Catchments and Carbon

The real cause of unstable weather

By

Marcus Blackett

When you ‘follow the science’, it tells us there is a correlation between global temperature rise and the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels (C02.) Fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and coal, when burnt, release carbon dioxide into the air and forests remove and store C02 from the air. The overuse of fossil fuel and deforestation are thus listed as the main causes of the rise in C02 levels. Government policies have therefore been put in place to mitigate their effects (Net Zero).  However, there is another reason that explains both the rise in C02 and specific unstable weather events that policy makers seem to have ignored: The weather system on this planet is determined by its geological cycles, hydrological cycles, the temperatures at ground and air level and water concentration – including that in both the clouds and the soil. 

The destabilisation of the world’s weather system goes hand in hand with the disruption of natural ecosystems of the air, water, and soil. When Earth is viewed from space, you witness a globe of land, sea, and cloud. In his thesis: ‘Catchments and Carbon’ – Lois Cabon lays out the real cause of unstable weather (a.k.a. “Climate Change ”) and explains how industrialised agriculture is stripping water from the land, not only causing a rise in C02 but also causing severe soil damage. He explains that if you examine soil, you will find many forms of living bacterial organisms. However, if you spray it with glyphosate and bombard it with fertiliser, you destroy the biological life of the soil, and the carbon is then left exposed to oxidise away to C02. When that happens, the soil can no longer hold water, so if it rains and the water runs off carrying the soil with it. The soil beneath is panned and therefore the water cannot go into the aquifer. When the sun warms the soil, you then have a temperature rise and when the temperature rises in soil, the moisture evaporates and takes the heat with it.

Soil carbon, therefore, is being oxidised and emitted into the air, and nitrogen, (mainly as ammonia and nitrate from fertiliser) is polluting aquifers and rivers, and phosphorous, a scarce resource, is again damaging the aqueous environment. Farmland, which is naturally regenerative, has high carbon soil which will remain cool. Farmland which has been given over to modern agriculture, lacking carbon and lacking moisture, will get very hot. You can look up the ‘Penman equations’ and calculate the difference between a wet soil and a dry soil and you can actually see the dry soil will give you a big temperature difference on the land and in the air.

Similarly, in cities, we have a high temperature rise because concrete absorbs heat and has no moisture to evaporate it away. We are creating urban heat islands with cities and we’re creating agricultural heat islands by the way that we treat the soil. 

In the Summer of 2022, we saw quite a lot of interesting features such as fires in forests, and the drying out of soils so that farmers could not actually harvest their crops. In Europe, it was the worst drought in 500 years, and it spread all across Europe. Hydropower went down and nuclear power went down because of a lack of cooling water and there was also a crop failure throughout Europe. The potential for disaster because of water cycle disruption is enormous. Farmers have found a 10C difference between soil that has cover crops and organic matter, and soil that does not. These methods make soil act like a massive sponge holding water and needing less irrigation. 

It is actually quite simple: the emissions that are causing the damage are coming from industrialised agriculture where C02 is being lost from the soil – so the soil cannot hold water and is running off the land, drying it out, and therefore the temperatures are going up. All of this is a result of government policy driven by the large agricultural conglomerates. We need to help Nature put the carbon back into the soil by rebuilding the bacterial structure of the soil. If we do that, the soil can once again act like a sponge and absorb water again. 

What is happening now is that things are just being done willy-nilly with no forethought or discussion. There is instead a very unscientific declaration that we must have ‘Net Zero’. The ‘Catchments and Carbon’ book is necessary to counter the complete cutting off of scientific discussion. Control of our resources must be returned to the community, rather than to just keep charging more and more for water services, and for sewage. We must make heroes of our young farmers; a new generation of farmers who understand that soil health leads to plant health, and plant health leads to our health. And, at the same time they will be sequestering carbon and saving the planet. You cannot simply have short-term policies that close down energy systems, aiming for Net Zero, that negate the more robust policies that allow communities to take control of their fundamental assets of the soil, the water, and the air. 

Carbon is the basis of life. Water allows the process of life to continue. Remove carbon and you remove water. Remove water and you remove life. It is time to say NO to Net Zero! The industrialised methodology of farming, together with large scale deforestation, have accelerated a process that has been growing in magnitude for generations. This process is the removal of water from the land and the drying out of vast acreages on a global scale. Drying of the land allows the oxidation of the soil carbon and this is in reality the major source of carbon dioxide that allegedly produces global warming. In fact, the removal of carbon from soil renders it incapable of holding and storing water. It is this lack of soil water that is producing the temperature increases being experienced and not the slight increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. When we all wake up to ‘real science’ and not the science forced upon us by manipulation of the truth, we can start to redress the balance and start healing our damaged planet.