Shaky Ground

https://www.science.org/content/article/farmers-paid-millions-trap-carbon-soils-will-it-actually-help-planet

By Gabriel Popkin, Science. 

Excerpt: Lance Unger ...on his farm near the Wabash River in southwestern Indiana ...rather than leaving his fields fallow, he sowed some of them with cover crops of oats and sorghum that grew until the winter cold killed them off. And before [spring] planting ..., Unger drove a machine to shove aside yellowing stalks—last season’s “trash,” as he calls it—rather than tilling the soil and plowing the stalks under. For these efforts, a Boston-based company called Indigo paid Unger $26,232 in late 2021 and an even larger chunk late last year. That’s how much an emerging market values the hundreds of tons of carbon that, in theory at least, Unger yanked out of the atmosphere with his cover crops or left in the soil by not tilling. Slowing climate change isn’t a priority for him, he says, ...[but] the money made it worthwhile. Indigo also made money in the deal. It took a 25% cut of the bundle of credits it then sold at about $40 per ton of captured carbon. Buyers were companies such as IBM, JPMorgan Chase, and Shopify, which were looking to offset greenhouse gas emissions from their operations and bolster their green bona fides. For advocates, the exchange represents a beautiful marriage of idealism and capitalism in the service of an urgently needed climate solution. ...But as the industry heats up, so does the skepticism. Some researchers say the science of how soils store and release carbon is too uncertain to support an industry claiming to be cooling the planet. They accuse companies like Indigo of exaggerating the benefits of their programs....