Burn

An 800-CEO-READ "Editor''s Choice" March 2019

How We Can Harness Carbon to Help Solve the Climate Crisis

In order to rescue ourselves from climate catastrophe, we need to radically alter how humans live on Earth. We have to go from spending carbon to banking it. We have to put back the trees, wetlands, and corals. We have to regrow the soil and turn back the desert. We have to save whales, wombats, and wolves. We have to reverse the flow of greenhouse gases and send them in exactly the opposite direction: down, not up. We have to flip the carbon cycle and run it backwards. For such a revolutionary transformation we¿ll need civilization 2.0.

A secret unlocked by the ancients of the Amazon for its ability to transform impoverished tropical soils into terra preta¿fertile black earths¿points the way. The indigenous custom of converting organic materials into long lasting carbon has enjoyed a reawakening in recent decades as th