1장
Soil: The Forgotten Climate Solution
When we think about environmental crises, we rarely look down at our feet. Yet the ground beneath us holds the key to solving our most pressing ecological challenges. In "Cows Save the Planet," Judith D. Schwartz presents a paradigm-shifting perspective: what if the solution to climate change isn't just about reducing emissions, but about putting carbon back where it belongs-in the soil? This counterintuitive idea has gained traction among environmental thinkers and regenerative farmers worldwide. The book has become a touchstone for the soil health movement, with celebrities like Woody Harrelson and Jason Mraz promoting its message. Even Prince Charles, a longtime advocate for sustainable agriculture, has echoed its principles in his own environmental initiatives. As climate anxiety grows, Schwartz offers something rare and precious: practical hope based on solutions already working across diverse landscapes. By reconnecting with soil, we might just save ourselves.
2장
The Carbon Puzzle: It's About Location, Not Quantity
The fundamental problem with atmospheric carbon isn't its existence but its location. Carbon itself isn't a villain-it's the building block of life, simply in the wrong place. At 392 parts per million and rising, atmospheric CO2 has surpassed the 350ppm threshold considered safe for climate stability. But here's the revelation: much of that troublesome carbon should actually be underground.
Since 1850, agricultural practices have released twice as much carbon dioxide as fossil fuels (though this ratio flipped around 1970). Between 50-80% of organic carbon once stored in topsoil now circulates in our atmosphere. This misplaced carbon creates a double problem-it drives climate change while simultaneously degrading soil's ability to support life.
Carbon-rich soil functions like a sponge, retaining water that makes land resilient to drought, wildfires, and flooding. As soil scientist Christine Jones explains, "Carbon is the currency for most transactions within and between living things. Nowhere is this more evident than in the soil."
Peter Donovan and Abe Collins, founders of the Soil Carbon Coalition, are documenting how land managers can transform atmospheric carbon into soil organic matter through their decade-long Soil Carbon Challenge. On Abe's Vermont property near Lake Champlain, they demonstrate how management practices transformed swampy fields dominated by reed canary grass into land with eighteen inches of topsoil and diverse vegetation.
Peter emphasizes that bare ground indicates carbon leakage-a climate threat hidden in seemingly peaceful rural landscapes. After harvest, exposed agricultural fields release carbon skyward. The solution? "Oxidize less, photosynthesize more." Rather than focusing solely on reducing emissions, we should work with biology to capture carbon through photosynthesis and store it in soil.
This approach taps into natural processes rather than depending on technology or politics that have shown limited effectiveness in addressing climate change. By understanding the carbon cycle as a continuous process where photosynthesis builds compounds while respiration returns carbon to the atmosphere, we can create positive feedback loops where carbon-rich soil supports more plant growth, sequestering even more carbon.
3장
The Liquid Carbon Pathway: Nature's Underground Economy
Beneath our feet lies an invisible highway system that could transform our approach to climate change and agricultural sustainability. Australian soil scientist Christine Jones has pioneered understanding of the "liquid carbon pathway"-a remarkable process where plants function as sophisticated two-way pumps, sending soluble carbon downward through their roots to feed vast networks of soil organisms. This carbon flow not only nourishes the soil ecosystem but stimulates humus production, creating a stable carbon repository that can remain intact for centuries or even millennia.
The soil functions like a complex biological battery, storing and transforming the sun's energy underground through intricate biochemical processes. Plants deliver carbon compounds to mycorrhizal fungi through their roots, establishing symbiotic relationships with approximately 80% of flowering plants worldwide. These remarkable fungi extend plant reach through microscopic threadlike structures called hyphae that can span impressive distances-a single teaspoon of healthy soil near a robust plant might contain fungal strands stretching nearly half a mile when laid end to end. This vast network, often called the "Wood Wide Web," enables resource sharing between plants and creates resilient ecosystem connections.
Mycorrhizal fungi serve as sophisticated governing systems for nutrient exchange between plants and soil, significantly enhancing plant resistance to diseases, drought, and other environmental stresses. They secrete glomalin, a remarkable glycoprotein discovered by Sara Wright at the USDA in 1996. This sticky substance serves multiple crucial functions: it stores carbon for decades, binds soil particles into strong aggregates, and creates essential soil structure and stability. Research indicates that glomalin may account for 30-40% of carbon stored in healthy soils.
