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[deleted] t1_jcf0kku wrote

Reply to comment by GodFeedethTheRavens in Regrowing tropical forests absorb megatonnes of carbon by Creative_soja

Yeah but grasslands may be. Season after season if they’re properly maintained they can regenerate inches of topsoil that stores gigatonnes of carbon across the planet. There is an upper limit to how much soil can be regenerated but we’re nowhere near it iirc. It stores much more carbon than trees and can be done for years before that limit is reached.

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Discount_gentleman t1_jcfkmfw wrote

> Season after season if they’re properly maintained they can regenerate inches of topsoil that stores gigatonnes of carbon across the planet.

Do you have a source that documents their carbon sequestration potential?

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SBBurzmali t1_jcf26ja wrote

That's all fun and games until you want to eat, unfortunately.

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Kradget t1_jcf9ehn wrote

We currently have very large sections of land that aren't really being used for agriculture (or are being used for very inefficient ways of growing food) that we could return to local native grassland. We can't solve a huge problem with only one solution, but we can make dents in it (through things like habitat restoration) that will help in combination with changes to our behaviors and upcoming technology.

We can't just plant trees and get out of this if that's all we do. But it'll help. Same as we can't just switch to solar and resolve every problem, even if that will help.

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303707808909 t1_jcgl7a2 wrote

It is very annoying how people expect a "one-size-fits-all" solution for climate change.

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Kradget t1_jcgn7iz wrote

I guess I see why. If you know there's a main driver, it makes sense to assume there's a reasonable way to address it everywhere - we're kind of conditioned to expect things to scale massively and apply no matter where you are.

It's just that this isn't one of those situations, because the effects are diverse and a single solution wouldn't necessarily apply everywhere.

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[deleted] t1_jcfh38s wrote

What Kradget said, but on top of that, we would do that using cattle grazing. Most of the land suitable to be grazed can't be farmed...which does not fit the common misinformation that cattle take up farmland that would otherwise be used for crops. It wouldn't. About 2/3 of all arable land can't be used for farming. Sequestering carbon in those soils would be a huge dent because thats a TON of land. idk the math, but there are soil scientists out there who think it's possible. Have fun going down that rabbit hole.

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SBBurzmali t1_jcfna2l wrote

I have to point out that if you have cattle grazing the land, said cattle will be collect as much carbon as they can into themselves instead of the topsoil, as well as that cattle, on the whole, are the number one producer of a different greenhouse gas that we really would like to reduce if possible.

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[deleted] t1_jcgezck wrote

Cattle grazing helps build soil through grass root shedding. They graze and the grass sheds it’s roots which ends up sequestering carbon into the soil. It takes time but works. And then the grass grows and builds more roots. And the cycle continues. The Great Plains used to be covered in FEET of topsoil.

The methane cycle of cows is actually a net neutral because it does end up back in the ground. Just takes 10 years. The carbon we worry about is the stuff we’ve burned from fossil fuels. Can we get that into the soil?

We’ve eroded so much soil over the last 100 years that maybe if we applied these strategies with technology helping to optimize them, they could sequester massive amounts of carbon. Plants are the only thing that really sequester carbon and store it. Animals will break down unless they’re all buried which livestock are not.

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