The UN says (citing research published in Nature, a peer reviewed scientific journal) that up to one third of a person's carbon footprint is directly linked to the food they eat. So being able to walk out your door and harvest food is a great way to reduce your personal carbon emissions.
And the benefits of gardening go far beyond the simplified metric of carbon, especially if you practice organic methods. Trading even a small patch of lawn for a garden or adding a few pots to a balcony vastly increases microbial and insect life and therefore animals that feed on them, which increases biodiversity and ecological resilience.
And it’s good for you. Preliminary studies are finding that working with living soil increases serotonin, making you happier and more relaxed.
So the small and slow act of building soil can have far reaching effects for the whole planetary ecosystem, local biodiversity and our personal health and wellbeing.
Perhaps not such a small thing after all.
