This little calculation could go beyond gardening. This month the world's nations reconvene in a climate bargaining session, where a central issue will be how to account for carbon sequestration. U.S. negotiators will be pushing hard for the idea of paying cash for carbon sequestration. Farmers who increase the humus content of their soil should be able to charge us all for slowing the crazing of the climate. By the same token, anyone who levels a forest or runs down soil carbon should have to pay.
Climate change puts real and huge costs onto everyone.
Carbon sequestration can only be a temporary strategy toward stabilizing the climate. Jon Foley estimates that if we grew back every forest and restored the humus in all the agricultural land in the world, we would only offset 25-30 years of our economy's present carbon emissions. Still, a turn in that direction could help the climate a bit and farmers a lot. Imagine a transfer of income from CO2-emitting corporations back to farmers.