You remember last week I was talking about how farmers and home gardeners can contribute to solving our global climate change problem. A quick review: as part of the process of photosynthesis, plants take in carbon dioxide and store it in their roots and in the soil and release oxygen into the air. Simple stuff – Biology 101.

The other problem is excess nitrogen however, which is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2. As I mentioned, folks who grow stuff use an awful lot of these nitrogen-based fertilizers, and plants and the soil can only absorb so much of it.

Obviously, one solution is to cut back on the use of nitrogen- and fossil-fuel based fertilizers and pesticides. But what are the alternatives?

There are other ways to build the soil (yes, Mother Nature does need a helping hand here from time to time). A lot of farmers in the Midwest are already doing it by planting winter cover crops. It's not a good idea to leave the soil uncovered during the off-season; idle soil is going to be releasing excess greenhouse gases. Put it to work by planting grains and legumes – or if nothing else, clover and alfalfa. This will help in preventing loss of soil from wind and water erosion; a side benefit is that it discourages noxious weeds. The best part however is that legumes convert nitrogen from the air and turn this into an all-natural fertilizer. Then, when you plow it under in the spring, it's taking carbon and putting that back into the soil, helping to sequester it down there.

Of course, you know about the benefits of planting trees. Agroforestry will possibly be the "next big thing" in agriculture, and is already being practiced in parts of Africa. But lets talk about the leftover food and yard waste you may be tossing out. When this stuff goes into a landfill with the other garbage, it gives off methane, which is another heat-trapping gas that's worse than CO2. However, when you dump this into a compost bin, it reduces methane production while storing CO2 – and eventually, you wind up with a fertilizer that is better than anything you could buy commercially. (Be advised that you can't just toss stuff in a pile and expect it to turn into compost – it takes time and there is a knack to it, which I'll discuss in a future post. But don't worry – it's not complicated.)

For you home and landscape gardeners, let's talk regional climate. Personally, I hate lawns. They're something we brought with us from England (a fairly rainy country) where aristocrats with bad manors (pun intended) used them to decorate the grounds. If you live in Portland Oregon or Seattle where it rains all the time, that's one thing – but if you live in Las Vegas or Phoenix, you really have no business growing a lawn. There are however a lot of attractive, drought-tolerant native species in the Southwest you can use to pretty up your home. If you must grow a lawn however, water at night, let it grow long, and when you do trim it, leave the clippings. They'll fertilize the soil and help pull in CO2.

And while you're at it, get rid of those gas-powered mowers. It's appalling how polluting those things are. Get an electric, or use a good old-fashioned hand mower – it's great exercise.

You've probably noticed that I don't talk so much about "Global Warming" as I do "Global Climate Change." "Warming" is a real misnomer; while some areas are indeed getting hot (like Georgia and Australia, which has been experiencing what some say is a permanent drought), other places are getting colder and wetter (just ask anyone in the Pacific Northwest, where they've only had about four days of sunshine for the past month).

However, it's becoming clearer that climates around the world are changing – and whether this is a good thing or a bad thing (generally it's the latter, since messing with nature rarely turns out well), it's pretty obvious that we humans and our activities are causing it. Specifically, it's the use of fossil fuels and the release of excess carbon into the atmosphere.

If you are a science fiction fan, you're probably familiar with the theme of time travel, and how it's usually a bad idea to bring something out of the past into the present (as in Jurassic Park). When we pull petroleum and coal out of the ground however, this is what we in essence are doing. Petroleum and coal is basically solar energy that was absorbed by plants living half a billion years ago and more. When these plants died and the geography of the planet changed, this vegetable matter went into the ground, where it was subjected to immense geologic pressures. As you know, plants absorb and trap carbon dioxide. When fossil fuels are burned, it releases this ancient CO2 back into the atmosphere – adding to what's already there in the here and now.

If you want to know what the end of this process could look like, take a peek at the planet Venus. (The average surface temperature on Venus is around 800 degrees.)

One of the ways to head of this disaster is by carbon "sequestration" – storing excess carbon in the soil. And that's where new and more environmentally-friendly farming and gardening practices come in.

