The Hidden Key to Cooling the Planet is so Simple, We’ve Missed It
If you’ve ever walked barefoot on a hot summer day, you’ve felt it. The burning asphalt, the dry, cracked soil, the places where the earth feels lifeless beneath your feet. Now step onto a grassy field, a patch of thriving land, a shaded forest floor. There, the earth is cool. It’s alive.
That difference—the contrast between bare, lifeless dirt and rich soil covered in thriving plant life—is the key to our future.
And yet, it’s something humans have largely ignored.
Anytime I get to be with my mentor, friend and hero Gabe Brown is a blessing. Read his book, From Dirt to Soil. It will change your life, just as Gabe has changed my life.
A North Dakota Farmer Goes Down Under
I’m standing in a farm smack dab in the middle of New South Wales, Australia, baking in the merciless Aussie sun. Gabe Brown, the farmer and rancher who is featured in both our KISS THE GROUND and COMMON GROUND films (and arguably a progenitor of modern regenerative agriculture), stands drenched in sweat, surrounded by a group of farmers. He’s got a shovel full of soil and grass and he’s pointing out the numerous issues with the way this field has been managed.
While the thrust of what Gabe is saying is the same thing as he said many times in farm fields around the world, today is different. This group of people is feverishly taking notes on smartphones and note pads. The listen so intently, it’s as if their very lives depend on every word Gabe is saying. And in many ways, they do.
Between repetitive megafires and droughts and a lack of government farming subsidies, Australia’s agriculture has been hard hit. Fields and farmers hang on a razor’s edge of ecological collapse. Most who have been decimated by drought have sold their animals. And those who have been brandished by fire have witnessed soil temperatures over 600 degrees – hot enough to melt soil. This land, once a verdant series of interconnected wetlands, has become so dehydrated by human activity, the land itself threatens all life. In years past, these same farmers may have passed on the opportunity to hear a North Dakota farmer talk about soil, but today they’ve been willingly bussed in from across the countryside.
I’ve brought a high-tech tool for Gabe to use with this crowd. I hand it to him mid-lecture. It’s a device every farmer, every rancher and every person who manages land should have. Yet 99.9% of them don’t have one, nor would they even think to own one. It’s a device that illustrates the fundamental climatological misunderstanding of our species yet survey the thousands of scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and you’ll find that almost none of them has one of these gadgets.
It’s a $100 thermal gun from my local hardware store. In other words, it’s a fancy thermometer like the one you use to take your kid’s temperature when they’re sick.
Gabe points the thermometer at the air – the air temp is around 95 degrees Fahrenheit. Then he points it at the bare soil. The temp reads between 140 degrees Fahrenheit and 180 degrees. Finally, he limps over to a tuft of grass and points it at the base – 118 degrees.
The looks on the crowd’s faces are of shock. Understanding this 45–85-degree difference between the bare soil and the air temperature is critical to the near-term and long-term survival of humankind.
Why Climate Fixes Fail
Let’s start with some basic climate dynamics. When sunlight reaches land, it doesn’t just disappear. It has three possible pathways. It can:
Be absorbed by surfaces, creating heat.
Be reflected off surfaces, warming the air.
Be converted into photosynthesis, by plant life which “evapotranspires” water, thereby cooling the land and air.
Think about that for a second. The balance of our planet’s temperature—our future—depends on how much of that solar energy goes into living systems versus how much gets trapped in largely lifeless surfaces like concrete, sand, and barren farmland.
For decades, the climate movement has focused on technological solutions—solar panels, electric cars, wind turbines. These are all fine, but here’s the problem:
They are slow to scale.
They require massive industrial extraction, which creates more CO2.
They don’t directly cool the land.
They are expensive.
They require finite resources, most of which happen to be on indigenous lands.
The truth? Nature will always outperform technology.
And nature’s best tool for cooling the planet? Green living plants – including grass, shrubs and trees.
A Simple Thermometer Tells the Whole Story
Let’s go back to Gabe’s temperature readings, which are not unique to Australia.
Bare soil: 140 to 180 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s not just hot—it’s deadly. At these temperatures, soil biology shuts down. Water evaporates. Microbes die. The foundation of life—carbon, water, and biodiversity—is vaporized.
Grass: 110 degrees to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Even in a desertified, dehydrated ecosystem, this grass is a biotic lifeboat for myriad organisms – from microbes to worms to insects. This grass evapotranspires water into the air, cooling the area above the grass. Because this is a low pressure zone, it actually pulls more water vapor toward it, thus creating a “cooling cycle.”