However, modern agricultural practices often disrupt these beneficial relationships. Chemical fertilizers, herbicides, fungicides, intensive tilling, and leaving fields fallow all inhibit mycorrhizal fungi networks, creating a destructive dependency cycle. Farmers find themselves adding increasingly more chemicals to compensate for the loss of natural soil function, further damaging the soil ecosystem. Jones faces significant resistance from both the scientific establishment and agricultural industry, which has vested interests in maintaining chemical-dependent farming systems rather than supporting natural solutions that would reduce input requirements.
Most remarkably, this process challenges the long-held belief that topsoil formation requires geological timeframes spanning thousands of years. While surface carbon remains relatively unstable, carbon pumped deeper through plant roots creates stable humus rapidly through biological processes. This underground transformation converts compacted subsoils into fertile, friable topsoil as liquid carbon feeds diverse microbe communities that dissolve soil minerals, simultaneously providing plant nutrition and building lasting soil structure.
North Dakota farmer Gene Goven's observation that "You build soil where the roots go-down!" encapsulates this revolutionary understanding. His success in regenerative agriculture demonstrates that we can potentially reverse centuries of soil degradation within years rather than millennia. This insight offers hope for addressing both climate change and food security simultaneously through biological processes that enhance soil health, increase water retention, and boost agricultural productivity while sequestering atmospheric carbon. Progressive farmers worldwide are now implementing these principles, showing yield increases while reducing chemical inputs and building resilience against extreme weather events.
4장
Grasslands and Grazing: The Surprising Climate Heroes
Colin Seis's two-thousand-acre farm Winona demonstrates how mimicking natural processes can rapidly regenerate soil. His "pasture cropping" technique-sowing annual cereal crops into perennial native pasture-replicates natural grasslands where diverse plant species coexist symbiotically. After abandoning expensive fertilizers following a devastating 1979 bushfire, Seis observed native grasses flourishing. Within just two years, his land showed improved drought resistance and species diversity. Most remarkably, over ten years his topsoil depth increased from four to eighteen inches despite below-average rainfall.
The key to building soil carbon lies in maximizing photosynthesis. Whether using Keyline plowing, pasture cropping, or Holistic Planned Grazing, successful approaches increase photosynthetic activity per acre. Mycorrhizal fungi create a "microbial bridge" that enhances plants' capacity to capture carbon, while greater leaf surface area means more carbon sequestration.
Bare soil must be avoided as it causes carbon to oxidize and return to the atmosphere. Our current agricultural practices favor oxidation over photosynthesis by leaving soil exposed much of the year. This creates self-reinforcing cycles: more leaves mean more roots and carbon flowing into soil, improving fertility and sequestering more carbon. Conversely, bare ground triggers moisture loss, reduced microbial activity, fewer nutrients, weaker plants, and diminished carbon storage.
Allan Savory's journey to understanding grassland restoration began in Zimbabwe, where he observed that "protected" wildlife habitats were deteriorating despite conservation efforts. His pivotal insight was that grasslands, grazing mammals, and predators evolved together-if domestic herbivores mimic wild counterparts' behavior, grasslands can be restored to health.
The key mechanism is the "bunching" behavior animals exhibit when threatened by predators, which ensures plants are nibbled but not overgrazed, while trampling drops plant residue onto the ground where microbes decompose it. Without this process, dead growth oxidizes and kills grass plants by blocking sunlight.
Contrary to popular belief, properly managed livestock can reverse land degradation. Holistic Management has spread to ten thousand land managers on forty million acres worldwide, demonstrating that animals aren't inherently destructive-they're essential tools for ecosystem restoration when managed to mimic natural patterns.
5장
Water: The Forgotten Climate Regulator
While climate discussions typically focus on carbon dioxide, a group of European scientists behind the "New Water Paradigm" argue that water's role in climate regulation has been dangerously overlooked. They contend that too much water has drained from our land due to deforestation, intensive agriculture, and urbanization, creating both water shortages and climate instability.
