Soil carbon storage

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07587-4

Land use policies and farming practices can be adapted in a more efficient manner for climate change mitigation. Irrespective of emmisions, minor changes can go a long way towards maintaining our current climate for a longer window than we currently project. Practical solutions like the one presented here would likely be more palatable to the recalcitrant anti-science types who don't "believe" established scientific facts.

"Degraded mineral soils also need to be restored by controlling grazing, applying green manure or growing cover crops.... Restored, these could take up 9–19% of global CO2 emissions for 25–50 years, at rates of 3–7 Gt of CO2 per year."

@wildgrass said
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07587-4

Land use policies and farming practices can be adapted in a more efficient manner for climate change mitigation. Irrespective of emmisions, minor changes can go a long way towards maintaining our current climate for a longer window than we currently project. Practical solutions like the one presented here would likely be ...[text shortened]... se could take up 9–19% of global CO2 emissions for 25–50 years, at rates of 3–7 Gt of CO2 per year."

The difficulty is that to introduce these policies one side needs to admit there is a problem with anthropogenic emissions of climate forcing gasses as well as the other accepting that the risk of moral hazard associated with improving natural carbon sinks is worth taking anyway.

@deepthought said
The difficulty is that to introduce these policies one side needs to admit there is a problem with anthropogenic emissions of climate forcing gasses as well as the other accepting that the risk of moral hazard associated with improving natural carbon sinks is worth taking anyway.

Not necessarily. If there's a soil-centric rationale for altering farming practices (maintenance of plant nutrients) then the climate-saving benefits would be only a side-effect.

edit: this also works really well as a public outreach campaign. A lot can be done by private home owners in their landscaping decision-making. Many people are unaware of the waste involved in hauling off all their leaves and then re-fertilizing their soil with chemicals.

@wildgrass said
Not necessarily. If there's a soil-centric rationale for altering farming practices (maintenance of plant nutrients) then the climate-saving benefits would be only a side-effect.

edit: this also works really well as a public outreach campaign. A lot can be done by private home owners in their landscaping decision-making. Many people are unaware of the waste involved in hauling off all their leaves and then re-fertilizing their soil with chemicals.

Well, whether it's a side benefit or the main one depends on why it's being done in each instance. Even if yields increase the change in farming practices may increase production costs, in which case the carbon sink effect is the major sales pitch.

@deepthought said
Well, whether it's a side benefit or the main one depends on why it's being done in each instance. Even if yields increase the change in farming practices may increase production costs, in which case the carbon sink effect is the major sales pitch.

Agricultural production, as it is currently practiced, is already heavily subsidized. All this would require is a simple rearrangement of the subsidy to favor alternative farming practices.

At the residential level, again the modifications would be simple. An outreach campaign that stresses mowing leaves into the yard instead of raking them up and applying fertilizer, for example.