So the difference between these temperatures? It isn’t just a number. It’s the key to reversing climate change.
Why Grass is Our Secret Weapon
In the great battle for climate solutions, grasses have been overlooked, dismissed, and even demonized. Meanwhile, we’re told cows are destroying the planet and that grazing is the problem.
The truth? Proper grazing is the solution.
Here’s why:
Grasslands are nature’s carbon pumps. They pull CO2 out of the atmosphere and push it deep into the soil.
But grass needs animals. Without grazing, grasslands collapse. The grasses oxidize (turning grey and dying), the roots shrink, the soil loses moisture, and carbon is lost back into the air.
With the right kind of grazing—high-intensity, fast-moving herds—grasslands thrive.
This is how nature functioned for millions of years before humans interfered. Massive herds of bison, elk, and antelope kept the land alive. Their hooves aerated the soil. Their manure fertilized it. Their grazing stimulated root growth.
In Africa, the Americas, Australia and parts of Asia, European colonization radically altered natural grazing patterns. Instead of indigenous pastoralists managing herds, a new one-size-fits-all grazing model was adopted across the world’s landscapes. This new model required clearing trees, draining wetlands and creating open areas.
It’s true, cattle grazing was the objective of much of the environmental degradation we see today. But it wasn’t the cows that were the problem, it was the mindset.
Now I’m going to say something controversial.
Right now, cows are one of our most critical and necessary tools in the battle to restore Earth’s ecosystems. Yes, cows—the so-called “villains” of climate change—can actually heal the land if managed correctly.
The Climate Solution No One Talks About
Let’s be clear:
The current system of factory farming is disastrous.
Feedlots, grain-fed cattle, and deforestation for grazing lands must end.
But regenerative grazing—done the right way—is the most scalable, cost-effective way to reverse climate change right now.
If we cover just a fraction of Earth’s degraded land with healthy grasslands, we could:
Store billions of tons of carbon underground.
Cool the planet by reducing surface temperatures.
Restore water cycles, bringing rain back to arid regions.
Rebuild topsoil, ending desertification and food insecurity.
This is not theory. It’s happening right now on regenerative farms around the world.
Farmers like Gabe Brown have turned barren land into thriving ecosystems. Australia’s carbon market is paying ranchers to restore soil. Even governments are waking up to the fact that regenerative agriculture outperforms conventional farming in every possible way.
The Real Problem Isn’t Science—It’s Mindset
If all of this is so obvious, why isn’t it being implemented at scale?
Because the hardest thing to change isn’t agriculture.
It’s our belief systems.
Modern agriculture represents humanity’s desire to fight against and control nature instead of working with it. We’ve plowed, poisoned, and bulldozed our way into a crisis. Meanwhile, the solution has been staring us in the face this whole time.
We need a global shift in how we see soil, grass, and animals.
We need to start putting life back into the land.
Meanwhile Back at the Ranch
Gabe Brown looks out the window of the truck as we bounce over the rugged Aussie bush terrain. “Look out the window at these fields Josh. What do you see? Badly degraded land. Millions of acres of it. How are we going to fix this? I’m getting tired, I can’t do this forever.”
Gabe hasn’t given up on his mission, nor will he. But after documenting his teaching on and off for the past decade, he’s letting me in on a little secret. He knows the scale of the problem and he knows the movement will have to get much bigger to restore the 10 billion acres of global land that humans have put into agriculture.
The rich, dark soils of the farms and ranches we visit that are practicing the methods of regenerative agriculture are sanctuaries and sanctums, temples if you will, to the sacred possibility of restoring land, animals, humans and the intricate connections of life. When you see this kind of transformation and you understand the principles of regeneration, it is impossible to “unsee” it. The mission of restoring the Earth becomes a natural extension of this visceral, unforgettable experience.
It's why Gabe has given himself fully to this mission. And it’s why I have been swept into it. It’s why the regeneration movement is growing in every country, in every corner of our planet.
It’s Time to Act
If you care about the planet, start here:
Support regenerative farmers. Buy from local ranchers who practice rotational grazing olook for the regenerative certification logos on your food found at www.100MillionAcres.org
Advocate for soil-based climate solutions. Tell policymakers that carbon farming should be a top priority.
Grow something. Even a small garden can help rebuild soil health.
Challenge the narrative. Stop blaming cows. Start looking at how they are raised.
This is the great turning point of our time.
We can keep doing what we’re doing—plowing, burning, and baking the planet.
Or we can work with nature, restore the land, and cool the earth one garden, one field, one pasture at a time.
The choice is ours.