A story out today in Bloomberg suggests we can solve climate change for $300 billion, which, as many astute readers have noticed, is a deal. As authors Adam Majendie and Pratik Parija point out, $300 billion is merely “the gross domestic product of Chile, or the world’s military spending every 60 days.” Seems pretty doable!

The plan comes from the United Nations and entails restoring degraded land back into productive soil that not only holds carbon, but also produces things that are useful to humans, like food. The Bloomberg piece focuses more on explaining the particulars of how it could be done than on fact-checking the likeliness that it will bury as much carbon as proposed. Restoring habitat and rehabilitating soil are generally good things to do regardless, though, and it seems at least possible that if we do enough of it, we really can bury as much carbon as they are suggesting.  Read More