Water mediates temperature: solar radiation hitting bare soil creates "sensible heat" we can feel, while radiation hitting vegetated, moist soil transforms energy into "latent heat" held in water vapor. Plants act as "valves" releasing moisture through leaf stomata, effectively cooling the environment. Water vapor, making up 1-4% of the atmosphere (compared to CO2's 0.0383%), serves as the primary conveyor of heat in our climate system.
Dried landscapes create "hot plates" that inhibit rainfall locally while pushing moisture toward cooler regions, creating dangerous temperature differentials that trigger extreme weather events. Over the past century, rainfall has decreased 10% on Slovak plains while increasing 3% in mountains, and across Europe has dropped 20% in the Mediterranean while rising 20% in Scandinavia.
The "biotic pump" theory explains how forests create their own rainfall: high transpiration rates enrich the atmosphere with water vapor, and when this moist air rises and cools, water vapor condenses, creating a partial vacuum that draws in more moist air from oceans. This mechanism transports moisture across continents, revealing that forests don't merely grow in wet areas-they actively create and sustain their own rainfall conditions.
When considering continental water, we typically think of "blue water"-lakes, rivers, and aquifers-but "green water" that moves through soil and plants via the small water cycle has been largely neglected despite its ecological importance. Green water stores act as barriers against "hot plates," prevent erosion, promote soil microbial diversity, and build soil carbon.
Christine Jones notes that for every 1% increase in soil carbon, a square meter of soil can store an additional 16.8 liters of water-creating a positive feedback loop as carbon and water cycles reinforce each other. By retaining water that would otherwise flow to the sea, dried landscapes can become fertile again. As Kravcik says, "Every drop of water is key to our recovery."
6장
Nutritional Decline: The Hidden Health Crisis
Our food's nutritional value has declined dramatically over the past century, with mineral nutrients in crops falling 50-100% since the early 1900s. USDA data shows calcium and vitamin A in broccoli dropping 54% and 75% respectively between 1975-2010, while iron and vitamin A fell 60% and 40%.
This nutritional degradation may explain rising obesity and chronic health conditions-people may overeat because their bodies crave missing nutrients from depleted soils. Nearly half of Americans have chronic health conditions, two-thirds are overweight or obese, and even infants are increasingly classified as overweight.
Dan Kittredge, raised on an organic farm, challenges the dominant NPK (nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium) agricultural model. He argues that true soil fertility isn't about static components but interconnected biological processes. "Just because you're an organic farmer doesn't mean you have the nutrition right," he explains, noting that many organic farms simply substitute organic materials into the conventional chemical model rather than building biological systems.
The chemical approach to agriculture began with Justus von Liebig's 1840 work identifying plant components and promoting the "Law of the Minimum"-that yield depends on the scarcest nutrient. This led to synthetic fertilizers, particularly after Haber and Bosch developed nitrogen fixation in 1915. Post-war excess production capacity meant aggressive marketing of chemical fertilizers to farmers as almost a "moral duty."
Healthy plants should thrive until frost, not succumb prematurely to disease or pests. Plants, like humans, have immune systems dependent on compounds derived from soil minerals. These minerals function along similar pathways in both plants and humans. When minerals are missing from soil, they're absent from our food and subsequently from our bodies.
What makes food truly nutritious are "plant secondary metabolites"-compounds like tannins and essential oils that give plants their distinctive smells and flavors. These substances, which plants produce after achieving basic carbohydrate and protein production, support immunity and provide antioxidant and antimicrobial benefits that transfer to whoever consumes them.
Dan is developing a "bionutrient meter"-a near-infrared spectrometer to measure mineral levels and compounds in produce, which would drive market demand for higher quality. He believes free markets are the best way to improve our food supply: "When the economic driver is quality, our food will improve."
7장
The Soil Food Web: Life's Underground Network
The soil teems with an astonishing abundance of life-a single teaspoon contains some six billion living creatures, with bacteria numbering up to a billion. This underground ecosystem functions as a complex food web where organisms interact as predators and prey, competitors and collaborators.
The balance of these organisms, especially the bacteria-fungi ratio, determines soil health. In conventional agriculture, bacterial dominance occurs as tilling and chemicals inhibit fungi, leading to carbon loss and inviting pests and disease. Soil microbes function as a plant's digestive system, breaking down nutrients into forms plants can absorb-essentially "outsourcing" digestion to the soil.
