As we saw in the last lecture,a major cause of climate change is the rapid rise in the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the last century.If we could reduce the amount of CO2, perhaps the rate of climate change could also be slowed down.One potential method involves enhancing the role of the soil that plants grow in, with regard to absorbing CO2.Rattan Lal, a soil scientist from Ohio State University, in the USA,claims that the world's agricultural soils could potentially absorb 13 per cent of the carbon dioxide in the atmospherethe equivalent of the amount released in the last 30 years.And research is going on into how this might be achieved.Lal first came to the idea that soil might be valuable in this way not through an interest in climate change,but rather out of concern for the land itself and the people dependent on it.Carbon-rich soil is dark, crumbly and fertile, and retains some water.But erosion can occur if soil is dry, which is a likely effect if it contains inadequate amounts of carbon.Erosion is of course bad for people trying to grow crops or breed animals on that terrain.In the 1970s and 80s, LaI was studying soils in Africa so devoid of organic matter
