SEASIDE — The Friends of the Seaside Library will host Kristin Ohlson, author of “The Soil Will Save Us,” at 7 p.m. Thursday, July 23. There will be book sales and signings presented by Beach Books.

Thousands of years of poor farming and ranching practices and modern industrial agriculture have led to the loss of up to 80 percent of carbon from the world’s soil. In “The Soil Will Save Us” journalist and bestselling author Kristin Ohlson makes an elegantly argued, passionate case for our “great green hope” — a way in which we can not only heal the land but also turn atmospheric carbon into beneficial soil carbon and potentially reverse global warming.

The granddaughter of farmers, Ohlson has long had an appreciation for the soil. A chance conversation with a chef led her to the crossroads of science, farming, food and environmentalism. She discovered that there is a vast kingdom of creatures under our feet — billions of microorganisms in a tablespoon of soil—that take the carbon dioxide that plants pull from the atmosphere and turn it into life-giving soil carbon.

In her book, Ohlson introduces visionary scientists, farmers, foodies, ranchers and landscapers whose work shows that the earth can be healed. She offers the hope that problems like climate change, air and water pollution, and food quality have the same low-tech solution: through the soil.

Ohlson is a freelance journalist, author, essayist and fiction writer who lives in Portland. She has written for The New York Times, Salon, Smithsonian, Oprah, Utne, and many other publications. “The Soil Will Save Us” was a finalist for the 2015 Oregon Book Award.

The Seaside Public Library is located at 1131 Broadway. For more information call 503-738-6742 or visit www.seasidelibrary.org