Article in the journal NATURE says we need to put more carbon in soil to meet Paris Climate accord
A significant amount of the carbon we produce that winds up in the atmosphere could be captured and stored in the soil where it increases fertility because carbon is a building block for plants.
According to Rumpel et al, increasing the carbon in the world’s soil by just 0.4% could remove as much CO2 as the fossil fuel emissions of all of Europe. It would also increase crop production by 1.3%
What does this mean to home gardeners? Since there are more lawns than irrigated corn in the United States, our lawns can be a carbon sink, too.
-Mulch your leaves and clippings into the lawn
-An alternative is to mulch them on site and them spread a thin layer of compost. Both add nutrients including carbon and nitrogen, and structure to your soil. This also keeps them out of landfill where decomposition is often anaerobic and produces lots of methane.
-This means you won’t need synthetic fertilizers, and so you are also protecting nearby water bodies.
Really important, and really easy!