Earth’s
Math
“The
earth’s math is simple: no soil, no food, no us.”
Diana
Butler Bass (Grounded, p.45; Ch. “Dirt;” Harper One, 2015)
Did you
know that in America, soil is being lost at ten times the rate it can be
replenished? Diana Butler Bass reports that conditions are even worse in India
and China, where erosion is occurring thirty to forty times faster. No wonder
Russia is willing to crush everyone and everything in Ukraine—it’s the world’s breadbasket
and contains some of the most fertile soil on the planet.
In
Grounded, Diana Butler Bass recounts the words of Agronomist Wes Jackson who
says that the idea that soil is limitless and can be used any way human beings
please is “the devastating assumption of the modern age.” Soil is not
renewable. “Once destroyed, for all practical purposes in human time, it is
destroyed forever.”
Those
of us who are fortunate enough to own property have a responsibility to
preserve it, to encourage it and to replenish it if possible. I live in an old
neighborhood in Birmingham where for a century or more acres of ground have
been landscaped—huge trees, grass by the acre, and when grass gets sparse, the
land is scraped down to dusty dirt, and slabs of new turf brought in. Only in a
few residential yards, is diversity of species allowed to prosper. There,
honeysuckle, and wild grasses grow alongside trumpet vine, morning glory and jasmine. There
are a few wooded areas belonging to the city where people cannot scrape and
turf that are still inhabited by woodland animals, but for the most part, cultivated
“landscaping” predominates. It’s curious to me that we read books, listen to podcasts,
watch documentaries about global warming and species loss and try to recycle everything
we can, but we still don’t see how essential diversity of species is to human
survival. As Bass says above, “no soil, no food, no us.”
I know
I’m always ringing the alarm bells and that gets old fast—to you and to me—but
I can’t seem to help it. We must wake up. It’s like looking the other way when
your husband brings his mistress into your house. We don’t see it because we
don’t want to give up something that we think belongs to us. I understand. I don’t
want to change either, but this is real.
I have
a clover field in my yard. The bees work it like crazy. It’s pretty, it smells
good, and when it’s mowed every couple of weeks, it springs right back and
blooms again. I hope you plant as much greenery as you can—native trees and
plants, flowering species, a variety of grasses. Churches and civic groups
could be clearing vacant lots and abandoned properties and planting urban
gardens and green spaces. Instead of being cast out of the Garden of Eden, we
can reconstruct it for our children and grandchildren. After all, we were
created from that very soil and commanded to steward the land.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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