WORLDFIRE - Chapter 12, Part III

Zero Emissions & Beyond

Beyond Zero Emissions

Thank you for sticking with me through that harrowing leg of the journey. We now move into an arena pregnant with possibilities. We know what needs to be done to halt the dangerous rise of carbon emissions, but zeroing out emissions only gets us to where things stop getting worse. For things to get better, we must travel to a place that is restlessly waiting to be born: a world beyond zero emissions.

Because too much carbon pollution is already in the air, restoring a safe climate requires that we safely draw down some of that carbon. Fortunately, Mother Nature already knows how to do this. Absent the natural carbon drawdown Gaia does every day, global carbon concentrations would be 50 percent higher than they are today. Studying nature’s ways to reverse global heating is one of today’s most exciting fields of endeavor and holds the key to calming the climate beast.

We begin with the promise of organic farming, defined by the USDA as farming with methods that “integrate cultural, biological, and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity.” Just as our fossil fuel-based energy system is driving us toward the edge of the climate cliff, so is our industrial agriculture food system speeding us toward that same deadly drop-off. Self-described communications strategist Larry Kopald explains: “To understand how, it's important to remember a few simple facts: There is no waste in nature (she reuses everything); We don't create carbon (we just move it from place to place); and, nature is literally dying to take back the excess carbon we put into the atmosphere and reuse it to grow us more stuff. So why isn't nature doing this? Turns out that our mistreatment of soil is preventing nature from doing what she does naturally and cycling carbon back from the atmosphere. We are literally disrupting the process of photosynthesis – where plants break CO2 molecules apart, release the oxygen and take the carbon underground – by killing the life that should exist in soil that needs that carbon. We do this by spraying it with chemicals, tilling and killing the latticework of fungi, and growing one plant in a field when nature needs variety the same way we need proteins and fats and fruits and vegetables to remain healthy.”

As explained by Ryan Zinn with the Fair World Project: “Synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, heavy machinery, monocultures, land change, deforestation, refrigeration, waste and transportation are all part of a food system that generates significant emissions and contributes greatly to global climate change.” In addition to poisoning our bodies with pesticides, industrial agriculture is interfering with the soil’s natural ability to draw down carbon. Because we walk on it every day, most of us take soil for granted. We forget that soil is a living community. More than 100 million microorganisms can live in a single teaspoon of dirt. Soil scientist Andrea Beste asserts that the simple act of replacing chemical fertilizers with organic fertilizers could prevent one-half of all greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture while also building healthy soils. This is because nitrogen-based fertilizers are the primary source of what you already know is the third most common greenhouse gas–nitrous oxide.

Fortunately, farmers from around the world are increasingly embracing a variety of enlightened agricultural methods that require less fossil fuel use and that support healthy soils. One is permaculture, defined by Merriam-Webster as “an agricultural system or method that seeks to integrate human activity with natural surroundings so as to create highly efficient self-sustaining ecosystems.” Another is regenerative agriculture, defined by the Rodale Institute (an organization dedicated to growing the organic farm movement) as “working to achieve closed nutrient loops, reduction or elimination of biocidal chemicals, greater crop and biological diversity, fewer annuals and more perennials, and practices that mimic natural ecological processes.” Yet another is agroecology, described by the UN as the “application of ecological science to the study, design and management of sustainable agroecosystems.” Whatever form it takes, enlightened agriculture is really about getting back to the basics by using Mother Nature’s instruction manual.

