Earth Rise

Climate is the problem that weighs heavily on our society, but a promising solution could be lying right beneath our feet — in the soil. Regenerative agriculture is a system of farming principles and practices that seek to rehabilitate and enhance the entire ecosystem of the farm by placing a heavy premium on soil health with attention also paid to fertilizer use among others. It describes farming and grazing practices that, among other benefits, reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity – resulting in both carbon drawdown and improving the water cycle.   It is a method of farming that “improves the resources it uses, rather than destroying or depleting them,” according to the Rodale Institute . In addition to rising temperatures that are themselves changing where and how things can be grown, the climate crisis has fundamentally altered the water cycle around the world. The result is shifting precipitation patterns...

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), from 1880 to 2012, average global temperature increased by 0.85°C. To put this into perspective, for each 1 degree of temperature increase, grain yields decline by about 5 per cent. Maize, wheat and other major crops have experienced significant yield reductions at the global level of 40 megatons per year between 1981 and 2002 due to a warmer climate. Oceans have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished and sea level has risen. From 1901 to 2010, the global average sea level rose by 19 cm as oceans expanded due to warming and ice melted. The Arctic sea ice extent has shrunk in every successive decade since 1979, with 1.07 million km² of ice loss every decade. We have to cut carbon consumption to keep the world from turning into a charcoal briquette. It needs to come from everywhere; holding oil companies accountable, passing legislations, developing renewable energy sources and non-carbon transportati...