Write an article that will enable us to develop a sense of ownership towards the on going climatic degradation ,vowing to become aware and take steps towards preservation of soil..
Answers
Our soils support 95 percent of all food production, and by 2060, our soils will be asked to give us as much food as we have consumed in the last 500 years. They filter our water. They are one of our most cost-effective reservoirs for sequestering carbon. They are our foundation for biodiversity. And they are vibrantly alive, teeming with 4500 kilo’s of biological life in every acre. Yet in the last 150 years, we’ve lost half of the basic building block that makes soil productive. The societal and environmental costs of soil loss and degradation in the United States alone are now estimated to be as high as $85 billion every single year. Like any relationship, our living soil needs our tenderness. It’s time we changed everything we thought we knew about soil. Let’s make this the century of living soil.
Land degradation is happening at an alarming pace and is affecting regions inhabited by over one-third of the global population. This phenomenon contributes to a dramatic decline in the productivity of croplands and rangelands worldwide, thereby, threatening food security and environmental quality. Land degradation is, therefore, considered as a major global environmental issue of this century.
The degradation of our soils, due to human activities, today, can harm our well-being. It causes the extinction of species and accentuates climate change. It also contributes to the displacement of populations and the multiplication of conflicts.
A major part of soil depletion is due to the lands over-use and the products that we pour on it. We can consider that agriculture is responsible for 80% of the soil degradation in Europe and scientists estimate that 40% of lands in Europe are already degraded because of human actions.