Climate & Change

What if your actions could not only help stop global warming but REVERSE it!

We are all becoming increasingly familiar with the effects of extreme weather events - drought followed by floods, or drought followed by fire and then followed by floods. Although these events are not new, their intensity and frequency keep on increasing year on year.  But what if there was a way to see a rapid and effective reversal of these extreme weather events? 

We often blame global warming for these events. The mainstream message is that we have to reduce our CO2 emissions to slow global warming and the subsequent climate change. It is a daunting task with a global economy completely dependent on fossil fuels and we are left feeling helpless, paralysed and without hope for any short term solution. 

But climate change caused by humans (what scientists call anthropogenic induced climate change) is a two legged problem. One leg has attracted all the attention in the past few decades and the second leg has been left almost forgotten. The popular leg is the effect of greenhouse gases building up in the atmosphere due to emissions caused by human activities. Most of the global efforts are still focused on this leg. The second and forgotten leg is the impact of human activities on the water cycle.

The Water Cycle

Humans have been altering the water cycle through land use and land management for thousands of years. But the rate of land use change has increased dramatically in the last few decades. The impact of this second leg on our climate is significant. Recent studies estimate that the impact of a disrupted water cycle is by far more significant on climate stability than rising CO2.

There is overwhelming scientific evidence that deforestation and biological land degradation results in less water vapour in the atmosphere and higher temperatures. This is a major disruption of the natural water cycle resulting in less rain and more erratic rainfall events, droughts and floods. But the solution to this issue does not necessarily require a prior global agreement. What the solution requires is that we protect our forests and embark in a reforestation process of our land, in our properties, our communities, our regions and eventually globally.

We need healthy forests teeming with microbial life in order to provide the necessary water vapour, organic compounds and microbiology for a healthy water cycle. These biological agents are the key players in the development of rain over continental areas. Climate, the water cycle and biology are therefore intrinsically interconnected.

Fortunately, the potential for climate recovery by reversing the negative impact of human activities on the water cycle is formidable. There are great examples around the world of what can be achieved. One of the most powerful examples is the work led by Rajendra Singh in the Rajasthan region in India. 

Reviving Rivers

The Rajasthan region has been suffering rapid desertification over the years. The young population migrated to the cities in search of opportunities leaving behind an ageing and desolate land full of dry wells. Singh worked with the local community and focused on reviving the water cycle by capturing and infiltrating rainwater in strategic locations during the rainy season. 

Over a period of 35 years Singh’s work has brought back water security to more than 1 000 villages throughout an area of 10 000 square kilometres, the water table has lifted by 5 metres, restoring 250 000 wells, benefiting over 1 million people and 7 rivers that had gone dry have been revived into perennially flowing rivers. As a result of this, vegetated areas have increased from 2% of the total area initially to 48%, forests cover has increased by 30% bringing a wide range of wildlife back to the area and 70% of the barren land has been converted into cultivable land. 

The transformation of the region has had a great positive social impact. The local economy, boosted by an emerging agricultural sector, previously absent, started to thrive and the migration of the young population reversed. The area has transformed from a land of despair into a land of abundance and opportunities 

The new landscape not only benefited the local community it also had a great positive impact in the local climate where the average temperature has decreased by 2 degrees centigrades during this period, despite global warming.

While greenhouse gas emissions is a global problem that requires global consensus to be addressed, water cycle alterations can be addressed at various scales, from local to regional and up to global level. Singh’s work started in a village and as neighbouring communities saw the success of the work they joined in forces and the project began spreading across the district.

We can all start taking steps towards restoring the water cycle from our homes, backyards and communities. And this work compounded can have incredible positive effects in the environment and our climate. 

For more information about the factors that regulate the water cycle read the article: Biology & The Water Cycle

Where do we start? 

We need more vegetation to regulate rain and to increase carbon in the soil, but we also need more carbon in the soil and water for vegetation growth. This is a vicious cycle. The challenge is that soils are being depleted of carbon, nutrients and microorganisms through modern agricultural practices and deforestation. At the same time rainfall is becoming scarce and unpredictable in many parts of the world. And this is exactly where we should start. Water is the source of life and the catalyst for any ecosystem recovery. Water has the incredible power to restore landscapes and bring life back to places where limited life was present. We should start by harnessing whatever water becomes available in order to get the biological machine in motion. 

In order to harness water we need to slow the water flow, allow water to infiltrate degraded landscapes, nurture the soils and re-activate biological life. Decentralised water retention is a very effective strategy to recharge the ground and boost the ecosystems. These techniques consist of a wide range of earthworks interventions at various scales. It is of critical importance that these techniques are tailored to the specific conditions and characteristics of the land as well as local climatic factors. 

We can start at a small scale by building rain gardens. These gardens can help to infiltrate runoff water from hard surfaces in our backyards creating resilient and thriving gardens. Or we can install infiltration basins to infiltrate our grey waters. At larger scales we can build terraces across the landscape to slow and infiltrate rainfall or swales to slow and capture water runoff or even earthen dams to capture and store a larger volume of water to support human activities and biodiversity in the area. 

Some of these techniques can be implemented by hand in small properties at very low cost and others require heavy machinery such as excavators. But all these techniques have the same objective, to keep as much water within the landscape as possible, support biodiversity, reduce soil erosion and minimise water running off the landscape and returning to the oceans without fulfilling its full potential which is harnessing life on land.

What can we do? 

We need to change the way we see nature. Nature is our partner on this planet, not just a resource to tap on. We need to work with nature and not against it. We need to protect the remaining forests, and change our agricultural industry in order to build soils as opposed to depleting them. We need to integrate biodiverse forestry systems in our food production through agroforestry. 

All these interventions can start at any scale, from backyard gardens, homesteads, farms, even urban environments to large regional projects. We can start our own projects or we can support those already undertaking these projects through an emerging and growing regenerative community across the globe. From farmers, professionals, service providers to product developers or suppliers, there is a growing global community of people that puts nature first for the health of our planet and our own health.

In order to address the climate problem we need a shift in our mindset. For the last few decades we have been focusing on trying to change our economy, reduce our carbon footprint. But most importantly we need to restore our biological machines to moderate our climate, moderate temperature and regulate rain. We need to stop deforestation and soil depletion in order to stop desertification and reduce droughts, fires and floods. 

We don’t need to change the entire economy immediately, we just need to start restoring nature. Once that process is on its way the economy will follow. We can all start taking steps towards regeneration now, we do not need to wait for our governments to implement policies, policies will follow. We do not need to wait long to reap the rewards of our actions, nature has an incredible capacity to heal. We will be able to see the impact of our actions in a relatively short period of time. We will be able to share the positive impact of our actions with others. We will be able to grow a nature conscious community. Together we can restore our planet.

Let’s begin working with nature now!