Australia is currently the world leader in the recognition of the soil carbon opportunity, and the development of carbon markets that include soil carbon.
In the United States, the current carbon market at the Chicago Climate Exchange buys offsets or "pollution credits" as some have called them. The amount of carbon sequestration purchased is directly related to emissions of carbon into the atmosphere by industries, for example. As the trading price of carbon offsets increases, presumably emissions will go down, but then so will the purchase of offsets.
Four Slovakians and a Czech, some connected with the People and Water NGO in Slovakia, have written a short, powerful book on the water cycle. Water for the Recovery of the Climate---A New Water Paradigm is available in English from http://waterparadigm.org as a 15 MB, 94-page pdf (under “Downloads“).
The separation of nature and humanity, inconceivable to a hunter gatherer, resulted in a division of knowledge. Nature became an Other. Ecological or environmental literacy refers to the skills, experience, and concepts with which we understand Nature, and recognize and attempt to solve ecological problems. This ecological literacy has shown three broad stages of development.
The crisis of sustainability is the central drama of our time. Are humans part of nature, or somehow separate?