Have you ever stopped to admire the pretty flowers blooming along Boston’s sidewalks? They look beautiful, but beneath their petals lies a dark, hidden secret. The dirt they grow in isn't just pavement filler for it to look pretty, it's a trapped ecosystem. For centuries, Boston has paved over its natural landscapes, compressing its soil and stripping away its ability to breathe. Today, instead of absorbing carbon like the soils on Earth should, this damaged urban dirt is actively releasing greenhouse gases, turning our city's sidewalk flower beds into miniature climate change engines. The issue that I want to take on for my Civics Action Project is soil depletion, and how the lack of care in our local soils can lead to massive amounts of carbon and nitrous oxide into the air. Soil depletion is basically when soil is overworked, washed away, or stripped of its natural nutrients including the living organisms that it thrives off of. The loss of soil health contributes to climate change by releasing massive amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,  therefore disrupting our local ecosystems by getting trapped in the atmosphere. Soil is the foundation of all terrestrial life, so when depleted through poor farming or erosion, it becomes a major emission source. The main purpose of this is to prevent the temperatures rising, and we want the city of Boston to contribute. There are lots of key factors to this issue, such as the overuse of synthetic fertilizers, monocropping, and excessive tilling that all disrupt the purpose of the soil. The use of these practices should be kept to a minimum. By not taking proper care of our natural soils, we are contributing to climate change. That is why I urge GrowBoston and Urban Wilds Program Area Manager to pass policies that prevent the use of unhealthy fertilizers in our soils and incorporating more biodiversity when deciding what plants to grow.