Grass, Soil, Hope: A Journey Through Carbon Country

Courtney White

May 2014 · Chelsea Green Publishing

About this ebook

This book tackles an increasingly crucial question: What can we do about the seemingly intractable challenges confronting all of humanity today, including climate change, global hunger, water scarcity, environmental stress, and economic instability?

The quick answers are: Build topsoil. Fix creeks. Eat meat from pasture-raised animals.

Scientists maintain that a mere 2 percent increase in the carbon content of the planet’s soils could offset 100 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions going into the atmosphere. But how could this be accomplished? What would it cost? Is it even possible?

Yes, says author Courtney White, it is not only possible, but essential for the long-term health and sustainability of our environment and our economy.

Right now, the only possibility of large-scale removal of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere is through plant photosynthesis and related land-based carbon sequestration activities. These include a range of already existing, low-tech, and proven practices: composting, no-till farming, climate-friendly livestock practices, conserving natural habitat, restoring degraded watersheds and rangelands, increasing biodiversity, and producing local food.

In Grass, Soil, Hope, the author shows how all these practical strategies can be bundled together into an economic and ecological whole, with the aim of reducing atmospheric CO2 while producing substantial co-benefits for all living things. Soil is a huge natural sink for carbon dioxide. If we can draw increasing amounts carbon out of the atmosphere and store it safely in the soil then we can significantly address all the multiple challenges that now appear so intractable.

Ratings and reviews

A great read about how to use livestock to put CO2 back into the soil and save the planet.

About the author

Courtney White is a former archaeologist and Sierra Club activist who dropped out of the “conflict industry” to cofound the Quivira Coalition, a nonprofit conservation organization dedicated to building a radical center among ranchers, conservationists, and public land managers around practices that improve resilience in Western working landscapes. In 2005, Wendell Berry included Courtney’s essay “The Working Wilderness” in his collection titled The Way of Ignorance. He is the author of Revolution on the Range; Grass, Soil, Hope; The Age of Consequences; and Two Percent Solutions for the Planet; and coauthor of Fibershed with Rebecca Burgess. He is also the author of The Sun, a mystery novel set on a working cattle ranch in northern New Mexico. He lives in Santa Fe.