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Toward Reframing Climate Change

It is time that we adequately frame climate change. Until very recently i thought and and talked as though CO2 was the major greenhouse gas and that solutions would come out of sequestering carbon and stopping CO2 emissions. I understand that CO2 is a key player, but that water is by far the major greenhouse gas. If we focus narrowly on reducing CO2 and it belches right back out of the ocean, then we should spend most of our energy on regenerating living soil. Yards, parks, farms and ranches need to be the main focus and where maximum funding goes. It seems to me that most people are focused on sequestering and preventing CO2 from getting in the air. We really need to create the conditions where we put as much CO2 as we can back in the soil where it came from. Our workforce are the trillions upon trillions of organisms that built and have been regulating planetary temperature. Human soil practices have been killing these organisms so they cannot do their jobs. We need to begin immediately.

Walter Jehne

Cooling The Climate Mess With Soil And Water - A new sense of hope will arise from mastering the learning curve.

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Johnson & Su

David C. Johnson and his wife Hui-Chun Su have developed a no-turn compost method that helps create the Soil Carbon Sponge spoken of by Walter Jehne. Again a sense of hope arises as you understand the biology Johnson describes.

Find out more: Johnson-Su

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Christine Jones

Next Christine Jones tells us how to help keep this regenerative soil carbon sponge going by the communities of plants we grow together and how they work cooperatively together.

Find out more: Christine Jones

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Gabe Brown

Last Gabe Brown rancher from North Dakota tells how he has improved his soils and made money by producing healthier food while sequestering carbon.

Find out more: Gabe Brown

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In Simple Terms

What is a compost bioreactor and why is it one of the most important ways to address climate change?

Building a Johnson-Su Compost Bioreactor

Growing an inoculant to favor carbon sequestering fungi in the soil along with a great diversity of other organisms that aid plants and make spongy rich soil regenerating the water cycle.

How to build a Johnson-Su bioreactor
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STATE OF EMERGENCY and You are Invited

Dear Fellow Citizen we (thousands or millions of us all over Earth) invite you to lay aside your differences and join us in acting to slow climate change and avoid our extinction. There are not enough of us yet to do the necessary work. Some say it’s too late but it isn’t. Many of us have faced our grief and are happier for it. Many of us have already died in the many floods, storms and heat waves.

You are invited to act whereever you are and in your own way with the talents you have. Work alone or in groups. Here in Kansas City a growing number of us are looking at a hopeful possibility laid out below. With the upcoming leaf season we are going to build hundreds of specially built Johnson-Su compost bioreactors to normalize our deficient soils to increase the fungi. Many fungi send miles of tiny tubes out through the soil to feed plant roots. These tubes are carbon (formally CO2 in the atmosphere) and they can form a soil carbon sponge that will hold a lot of water. Water is THE major greenhouse gas on this planet. Water’s relationship to Carbon and to the Soil is complicated but is laid out in the information below. Please join us. “This caravan has no despair” for we are working for each other.

Welcome and thanks for reading this far.

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The Task

The task is to treat all the soil in Kansas City with Johnson-Su Compost. This treatment has been shown to increase the ratio of fungal to bacterial microbes in the soil. The fungi in the soil are made of carbon which is drawn out of the atmosphere by plants. The broken down fungi is sticky and holds soil particles together creating the soil carbon sponge. This spongy soil holds water prolonging the ability of plants to draw down even more carbon through photosynthesis. The added moisture also helps the soil play its original role interacting in the plants climate water cycle.

How can you help?

  • You can sign up and commit to make a bioreactor.
  • You can sign up as a group to do one or more bioreactors.
  • You can lend your talents helping organize this huge task.
  • You can help line up groups who will supply labor as needed.
  • We need people who are willing to learn the process well enough to convey it to others.
  • We need to purchase materials to make these reactors. Donations will help.
  • Encourage your group to cosponsor this effort.
  • You can help by watching the videos below.
  • Reach out to us in the contact form below.
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Reach out to us

Fill out the form to get help building a Johnson-Su bioreactor. We have already built 23!

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Donate

Please donate what you can to help us with this giant project to sequester carbon and restore a healthy water cycle which will slow dangerous climate change.

Heartland All Species Project has successfully pulled off large events in the past. Check some of them out here!

Since 1987 Heartland All Species Project is a 501-c-3 not for profit in the state of Missouri. You can make donations by credit card through PayPal or mail a check or money order to

Heartland All Species Project
5644 Charlotte
Kansas City MO 64110
816-400-2277

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Become a Gardener at Tracy Garden

Let his know if you would like to become a gardener at Tracy Garden. We are putting so much energy into our effort to slow climate change that ordinary garden tasks are needing attention. We use a number of climate friendly processes that you will learn.

Interested? Let us know.

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Events

If you would like to be contacted when we do a biochar burn on short notice let us know and we’ll try to contact you.

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What Is No-till Gardening?

Natural No Till gardening is organic or chemical-free gardening. The soil is not tilled between harvest and planting save for some raking. The soil is either kept covered with mulch or compost, or it is planted in a cover crop to keep carbon fixed in the living soil. No till gardening attempts to reestablish and sustain a healthy, well balanced soil ecology. When living soil is exposed to air and sun by tilling, the carbon in the soil’s organic material is metabolized by bacteria resulting in carbon dioxide which escapes into the atmosphere. Reduction of CO2 emissions is a natural consequence of organic no-till gardening.

We have an online organic no-till garden calendar where you can watch videos for each seasonal task.

More information at organotil.org