Soil and Climate - Soil: Reflections on the Basis of our Existence - page 120

Soil and Climate

For someone who loves nature, who
appreciates plants and animals and who finds
happiness in horticulture, no problem is insoluble.
Henning E. Segerros

Abstract The soil contains more carbon than the vegetation and the atmosphere
put together. How we manage our soils will therefore be of crucial significance
for the climate in the future. The flow of carbon between earth and atmosphere is
a priority research area; at the Abisko field station in northern Sweden, measure-
ments are taken to determine what happens as the permafrost melts. Another major
challenge we are facing is that of limited phosphorus resources. Currently, phos-
phorus is released via waste water, polluting lakes and seas, while the phosphorus
in mines is running out. Maybe we can bind phosphorus from urine to charcoal, to
make soils in the third world more fertile while reducing the proportion of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere. That is what the native populations in Amazonia did
before the Europeans arrived and spread their diseases.

How Peatlands Can Fuel Climate Change

The carrots grown at Mossag￥rden Farm, near the small town of Veberöd in
southernmost Sweden, are the tastiest I have eaten: juicy, crisp, appealingly nutty
in taste and organically grown. The farm stands on the site of a drained peatbog
and the carrots are grown in the sandy soil left behind when the bog dried out.
Drainage exposed the soil to oxygen, which together with farming led the peat to
decompose and release its carbon content into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
Just as nowadays we add carbon dioxide to the air when burning oil, so the same
process took place at Mossag￥rden, albeit more slowly. Of course, with the peat
now gone, carrot growing at Mossag￥rden is not responsible for adding to atmos-
pheric CO 2 or fuelling climate change.

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