The Science is In: A Synopsis of Global Earth Repair
By Michael Pilarski
This is the situation to the best of my knowledge. Any errors are mine alone. The Global Earth Repair Convergence will debate, fine-tune, and build this out greatly.
Runaway Warming and Local Ecosystem Restoration
The planet is in a time of runaway warming/heating. Now, some of us are saying that we should take action to cool the planet by restoring healthy ecosystems and increasing the planet’s green cover. These actions are per se going to be local actions. So they will cool locally to begin with. From my point of view, the more places on Earth that start a local cooling process, the better, as they will gradually move the whole planet to a cooler state. Vegetated land is cooling, and bare land is heating. Bare land also applies to rooftops, concrete, and pavement. Everyone knows of the heat island effect of cities (hotter temperatures and less rainfall). The 33% of the earth’s land surface that has been devegetated or desertified has a giant heat-island effect for the whole planet. Walter Jehne talks about high-pressure heat domes that form over desertified ecosystems.
The Call to Action: Cool the Planet Locally Everywhere
Rob de Laet’s slogan to “cool the planet locally everywhere!” is meant to inspire more people to get to work on re-greening the planet. If we wait to take action until all the scientists agree on a course of action, then we will wait forever because there is such a diversity of opinion among scientists, and some of them are paid to deliberately plant red herrings. There is a quote by Upton Sinclair which has validity in today’s world: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
The Global Earth Repair Convergence & Festival
“Greening the Planet to Cool the Planet” is the slogan of the Global Earth Repair Convergence & Festival. Many of us feel that this is the best path forward to save the planet from climate disaster and that we have little time to waste. Success depends on ramping up greening work and reducing deforestation and degradation, which are still ongoing. Regeneration and conservation need to go hand in hand. Can humanity rise to the challenge? The Global Earth Repair Conference & Festival aims to elucidate these solutions to the best of its ability and to contribute to the global mass movement for regreening.
Solutions to the Climate Crisis in a Nutshell
- Greatly increase the percentage of the planet’s surface that is green and covered with vegetation.
- Concomitantly, this reduces the percentage of the planet’s surface that is bare and creating “heat island” effects.
- Hold more water in the landscape. This reduces floods and droughts and makes it possible to increase vegetation.
- Use regenerative agriculture to maximize carbon/organic matter in soils to sequester carbon, hold more water, and increase food production.
- Convert a large proportion of the world’s tilled farmland to agroforestry and permaculture polycultures. Somewhere on the order of 25 to 30% would be significant. This would reduce bare ground, cool both local (and global) climates, and produce higher yields. It would require fewer machines and increase more livelihoods for people.
- Increased transpiration from increased vegetation generates more clouds, which reflect sunlight and cool the planet.
- Increased vegetation and forests create more biological, rain-condensing nuclei.
- Foster the growth of plankton and seaweed in the oceans to sequester carbon, produce oxygen, produce biological, rain-condensing nuclei, and feed the oceanic web of life.
- An abundance of biological, rain-condensing nuclei in the atmosphere means that precipitation happens easier and there are less intense downpours.
- The “biotic pump” mechanism of forests brings more water into the dryer interiors of continents.
- More water held on/in the land and in refilled aquifers (and in biomass) means that sea levels drop.
- Heat released when precipitation happens is the main mechanism that the Earth uses to cool herself.
- Less of the Earth will be dry as rainfall increases.
- The increased precipitation (with less downpours) will lead to the Earth cooling itself. Thus, there will be less need for big storms.
- Humanity can live in harmony with nature in a pleasant inter-glacial climate and be surrounded by plenty and beauty for all people and all species.
- These are the kinds of things we will talk about at the Global Earth Repair Convergence and Festival.
Bioaerosols and Their Role in Climate
Bioaerosols are airborne particles that come from biological sources, such as plants, animals, fungi, and bacteria, and include things like pollen, bacteria, and spores. These generally come from land, but healthy oceans (with lots of plankton, etc.) also generate types of bioaerosols, primarily dimethyl sulfide. Bioaerosols are great at providing rain nuclei.
Human-derived rain nuclei are far less efficient at providing rain nuclei. Anthropogenic-derived aerosols such as dust, smoke, and pollutants are smaller and have a less roughened surface, so they tend to work with water vapor to create hazes, which function as greenhouse gases and hence are heating. Since they are not so good at providing rain nuclei, the moisture builds up into the atmosphere until at some point, there is a catastrophic deluge of rain. An atmosphere dominated by anthropogenic aerosols will have more climate-heating hazes and more intense rains.
