From Alarming Signals to Cooling Possibilities: How Water Must Be at the Heart of Climate Solutions

February 14th, 2025

The planet is not just getting warmer. It’s showing us in fire, floods, and melting ice that it’s losing its ability to cool itself.

Recent headlines tell a sobering, interconnected story:

July 2025 was Earth’s third-warmest on record, according to NOAA and NASA. Heatwaves scorched entire regions, testing the limits of ecosystems and infrastructure. (Syracuse)
Glacier erosion is accelerating, as a new machine-learning study confirms that both rising atmospheric temperatures and internal Earth heat are destabilizing entire river systems. (Phys)
France is battling its largest wildfire in decades, with researchers urgently trying to understand increasingly erratic fire behavior linked to prolonged heat and dry conditions. (France24)
Pakistan’s deadly floods have been directly linked to global warming, which intensified monsoon patterns and increased their destructive power. (DW News)

These are not isolated disasters. They are all symptoms of a single root cause: a destabilized climate system overwhelmed by heat, from above and below, from human emissions and disrupted ecosystems.

But if rising heat is the problem, the real question becomes: What would it take to cool the planet again?

The Alternative: Cooling the Climate Through the Biosphere

In his recent interview on Investing in Regenerative Agriculture, Rob de Laet, our co-founder, shares a vision that flips the dominant climate script. Rather than focusing solely on carbon reduction, he asks us to look at what the planet used to do naturally: Cool itself.

“Water is the Earth’s air conditioner,” Rob explains.

Through evapotranspiration, plants and trees draw up water from the soil, release it into the air, form clouds, and send heat back into space. This is not just poetic. It’s physics. And it’s measurable.

According to Rob:

Restoring 2.8 million km² of degraded tropical land (roughly the size of Argentina) through agroforestry and regenerative practices could reduce global temperatures by up to 1°C.
That’s more than the warming caused by many industrial sectors combined.
The Amazon alone currently cycles enough water to balance the planet’s energy imbalance, but only if we stop destroying it.

Why This Isn’t Mainstream Yet

Despite the potential, this biosphere-based solution has not gained widespread traction. Why?

Climate finance is carbon-locked. Water-cycle restoration doesn’t fit neatly into carbon markets or emissions inventories.
Scientific models struggle with water. Water is dynamic: existing in vapor, liquid, and ice, and harder to simulate than CO₂.
Institutions are slow to shift paradigms.Most global climate governance systems still see nature as a carbon sink, not as a climate-regulating machine in its own right.

Rob’s Call: Scale the Cooling, Ground-Up

Instead of waiting for top-down change, Rob proposes bold, grounded action:

Regenerate tropical biomes at scale → Agroforestry, rewilding, and water retention systems to reactivate natural cooling.
Finance land stewards through new platforms → Rob envisions a digital regenerative finance ecosystem that values microclimate impact, not just carbon.
Shift the narrative from carbon to life → Cooling the climate isn’t just about reducing harm. It’s about reviving the planet’s innate ability to self-regulate.

The Crisis to Possibility

So when we ask what to do in the face of floods, fires, glacier collapse, and record heat, the answer is not only in less carbon—but in more life.

In healthy forests. In hydrated soils. In the thousands of local land stewards who can revive the biosphere, if we equip them with the right tools, knowledge, and capital.

This is not idealism. It's planetary realism.