Climate Change Needs Nature-Based Solutions as Carbon Focus Fails

Climate change is a hoax, or at least the notion that reducing carbon and other heat-trapping gasses in our atmosphere can stabilize our climate, is misguided and dangerous. Society’s focus on fossil fuel use and its impact on the atmospheric gas composition, specifically carbon, has failed in many ways, but primarily in the fallacy that the carbon cycle is somehow disconnected from the other countless energy and nutrient cycles that rule our climate.

From the World Economic Forum website - “At COP28 in Dubai, nature was a clear winner as negotiations and outcomes referenced the importance of biodiversity and nature-based solutions for mitigation and adaptation. During this year’s proceedings, nature was less prominent, leaving it to COP30 to ramp up momentum and link biodiversity pathways with climate action.

The Fallacy of Green Ammonia Fertilizer

One of the most recent examples of this, and arguably most egregious, that has captivated the attention of academia, policy makers, and funders is “green ammonia fertilizer.” Ammonia is manufactured using the Haber-Bosch process and is very energy-intensive and uses a lot of fossil fuel. 

Advocates claim that using renewable energy sources, such as wind or solar, instead of fossil fuels, results in a carbon-free source of “green” nitrogen fertilizer that substantially reduces our carbon footprint. On first glance, this sounds like a win-win. With as much as 50% of modern food production attributed to manufactured ammonia fertilizer, developing a source that is carbon-free seems like a viable solution to the climate crisis.

But nature is seldom simple. Ammonia fertilizer, when applied to soil, works by feeding a very limited group of bacteria that are extremely hardy. These microorganisms can survive harsh soil conditions, including long periods of drought and inundation, as well as degraded and compacted soils. 

Once they receive their fix of ammonia, they multiply rapidly, and as they do they feed on soil organic matter, the very basis of soil health and the carbon cycle.  Ammonia fertilizer is very unstable in the environment, and at least 30% of fertilizer is lost through leaching to groundwater, or off-gassed as nitrous oxide which has 300 times greater global warming effect than carbon. There is no such thing as “green ammonia.”

Nitrogen and Landscape Management

Wind erosion from bare soil near Pine River.

In nature, diverse groups of micro and macroorganisms cycle nutrients, including nitrogen. These organisms form complex food chains and require good soil structure. They cannot survive long periods of drought or flooding. They are susceptible to temperature extremes exacerbated by bare soil, and they need living roots as a constant source of food for the base of the food chain. Our atmosphere is 70% nitrogen and given the right soil conditions it’s not a limiting factor in plant growth. And it’s free.

How do we manage our landscapes–our crop fields and pasturelands, our forests and wetlands, and our parks and lawns? How we manage these spaces is vital to adapting and mitigating climate change. The layer of the atmosphere that interacts with the surface of the earth is called the “boundary layer,” and it plays a bigger role in stabilizing our climate than the makeup of gasses in our atmosphere, but it takes away the simplicity. 

Focus on the Right Solution

Climate change is a huge issue; it encompasses the entire planet that we inhabit. When I bring the topic up with folks, most acknowledge that it’s an issue, but often feel hopeless and paralyzed from action because of the immensity. It’s easy to hope that solar panels, electric vehicles, and new technology like “green ammonia” will save us. But these things alone, can’t. Even if we stopped burning all fossil fuels today, we’d still have all the excess carbon in our oceans and atmosphere that would have to be cycled out and captured. 

If we focus on plants and soil as the primary solution to climate change, it makes it everyone's responsibility. Finding ways to capture water and nutrients high in the landscape, and then using these resources to grow plants can happen at any level, in every type of landscape, by anyone.

Farmers, ranchers, and gardeners can implement practices to build soil health, and diversify their operations utilizing agroforestry and other perennial cropping practices. (Learn more here). Urban planners can develop better storm water design practices, and find ways to mitigate impervious surface runoff. Policy makers can adopt and enforce ordinances that restrict development of sensitive landscapes and protect the wild places we have left. Homeowners can build a raingarden, or plant a pollinator area, and lakeshore owners can enhance their riparian buffer with native plantings. And most everyone can plant a tree.

Three examples of land management practices. Left: corn planted 60” on center seeded to a six species cover crop mix. Center: Runoff during a spring rain event near Bay Lake, MN. Soil health, silvopasture and keyline design are ways to capture and hold water on the landscape and cool the boundary layer. Right: Spring thaw runoff captured by a keyline swale at Island Lake Farm.

At the 19th annual Back to Basics you will find numerous workshops and resources on a broad array of boundary layer solutions to climate change including Brennan Blue from Great River Greening leading a session on Nature-Based Solutions & Climate Resiliency and I will be co-leading the workshop Biometeorology: Soil & Plants to Slow Water &

Cool Our Climate. 

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