After years of being disgusted with myself as I continued to throw compostables in the regular garbage (where it ends up in a landfill, where it does NOTHING), I’ve finally gotten around to starting a #composting pile.
Apparently, this is something individuals can do that actually helps fight #ClimateChange. I don’t know the science of it (the spouse does), but consider starting your own if you can!
Organic matter contains carbon. When it rots away, that gets released into the atmosphere.
When it composts, it can be used to build soil instead. We tend to think of "carbon sequestration" in terms of wood in tree trunks and the like, but it turns out in a nice lively area with a lot of things growing, the visible foliage above ground only contains about 1/3rd as much carbon as the roots and humus and fungus and critters under the surface.
And each 1% of organic material in the soil increases its ability to hold water by about 10x.
The trouble with conventional agriculture is, they don't replace the slowly decaying humus that gives healthy soil its spongy structure. Instead they pour fertilizer that's been reduced to pure chemicals dissolved in water-- the soil increasingly breaks down to basically nothing but sand that can't hold on to that water. More and more water has to be dumped on to keep things irrigated, ploughs have to be used to fluff things up, and unused fertilizer washes away to pollute rivers etc.
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