Fire vs Fungi: our choice to cool the planet naturally and in timehttps://vimeo.com/391991020Fire vs Fungi: our choice to naturally cool the planet and in time' (14 min 30 sec) tells an overwhelmingly important, interconnected and inspiring story that uproots the narrative of 'doom and gloom' and replants it with an empowering 'yes, we can regenerate earth's bio-systems to cool the planet naturally and in time and reverse climate change.'
It starts with cultivating more of the tiny superheroes literally underneath our feet to restore what's known as the Earth's natural carbon sponge.
Wild fire incidence can be reduced, landscapes can be restored and rehydrated, vast tracts of Earth's arid lands can be regenerated.
As we walk with climate scientist and soil micro-biologist Walter Jehne and outdoor educator Katja Hesse in the Rainforest Gully at the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra, the conclusion is clear: 'We can naturally and safely cool this planet within years. Everywhere. We've got a planet to save.'
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Accompanying notes
The rainforest was designed to recycle the water from its runoff via the mist to create the more mesic micro environment to enable the soil microbial and plant successions to occur. For most of the past 50 years it has developed largely on this basis more efficiently using and cycling the same rainfall that the adjacent dry woodland gets (but without this human-induced, small water cycle).
Hence it is how the rain is used rather than how much rain is received that is the key variable in its development. The question now is does the rainforest canopy harvest more water from fogs and mist than the surrounding natural dry forest but the Australian National Botanic Gardens don’t have data on this.
They have recently watered some areas that they have cleared to help establish introduced rainforest plants and to help survival in our drought but overall it has been established using the existing rainfall more efficiently. This is consistent with the natural occurrence of over 1200 patches of residual rainforest across northern Australia with some surviving in semi arid climates like central Australia by creating such micro-climates.