Before getting into the political arena, I was so passionate about soil conservation I envisioned working for the Soil Conservation Service. This is probably why “carbon farming” is one of the drawdown solutions that fascinates me the most. When I pedaled away from Boulder in the fall of 2010, I had only the vaguest notion about this revolutionary concept. Had I known more, I would have seen the farmland I was pedaling past with different eyes, for much of America’s breadbasket is fertile soil for this commonsense climate solution. My first real introduction to carbon farming was through a 2015 article written by John Roulac, founder and CEO of the superfoods company Nutiva. As described by Roulac, carbon farming is “an agricultural system implementing practices that improve the rate at which CO2 is removed from the atmosphere and converted to plant material and/or organic matter in the soil.” California rancher John Wick, co-founder of the Marin Carbon Project, describes the work he's doing to turn compost into “a one-time dose of medicine that creates healthy, carbon-rich soil" as "a way to directly and measurably lower the surface temperature of the Earth.” John told me, “There’s nothing more exciting than that.” While not all carbon farming techniques are economic or practical, a growing number of soil sequestration practices are proving that farmers have a major, and potentially very profitable, role to play in calming the climate beast.

So how much carbon could potentially be bio-sequestered through organic farming? The Rodale Institute asserts the following (hang on to your hat): “If we converted all global croplands and pastures to regenerative organic agriculture we could sequester more than 100% of current annual CO2 emissions.” This is an astonishing finding most people have never even heard about. And the kicker? Many organic management practices are not only available, but can boost farm profitability. A 2019 report I came across produced by the global Food and Land Use Coalition “lays out the scientific evidence and economic case that demonstrate that, by 2030, food and land use systems can help bring climate change under control, safeguard biological diversity, ensure healthier diets for all, drastically improve food security and create more inclusive rural economies. And they can do that while reaping a societal return that is more than 15 times the related investment cost (estimated at less than 0.5 percent of global GDP) and creating new business opportunities worth up to $4.5 trillion a year by 2030.”

Closer to home, Kansas-based Wes Jackson, founder and president of The Land Institute, has been pioneering “Natural Systems Agriculture” for decades. Jackson and his colleagues boldly declare: “The Land Institute and our partners are not working to tweak the now predominant industrial, disruptive system of agriculture. We are working to displace it.” Their vision of making peace with the planet is to “see farmers and scientists around the world working together with nature to sustain and even rebuild soil, communities, and economies.” This is exciting stuff. Hopefully, these examples give you a sense of just how big of a role regenerative agriculture has to play in moving us beyond zero emissions.

Coastal restoration is another exciting natural drawdown solution. I first learned from Guardian columnist George Monbiot that the highest carbon drawdown potential per acre is restoring coastal habitats like mangroves, saltwater marshes, and seagrass beds. Why? “They stash carbon 40 times faster than tropical forests.” According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, mangroves and coastal wetlands “store three to five times more carbon per acre than tropical forests.” In addition to drawing down carbon, restoring degraded coastal habitats makes our coastlines and coastal cities more resilient to climate-fueled hurricanes. We need a national, and global, crash program to restore these mission critical habitats.

But the most comprehensive vision I have seen for accomplishing this herculean task was developed by author, entrepreneur and activist Paul Hawken, who asserts: “We can just as easily have an economy that is based on healing the future rather than stealing it.” Hawken is the founder of Project Drawdown, an organization dedicated to not only stopping, but reversing, global heating. In 2017, Project Drawdown released a remarkable book called DRAWDOWN: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed To Reverse Global Warming. In it, Hawken defines drawdown as “that point in time at which greenhouse gases peak and begin to decline on a year-to-year basis.” Elaborating, he writes: “Drawdown creates a realistic, optimistic and empowering view of our climate future. There are three paths to drawdown: reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere through efficiency and resource productivity; replace existing energy sources with low carbon renewable energy; and bio-sequester carbon dioxide through innovative farming, grazing and reforestation practices.”

