Perhaps an example of the type of climate change mitigation by apolitical practitioners alluded to in the previous post will make the ideas clearer.

Prior to the Civil War, native soil fertility was so high it was a "problem" for early Illinois farmers.

During the first decade of cultivation, the prairie soil was apparently too rich for wheat: the wheat tended to grow too tall and then fall over, or lodge, thus reducing grain yields. (Krug and Hollinger, 2003, p8)

How? Several ways, but especially important is that accumulated charcoal, a product of millenia of prairie fires, had stimulated nitrogen fixation. A ready supply of fixed nitrogen supported organic matter accumulation. Released by tillage, organic matter declined and nutrient availability spiked to levels not experienced since.

Note that these soils had never been plowed. They weren't just pre American civil war in the 1860s, they had been grasslands since the last ice age. Also, the type of wheat grown at that time was not the shorter stalked, heavier head types that are grown since their development during the green revolution. The new varieties were developed in large part to be able to be more productive using less land, but they require higher fertility to reach yield potential.

The referenced post by Philip Small at NSCSS goes on to discuss why this soil was so fertile that it was a problem for European farming methodologies. With many useful references the case is made that repeated burning of the grasslands resulted in high charcoal content, which in turn induced high nitrogen content, and high organic matter content. When European style farming was begun and the sod was broken the organic matter was exposed to atmosphere and began to decompose at a rapid rate. Much of the organic carbon was lost as GHGs leaving a higher concentration of mineral nitrogen as well as other nutrients. Erosion and outgassing have long since solved the problem. The soils are no longer so deep and fertile.

This isn't just interesting history, it is an argument for renewed use of charcoal as a soil amendment in order to durably sequester carbon in a form that won't decompose for millenia, and to provide an environment for soil life to draw down atmospheric nitrogen and retain it. This reduces the need for nitrogen fertilizers manufactured from fossil methane, and reduces emission of potent nitrogen GHGs that result from bacterial decomposition of nitrate.

More importantly, in my view, is the fact that these methods would make the production of food better and cheaper. It would be smart even if there were no concerns for climate change. It requires no political intervention, achieves multiple objectives, and will happen while politicians dither. The only way to stop it is to impose regulations that criminalize it or tax it beyond its value.

Climate change will be solved this way or not at all. It is the evolution of better technologies, enabled by better knowledge, that will get us past this period of carbon emission. It is the value of these new technologies independent of climate concerns that will lead to their adoption.

That's what politicians don't understand, or even want to understand. Climate mitigation methods must make sense on their own terms or they won't be adopted. This is bad news for politicians since they are irrelevant. The only thing they can do is impose regulations to force the use of bad methods.

Good methods don't need pimps.