Building Up and Protecting Soil

Source Used: A                

Most Interesting Points:

1.       Just the other day, I was thinking about the different synonyms for “soil” and the connotations they evoke when used as adjectives. Soil, dirt, earth; soiled, dirty, and earthy: only one of those has a positive connotation, and it’s the one that encompasses the entirety of our planet. This article touches on that in its introduction, lamenting that we’ve made dirt such a negative concept, and I can’t help but wonder if has to do with scale. Soil and dirt are more likely the patches directly beneath our feet; earth is that and also the entirety of the Earth, which is much grander and awe-inspiring. Perhaps we just have an innate respect for things on a grander scale? Or perhaps we just don’t take enough time to appreciate what we have right under our feet.

2.       Whoa. Talk about big things in small packages. A tablespoon of good soil can have more microorganisms than there are people on this earth, even with our burgeoning populations. It’s astounding: my brain can’t even comprehend the enormity of that. I just hear that and think “that is a lot of microorganisms” and shut down.

3.       Reading about humus triggered a memory of Grade 10 English, when Ms. Sinclair (God bless that wonderful lady) told us about the soil where she grew up in the prairies. Dark to the point of almost being black, she said it was. She told us how strange it was when she came to BC and she had to go out to buy soil because she was so used to being able to just run outside and get beautiful dirt from the ground. I keep getting a recurring theme from this article, one of us taking the bare necessities for granted, and it’s really a little scary how we haven’t learned anything since Neolithic times.

Ah, heck, here’s the more playful bare necessities to lighten the mood.

4.       Huh, I wish I had read this before going to MUN. Poor Ghana and her acidic soil.

5.       While I’m grateful that all this has been brought to our attention, the world seems to be getting more depressing with each successive paragraph. I’ve come across a term called “WorldSuck” on the Internet. And currently, with this article telling me about the past fallen civilizations, the current state of our own soil, then the completely ineffectual methods employed by the oligarchy of money to “deal” with the situation, and then how it’s actually harming us, suck levels are pretty high.

Like Malaria indeed.

6.       All right, spoke a little too soon. The ending was more optimistic.

Still not great though.

Question: Why is it that we can be so short-sighted and blind to the alarmingly important crises of our societies? What can we do?

To Look For: My bed; Leonard, my teddy bear; and a cup of hot chocolate.

Kidding. I don’t know if I can really look for soil erosion with the naked eye, but I think I might take a good look at the earth and pray a bit.