Nature’s Make or Break Potential for Climate Change

"This is an older article from The Nature Conservancy, but it is seminal to our work and our film.

I read this article, as well as the attendant report, back in 2017 shortly after it came out and it inspired me to make To Which We Belong.

Naysayers continue to say that carbon credits and planting trees will not be enough to reverse the impact of climate change. And no, it won’t be enough; but if nature-based solutions such as planting a billion trees and drawing down carbon from the atmosphere through this as well as through farming with cover crops and ranching with cattle that eat the grasses…if these practices can “provide up to 37 percent of the emission reductions needed by 2030 to keep global temperatures increases under 2 degrees Celsius”— then why wouldn’t we focus on these solutions now?

Nature-based solutions have so many other benefits for us and for the earth— trees provide food and habitat for birds and for humans; their canopy can bring down temperatures in both cities and countryside; they take in carbon dioxide and expire oxygen. This goes for grasses and flowers and bushes. The more plants covering the earth, the more carbon dioxide brought down from the atmosphere into the ground— where it grows these plants as well as feeds the microbial life in the soil that feeds us all.

Our soils are starving for carbon— and the best way to give them this vital nutrient is to allow photosynthesis to work its magic naturally!

Pamela Tanner Boll, Director, To Which We Belong in response to the full article on The Nature Conservancy here.