As of today, a quick google search on the term “climate change” yields 1,390,000,000 results. The nature of the articles ranges from specific regional impacts via “news and views” (e.g., “Midwesterners are being forced to face up to climate change”¹) to more general educational sites (e.g., “what is it, and how do we know it’s really happening?”²). While I’m sure google is likely rounding to the nearest 1.39 billionth result, my point here is that climate change is indeed upon us. We cannot hide from the reality and consequences of it; and the fear and anxiety surrounding climate change is rampant.

I recall my first personal epiphany about the climate change crisis back in 2004 as a young sprouting undergraduate geology student. My world was shaken as I was digging in to some articles for a research paper and discovered the now infamous Mauna Loa figure (below) showing atmospheric CO₂ concentrations as being monitored since the 1960’s in Hawaii³. Upon further investigation of the issue and implications, my eyes began to open to the severity of the modern-day climate crisis.

At that time, in 2004, the climate crisis was really not drawing significant media attention (or much of any, really) as it is today. I wanted to shout it from the rooftops- I just thought that if everyone became aware of this issue, that we would surely have a revolution. Once people start to understand that this is happening, science and society can and will fix this! These were back in my more idealistic days, before I became aware of the economic, political, and other infrastructure implications surrounding our fossil fuel addiction in its truly epidemic proportions…

While admittedly a bit of an oversimplification, the climate issue is impacted by a simple equation, really. Humanity can either:

1) reduce fossil fuel emissions pumping CO₂ into the atmosphere, or

2) remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere once they have been emitted.

Now the logistics of how of the actions and activities behind these CO₂-in vs. CO₂-out of the atmosphere are multifaceted. The former being some combination of reducing our energy expenditures, along with improvements in efficiencies and alternative and more sustainable energies choices; and the latter as really taking into account our complex Earth system and how we can optimize land management to essentially suck up the CO₂ from the atmosphere and store it in plants, soils, the ocean, etc.

With respect to #2 above (removing atmospheric GHG), in all of these scenarios, the main gist and first step of removing CO₂ must initially be accomplished by plant or tree growth, which basically sucks up the CO₂ and turns it into solid plant mass. Fast-forward to after plant/tree death: dead plant detritus continues to hold that CO₂ as long as it doesn’t decompose… so for example it can be transferred down a river to the bottom of the ocean and stay there, or to some other place protected from air, microbes, and decomposition. Along those same lines, soils actually have a lot of potential to store broken down pieces of plant and tree decomposition products and have been considered a promising reservoir to store all of this extra CO₂ as dead broken-down plant mass.

For the last two decades or so, scientists have focused on understanding how and why soils can “suck up” CO₂ as a strategy for mitigating climate change, and I was one of those scientists conducting research on this for many years. Theoretically, I would say by now we have a pretty solid understanding that the potential theoretically exists. Since soils contain so much more carbon than the atmosphere, you would really only need to increase soil carbon by a very little bit (an estimated 0.4% per year) to make a fairly significant impact on the atmosphere⁴.

This study of soil carbon storage in climate mitigation is actually quite complex and continues to garner significant funding. Unfortunately, like other aspects of managing climate change, practical implementation of “optimizing soil C storage” is not so cut and dry. As I’m sure you can imagine, there are a lot of other things one can choose to do with land and soil. Thus, invested stakeholders really need to be taken into account and consulted with respect to land management and implementation of any kind decision or strategy. Consequently, questions remain as to whether this is politically or economically possible, or just a bone-headed calculation being preached from the ivory tower. Some experts in the field suggest that, while it may be theoretically possible, in actuality the potential for soils to “save us” from climate change is quite unlikely due to lack of feasibility of implementing policy and land management strategies with the pure goal of mitigating climate change⁵.

Such a discrepancy in theoretical vs. practical begs the question, “is there value in conducting seemingly theoretical climate-related research when there may be no clear means to implement and impact climate change?”

Taking a step back, I would make the argument that yes, absolutely there is. Even with the caveats described above, understanding theoretical estimates and mechanisms (i.e., “in a perfect world how could we optimize for this?”) can and should inform land management and stakeholder decisions. While it may be true that these highest of theoretical estimates for soil as a “C sink” may not be fully achieved, science has demonstrated additional benefits of soil C including improved soil quality and resilience of managed systems to climate change. Such studies have been critical to inform programs that do translate to landowners to encourage implementation of best management practices (6).

It is also true that much of environmental and ecosystem research in climate science is aimed at characterizing, and trying to understand impacts of climate, rather than applied research towards mitigation tactics. Although not aimed at solving the climate crisis, such predictive research is absolutely critical for preparing humanity for what’s to come. Clearly, we still need to keep our eye on the ball and strive for reducing fossil fuel emissions and other efforts aimed at mitigating climate change. Beyond that, in a day and age where science and conservation efforts may not be able to stop climate change, it is absolutely critical that we have as much information as possible on environmental risk and response so that we can do our best to prepare for what tomorrow holds.

REFERENCES:

1. https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2019/01/11/midwesterners-are-being-forced-to-face-up-to-climate-change
2. https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
3. https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/full.html
4. https://www.4p1000.org
5. https://www.pnas.org/content/115/46/11652?fbclid=IwAR2NERu9rfVOjH-PdfNt8czZCN51BZh_C9nLt47Xk6inFZsT7gSid21eLnQ#ref-6
6. e.g., http://calclimateag.org/farm-ranch-funding-water-efficiency-soil-health-manure-management/?fbclid=IwAR3QGIV3kL6clY9Yd4sReFMjfXt4_yZb5ac3k3dFqhiKFkl78a8utH4ZDuo