You know that plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. What you may not realize is this is how a plant feeds itself. You and I eat carbohydrates in the form of grains, root vegetables and so forth – which turns into sugar in our bodies. A plant has to make this on its own, however, by combining atmospheric carbon gases with hydrogen. In the process, a lot of this carbon gets stored in the roots, stem and even the soil, were microorganisms such as bacteria use it for the same purposes.

Carbon is not the only culprit, by the way; nitrogen (which is actually the most common gas in Earth's atmosphere) is also a heat-trapping gas. Unfortunately, home gardeners and a lot of farmers overdo it when using nitrogen-based fertilizers. Plants can only use a certain amount of it and the soil can only hold so much. The rest of it goes right back up into the air.

Next week, we'll talk about some practical solutions.

If you're really worried about issues like chemical adulteration of your food, GMO crops, working conditions for farm laborers, fossil fuels and global climate change and animal welfare and even bio-terrorism – eat what's grown locally and focus on what's in season.

This is a growing trend that even big chain supermarkets like Safeway and Fred Meyer are starting to notice. Both of these companies are increasingly turning to local suppliers for their produce and even many meat products. So are restaurants, including regional chains like In-And-Out Burger in Southern California, Burgerville in the Pacific Northwest and Colorado's Chipotle Mexican Grill.

I've talked about this a few times here, but it bears repeating – particularly in light of the recent example of criminal negligence in the Gulf of Mexico. Food raised locally – within a 200 mile radius – does not have to rely as much on petroleum to get from Point A to Point B. But here's some reasons that hit closer to home.

First of all, that food's going to be fresher and will be more nutritious. The problem with shipping produce a thousand miles or more is that in order to survive the trip, it needs to be picked before it's ripe. If you've ever been subjected to the tastelessness of green, unripe fruit, you know what I'm talking about.

Of course, the issue that's got everyone's shorts in a knot is terrorism. Now, I'm not too worried about people with bombs strapped to their bodies, but I have to say that the idea of someone sneaking into a commercial food processing plant and dropping a heapin' helping of e-coli or anthrax into the works – that bothers me (and it would be relatively easy to get away with). However, it's a lot less likely that some nut-case is going to be able to pull it off when the food is consumed close to its source.

Another issue that is on everyone's mind is the paving over of America as more and more farmland winds up being turned into strip malls and housing developments. When you support your local farmer, you're giving him/her a reason to stay in business – and when the developer comes around with a sales pitch and a wad of cash, s/he's more likely to tell this character to take a hike.

Of course, last week we talked about "Victory Gardens" and how you can't do much better than growing your own in your backyard. Since every region of the country is different however, you'll need to have some ideas as to what you can raise. Fortunately, there's a fair number of websites out there that are focused toward local agriculture and gardening. For example, Front Range Living is one such online resource geared toward people living in the Denver area. For folks living in and around Portland, Oregon, check out Minerva's Garden; this site is updated regularly and even has a couple of nifty videos. Vegetable gardeners in the Southeast should check out Veggie Gardening Tips. Just go to your favorite search engine (it doesn't have to be Google or Yahoo – there are a few more out there), enter "vegetable gardening tips" and your location. You'll be surprised at how many helpful folks there are out there when it comes to growing your own.

This article in the Wall Street Journal caught my eye so I thought I would share.

Superweed Outbreak Triggers Arms Race

BY SCOTT KILMAN

Hardy superweeds immune to the Farm Belt's most effective weedkiller are invading fields, prompting a counterattack from agribusiness that could leave farmers using greater amounts of harsh old-line herbicides.

The flagging weedkiller is Roundup. Its developer, Monsanto Co., also sells seeds for corn, soybean and cotton plants unaffected by the chemical, enabling farmers to spray it on freely without fear of harming their crops. Farmers now do so en masse, using "Roundup Ready" crop varieties for 90% of the soybeans and 80% of the corn grown across the U.S.

The rise of Roundup, more than a decade ago, sent older ... Read The WSJ Article