The lowdown on dirt: It's disappearing (Disappearing dirt rivals global warming)

[TechBear_Seattle]

Disappearing dirt rivals global warming as an environmental threat

The planet is getting skinned.

While many worry about the potential consequences of atmospheric warming, a few experts are trying to call attention to another global crisis quietly taking place under our feet.

Call it the thin brown line. Dirt. On average, the planet is covered with little more than 3 feet of topsoil -- the shallow skin of nutrient-rich matter that sustains most of our food and appears to play a critical role in supporting life on Earth.

"We're losing more and more of it every day," said David Montgomery, a geologist at the University of Washington. "The estimate is that we are now losing about 1 percent of our topsoil every year to erosion, most of this caused by agriculture."

It's just crazy," fumed John Aeschliman, a fifth-generation farmer who grows wheat and other grains on the Palouse near the tiny town of Almota, just west of Pullman.

"We're tearing up the soil and watching tons of it wash away every year," Aeschliman said. He's one of a growing number of farmers trying to persuade others to adopt "no-till" methods, which involve not tilling the land between plantings, leaving crop stubble to reduce erosion and planting new seeds between the stubble rows.

The full article can be read at http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/348200_dirt22.html

[OneBlueSky]

1. yet another in the growing list of environmental disasters inflicted on the planet by humankind . .

and this is one that threatens the very food that sustains us . . .

but is anyone in Washington paying attention? . . . no, they're too busy funding the Iraq war/occupation and passing resolutions taking away more and more of our rights and liberties . . . while manufacturing excuses to not impeach Bush and Cheney for their well-documented and numerous "crimes and misdemeanors" . . .

'tis a sick, sick world we live in . . .

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. They are paying attention in *this* Washington

The other one, though.... :shrug: My guess is not.

[PATRICK]

3. That is the

Native American way of planting without plowing and combining crops in the same plots, using natural fertilizer, etc. the application of technology should have learned lessons from the earliest examples of applications to tilling and plowing, notably in China and Europe. But no.

Sometimes it takes a Dust Bowl and you are lucky if you can find a hostile region to emigrate to. There are better scientific than fantasy myth reasons why people tell stories of natural disasters coming in package deals.

[RuleOfNah]

8. A Dust Bowl without the dust.

Hmmm, is granite nutritional?

[undergroundpanther]

4. plowing is killing us

and more oil is used to make plowed fields fertile than goes into all of our cars combined.

http://patrickdeneen.blogspot.com/2007/11/eating-oil.html
http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=152&Itemid=2

Money is our life support system which we use to purchase food and shelter. We are not like our successful forager/hunter ancestors who could identify several hundred plants and explain their uses for food, medicine or handcrafts. The life of the earth provided their life support systems.



Now, our industrial life support systems are threatened even if we have money. When topsoil, oil or potable water run out, they run out and there is no more. Many are becoming aware that our planet is headed toward a massive die-off of human and other species. Some near the first world shopping malls have not yet got a clue but many in third world countries are already seeing the beginnings of "the end of the world."

http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/101/

Speaking of cars they eat up the land too
Many municipalities view parking as such a necessity that, if land is available, as much of it as possible must be allocated for the rare occasions when the maximum is needed.

http://www.newcolonist.com/vox/vox.html
http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_994.cfm
Coal mining does not help topsoil, though bush touts it will help the energy crisis..
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3741/is_2_47/ai_54061129

What will people do without their precious cars and jobs?
And no knowledge about how to sustain themselves without them?

I wonder...Since generations of the follow the leader game made us docile, dependent upon systems,almighty individualists denying we still depend on each other like hypocrites.. We talk a lot of bullshit that sounds good but in reality is fantasy.. instead of admitting we need to stop growing and start cooperating with each other and sharing,we put our heads in the sand..and moan... For we have a nation crafted by the most wealthy of psychopaths, the leaders that made a nation into a society of mostly apathetic narrow focused,deep in denial, consumers.. scared shit less worker bees,unable to lead themselves..too afraid of each other to help each other..Atomized consumers that still wait with baited breath for a leader. A leader who says what you like hearing will perpetuate the same old shit you know.


So...What will it take for a large amount of people to lose faith in the system of civilization,stop letting self declared masters(manipulating greedy abusive socialized psychopaths)? Can people radically change their world views fast enough and reject liars and con men seeking profits who tell us how to live and what to believe, and what to do before their sick cancerous civilization game and zero sum money economy stupidity games kill us all?

[XemaSab]

5. Soil conservation K&R!

:patriot:

[AwakeAtLast]

6. Most of my Dad's land renters have been no-tillers for years

No-till is not new. My Grandpa did it 20 years ago. I'm very surprised to read that there are still farmers that need persuading. However, corporate farms may not be doing this - that is something I don't know much about.

Thanks for the info! :hi:

[pscot]

7. We've been making the same mistake

over and over for the last ten thousand years. Maybe this is some kind of intelligence test. If it is, we seem to be failing.

[The2ndWheel]

9. This is what happens as we get better at harnessing the energy from land

I wonder what we'll screw up when we start harnessing the energy from the ocean, air, and sun.