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Will be looking at the other videos. Although science and biology were not my majors, one of the best
classes I took was Geology. In that course the quote from the video "Nature doesn't need people, people need nature," sums it up. The amount of soil on the earth's surface when presenting a visual scale
is very thin.
I understand that when we excavate for building in the US we sell the soil to other countries! Guess I should really take time to verify this before posting it. But if it's true, it's incredibly stupid.
I live in the heartland where the soil is rich and black. It was some of the best dirt this side of Ukraine. There are thousands of acres of farmland here that have been dug out and cemented over with buildings that aren't going to last fifty years. Makes me want to weep.
People rationalize that we can replace the gardens and fields if and when the time comes but I don't think they understand the concept of pollution or how long it takes to produce good loam.
Then again food science is making gains in producing our food in labs. That will be nice.
In my mind dirt is gold and should be treated as such. And I'm not even going to state my thoughts on how psychologically unhealthy it is for humans to live in an environment of glass, cement and artificial light.
I've always been aware of developers scraping off the top soil to sell before building. But I do't know about sending it to other countries. Seems like that would be very expensive to ship. Soil can be heavy. There are plenty of businesses (garden centers, landscapers,etc) who buy that top soil domestically.
The sources that I've found to support the claims I've read of America selling topsoil to foreign countries don't seem credible enough to consider at present. But here are a couple of reputable sources for soil depletion which appear interesting, if a bit glum:
I can’t imagine how many chemicals get dumped into or onto the topsoil around the country. Everything from pesticides, fertilizers to chemical spills it’s a wonder anything we grow is worth eating these days. I saw a documentary about the continued use of these products that run off the land and into the waterways eventually dumping out of the Mississippi river and into the Gulf of Mexico where shrimp and other fish life are vanishing because of illness. We have only one world and we need to take better care of it, small things add up and cause problems down the road.
Here in MN our politics is increasingly dominated by city dwellers who seem to place undue blame on the farmer. But I'm thinking that there's plenty of blame to go around.
Here in MN our politics is increasingly dominated by city dwellers who seem to place undue blame on the farmer. But I'm thinking that there's plenty of blame to go around.
Seems to be a lot of misapprehensions and assumptions about nature and those closer to it. Often referring to those closer as "ignorant" if they don't agree with the academic assumptions or political motives of those more distant from the realities.
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