Gene Goven manages his 1,500-acre North Dakota farm by embracing complexity and diversity rather than fighting against it. His land demonstrates how biodiversity creates agricultural abundance through diversified grains and custom grazing operations that prioritize species diversity both above and below ground. Since focusing on soil health, his grain profitability increased 30% and beef production per acre jumped 3.48 times compared to 1982. Wildlife diversity tripled, with over 112 species of nesting birds counted in a single quarter-mile stretch.
In 1990, Goven began experimenting with complementary plantings, starting with oats and field peas grown together, which achieved four times the rooting depth of either crop grown alone. Now he grows lentils with sunflowers, contradicting conventional wisdom that claimed one would deprive the other of moisture. Instead, the lentils pull nitrogen from the air to benefit the sunflowers. "Plants don't read the books," he quips.
Charles Darwin devoted his final years to studying earthworms, documenting their remarkable sensitivity to vibration despite being deaf and blind, their apparent intelligence in plugging burrows, and their extraordinary efficiency in processing soil. He calculated that earthworms move more than ten tons of dry earth per acre annually, completely turning over the topsoil every three years.
Dung beetles-sacred to ancient Egyptians as the scarab-play a crucial ecological role on Gene's farm. Unlike many farmers who use chemical parasite treatments, Goven relies on these beetles to process cow pies in just three days, calling them his "ultimate no-till drill" as they tunnel dung, urine, and seeds into the soil.
The Burleigh County Soil Conservation District, guided by Jay Fuhrer, draws visitors from around the world to learn about mixed cover cropping-what Fuhrer calls "applied biodiversity." This approach accelerates biological time, improving soil health and carbon storage faster than conventional methods.
8장
Chemical Agriculture: The Unintended Consequences
As a devastating drought gripped the Midwest in July 2012, crop consultant Amie Bandy noted how conventional fertilizer applications likely contributed to the extreme heat in the worst-affected areas, suggesting the drought's impact stemmed partly from human choices in agricultural management.
Roundup dominates today's agricultural inputs as Monsanto's broad-spectrum herbicide. Introduced in the 1970s, it was marketed as "environmentally friendly" because it reduced overall herbicide use and minimized tillage. After Monsanto's patent expired in 2000, the company maintained market advantage by developing "Roundup Ready" crops genetically modified to withstand the herbicide, creating a system where farmers must purchase both proprietary seeds and the matching herbicide.
Microbiologist Robert Kremer's twenty years of research reveals glyphosate's harmful effects on soil. The chemical disrupts microbial communities, suppressing beneficial organisms while enhancing less desirable ones. This imbalance alters crucial soil processes like decomposition and nutrient cycling, while potentially increasing mycotoxins and plant diseases.
Glyphosate doesn't simply kill weeds-it systematically weakens plants by inhibiting protein production, making them vulnerable to soil-borne fungi. Plant pathologist Don Huber warns that glyphosate affects the entire agricultural system: plants, soil structure, microorganisms, and pests. He connects the dramatic rise in certain human health conditions to increased agrochemical use, noting glyphosate chelates essential nutrients like manganese and disrupts beneficial bacteria.
Nitrogen, essential for all life, was historically a limiting factor in agriculture until the Haber-Bosch process enabled industrial-scale fertilizer production. But by the 1990s, yields plateaued and farmers responded by applying more fertilizer, now increasing globally by 15% annually.
This dependence created multiple problems: nitrogen saturation causing nitrous oxide emissions and water contamination; depletion of soil carbon as nitrogen-feeding microbes consume humus; soil acidification making plants vulnerable to disease; addiction-like dependency on synthetic inputs; and heavy fossil fuel consumption in fertilizer production.
The artificial nitrogen short-circuits natural biological cycles, destroying soil fertility. The challenge lies in breaking free from this complex of agricultural, energy, chemical and explosive industries that's as resistant to change as the nitrogen molecule itself.
9장
Regenerative Economics: Soil as the New Gold Standard
Our economic system fundamentally disconnects from ecological reality, particularly in its obsession with perpetual growth. While policymakers universally prescribe "economic growth" as the solution to all problems, this approach ignores basic physical limits. As the New Economics Foundation aptly illustrates with their hamster analogy, indefinite growth is impossible in nature-a hamster that continued doubling its weight weekly after puberty would weigh nine billion tonnes on its first birthday.
