THE HIDDEN NETWORK THAT COOLS OUR PLANET

How Microbes and Soil Can Save Us

For decades, we've been looking up at the sky, at carbon dioxide, at greenhouse gases. But the real solution to climate chaos may lie beneath our feet, in the most powerful and overlooked climate system on Earth: soil. More precisely, in the microbial life that transforms soil into a vast cooling engine.

THE SOLUTION IS BENEATH OUR FEET

Two powerful documents, Regenerate Earth by Walter Jehne and a recent article in Frontiers in Microbiology, reveal a converging scientific insight: if we want to reverse climate breakdown, stabilize food and water systems, and secure a livable future, we need to stop fighting nature and start partnering with it. And the key players in this partnership are microbes.

THE SOIL CARBON SPONGE: A NATURAL COOLING ENGINE

Let’s begin with what Jehne calls the “soil carbon sponge”. It is a living, breathing matrix of organic matter, microbial networks, and moisture. This sponge doesn’t just grow plants. It cools the planet. When plants photosynthesize, they draw CO₂ from the atmosphere. What happens next depends on the soil. If microbial life is healthy, much of that carbon is converted into stable forms of organic matter. Water is retained. The system breathes, sweats, and exerts a cooling effect—locally and globally.

This isn’t theory. It’s physics. Transpiration and evaporation from living plants and soils drive latent heat fluxes that export enormous amounts of heat away from the Earth's surface. These fluxes cool the land. They create clouds, rain and wind. They stabilize local weather and with a healthy planet, regional and global climates.

HOW AGRICULTURE BROKE THE EARTH'S AIR CONDITIONER, TWICE!

But over the past 10,000 years, and catastrophically so in the last 70, we’ve broken this system. Industrial agriculture has cleared forests, overgrazed rangelands, and plowed soils into oxidation. Especially the large scale destruction of tropical rainforests, the strongest cooling organs of the living planet, in Indonesia, Africa and most of all in South America, have reduced the cooling capacity of these ecosystems and they are now in tipping points of dieback, comparable to necrosis of organs in our body.

We’ve burned carbon that had been safely locked underground for millions of years. And, crucially, we’ve destroyed the microbial web that once recycled nutrients, retained moisture, and kept carbon in the ground. We have destroyed the water cycles that keep our lands cool and hydrated by taking out forests on an area of China since the industrial revolution.

A THIRD OF THE PLANET DEGRADED – BUT THAT IS ALSO THE SOLUTION

The numbers are staggering. Jehne estimates we’ve degraded 5 billion hectares of land. This is over one-third of the planet’s land surface. Soils that once held 5% organic matter now hold less than 1%. Instead of being sinks, they’ve become sources, emitting up to 10 tons of carbon per hectare per year.

Yet this is also where hope lies.

MICROBES: THE MASTER BUILDERS OF REGENERATION

According to the Frontiers in Microbiology article, healthy microbial communities are essential for nutrient cycling, carbon stabilization, and plant resilience. When soils are teeming with life full of fungi, bacteria, protozoa, they become more than dirt. They become a self-reinforcing system that builds structure, draws down carbon, retains water, and resists erosion. In short: they regenerate.

Jehne proposes a global plan: draw down 20 billion tonnes of carbon annually by reversing land degradation and restoring microbial activity. That’s twice our current net emissions. It’s not just doable, it’s essential. And it’s not a fantasy. Practical strategies like holistic grazing, no-till farming, composting, reforestation, wetland restoration, can rapidly restore the sponge. With each hectare restored, we increase the planet’s cooling capacity. We rehydrate landscapes. We bring back rain. We buy time.

But here’s the catch: we have to do it now. The next decade is critical. Emissions reductions alone cannot prevent the cascade of tipping points already in motion. We’ve heated the system, altered hydrological cycles, and breached natural buffers. The only way to cool the Earth in time is to re-activate the biotic processes that once governed the climate.

This means microbes. Fungi. Root exudates. Soil aggregates. It means restoring the ancient alliance between plants and their microbial partners. And it means shifting from a war-on-nature mindset to one of cooperation and regeneration.

The Frontiers article emphasizes the need for microbial stewardship at all scales—from scientific research to farming practices. Jehne goes further. He calls for a global grassroots movement, backed by policy, finance, and carbon drawdown credits. Not as a sideline to emissions cuts—but as our central, strategic climate response.

This is not a niche solution. It’s the foundation. Without restoring soils, no amount of green energy or emission reduction will stabilize the climate. Because climate isn’t just a CO₂ problem. It’s a water cycle problem. A heat distribution problem. A land degradation problem. And all of it points back to the same place: the living soil.

FORESTS, CLOUDS, AND THE PLANET’S NATURAL AIR-CONDITIONING SYSTEM

The critical health of our soils also underpins the Cooling the Climate approach which focuses on another aspect of the natural processes that regenerate life and keep the planet habitable. We focus on the atmospheric water cycle, which is a vital planetary process that hydrates and cools land surfaces, especially through forests. Forests act as powerful natural pumps, drawing in moist air from the oceans through the mechanism known as the biotic pump. Through evapotranspiration, trees release vast amounts of water vapor into the atmosphere, which then condenses into clouds. This condensation triggers an implosive drop in atmospheric volume, drawing in more moist air and establishing a feedback loop that transports water vapor deep inland, far from ocean sources. In rainforests like the Amazon, this recycling provides up to 70% of the total rainfall, creating an atmospheric river system that nourishes ecosystems thousands of kilometers from the sea. These processes are only possible if the soils beneath the feet of our forests are alive and thriving. Under tropical forests, it is the microbial life in the thick, organic-rich soil layer that maintains this sponge function: storing water, nurturing roots, and enabling the massive evapotranspiration flows that drive the biotic pump. This belowground network, often called the 'wood wide web', connects trees and soil life in a symbiotic system that not only sustains forest health but also underpins the hydrological engine regulating regional and global climate.

One step further up in the atmosphere, the latent heat released during condensation escapes into space, cooling the Earth's surface. The combined effect of transpiration, cloud formation, rainfall, and latent heat export acts like a global air-conditioning system. Disruption of this cycle through deforestation collapses this delicate hydrological and climatic equilibrium, leading to drought, soil degradation, and intensification of heat extremes. Therefore, restoring and protecting forest ecosystems is not just about carbon: it is about reviving the Earth's natural climate-regulating water cycle and giving the planet a chance to cool itself again

SO WHAT DO WE DO? COOLING THE PLANET, TOGETHER, FROM THE GROUND UP!

If you're a farmer, scientist, activist, or policymaker, your role is vital. But even if you're simply someone who wants a livable future, you can act. Join us in restoring the Earth's soils, ecosystems, forests, oceans. WE need a revolution of regenerative food production. Pressure your leaders to reward carbon drawdown and ecosystem regeneration. Learn about the biotic pump. Spread the word. And if you're building technology, create tools that help communities regenerate their land, track their progress, and monetize restoration as we do in the Arara project https://www.coolingtheclimate.earth/technology with brilliant partners like

https://explorer.land/.

This is our chance, very likely our last, to cool the planet not by fighting nature, but by working with her. Let the microbes lead, let the trees breathe. Together we can revive the future with the right kind of action by everyone, everywhere. The future is still in our hands. Let’s start with soils and forests. The effects will be amazing.

The articles https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/microbiology/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1186847/full

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kCuL6GZmf0XPROxEAbTFXsnGsjTlEJsP8KQC2scu3iE/edit?tab=t.0