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Soil and other Earth scientists who conduct research on C management found themselves, in the past decade within a swirl of efforts concerning climate mitigation, economic and business investments in carbon markets, and political aspirations. All these external pressures are issues with which soil science is largely unfamiliar. As a result, science has responded without deeply considering the landscape in which it finds itself, and some of the unanticipated challenges these issues present. Here, we suggest soil C scientists now consider and respond to these issues. The first order challenge is to transition from the concept of technical carbon sequestration potentials, made in the absence of social and policy contexts, to societally achievable sequestration estimates based on highly transdisciplinary teams of natural and social sciences and scientists. To achieve this will requires re-thinking national science funding programs, in which climate-relevant social science is under-funded. In addition, the science of soil C itself is in need of a priority shift. Presently, publications in soil C sequestration out-strip papers on soil feedbacks to climate change, and on how to adapt soil to climate change: two areas of research which may well be more societal important in the next few decades than sequestering C. Most seriously, given the urgent nature of our collective societal climate problem, our profession must not find itself a decade from now continuing the now 20-year-old narrative that soil C can potentially mitigate climate change and compensate for greenhouse gas emissions. We must consider the possibility that other options and expenditures of resources are more viable, and we must reframe our science's objectives to expand into the many other urgent needs that confront humanity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negative emissions technologies have garnered increasing attention in the wake of the Paris target to curb global warming to 1.5 °C. However, much of the literature on carbon dioxide removal focuses on technical feasibility, and several significant social barriers to scale-up of these technologies have been glossed over. This paper reviews the existing literature on the social implications of rapidly ramping up carbon dioxide removal. It also explores the applicability of previous empirical social science research on intersecting topics, with examples drawn from research on first- and second-generation biofuels and forest carbon projects. Social science fieldwork and case studies of land use change, agricultural and energy system change, and technology adoption and diffusion can help in both anticipating the social implications of emerging negative emissions technologies and understanding the factors that shape trajectories of technological development. By integrating empirical research on public and producer perceptions, barriers to adoption, conditions driving new technologies, and social impacts, projections about negative emissions technologies can become more realistic and more useful to climate change policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]