We all know that buying organic is good for the earth.  But did you know that growing food organically can actually help ease global warming.  According to an article by Stephen Leahy:

Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels is the principal cause of global warming. Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the air and can put it more or less permanently into the soil under the right conditions.

In a 23-year side-by-side comparison, the carbon levels of organic soils increased 15 to 28 percent while there was little change in the non-organic systems, according to the Rodale Institute Farming Systems Trials conducted in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.

If just 10,000 medium-sized farms in the U.S. converted to organic production, they would store so much carbon in the soil that it would be equivalent to taking 1,174,400 cars off the road, Rodale reported in 2003.

Wow!  So every farm that converts is the equivalent to taking 117 cars off the road.  That's pretty amazing.

And not only can organics help lessen climate change, they can also handle the effects better than traditional crops:

Organic agriculture's use of compost and crop diversity means it will also be able to better withstand the higher temperatures and more variable rainfall expected with global warming. [...]

For example, a village in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia that had converted to organic agriculture continued to harvest crops even during a severe drought, while neighbouring villages using conventional chemical fertilisers had nothing, Luttikholt told IPS.

Because compost is used rather than chemical fertilisers, organic soils contain much more humus and organic carbon -- which in turn retains much more water.

"They can also absorb more water faster which means they are less likely to flood," she said.

Impressive.  Another good reason to buy and promote organics.