in the atmosphere is the symptom and contributes to the pollutions which kills millions every year. CO2 is also easily measurable and invites a profitable ‘green’ industry. 

To address the main cause of global heating, we must transform our relationship with the natural world, beginning with agriculture. The interaction of soil, water and sun generates the water cycle on which the climate and all life depend. Plants and microorganisms create a “soil carbon sponge”held together by fungi, roots of plants, earthworms and other living things that determine the fertility of the soil and its ability to cool the climate. Like a porous kitchen sponge, the soil carbon sponge can hold vast quantities of water.  

Plant coverage of the Earth is half what it was 8,000 years ago. 80% of forests and 95% of grasslands have been destroyed or degraded. Increasing green plant cover by even 5% can help stop further global warming; even more green cover could reverse it. To enable this, wemustrepair the damage done by deforestation, monocrop agriculture, and poisonous pesticides and fertilizers, all of which leave the soil lifeless.

The soil carbon sponge can be regenerated through natural agriculture, the return of grasslands, reforestation with native trees, and biodiversity. This is an engine of change and our best protection against extreme weather: better water retention makes the soil more resistant to both flood and drought, while cooling the planet through increasing the water cycle. Healthy soil grows healthy plants which are more resistant to disease and pests, don’t need chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and produce more nutritious food and better health. (Most food now has 1/3 the nutrient value it had before World War II.)

On every continent, women are taking the lead. In Andhra Pradesh, India, 600,000 farmers, mostly in women’s in self-help groups, are regenerating the soil with startling results. The state government supports them and is urging what we call a care income:

“We want to reward these farmers on the basis of the economic services, ecosystem services because they are helping the entire humanity – we owe it to them.”                                           See webinar: