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Writer's pictureShannon M

Save Soil, Say What Now?

The Save Soil movement is being initiated by Sadhguru, a yogi, mystic and visionary.


Soil is dying - 52% of agricultural soil is already degraded.


Background - How I Got Here

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah has become my all-time favorite comedic news source. I have discovered multiple serious world-impacting topics from Trevor’s interviews. I was introduced to W. Kamau Bell as the Director of the film We Have to Talk About Cosby and the reasons why he took it upon himself to do this documentary. I have also found Charlamagne tha God and his new show on Comedy Central Tha God’s Honest Truth, Ryan Busse and his book Gunfight, and this most recently to the leader in the Save Soil Movement.


Why Save Soil?

Save Soil is a global movement launched to address the soil crisis by bringing together people from around the world to stand up for Soil Health, and supporting leaders of all nations to institute national policies and actions toward increasing the organic content in cultivable soil.


The Crisis

Lack of organic content turns soil into sand, leading to:
  • Food Crisis – in 20 years , 40% less food is expected to be produced for 9.3 billion people. Poor soil leads to poor nutritional value. Today’s fruit and vegetables already contain 90% fewer nutrients. Two billion people suffer from nutritional deficiencies leading to multitude of diseases.


  • Water Scarcity – Depleted soils cannot absorb and regulate water flows. Lack of water retention leads to water scarcity, droughts, and floods. Organic matter can hold up to 90% of its weight in water and release it slowly over time. This is a big help in drought-prone areas.


  • Climate Change – Carbon stored in soil is three times that in living plants and two times that in the atmosphere, which means soil is crucial for carbon sequestration. If the world’s soils are not revitalized, they could release 850 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere contributing to climate change. This is more that all of humanity’s emissions in the last 30 years combined.


  • Loss of Livelihood – Thousands of farmers are committing suicide due to depletion of soil. 74% of the poor are directly affected by land degradation globally. It is estimated that soil extinction is costing the world up to $10.6 trillion every year.


  • Conflict and Migration – Population growth, and food and water scarcity could cause over 1 billion to migrate to other regions and countries by 2050. Land issues have played a significant role over 90% of major wars and conflicts in Africa since 1990. From the French Revolution to the Arab Spring, high food prices have been cited as a factor behind mass protest movements.


  • Loss of Bio-Diversity – Scientists say that around 27,000 species of life forms are becoming extinct every year due to loss of habitant. The crisis has reached a point where 80% of the insect biomass has gone. Loss of biodiversity further disrupts the soil habitat and prevents soil and regeneration.


Learn About Soil

Most of us are familiar with words and concepts such as Climate Change, Carbon Emissions, Air Pollution and Water Scarcity, but very few have focused attention on Soil.


For millennia, life on earth has been sustained by a thin layer of fertile soil on the earth's crust. But…What exactly is soil and what does it do?


Soil is the basis of our lives.


Agriculture, deforestation, and other factors have degraded and eroded topsoil at alarming rates. Globally, 52% of agricultural land is already degraded. The planet is in crisis. If current rates of soil degradation continue, this would be the end of life as we know it.

Soil: A Holistic Solution

Almost every major ecological crisis is, to some degree or form, a consequence or symptom of the degradation of soil. Similarly, almost every environmental or environment-related pain point can be addressed by creating healthy soil.

It is, in fact, a fallacy to think we can address any one aspect of our environment without addressing the whole, because no aspect of the ecosystem functions in isolation. No solution is complete until we become conscious that life is one single complex phenomenon, all of which is happening in unison.

In many ways, Soil is the underlying platform upon which life springs forth. If we fix soil, we have the best chance of fixing the whole.


 

Be the Voice for Soil!

Your simple actions will help the message reach 3.5 billion people.
 

ABOUT CONSCIOUS PLANET

Conscious Planet is an effort to raise human consciousness and bring a sense of inclusiveness such that multifarious activities of our societies move into a conscious mode. An effort to align human activity to be supportive of nature and all life on our planet. Our work is towards creating a planet where a large number of Human Beings act consciously, governments are elected consciously, where ecological issues become election issues in the world.



Sadhguru

Yogi, Mystic and Visionary, Sadhguru is one of the most influential people of our times. An Enlightened Master of enormous capability, he has undertaken some gargantuan challenges, work that has been as sweeping as it has been varied.


All his efforts, however, have always been towards just one goal: Raising Human Consciousness. Over the past four decades, Sadhguru has offered the technologies of well-being to millions of people across the world through his foundations, which are supported by over 16 million volunteers in 300 cities worldwide.


Sadhguru has been conferred with three presidential awards among which are the Padma Vibhushan for distinguished service to the Nation and India’s highest environmental award, the Indira Gandhi Paryavaran Puraskar, in 2010.


SAVE SOIL: A MOVEMENT THAT BEGAN 24 YEARS AGO

For three decades now, Sadhguru has been continuously bringing the importance of soil and the alarming threat of Soil Extinction into the spotlight. He has said repeatedly at several international platforms: "Soil is our life, our very body. And if we forsake soil, in many ways, we forsake the planet."



I found all of this fascinating information on the following website: Global Movement to #SaveSoil (consciousplanet.org). Please visit and consider taking what action you can.



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