An atmosphere rich in bioaerosols will have more frequent and gentler rains, and there will be more rain clouds with their albedo keeping the planet cooler. Thus, regenerating life on the planet will lead to better distribution of rain, more moderate rainfall intensity, and lessen the heating hazes. This plays in with the mechanisms of the biotic pump and the small water cycle to get more rainfall into the interiors of continents.
Planetary Cloud Cover Variation
One study, based on nearly a decade of satellite data, estimated that about 67–68 percent of Earth’s surface is typically covered by clouds, though it ranges from 56% to 73%, based on data between 2002 and 2015 (NASA).
Cloud cover values only vary by 3% from year-to-year averages, whereas the local, day-to-day variability in cloud amounts typically rises to 30% over the globe. Land is generally covered by 10–15% less cloud than the oceans because the seas are covered with water, allowing for more evaporation.
Lastly, there is a latitudinal variation in the cloud cover. Areas around 10–15% below the global mean can be found around 20°N and 20°S, due to an absence of equatorial effects and strong winds reducing cloud formation. On the other hand, in the storm regions of the Southern Hemisphere mid-latitudes, there is 15–25% more cloudiness than the global mean at 60°S.
On a regional scale, some exceptionally humid areas of Earth experience cloudy conditions virtually all the time, such as South America’s Amazon, while some highly arid areas, such as Africa’s Sahara Desert, experience clear-sky conditions virtually all the time (Wikipedia).
Clouds play a dominant role in regulating our climate. Observational data show that the Earth’s cloud cover has been slowly decreasing since at least 1982, while its surface temperature has risen about 0.8 degrees Celsius (1.4 degrees Fahrenheit).
Clouds are diminishing on the planet as a whole, but this is more evident over land than over the ocean.
The best reference to this that I have seen is an article by Ralph B. Alexander on his website “Science Under Attack.” The author claims that 90% of global warming since 1982 is a result of fewer clouds.
Shrinking Cloud Cover: Cause or Effect of Global Warming? May 27, 2024
The Role of Regreening in Planetary Cooling
If this is correct—that we are seeing a reduction of cloud cover over land (which we would expect as a reduction of transpiration from degraded ecosystems) and this cloud cover reduction is causing most of the global heating—then our goal of regreening the planet to cool the planet is right on track.
More regreening = more vegetation = more transpiration + more bioaerosols = more clouds = a cooler climate.
Practical Actions to Regreen the Planet
What this means is that everyone can play a role in cooling the planet by greening up some land where they live:
- Increase the amount of plants in your yard.
- Add living roofs or vine trellises over driveways and sidewalks.
- Plant more street trees with overarching branches to shade streets.
- Engage in local restoration work of all kinds.
- Build soils in your gardens and landscapes.
- Construct hugelkulturs to sequester carbon.
Everyone has some agency. Millions of small actions add up to big results.
Hurricanes and Typhoons as Earth’s Cooling Mechanisms
One of Earth’s biggest cooling mechanisms is precipitation. Precipitation causes a significant release of energy into the atmosphere (the energy it took to evaporate or transpire it). Much of this heat is radiated out to space, cooling the planet. Hurricanes and typhoons dump huge amounts of rain.
Thus, they must release huge amounts of heat, which radiates off the planet. If so, we could consider big storms and torrential rains as methods the Earth uses for cooling herself. Until humans start regreening the Earth to cool the Earth, Nature may continue to scale up big storms.
Greening the Oceans
“Sometimes the ocean appears to be other colors besides blue. For example, the Atlantic off the East Coast of the United States usually appears green. This is due to the presence of algae and plant life. Phytoplankton are photosynthetic organisms which contain chlorophyll, which not only appears green but also absorbs red and blue light. Depending on the type of phytoplankton, the water may appear more blue-green to emerald-green.”
Why is the Ocean Blue? (ThoughtCo)
The Degradation of Ocean Ecosystems
Humanity has degraded about 50% of Earth’s land ecosystems. What percentage of oceanic ecosystems has it degraded? We not only need to green up the land; we need to green up the oceans. Oceans full of phytoplankton appear more green. Zooplankton, the animal part of plankton, are also critical to ocean health.
Humans have disrupted many oceanic ecosystems.
- Overfishing starts at the top of the food chain but reverberates down.
- The huge reduction in whales and cetaceans has disrupted nutrient availability and distribution (less whale poop).