Money is fundamentally a metaphor-a symbolic stand-in for wealth rather than wealth itself. Throughout agricultural history, experts have described money and wealth in terms of soil. Sir Albert Howard referred to industrial fertilizer as "transfer of the soil's capital to the current account." William Albrecht noted that "all the capital in all the banks cannot substitute for the soil of the land."
This connection between soil and economy extends to carbon itself. Ecologist John Todd proposes using carbon as universal currency, where people would be paid to sequester carbon in soils while polluters would pay for emissions. Our economic system currently depends on rapidly consuming carbon (as fossil fuels) without fixing an equivalent amount-essentially spending natural capital without replenishment.
We currently operate in an oxidizing economy that undoes photosynthesis of the past, releasing heat and carbon dioxide. This dries soil, prevents water infiltration, disrupts climate, and depletes aquifers. The alternative-photosynthesis-promotes plant growth, builds soil that holds water, supports microbial life, cools air, moderates climate, and sequesters carbon.
Gabe Brown, a farmer managing 5,400 acres with minimal inputs, demonstrates the economic advantages of focusing on soil health. After losing four consecutive crop years to hail and drought in the mid-1990s, he couldn't afford conventional inputs and discovered "it's all about the soil." By focusing on soil health through rotations, cover crops and livestock integration, he eliminated the need for commercial fertilizer, hasn't used pesticides in twelve years, and reduced herbicide use by 75%.
The economic results are remarkable: Gabe produces corn for $1.21 per bushel versus the typical $3-plus, uses 5 gallons of diesel fuel per acre versus the average 21 gallons, and has built significant soil equity-each 1% increase in soil organic matter contains $650 per acre worth of nutrients. "The soil should be our safety net," he insists, preferring the term "regenerative" over "sustainable."
This shift is already happening through practices that build carbon in soil, retain water on land, reverse desertification, reduce chemical inputs, and bring herbivores back to landscapes. Our economic imperative should be to "oxidize less, photosynthesize more" by building wealth through natural processes rather than consuming it.
10장
Healing the Land, Healing Ourselves
In the remote southeastern Montana landscape of the Cinch Buckle Ranch, Ron and Kathleen Goddard demonstrate Holistic Management in action. Despite challenging conditions-severe drought following the previous year's flooding-they manage three thousand cow-calf pairs across the vast property using livestock behavior (grazing, trampling, and waste) to drive multiple biological processes that restore land function.
The most dramatic improvements from Holistic Management often involve water. At Dimbangombe Ranch in Africa, the transformation extended the river by a mile, providing water access to elephants and reducing women's water-carrying distances. The contrast was so dramatic that when a government minister visited, he attributed the flowing water to "witchcraft," unable to believe water could appear where it hadn't existed in a century.
Allan Savory's assertion that floods and droughts are man-made initially seems bold, but his reasoning is compelling: the condition of land determines how effectively it handles precipitation. In drought-stricken western states, even seemingly healthy grasslands often have 50-90% bare soil between plants, guaranteeing worsening drought cycles.
Though unconventional, Savory's perspective is empowering-humans have interfered with the water cycle through farming practices, overgrazing, deforestation, and excessive burning, but we can reverse these effects by restoring soil's water retention capacity.
Fifth-generation rancher Zachary Jones weathered the 2011 floods with minimal losses at Twodot Land and Livestock. While the American Fork Creek swelled to unprecedented levels, contributing to the Musselshell River running thirteen times its normal volume, Twodot's pastures experienced little runoff-and what water did run off was clear, not soil-laden. Jones attributes this resilience to decades of Holistic Management practices that increased soil carbon content and ground cover.
Throughout this book, we see that the solutions to our most pressing environmental problems-climate change, desertification, biodiversity loss, water scarcity, and nutritional decline-all converge in the soil beneath our feet. By shifting our focus from technological fixes to biological processes, from extraction to regeneration, we can address multiple crises simultaneously.
The promise of soil restoration isn't just environmental-it's economic, social, and deeply personal. As we heal the land, we heal ourselves. The path forward isn't about sacrifice but abundance; not about less, but more-more life, more water, more biodiversity, more nutrition, more resilience. And it begins with understanding that cows-and all the life connected to them-really can save the planet.
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