Where would we be if we did not have air, water, soil and the sun? Even without one of these essential ecosystem elements, our survival on Earth would be dismal. ,

Farmers have always cared for the land. They understand, more than anyone, the vital importance of the health of their soil, and the role it plays in producing an abundant harvest and a better planet for all of us. Farmers take their role in maintaining soil health very seriously. Over the past few decades, soil health has been and continues to be transformed.

In the 2015 Paris climate agreement, 195 nations committed to limit global warming to two degrees above pre-industrial levels. But some, like Eelco Rohling, professor of ocean and climate change at the Australian National University’s research school of earth sciences, now argue that this target cannot be achieved unless ways to remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere are found, and emissions are slashed.

Imagine “carbon emissions”, and what springs to mind? Most people tend to think of power stations belching out clouds of carbon dioxide or queues of vehicles burning up fossil fuels as they crawl, bumper-to-bumper, along congested urban roads.

The world isn’t cutting carbon emissions anywhere near quickly enough, a senior executive at JP Morgan Asset Management told clients this week – and changing that will require far harder choices than most people realise.

For thousands of years, monstrous herds of animals roamed the earth. These beasts covered vast swaths of land in search of food, water, and safety from predators. Their presence was integral, both as a food source for hunters and as ecological regulators.

Climate change can't be halted if we carry on degrading the soil, a report will say.

inety people are gathered along a trench—maybe 20 feet long, five feet deep, and three feet wide—in the Montana prairie. It’s an overcast spring day, with a cool breeze stirring the grass.

Soil is the unconsolidated mineral or organic material on the immediate surface of the earth, and serves as a natural medium for the growth of land. This surface material has been affected by environmental factors such as climate and organisms acting on parent material over a period of time.

With one third of the world’s land devoted to it, agriculture is crucial both for the millions of farmers who make their living from it and the societies and economies that depend on it. 

It's not often you hear people refer to "livestock farming" and "climate change" in a positive context. And even less so among tech entrepreneurs, as increasing numbers look to create meat-free, alternative food products with the hope of reducing the impact of the meat industry on the environment.

The countries of Bhutan and Suriname are already carbon negative, meaning their economies absorb more greenhouse gasses than they admit, while Norway and Sweden have legally committed to having net zero emissions by 2030 and 2045, respectively, meaning they have committed to bringing their emissions as close to zero as possible and creating sinks that mop up the emissions they still have.

Tree planting has been widely promoted as a solution to climate change, because plants absorb the climate-warming gases from Earth’s atmosphere as they grow.

Today, agriculture is a major contributor to challenges facing our environment: land degradation, aquifer depletion, nitrogen runoff and greenhouse gas emissions, to name a few.

We are all familiar with erosion and the soil’s ability to wear away, but few people associate soil with growing upward.

Be honest – how many drinks containers have you used today? A carton of orange juice at breakfast, a plastic bottle of water for your morning run, a takeaway coffee, maybe a can of soft drink at lunch, a couple of styrofoam cups at the office water cooler, perhaps even a bottle of wine to go with dinner? It all adds up.

Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a reportstressing the importance of land management in the ongoing battle to fight climate change.

We can’t say we weren’t warned.

In a previous post I argued that we need to change the way we talk about climate change in order to tackle it

Trees’ services to this planet range from carbon storage and soil conservation to water cycle regulation. They support natural and human food systems and provide homes for countless species – including us, through building materials.