Finding climate solutions in the dirt

Soil is a carbon sink, food-borne illnesses are on the rise, and how to make the best of recycling

GOOD NEWS

Soil is an enormous carbon sink. It’s estimated it contains three times as much carbon as the atmosphere—and we could increase that.

One way is through underground wood vaulting: burying waste wood or other plant material in the ground, which prevents them from decaying and releasing carbon into the atmosphere, potentially for thousands of years. You need the right kind of vault for this, ideally in clay or silty soil, and you also need to keep out water, air, and bugs.

A few companies are now trying this out, including in Texas, where I live, California, and Colorado. “Wood vaulting is a newly emerging approach that we think is relatively low-cost and relatively scalable,” Daniel L. Sanchez, a Berkeley professor who studies carbon removal, told Grist.

And in Australia, a company called Loam Bio is testing using fungus in the soil to take up carbon. Farmers mix in a special powder containing fungal spores as they plant their crops. The fungus helps store more of the carbon the plants absorb, and for longer. Loam Bio has spread its "fungal talcum" on 100,000 acres in Australia in 2024, with another 250,000 acres planned next year, according to the New York Times.

There are also many other ways to sequester carbon in soil over various time scales, including through use of biochar and regenerative agricultural practices like cover cropping. Overall, the IPCC estimates that by the middle of the century, soil-based carbon sequestration could take up from 2 and 5 gigatons of carbon yearly—that’s about 5 to 15 percent of our current global emissions—at a relatively low cost.

As I often say, when it comes to climate solutions, there’s no silver bullet; but there’s a lot of silver buckshot, and soil-based solutions are part of the mix!

NOT-SO-GOOD NEWS

Every year, 600 million people get sick and nearly half a million die from eating contaminated food, the World Health Organization estimates. Now, climate change is increasing these risks.

Common food-borne pathogens including Staphylococci, Norovirus, E. coli, and Salmonella thrive in warmer and more humid conditions, a new review study shows. Many microorganisms also reproduce faster in warmer temperatures, which allows them to spread faster – aided by more frequent heavy rainfall events as well.

As always, this impacts us all: but it doesn’t affect us all equally. The study highlights how people in Africa and Asia are most at risk; yet another way that climate change disproportionately impacts those who have done the least to cause the problem in the first place.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

I recycle with the best of them—just ask my family! I'm notorious for tracking down misplaced items and lecturing people about what goes where. So it’s discouraging to hear that only 9 percent of plastic actually gets recycled. Often I wonder, why bother?

Here’s encouraging news, though: some materials, like cardboard, paper, and aluminum, are easier and more effective to recycle, and they can even turn a profit. For example, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that two-thirds of cardboard and paper that isn’t recycled every year represents a $4 billion economic loss in the U.S. alone. Similarly, recycling aluminum uses only 5 percent of the energy needed to produce new aluminum, and aluminum can be recycled infinitely.

Recycling on our own is a good start; but imagine the impact if we all banded together. Schools, businesses, restaurants, and other local organizations use huge amounts of paper, boxes, and aluminum cans daily. Just think of the difference it would have if they aren't currently recycling and if, with a little encouragement, they started recycling too.

Ask your local organizations if they recycle cans and fibre; and if not, why not? In my experience, recycling (or recycling more) is often something they've thought about, but have run into some barrier and don't have the time or energy to pursue it. Consider helping them set up a recycling program or improve the one they have. You can also organize volunteer groups to collect recyclables at events where a lot of waste is generated.

As the UNDP explains, "Our current economic system can be considered a ‘linear economy’, built on a model of extracting raw materials from nature, turning them into products, and then discarding them as waste. Currently, only 7.2% of used materials are cycled back into our economies after use. This has a significant burden on the environment and contributes to the climate, biodiversity, and pollution crises.

A circular economy, on the other hand, aims to minimize waste (I talk about that a lot here!) and promote a sustainable use of natural resources, through smarter product design, longer use, recycling and more." Yet again, our collective effort has the power to create real change - in this case, contributing to what's needed for a truly circular economy. Which just makes sense, since we live on a round planet!