LEXINGTON, Ill — With 800 acres of corn and soybeans as his
pulpit, Jim Kinsella has long preached the gospel of no-till
farming--abandoning the plow to grow crops with little
disruption of the soil. Farmers used to snicker at him,
dismissing his ilk as conservation do-gooders. But Kinsella's
time may have come. Strange as it sounds, leaving America's
farmland unplowed is now seen as a way to fight global warming.
While greenhouse gas usually evokes images of tailpipes and
smokestacks, farms are another producer of heat-trapping
emissions. But they have great potential as storehouses of the
most common such gas, carbon dioxide. When farmers churn their
cropland, they encourage microorganisms to convert the carbon-
rich organic material in the ground into carbon dioxide. By not
plowing, farmers can keep that carbon locked away underground,
cutting down on the carbon dioxide emissions that are boosting
the planet's temperature. After years of earnest championing by
farmers like Kinsella, the idea increasingly is