I read an article in the Globe and Mail Focus section this weekend that I thought was rather interesting. The article was called "Planet Earth has a dirty little secret" (unfortunately it is not available for free on the Globe website, but you can purchase it if you like).
The main idea of the article is that we are destroying or degrading the usable soil faster than it can regenerate. We are doing this by building on top of the soil, by poisoning the soil and by growing crops too often in the soil. The author, John Allemang, and the scientist he talks to, David R. Montgomery, say that even if we can solve all of the other environmental problems, we will eventually run out of soil and be unable to grow the food we need. Problems with dirt can easily cause famines which have, in the past, killed many people (100 000 people in West Africa in 1973). Dr. Montgomery suggests that we have between 200 and 2000 years until we get into real troubles. It is estimated that we lose 1% of our usable land worldwide each year.
I don't want to paraphrase the article completely, but I will give some points that I thought were important:
- since World War II approximately 40% of global cropland has degraded.
- our ancestors were much fewer in number and would often farm an area dry and move on to the next. We do not have that luxury any more.
- people are more likely to get behind issues related to water than issues related to dirt.
I guess this post could come off as another warning to the masses to go along with global warming (climate change), pollution, etc. I think this is just another sign that we need to rethink the way we live. All of our environmental "issues" these days stem from the same attitude many of us have with regards to the planet. That is the real issue. This latest idea is but one symptom of a bigger problem. I'm at a loss myself, but obviously if this is right, we do need to start making some changes...