- Pollution has disrupted phytoplankton.
The more life in the oceans, the better.
The Importance of Seaweed
Seaweed (marine algae) is an important part of planetary carbon sequestration and a nursery for many marine organisms. Seaweed is on the decline because of human activity. We need more seaweed. Seaweed expansion is part of the solution to our global crises. Who stands for seaweed?
Coral reefs, oyster reefs, other mollusks, and mangroves are all critical components of the ocean’s carbon cycling and climate effects.
Insights from Peter Fiekowsky, Author of Climate Restoration
“In addition to a wide range of ocean restoration approaches, the Ocean Iron Fertilization for restoring a safe climate is based on these principles:
- We all want to give our children a safe climate like we were given—if it’s possible. Reviving biodiversity requires restoring the climate.
- Restoring the climate is possible. Nature removes the needed 1000 Gt of CO2 regularly before ice ages, and we now know how to replicate it at a low cost.
- The method appears to be to enhance photosynthesis in certain parts of the ocean, totaling about 1% of the ocean. That requires adding minute amounts of iron-rich dust at key places to provide the missing micronutrient, iron. The phytoplankton (algae) provide food for fish and greatly enhance ocean health.
- This CO2 removal would be done at the same time that other ecosystem regeneration and energy transition projects restore ecosystem health.”
Slogans of the Global Earth Repair Convergence & Festival
- Greening the planet to cool the planet.
- Nature-based solutions.
- Work with Nature.
- Bringing together the leading thinkers for climate stabilization.
- Building and networking the global movement for planetary regeneration.
- Rehydrate the land and the atmosphere.
- Get off the flood/drought treadmill.
- Recarbonize our soils.
- Restore the Biotic Pump climate mechanisms.
- Restore the small water cycle.
- Restore ecosystems on land and sea.
- What can you do? All hands on deck!
How Much Land Do We Need to Regreen to Cool the Planet?
There is no consensus on this number. We will look for more estimates on this figure before the Convergence. What we do know is:
- The task is massive.
- It is achievable.
Insights from Walter Jehne
“We can use these processes to rapidly regenerate the more than eight billion hectares of degraded soils and bio-systems to restore the Earth’s key bio-hydrological cycles that still govern 95 percent of the heating and cooling dynamics of the blue planet.”
In addition, Jehne projects that:
- There is still time to reduce wildfires across 3.5 billion hectares globally.
- We could draw down 20 billion tons of CO2 annually through regeneration efforts.
While Jehne avoids blaming any single factor for widespread soil destruction, he critiques the chemical agriculture model employed by many U.S. farms.
“These high-input industrial agricultural practices have seriously degraded soils in over half of the Earth’s 1.5 billion hectares of croplands and many grazing systems.”
The Extent of Degraded Land
- Of the 14 billion hectares of ice-free land on Earth, 5 billion hectares are man-made desert or wasteland.
- 1 hectare ≈ 2.47 acres for scale.
The Global EverGreening Alliance’s Restore Africa Programme
This program aims to:
- Restore 1.9 million hectares of degraded land.
- Directly support 1.5 million smallholder farming families in six African countries:
- Kenya
- Ethiopia
- Malawi
- Tanzania
- Uganda
- Zambia
“The launch of the Restore Africa Programme marks the start of what will significantly contribute to the AFR100 goal of bringing at least 100 million hectares of degraded land under restoration by 2030.”
Regreening Goals: Tropical Reforestation and Agroforestry
- From calculations, reforesting and implementing agroforestry over 280 million hectares in the tropics could significantly reduce global warming (Page 82, Cooling the Climate by Rob de Laet and Peter Bunyard).
- Restoring tropical forests on a sufficiently large scale could halt further planetary heating. The estimated area needed is the size of India (~3 million square kilometers) (Page 78, Cooling the Climate by Rob de Laet and Peter Bunyard).
Conversions for Scale
- 1 square kilometer = 100 hectares.
- 1 hectare = 2.47 acres.
The Role of Smallholder Farmers
The potential impact of smallholder farmers is highlighted in Cooling the Climate by Rob de Laet and Peter Bunyard:
“The Smallholder Farmers of the World can Save the Climate” (Page 82).
This emphasizes the critical role that localized, small-scale agricultural practices can play in restoring ecosystems and cooling the planet.
Conclusion
These are the kinds of things we will discuss at the Global Earth Repair Convergence
Michael Pilarski
