Yet world leaders gathering for the climate-change summit in Bali, Indonesia, next week should consider an alternative. It's one of the most overlooked yet most effective and inexpensive strategies available: Store carbon in the soil.


This is one way the earth has managed carbon since it began. The earth's soil contains the second-largest quantity of carbon, where it has been the most stable and least vulnerable to fires and climate changes. (The largest amount is dissolved in oceans.)

Planting trees sounds like a flawless solution: Trees absorb carbon, after all. But it can actually be quite harmful, even dangerous. Soil needs "riches" such as carbon, organic matter, and mineral nutrients, and they come in part from the "litter" left by plants that grow and die annually on the land. By planting trees in soils that were created by other, more productive plants (e.g., prairie and wetland plants that used to occupy some of today's farmland), less litter is produced. That means less carbon and organic matter are contributed to the soil, causing it to deteriorate.