Our carbon cup runneth over!
Multi-national corporations have only in the last year or two have stepped up rhetoric and action to lower their carbon footprint and are in many cases participating in the voluntary carbon offset market. But is this a genuinely effective strategy or “greenwashing?”
Soil Carbon Farming
As a landowner you have hopefully profited from what you grow on your land, whether it’s livestock or crops. It’s been a lot of blood, sweat and tears with many environmental challenges you didn’t expect.
But have you ever thought that under your feet is a microscopic crop that could yield 1000% or more return from your investment? It’s drought resistant and government backed; Soil Carbon.
What is a soil carbon programme?
Soil carbon sequestration is a naturally occurring process that involves atmospheric carbon dioxide capture and storage in soils. Carbon atoms constantly move from the atmosphere to the Earth and then back to the atmosphere. The world’s soil, along with forests and oceans, is a major carbon sink—it has the ability to absorb and store massive amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. Because our planet and its atmosphere are a closed environment, the amount of carbon in this system does not change. Where the carbon is located, however, in the atmosphere or on Earth, is constantly changing. Since the industrial revolution, human activities, including conversion of grasslands and other ecosystems to industrial agriculture uses, have degraded soils and led to the release of billions of tons of carbon from soils into the atmosphere.