Portrait of Johannes Lehmann from “Research and Restore: How Cornell Scientists are Conserving Earth’s Resources” in Cornell University's Medium, image by Jason Koski, UREL
Lasting Change Starts Just Below Our Feet: Johannes Lehmann offers rich soil to grow our planet’s thriving future through study, creativity, and implementation
By Olivia Ann Carye Hallstein
Johannes Lehmann’s depth of research into soil’s unique contributions to climate change, and it's potentials for circular economy and sustainability expands from microbiology, to carbon sequestration, and, now, into collaborations with creative minds. He runs the Lehmann Lab at Cornell University, which specializes in implementations and applications related to soil health in both “managed and natural ecosystems” scenarios. Applying this work at the “Soil Factory” in Ithaca, NY, everyone from farmers to scientists to artists and entrepreneurs, are welcome to fertile ground for collaboration and novel solution building.
For those interested in getting involved, here 's the website:
https://www.thesoilfactory.org
The Soil Factory building at Cornell University via organization's website
Johannes, your research reveals how interwoven soil remediation and related climate policy are and how creativity can act as an avenue for scientific understanding. How do these topics interact most effectively?
Generating or creating questions is an extremely important step in science, and a tremendously understudied and undervalued aspect. We need to look at new policies supporting climate change mitigation and adaptation, with new questions. Soil remediation and climate change mitigation are obviously related, as more organic carbon resides in soils than in all global vegetation and the atmosphere combined.
It sounds like soil health has many implications for the future thriving of our planet! Your work as a soil scientist addresses some of this by expanding beyond microbial and geoecological analysis and entering the world of climate action plans and policy. What changes are necessary for the future of soil and ourselves?
Recognition of the potential role of soils in climate change mitigation have increased steadily since 2015. This is good news. The way forward now comes in forms of a healthy and honest carbon market that rewards practices that promote soil health, and technology and regulation that allow cost-effective and environmentally-friendly carbon and nutrient recycling. Soil as a public good has to be discussed.
Cover art for Johannes Lehmann’s et Al book on Biochar for Environmental Management, Science and Technology, And: Johannes Lehmann’s Interview with Diego Footer for the podcast “In Search of Soil” July, 2021
Recycling, environmentally-friendly, regulation, mitigation... Sounds like sustainable practices! How does your research inform your sustainability mission for overall planet health?
Yes, and any sustainability approach (shying away from the word ‘solution’) has to adopt a systems view,- recognizing tradeoffs and human decision making ; soil as a complex system means that non-linear responses have to be captured in our decision support systems. This also means that we have to co-create innovative soil practices and circular economy platforms at scale of implementation,- with farmers, with NGOs, with industry.
Event documentation from The Soil Factory's multi-disciplinary meeting on Pyrosis, August 2021
A collaborative approach! As a passionate circular economy advocate, myself, this is wonderful to hear. I would love to hear more about how a thriving future without waste may begin with our soils and soil practices.
Yes, I do think a circular economy view is key, what that means in detail is to be examined carefully, beyond a buzzword. Nature-based solutions have to play and can play a part, but not on their own. That does not mean we should not increase our efforts and examine its potential at scale of implementation.
Image from the Soil Factory website
And, the potential for that implementation is dependent on those policy shifts, right? As an international spokesperson previously based in Germany and now in the US, you have worked in two culturally opposed climate cultures: one where sustainability is a fully integrated and widespread national goal and another that is in many places still skeptical of climate change and sustainability. How has your experience been working in both cultural climates? What have been some challenges? Rewards?
Soil and any environmental health aspects have been supported to a greater extent by governments and by the broad public in Europe than in the US, for a variety of reasons. And yet, the entrepreneurial and innovative spirit of many farmers in the US are paving the way for sound soil management nonetheless.
Image from the Soil Factory website
That's great news and you are already contributing to this effort! You have founded a space for collaboration called “The Soil Factory” to incubate new solutions through art, science, and sustainability. What have been some highlights in this project and what do you hope for its future?
Always a work in process, and requiring the buy-in of everyone. In-person collaboration, joint ideation, and just trying things out together. Much of the experimentation was only possible after we left the university, with intriguing lessons to be learned about undisciplining the university.
Thank you so much for taking the time, Johannes! You have offered important insights and allowed new perspectives on this complex earth beneath our feet.
