WATER, SOIL AND CLIMATE
How did we get the idea that atmospheric CO2 is the primary cause of climate change?
Take an acre of ground. It's bare ground. That bare ground, just like the floor of a desert, will be cool in the morning, but by afternoon, it will be much hotter than the air.
That hot ground heats the air. The hot air rises and further heats the air, continuing a vicious cycle. Worldwide about half our crop land is bare ground at any given time.
But if our acre of ground is covered with vegetation, it will remain cooler than the afternoon air.
The bare ground creates a micro-climate. And the covered ground creates a micro climate.
But if atmospheric carbon is a concern, then we can store that carbon in the ground by increasing the biodiversity of the plant matter, incorporating animals or compost, and avoiding tilling, chemical fertilizers and pesticides. This creates biologically diverse, living soils and increases the carbon content of these soils. So here we have a way of absorbing atmospheric carbon.
The living soil we have created will now absorb rainfall, thus recharging groundwater. The groundwater and the plant diversity make the plant community drought resistant. Thus the plant community tends to retain a store of water, some of which it transpires, or releases during hot weather.
When plants transpire during hot weather, they serve to cool the surrounding air, thus creating a microclimate.
Put enough microclimates together and you have a macroclimate.
We need to be doing this at home and all over the world. These microclimates make rivers flow again, cool the air and, at the global level, remove excess water vapor from the atmosphere, storing it in plants and in the ground.
Water vapor is a greenhouse gas. We have too much of it in the atmosphere. We need for more of it to be in the ground, in the plants and in our streams and waterways.
Now, back to my original question: How did we get the idea that atmospheric CO2 is the sole or primary cause of climate change?
I don't know.
But we need to understand that drawing down excess carbon is not the only solution. We need to manage and conserve our water resources, and our plant matter. And we need to create and nurture living soils, which tend to absorb water at much greater rates, so that it's available for plants and animals, streams and rivers and aquafers.
We can manage water for life. No climate plan is complete without water.