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Hope Below Our Feet: Soil as a Climate Solution
By Anne-Marie Codur, Seth Itzkan, William Moomaw, Karl Thidemann, and Jonathan Harris - Global Development and Environment Institute (Tufts University) - April 2017
Web editor's note: we include this report to provide general knowledge about natural carbon sequestration methods, but we do not vouch for their effectiveness. Further, we note that this report speaks positively about Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD), which many front line communities, indigenous people, and nations in the Global South convincingly argue is a capitalist greenwashing scheme which simply shifts the burden from the Global North and capitalist class to the Global South and working class. Neither the IWW nor the IWW EUC support REDD or REDD+.
Can the world meet the ambitious goals necessary to avoid catastrophic climate change? A major reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is clearly needed, but there is increasing scientific consensus that even if achieved, this will not be enough. In addition to a drastic reduction in carbon emissions, carbon must be removed from the atmosphere. An important solution is beneath our feet – the massive capacity of the earth’s soils to remove and store carbon from the atmosphere.
Soils hold about three times more carbon than the atmosphere, and an increase in soil carbon content worldwide could close the “emissions gap” between carbon dioxide reductions pledged at the Paris Agreement of 2015 and those deemed necessary to limit warming to 2o C or less by 2100. To meet this challenge, several international efforts to build soil carbon have been launched, with similar measures underway in the United States.
Proposed policies include reforestation and innovative farming, ranching, and land management approaches that will enhance degraded soil and restore its carbon stock.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author.
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