Compost, pesticides, native plants, and pollinators! Explore these topics and see how they support the restorative actions we can take together to draw down carbon into the Earth’s soils.
WHY HEALTHY SOIL
As mothers we want good health for all children. Raising healthy children requires healthy food. Raising healthy food requires healthy plants. Healthy plants grow in healthy soil. And healthy soil restores climate health by storing more carbon and rebuilding nutrient and water cycles. Healthy soil is full of microbial life and beneficial fungi. When it is healthy, it is like a sponge and can store both water and carbon.
Restoring the health of soil is a powerful tool to combat climate change. By relying on natural cycles– many of which Indigenous and Black farmers have recognized and understood for centuries – our yards, gardens, forests, parks, farms, and wetlands absorb carbon from the Earth’s atmosphere and store it underground. We must support these cycles to mitigate the rise in global temperatures.
Learn More by Watching: The Soil Story by Kiss the Ground
WHO WE ARE
The Healthy Soil, Livable Future Action Group promotes actions that individuals and communities can take to mitigate climate change by harnessing Earth’s natural cycles. We are part of a climate movement that promotes healthy soil everywhere by preserving forests and wetlands, maintaining and planting trees, restoring native plants and pollinator pathways, reducing pesticide use, supporting food production in community gardens, and composting.
Our actions include educating the public about the role of healthy soils in carbon drawdown and healthy food, providing support to soil activities in local Mothers Out Front chapters, and mobilizing to support soil-related legislation. We ground our actions in four organizing principles: nurturing healthy soil; acting in support of environmental justice; improving the health of people and ecosystems; promoting the growing and broader distribution of healthy food.
Painting by Janet Powers, member of Healthy Soil, Livable Future
OUR CHALLENGE
Building our grassroots power is both a challenge and a necessity. Just as the fossil fuel industry is rich, powerful, and fierce in protecting its business interests, so, too, are industrial agriculture, pesticide manufacturers and lawn care companies. By learning and acting together, we can improve air quality, spur healthy food production and integrate nature into our constructed environments. Together we will build a movement that is equal to this challenge.
