We’ve all heard of climate change.
It is a natural phenomenon for climates to fluctuate and change, however, as most of us know, human caused atmospheric pollution is exacerbating the issue, accelerating the rate of change, making it’s impacts more abrupt and extreme.
Climate scientists agree that if we surpass a 1.5 degree (the UN will tell you 2 degrees) change in temperature, the global community will face an unforgiving climate disaster, the likes of which we can’t imagine. (1)
There have been 5 mass extinctions before us mammals evolved, where there was a rapid and extreme change of climate conditions, and 95% of all living species on Earth went extinct because they could not adapt to such quick and dramatic changes.
The global climate convention in Paris, COP21, is quickly approaching. So far, the only big solution world leaders are discussing is the need to reduce carbon emissions in our atmosphere.
Let’s make this abundantly clear:
Even if every person stopped driving their cars and industries stopped polluting right now, today, it still would not be enough to avoid a 1.5 degree shift in temperature
therefore not enough to avoid a climate disaster.
BUT, if we all agreed and acted towards restoring the biological life in our soils today, we would be sequestering more carbon into the soils than we are emitting into the atmosphere every year. (2) (3)
If you want to avert this climate challenge, we need to take carbon OUT of the atmosphere by restoring the health and natural ecosystems functions of the soil, as well as cutting down/gradually eliminating our emissions. It’s our only hope. (4)
Think of an ice-berg– we only see what’s above the surface, but when we look underneath, we discover that most of it exists under water.
Diversity of life is exactly the same– we only see what is above the surface, little did we know that if we start looking below, we’ll discover a MASSIVE part of the circle of life that has been ignored. Not only did we not know that this underground web of life was connected to the life we do see, but that the fate of biodiversity above the ground is completely dependent on the state of health and diversity in the soil. (5) (6)
Think of it… does this really surprise you? We live on EARTH. We cannot touch the sky, but we have our feet here on the ground. In the ground. So why not start here? The solution is right beneath our feet.
A game changing discovery
A multi-national team of non-governmental soil scientists have been working on a game changing discovery and strategy to restore health to our soil life ecosystems. But they cannot complete their mission alone. They need the support and solidarity of the community of change in order to get this discovery off the ground and around the globe.
What did they discover?
They created Soil & Carbon: The Fair Carbon Exchange!
By helping them out, they can help us all lock carbon into our soils. And since the soil is harvesting carbon, practitioners can receive carbon credits for improving their soil conditions– thus, ultimately, together we can team up with LIFE and finance the global shift in soil management practices through the selling of carbon credits.
Make sure to check out their campaign, and donate what you can!
This article was written by the Valhalla Movement production team.
References
(1) http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a9791/climate-scientists-ipcc-is-wrong-we-need-a-1-degree-limit-on-warming-16228387/
(2) http://aem.asm.org/content/78/7/2328.full
(3) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3302595/
(4) http://e360.yale.edu/feature/soil_as_carbon_storehouse_new_weapon_in_climate_fight/2744/
(5) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaine_Ingham
(6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soil_food_web