Rethinking Climate Change

Many folks, particularly soil scientists, have understood the big mistake we made decades ago in understanding the meta crisis we face. Society got focused on greenhouse gases – an effect of the changes, and completely overlooked the source. This whole situation is a bit like fanning a burning house to reduce the heat, but ignoring putting out the fire.
Walter Jehne's paper, "Regenerate Earth", written in 2019, argues that restoring the planet's natural hydrological processes is crucial for mitigating climate change. Jehne emphasizes the role of water in regulating Earth's temperature for billions of years, particularly through latent heat fluxes, cloud formation, and rainfall. He argues that human activities, especially land degradation, have disrupted these processes, leading to a rise in warming humid hazes and a decrease in cooling rainfall. Jehne proposes that by regenerating the Earth’s soil carbon sponge, which enhances water retention and plant transpiration, we can restore these hydrological cycles. This, he argues, is more effective than focusing solely on CO2 emissions reduction, and is essential for cooling the planet and securing a livable future.
Nature has been cooling the planet for millions of years. With the loss of Arctic ice, we are now quite reliant on the biotic pump Jehne describes above. The IPPC WGI Fifth Assessment Report, published in 2013 states very clearly, “It is certain that Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) has increased since the late 19th century … Each of the past three decades has been warmer than all the previous decades in the instrumental record, and the decade of the 2000’s has been the warmest. The global combined land and ocean temperature data show an increase of about 0.89°C [0.69–1.08]5 over the period 1901–2012 and about 0.72°C [0.49- 0.89] over the period 1951–2012 when described by a linear trend6. “ which suggests that nature's ability to cool has decreased.
Peter Paul Bunyard and Rob deLeat, in their book, Cooling Climate Chaos, “offer effective climate solutions. We have seen climate restoration in smaller areas. If implemented wholesale by people everywhere based on local context, it will resolve most of the climate crises worst effects within decades, while benefitting society in many ways, including the protection of biodiversity, and correcting the gross inequity of our times. It may even open the possibility of slowing down partly inevitable sea-level rise.”
In so many places the realization has begun to dawn, we CAN do this, but we need to work with the planet. Climate change is not beyond our reach, we simply have to understand climate and then apply that understanding to everything we do. Here at Soil Smart – Soil Wise, we use the wonderful model of the biotic pump to clarify a whole system that creates climate, and to showcase simple acts that strengthen it. When we work with the biotic pump, then we are beginning to control our own climate, locally, in ways that enhance our own location, cool our local climate, and bring back the biodiversity that helps to maintain a resilient climate, in the long-term.
We have been focused on removing the carbon that holds in the heat. We have been focused on the results of the heating and not on the cause. We have focused on carbon and not on water. It is water that creates climate as it changes shape and either requires energy or gives it off – as heat. Water’s ability to shape-shift, is the miracle that manages temperature. Plants are the partners that make this shift possible, and even ordinary plants contribute as greening the planet, is cooling the planet. As they say in Cooling Climate Chaos, “Our focus is entirely on nurturing the living planet back to health and saving our societies in the process.” THAT is the key! We need to focus on planet cooling and planet health, and THEN we will find our pathway thought all the myriad changes we are so befuddled with now.
Yes, we need fresh water, but the soil will cleanse our water if we keep the water we get by stopping, slowing and sinking it where it falls. Removing and storing carbon dioxide is one of nature’s basic skills. Plants and soil are wonderful carbon sinks, they have been effective for millions of years. They may not act as fast in removing carbon as we are at adding it, but that’s our worry, so yes, the biotic pump removes and stores carbon. Air pollution is addressed subtly, as plants create oxygen and utilize CO2. Yes the air is improved, however, biodiversity loss IS a strength of the bionic pump and there are few other options. As mini-forests are planted, they, ‘create the conditions that support life’ and we see and can measure the return of animals and insects that have disappeared for years, as they return.
Effective strengthening of the bionic pump means that less fertilizer will be used, and land is designed to hold the water it gets. These changes will impact land use positively as healthy soil hold water so groundwater, creeks, rivers and springs are brought back to healthy states. There is nothing else, that I know of, that will impact all of these areas of overshoot as effectively as strengthening the biotic pump.
Land design is a hidden and neglected part of the equation. Beavers are the consummate land designers.  Erica Gies, in her book Water Always Wins, has a whole chapter on Beavers. There are several other books that she mentions as beavers gain in importance: Once They Were Hats: In Search of the mighty beaver by Frances Backhouse, and Eager: The surprising secret life of the Beaver by Ben Goldfarb, are two. Erica states, “Their ponds covered more than three hundred thousand square miles, turning one-tenth of the continent into rich ecologically diverse wetlands…” For me, this implies just how much land nature dedicated to holding water. It  also implies just how much land needs to be dedicated to holding water, if we want to refill the aquifers’ and underground streams that are necessary for a healthy ecosystem.
Given the current state, one thing we can do is to ensure that all new development is designed to hold water, first, before building. What we know from examples like Village Homes in Davis California, is that not only does such design prevent flooding, it is also cheaper to build and cheaper to maintain. Homes built to take advantage of nature can save up to 50% on their energy use, From an affordable housing perspective, these are very good numbers!
Addressing climate change is not a one-off, one time thing, but a shift in how we are living on the planet, so that everyday decisions are aligned with what nature and all the other living things need. Because the planet is alive, things change, and we, like beavers, need to circle back and readjust to take into account the decisions of myriad of other livings beings who share the planet with us. We have become accustomed to one and done, moving on to other things. We see our engagement with the planet as sporadic and as the background for the ‘real’ stuff. Our engagement with the planet has to become the REAL stuff, something that becomes central to all of our actions, not a backdrop. Our thirsty, burning planet needs water, and WE need to help her keep the water she gets!
Cities are in a good position to make this happen. We do not have rain if there is no water in the soil. Erica Gies makes this point over, and over. The soil must hold water and the soil must be green with plants, and designed to slow and sink water, for forests and plants to pump it up into the air to fall again. By becoming a sponge city, by ensuring that all land is planted correctly, and designed well, cities can ensure they become sources of cooling, rather than heating. Right now, most cities are heat islands, may degrees warmer than the countryside. This needs to change as cities recognize the various ways they can become cooler. By paying attention to keeping the water they get, they can actively utilize public parks, and golf courses as water sinks. As they make healthy soil a prerogative, composting and biochar become normal ways of doing business, reducing chemical use and water use, as healthy wet, soil doesn’t need watering, so plants and trees can put their roots down far enough that the water table rises, so that additional water is rarely needed.
I can’t put Greta’s words out of my head – “our house is on fire!” We need to be putting that fire out. We do not need to rearrange our furniture, or sort through our belongings, we need to put the fire OUT! The problem is that there is a disconnect between what we do and the experience of success. That problem is called non-linear cause and effect. I believe that having our hands in the dirt, working with the biotic pump, seeing the resilience we can create with our ore own hands, watching life return as the forest grows brings a kind of satisfaction and feeling of relevance that few things can match. That is my hope and my prayer – join us in making YOUR city resilient, green and cool.

Check out our 4-week course on Rethinking Climate Change to understand this more deeply: https://soilsmart-soilwise.org/events