When Kristin Ohlson says “The soil will save us”, she means it. That’s the title of her book, and also her message. She was the keynote speaker at the Northern Plains annual meeting in November.
Is this just one more crackpot idea? No. It’s based on solid science. For once, we modern humans don’t have to feel solely responsible for the climate mess we’re in. When we started plowing soil, we also began releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Of course, our industrial ways have greatly magnified the problem. But a few very simple practices can actually REDUCE the legacy load in our atmosphere. We’ve got some good examples of these practices happening in Montana; NP members Wade Sikorski and Steve Charter are just two of many putting the principles of ‘carbon farming’ into practice.
Planting without plowing (“Nothing in nature repeatedly and regularly turns the soil”), planting cover crops, using mulch and compost are the mainstays. These are also practices we can use in the tiny plots in our backyards.
It’s comforting to know there’s a way to actually drop the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. And it’s a joy to be able to turn the land we tend, however small, into a part of the healing we wish for.
Is this just one more crackpot idea? No. It’s based on solid science. For once, we modern humans don’t have to feel solely responsible for the climate mess we’re in. When we started plowing soil, we also began releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Of course, our industrial ways have greatly magnified the problem. But a few very simple practices can actually REDUCE the legacy load in our atmosphere. We’ve got some good examples of these practices happening in Montana; NP members Wade Sikorski and Steve Charter are just two of many putting the principles of ‘carbon farming’ into practice.
Planting without plowing (“Nothing in nature repeatedly and regularly turns the soil”), planting cover crops, using mulch and compost are the mainstays. These are also practices we can use in the tiny plots in our backyards.
It’s comforting to know there’s a way to actually drop the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. And it’s a joy to be able to turn the land we tend, however small, into a part of the healing we wish for.
