WASHINGTON – On September 24, the Pope, after addressing a Joint Session of Congress on the environmental and moral crisis of climate change, will speak to one of the largest congregations at the National Mall since two million people attended President Obama’s inauguration. Shortly before he speaks, Larry Kopald, from The Carbon Underground, a not-for-profit organization, will deliver a message of hope to the crowd. “For the first time a real solution to climate change has emerged. Studies from around the world are clearly showing that restoring the health of soil harmed by industrial farming techniques can not only sequester enough carbon to halt climate change, but has the potential to actually reverse it in our lifetime, all while feeding us abundant and healthy food. It’s literally a shovel-ready solution to the biggest crisis facing humanity.”

The Carbon Underground is part of a growing global coalition of research institutes, businesses, universities, religious organizations, and civil society organizations that are pointing to the new science showing how simply growing our food in a healthier manner, where soil is kept vibrant and alive, can draw down and store enough carbon to reverse climate change.

Martin Kirk, from the think-tank The Rules, said today, “This isn’t about waiting for some brilliant new technology to be invented. This is about using a technology tested and refined over hundreds of millions of years, called photosynthesis. It is quite literally a system for ensuring that life can flourish. The problem is that we are harming our soil so much that we’re effectively shutting this system down. We can wake it up again, starting today. The moral case for doing so is unimpeachable.”

Most people don’t know that between 40% and 50% of manmade carbon emissions are created by industrial agriculture and our food production systems. But we now know that what farming put into the atmosphere, farming can remove. “The ability of photosynthesis, leveraged with advanced farming and grazing practices, to return us to preindustrial levels of COs is now clear. This is the world we can hand to our children, if we act now,” said Dr. Tim LaSalle, Professor Emeritus, Cal Poly.

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