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   Photo by Johan Larson.  

From the United Nations Climate Summit to the People’s Climate March and the accompanying Flood Wall Street action, all eyes have been on the climate this week.

Amidst heated discussions of global policy change, greenhouse gases, and emissions caps, food and farming-and the impact they are having on our changing climate-were also in the spotlight. After all, agriculture is one of the largest contributors of human-caused emissions.

Organic farming research and advocacy organization, The Rodale Institute, was at the head of the line, presenting research on what they call “regenerative organic agriculture” (ROA). According to the group’s white paper on the topic, “these practices work to maximize carbon fixation while minimizing the loss of that carbon once returned to the soil, reversing the greenhouse effect.

At a New York press conference on Tuesday, Rodale’s scientists advocated for the use of ROA in reversing the effects of climate change.

“While we strive over time to wean ourselves off of fossil fuel and decarbonize the world’s economy, let us immediately and confidently reverse climate change now through the available technology of regenerative organic agriculture,” offered Tom Newmark, co-founder and chair of The Carbon Underground, and a close collaborator with the Rodale Institute.

According to Rodale, the hope is to alter the course of climate change conversations–to convince global leaders to stop talking about reducing emissions and mitigating impact and to start talking about restoring the earth’s carbon balance to its preindustrial state-via healthy soil and organic farming.