LINKS The RegenEarth 2019 Online Conference ~ Living Soil ~~~~ Episode 185. They might think it’s a movement and friends it is! This is the World Organic News for the week ending the 9th of September 2019. Jon Moore reporting! Decarbonise the air, recarbonise the soil! Well folks, we are one week away from the RegenEarth Online Conference 2019: Living Soils - Backyard Regen. A little background should be helpful. After years of publishing this podcast, I had great hopes during our last federal election for some movement on the Climate situation. The vaguely left side was and still is stuck in the renewables are the answer paradigm. Not bad but only half the story, as we all know. The more right of centre parties pretty much ignored the climate policy area. The right won the election. The upshot of this was a couple of weeks of, not quite depression but more disappointment and confusion. Clearly something has to be done. The UN and the major NGOs all point to the need for a political solution. This never sat well with me despite my hope against reality that a political party might come up with something other than a carbon tax.  My problem with a carbon tax is that it places the costs on the poorest and allows the equity traders who must take some responsibility for our current situation to continue to profit from “fixing” the situation. Combine this with the obvious solution of renewables and pumped hydro to carbonise the energy system and this solution is being driven by price signals. Most houses in Australia have solar PV and pumped hydro systems linked to wind and solar are being approved. Carbon tax unnecessary, a need to suck carbon out of the air still exists even if we stopped putting any more into the air today. The other issue I have with the large lobby groups is that they scream we all have to change how we live to save the planet as they jet off to yet another self congratulatory talk fest. Yes we need to do something but suggesting we live like medieval serfs is not a great sales pitch. Forecasting doom and gloom doesn’t work with humans either. Experience is a great instructor. We have all either lived through or seen the wildfires, the floods, the hurricanes/cyclones increasing in intensity, we know something is up. We just need simple techniques that both make a difference but which first make our lives better. Solar PV is not an inconsiderable investment but the returns make life better, lower power bills and the climate benefits too. After much thought, backyard regen seemed to fit this pattern. Something which brought a return to the individual and made the climate better, little steps at a time. Less dollar investment than solar PV, yet a great way to improve our lives with, as you will see at the conference, far less work than is usually considered part of gardening.  A change with tangible benefits! Regenerative techniques, as I have banged on about for years on this podcast, are our best hope but no one in the political classes seems to be championing them. A  bit like a frustrated parent, the thought, “I’ll just do it myself.” popped into my head. Following a production meeting with Rich for another podcast, Permaculture Plus, we bounced a few thoughts around. Out of these came the idea of a regen month. This reduced to a regen week and finally a three night conference. We have plans to keep the story and the movement going after the conference but the three session conference became our focus. People we invited agreed and then had to drop out just as new people arrived to fill the gap and help shape the event. In parallel to this, I was offered a position with a disability support NGO to set up a Horticulture Program. No-dig on a grander scale but using the backyard techniques, just expanded. So months of fun and hard work, have us a week away from the event on the 16th to the 18th of September. 19:00 to 21:00 each night. That’s UTC +10 hours for those not on Eastern Australian Time. For those who sig