this is a terrible title. what the article says is, a third of the corn belt has lost all of its topsoil. the rest of it has lost a large percentage of it (some of which may just have migrated). so the situation is actually quite a bit worse than the top line. of course the good thing is all of that is repairable, the bad thing is it will take centuries to fully restore the grassland if you leave it alone - which of course can't happen!
The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil
201–210 of 278 posts
Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil
#202corn-derived ethanol is an environmental crime.
Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I think our views are similar, I clearly have a differing take on "Mother earth is fine." To me, it implies that planet earth is as implacable as the rest of the universe. It doesn't have feelings. It doesn't care. And it will still be here for millennia yet. This changes the conversation from: "We're hurting mother earth." to "We're thinking animals and yet we're making a poor future for ourselves." https://ww…
I'm much more fatalistic for humans than either of you. We've been downright nasty to all other forms of life on this planet for millenia, and now we've stepped up from just being nasty to being positively ecocidal, ratcheting up the biodiversity loss with each new techno-monstrosity we create. We are 100% headed for the trash heap, IMHO. You're right that we are "thinking animals", but we've got a global animus now…
I agree with your thoughts as a general picture, except I think humans as a species will survive and not be a total wipeout.
But given how hard it is to predict the future, the details are : how much will it hurt?
How much of humanity will survive? How much biological diversity will we lose?
Aside, I don't think atheism/religion enables or precludes empathy for the living things in the world. 'Tis a sad future in many ways.
Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where does the topsoil go? Doesn't it, by definition, just become topsoil somewhere else?
Well no. Just like a rainforest doesn't just fly in the wind to become a rainforest somewhere else if you burn it. Soil is a ecosystem, not a raw material.
Sure, soil is an ecosystem, but topsoil is the top part of that soil. The surface layer. If you bulldoze a rainforest, there's no more rainforest. But if you scrape away topsoil, you have subsoil, and you have a big pile of topsoil.
Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil
#205I was watching a video about regenerative agriculture the other day (I can't remember which one) and one of its claims was that food isn't as nutritious as it used to be because of current farming practices.
The theory was that when farmers fertilize crops the fertilizer only has common nutrients like nitrogen, phosphate and potassium, but like us plants need a wide variety of nutrients, and those don't exist in the soil anymore.
Does anyone know if there is any truth to this? (i.e. links to papers)
Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where does the topsoil go? Doesn't it, by definition, just become topsoil somewhere else?
It doesn't have to go anywhere, it can just "die" - lose its ability to hold water, nutrients, fungus, microbes - everything necessary for it to be beneficial to plants.
So they've done what's all too common these days... gone and changed what a word means.
Dead topsoil is dead topsoil. It doesn't become rock or subsoil or something else.
The title of this post is "corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil". It should be "a third of the top soil in the corn belt is badly degraded" or something like that.
Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil
#207I have done a little quick and dirty looking around, trying to get an idea of how much damage was done in the Dust Bowl and what the long term consequence were (as a point of comparison/trying to find a thing that might help mentally model where this is going). Here are a couple of links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl#Long-term_economic_i... https://www.softschools.com/facts/us_history/dust_bowl_facts... I…
Thanks for your efforts. Here’s a podcast[1] episode about regenerative farming, with an anecdote from a farming couple in MN who note lower cost per bushel of corn and soybeans over the past seven years after transitioning to no-till. They also observe more birds on their farm, presumably eating more insects, eating more-numerous smaller life forms supported by the soil which is up from 1-2% organic material to 5% (previous prairie, under management by pre-colonial humans, had about 12%)[1]. One of the podcast hosts is Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, editor of a recent book[2] about actions we can take as the climate changes.
[1] How to Save a Planet, episode 2021-01-07 titled “Soil: The Dirty Climate Solution”
[2] Johnson and Wilkinson, editors (2020); All We Can Save: truth, courage, and solutions for the climate crisis; ISBN 978-0-593-23706-9
Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm much more fatalistic for humans than either of you. We've been downright nasty to all other forms of life on this planet for millenia, and now we've stepped up from just being nasty to being positively ecocidal, ratcheting up the biodiversity loss with each new techno-monstrosity we create. We are 100% headed for the trash heap, IMHO. You're right that we are "thinking animals", but we've got a global animus now…
I'm not sure it's about money, per se. Consider all the societies that had money and didn't get as "successful" as the current one, not anywhere close. The culprit is the scientific method, and in particular it's ability to give people repeatable, inhuman action-at-a-distance that amplified moral hazard 10000-fold. The longer the distance between extraction and consumption the more fucked your civilization is. As hor…
I see it as a conjunction of the two.
Science is a good tool for getting things done. The how.
Money is the motivation for getting them done. The why.
You've both got good points.
Scientific capability enables fucked because money.
Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil
#209>Settlers began systemically clearing the Great Plains prairie in the early 1800s as the John Deere plow became a staple of conventional tilling, which is the practice of digging up the topsoil to plant seeds. Later, gas-powered tractors made ripping up fields even easier.
Here's how this would read without the emotionally manipulative language:
> The Great Plains prairie was first tilled by European settlers from the United States in the early 1800s with animal-drawn cast iron ploughs like the ones designed by John Deer. In the 20th century, tractors replaced horses and oxen for pulling ploughs.
I'm not sure what purpose demonizing farmers is serving here but I don't like it.
Re: The U.S. corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of contract clauses have been found void and unenforceable. Same could (and should) happen to many HOA covenants. The fact that you are unable to buy housing in many zip codes without HOA, and there are even some states (ie Texas) where you can be forced into an HOA (even if you own the house clear of one) is just insane.
The power we are giving to HOAs is insane. They can ruin your life. There is a case that I know where a person of color was accused by his white neighbors for WFH, thus using his house for business purposes, thus violating the HOA contract, thus they initiated an eviction. It is an ablolute mess.
Sounds like a CNN article.