Respect for dirt

Plant rooted in the soil

What does it mean to treat someone or something like dirt?  Perhaps showing total disrespect?

Seems that dirt, or soil, the base of our environment, has long been under appreciated and often abused.

Did you know that much of the world's topsoil is being eroded?

Every second, a dump-truck load of topsoil is carried by American rivers into the Caribbean; every year, hundreds of millions of tons of topsoil erode from farmers' fields in the Mississippi River basin. "An estimated 36% of the world's cropland is suffering from decline in inherent productivity from soil erosion", reports Lester Brown, one of the world's leading ecosystem monitors. Globally we are losing more than 10 million hectares of arable land a year, with soil loss exceeding new soil production by 23 billion tons, resulting in the loss of 0.5 percent or more of the worlds' fertility annually.  (Woody Tasch, Inquiries into the nature of slow money, investing as if food, farms and fertility mattered).

It takes 500 years to create just one inch of topsoil.  So it seems we ought to take soil erosion very seriously.

Not only is much of our soil being lost by erosion, it is also losing its fertility.  Soil scientist Hans Jenny found that after 60 years of cultivation the farm soils in Missouri had lost a third of their organic matter.

What's in our soil?  Each gram of fertile soil contains hundreds of millions of bacteria and actinomycetes, hundreds of thousands of fungi and algae, and tens of thousands of protozoa, nematodes and other microfauna.  (Woody Tesch, Inquiries into the nature of slow money, investing as if food, farms and fertility mattered).

One of the key players in our soil are the earthworms.  Darwin estimated that 50,000 earthworms carry 18 tons of soil to the surface of an acre.  There can be an astonishing number of earthworms in an acre of soil... up to two million!

So, as we consider sustainability of this beautiful home we call Earth, it behoves us to recognize the critical role the soil plays, and start treating it with greater respect. To be well rooted and productive, future generations will still need good dirt in which to grow.

Wouldn't it be nice to change our perspective on dirt, so that in future generations when someone says he/she is being "treated like dirt", they're being shown great respect!

Evolving capitalism to include environmental costs

     Following is an e-mail reflection from Tom Miller , the first CEO of the Kentucky HIghlands Corporation and later the head of Program Related Investing at the Ford Foundation to Woody Tasch.  It was recorded in the book "Inquiries into the nature of slow money: Investing as if food, farms, and fertility mattered," by Woody Tasch.

     We are not trying to reign in or correct or punish capitalism.  We are trying to complete it.
     Capitalism remained incomplete because resources seemed inexhaustible and consumption seemed to cause no harm. How, as we reach a new juncture in our history on the planet, this is no longer the case.
     Our most fundamental resources are in large part not counted in the costs of products. Sure I pay for water, but that accounts only for the costs of getting the bugs out of it and getting it to my tap. There is no accounting for the costs of depleting an aquifer. Sure I pay for gasoline, but that accounts for the costs of getting it from the oil patch to my gas tank. There is no accounting for what happens to the air and the planet after I burn it. Sure I pay for lima beans, but their price only accounts for the costs of planting and growing and delivering them to my nearest Wal-Mart. This is no accounting for the costs of depleting soil nutrients or harm to rivers by fertilizer.
     This is not a failure of capitalism, but merely the result of an incomplete system, which it is up to us to complete.

     Mr Tesch suggests that the world would be a better place if more socially responsible investing (SRI).  SRI investing considers the double bottom line, "doing well while doing good", or the triple bottom line, recognizing social, natural and financial capital, also known as people, planet and profits.

The pace of life

I went for a slow three mile run yesterday around Lake Harriet.  Truth be told, I far prefer running fast.  But without training, this is tough to do, particularly as one gets older.  It also requires regular training, and a slow progression to improve one's running times, much like any other sport or endeavor.

Biking got me spoiled with speed this summer.  I can go twice as fast on a bike as on foot. However I also discovered biking is considerably more dangerous.  When going fast on narrow tires it doesn't take much to have a fall.  I feel far safer and "grounded" when I'm walking or running.

Whatever pace one might prefer, it seems we've all been thrust into "life in the fast lane".  Electronics now move at lightening speed, and so goes the pace of our communication in the 21st century. This however is out of sync with the natural world.  I realize this every time I look at our garden and think, "what's taking those beans so long to grow?"... or, "come on tomatoes, we haven't got all day to ripen".

I'm reading a book Inquires into the nature of slow money: investing as if food, farms, and fertility mattered, by Woody Tasch, that highlights the dissonance between our face paced world with its increasingly unrealistic expectations and the slower cadence of nature and agriculture.  I particularly like the following quote from the prologue of this book by David Orr, author of Our Land, Our Selves.

Having exceeded the speed limits, we are vulnerable to ecological degradation, economic arrangements that are unjust and unsustainable, and, in the face of great and complex problems, to befuddlement that comes with information overload.

It is time to question the bigger and faster is better belief that has us all running like lemmings over a cliff.