DRAWDOWN is one of the most exciting visions of a future waiting to be birthed that I have ever seen. With the exception of its 2050 timeline–Mother Nature is screaming that we don’t have that kind of time–Project Drawdown’s menu of economic, off-the-shelf climate crisis solutions offers genuine hope for restoring a safe climate, but they must be deployed without delay. To give you a taste, here are DRAWDOWN’s top 11 solutions (out of 100 total), ranked by “amount of emissions avoided or sequestered” under the project’s “most aggressive” scenario (i.e. “no biomass, landfill methane, nuclear, or waste-to-energy”). The greatest hits are: 1) installing onshore wind turbines; 2) protecting and restoring tropical forests; 3) carefully managing hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants; 4) reducing food waste; 5) adopting plant-rich diets; 6) practicing silvopasture (pastures strewn with trees); 7) building large-scale solar farms; 8) educating girls; 9) securing the right to voluntary family planning services; 10) prioritizing perennial over annual staple crops in the tropics; and 11) protecting and restoring temperate forests.

Note the strong emphasis on food, forests, and agriculture, and how technology does not dominate the list, for it is not just renewable energy we need. We need renewable systems. As proof that Gaia figured out long ago what we are still now learning, most of the solutions are on the third drawdown path Hawken described–bio-sequestration–working with nature to safely pull carbon down out of the air. This is how we move beyond zero emissions. We need a national and international drawdown campaign at wartime speed and scale.

Directly related to two of the 11 solutions I listed–educating girls and family planning–is the challenge of population growth. Homo Sapiens may sit atop the food chain, but no species, including ours, is immune to the laws of nature. We are also subject to the law of carrying capacity. Carrying capacity is considered to be the maximum population that can be indefinitely supported by an ecosystem without destroying that ecosystem. Our ecosystem happens to be the biosphere called Earth. Others talk about it as a steady state population that is in dynamic equilibrium. Because humans are extraordinarily clever, we have learned how to manipulate our biosphere in ways other species have not, but no amount of gaming the system can shield us from these natural laws. If we continue to ignore these realities by continually growing our numbers, our population will eventually crash. There is no getting around this fact. Every species lives and dies by the laws of natural limits.

Scientists are telling us we have already exceeded our carrying capacity, meaning we are currently living on borrowed time. According to the Global Footprint Network, 1.71 planet Earths would be needed to support humanity’s current level of consumption (meaning we are using up the Earth’s gifts 1.71 times faster than they are being regenerated). Just as we do, the Earth has physical limitations. To take the global footprint concept a step further, if the rest of the world consumed energy and materials the way the U.S. does, we would need 5 Earths. You do the math. If we don’t lower our numbers voluntarily, Mother Nature will do it for us. A population that continually climbs is no more sustainable than one that continually declines.

To be clear, it is the consumption rate of developed nations, not the reproductive rate of non-industrial nations, that is driving most of the rise in global greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. has roughly 4% of the world’s population, yet consumes nearly 16% of the world’s energy. Slashing our carbon emissions to model a sustainable systems pathway for other nations to follow is critical to restoring a safe climate. But that does not solve the issue of carrying capacity. Achieving a sustainable global population begins with promoting women’s rights. As a matter of human rights alone, the patriarchal domination of women and girls globally must end. Every woman has a right to voluntary family planning services and every girl has a right to a public education. Both are linchpins to achieving a sustainable global population. Micro-loans for women-owned small business start-ups are another proven path to self-sufficiency. More foreign aid from the wealthiest nation in the history of the world would not only help stabilize population growth and promote the rights of women and girls, it would help eradicate the related ills of poverty and starvation.

Everything I have shared with you only begins to scratch the surface of the cornucopia of exciting solutions we have on hand to move America, and the world, to zero emissions and beyond. Such a world is within our reach if we can but generate the political will. But we must protest the pretense that the suicidal status quo does not need upending. It does.

The journey of humanity’s evolution has been a truly remarkable one, but we are badly in need of a course correction. Ignorance compounded by arrogance is what got us into this mess. Wisdom grounded in humility is what will get us out of it. The good news is we know what needs to be done. Now we just need to go out and do it.

NOTE: The written form of WORLDFIRE is the authoritative version. Any inadvertent errors in transcribing the recordings are mine and mine alone.