Australian soil ecologist Christine Jones believes that, rather than climate change causing droughts, the climate has been changed by not managing ground cover appropriately.

“I get really annoyed when someone says, ‘the CO₂ level has increased, and that is causing global climate change,’” says Jones. “No, it's plants, soils, microbiology, hydrology, that is what is causing climate change. All those things are connected, and they are all things that we have control over.”

Jones says the problem is that since European settlement, people have simplified the landscape, reducing the amount of green cover, the diversity of plants and the organic carbon in the soils by 50-80%.

“Fertility has declined, it's now dry when it was once hydrated, and if we look at what happens when it does rain and you've got bare ground, and you've lost all structure, then the water is just going to sit on the top of the ground, it's not going to infiltrate,” says Jones.

“That water evaporates back to the atmosphere, and if you look at the science, you'll find that water vapor is a greenhouse gas that has increased with the greatest instance since the industrial revolution.”

Water vapor accounts for 95% of the greenhouse effect, says Jones, with only about 3% of the .04% of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere resulting from burning fossil fuels.

“How can a trace gas of .04% of the atmosphere be…