As Big A Problem As Global Warming?

Soil erosion is as big a problem as global warming and the only reason why it doesn’t get as much coverage from mainstream media is because it is less spectacular. That is the view of a couple of scientists speaking last Friday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle.

Prof. Jared Diamond, a physiologist at the University of California Los Angeles and author of Guns, Germs and Steel, paints a very gloomy picture of the planet in terms of soil erosion and contends agricultural practices in some parts of the world deserve much of the blame. He cited the Fertile Crescent, the cradle of agriculture and modern Western civilization, as an example of what happens when “soil problems, salinization, erosion, coupled with problems of deforestation,” take their toll.

Even today, he believes, soil erosion, already a serious problem in Australia, China and parts of the U.S., threatens modern civilization in much the same way.

Although 99 percent of the world’s food comes from soil, experts estimate that about 25 million acres of cropland are lost due to the effects of rain and wind abrasion on topsoil.

Another conference speaker, Ward Chesworth of the University of Guelph, Ontario, contended that farming had produced an “agricultural scar” on the planet that affected one third of all suitable soils.

Posted by Jim Langcuster at February 16, 2004 08:38 AM