#soil loss

[thoughtlessarse]

Study finds soil erosion and wildfire another nail in coffin for Triassic era

Curtin research has revealed that soil erosion and wildfires contributed to a mass extinction event 201 million years ago that ended the Tri

Curtin research has revealed that soil erosion and wildfires contributed to a mass extinction event 201 million years ago that ended the Triassic era and paved the way for the rise of dinosaurs in the Jurassic period.

Lead author Curtin Ph.D. graduate Dr. Calum Peter Fox, from the WA-Organic and Isotope Geochemistry Center (WA-OIGC) in Curtin's School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said the research identified the other factors that contributed to a combination of stresses that killed off Triassic life and allowed the ecological expansion of dinosaurs.

"This new study adds soil erosion and wildfire activity to the list of factors that drove this mass extinction to end the Triassic era, building on our previous research that found a rise in levels of acid and hydrogen sulfide in the ocean caused by rapid increases in carbon dioxide due to a surge in volcanic activity," Dr. Fox said.

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No worries here. We're only losing 24 billion tonnes of soil per annum (2015 figures) and wildfires are only year round in a few locations.

[ratetea]

This photo shows environmentally-unfriendly Yerba mate cultivation in Misiones, Argentina. The exposed soil here is vulnerable to erosion, contributing to soil loss and pollution downstream. A more environmentally-friendly operation would have little exposed soil, like in this photo. This would also result in greater productivity.

Photo © Leandro Kibisz, CC BY-SA 2.5.

[whitetoque]

6 - Survey Reveals ‘Amazing’ Soil Loss in Great Plains Region | WP

6 – Survey Reveals ‘Amazing’ Soil Loss in Great Plains Region | WP

"MINOT, N.D. — Nearly every farmer has seen the photos from the 1930s, in which a massive dust storm is about to strike a small town or a drift of soil is almost covering a house.

What North American farmers may not know is that soil in the air or in a drift contains more than just particles of dirt.

Dave Franzen, a soil scientist with North Dakota State University, has spent several years…

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[thoughtlessarse]

A recent assessment has found that water erodes 970 million tonnes of soil every year in the EU. This would mean a one metre-depth loss of soil from an area corresponding to the size of the city of Berlin, or a one centimetre loss from an area twice the size of Belgium. The fact that it takes 100 years to form 1 cm of new soil under natural temperate grasslands gives an idea of the magnitude of the problem of soil loss in the EU.

[gabracadabrastudios]

Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity

submitted by Gabrielle Price

The following slideshow presentation is available for download as a Powerpoint and PDF here, thanks to The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia.  From the site: Some permies may wish to download the slideshow files to use, or modify to use, for "It’s time to wake up" type presentations in your local schools and community halls, etc.

Food is the new oil.  Land is the new gold.

Full Planet, Empty Plates Slideshow Presentation from Earth Policy Institute

  The world food situation is deteriorating.  Grain stocks have dropped to a dangerously low level.  The World Food Price Index has doubled in a decade.  The ranks of the hungry are expanding.  Political unrest is spreading.

On the demand side of the food equation, there will be 219,000 people at the dinner table tonight who were not there last night.  And some 3 billion increasingly affluent people are moving up the food chain, consuming grain-intensive livestock and poultry products.

At the same time, water shortages and heat waves are making it more difficult for farmers to keep pace with demand.  As grain-exporting countries ban exports to keep their food prices down, importing countries are panicking.  In response, they are buying large tracts of land in other countries to grow food for themselves.  The land rush is on.

Could food become the weak link for us as it was for so many earlier civilizations?  This slideshow presentation, based on Lester Brown’s latest book, Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity, explains why world food supplies are tightening and tells what we need to do about it.

The slides are designed to be shared, so feel free to pass along the link to others who might be interested.  Use the slideshow to anchor a lesson in the classroom or to spread the word within your community on why and how we need to mobilize to fix our food system.  You are welcome to modify it to suit your needs.  We ask only that you appropriately credit Earth Policy Institute and the photographers, notably Yann Arthus-Bertrand, eminent French photographer and friend of EPI, whose works appear within.