What is Digg?224 Comments
- minorthreat, on 05/01/2008, -17/+93How can the earth lose dirt? Unless dirt is leaving our atmosphere, I would say this is inaccurate. The earth is simply moving dirt.
- Grub, on 05/01/2008, -6/+72we need to learn how to grow crops in asphalt and steel
- farfegnugen, on 05/01/2008, -7/+61The headline made me think it was an Onion article.
- bromac, on 05/01/2008, -6/+52Because "dirt", or soil, is actually just dead vegetation that's rotted. A combination of desertification, deforestation, and a lack of crop rotation produces a dustbowl effect. We end up with an earth that has far less dirt and a lot more sand and dust.
- jerwin, on 05/01/2008, -18/+58...and now I suppose this is the fault of all of us stinking humans as well??
For crying out loud, when will this sensationalism stop? Nothing we are getting alarmed about hasn't already happened on the past (great dust bowl anyone) yet we 'discover' these things and get alarmed and start passing laws and judgment on everyone.
This planet doesn't even know we are here.
Bush lied, dirt died. Obama promises a more dirt-filled future. Hillary had to fight off dust bunnies as a child.
Sheesh.... - legendxx, on 05/01/2008, -3/+31That's why I save my dirt in a jar.. I'm gonna make a killing in 10 million years selling the stuff.
- leszek, on 05/01/2008, -7/+30this is just one more symptom of the real problem: overpopulation.
- medj, on 05/01/2008, -6/+24Another problem?
- DiggsOnlyJew, on 05/01/2008, -3/+21Diggers: offset your topsoil erosion footprint by purchasing Topsoil Credits at www.algorefordirt.com
- minorthreat, on 05/01/2008, -0/+18ah very true, you saw the flaw in my logic...
- lucidguru, on 05/01/2008, -2/+19Don't worry raising commodity prices will give people the economic incentive to take back the desert. If you think that desertification is a real threat look at what's happening in China right now... economic pressure is forcing them to turn the desert into farmland and habitable area.
- dOOBiEx213, on 05/01/2008, -2/+17Good thing we can always get some free dirt from Craigslist.
- minoss, on 05/01/2008, -14/+27Yay, more alarmists predictions that don't take into account future changes or advancements. Obviously, in 100 years the planet will have no more top soil.
- Acqua206, on 05/01/2008, -0/+13Good God, I give up. I'm just going to go crawl in a hole and wait for it all to end.
- bromac, on 05/01/2008, -0/+11Humans aren't as separate from the biosphere as we like to believe, in our arrogance. We're animals - we need healthy ecosystems to produce the organic nutrients that we require.
- greenfyre, on 05/01/2008, -12/+23"While many worry about the potential consequences of atmospheric warming, ... " The two issues are intimately linked. Desertification will probably speed climate change, and climate change will most definitely cause widespread soil loss and desertification.
- inactive, on 05/02/2008, -0/+11I know that this is Digg, but could you at least TRY to make some sense?
- Erich100, on 05/01/2008, -13/+24Maybe if we pay Al gore it will all stop.
- bromac, on 05/01/2008, -3/+13How can you take into account something that hasn't happened yet?
Wishful thinking of today doesn't make the future so. If it were the case, we'd all have planned to have flying cars and robot maids by the year 2000.
It would be prudent to make the changes NOW instead of expecting future generations to clean up the mess we're creating. - inhaler, on 05/01/2008, -2/+12You better hope they're right minoss, or they'll be no sand for you to bury your head in.
I mean, it's not like humanity has any impact on the environment around us. You *can't* alter an ecosystem just by damming up one river, I'm sure the massive agricultural methods we invoke to feed our teeming mass has absolutely no effect. - DaneArden, on 05/01/2008, -2/+12If the earth becomes a giant desert can we ride sand worms to gather the spice?
Mua'Dib will lead us - anonymiau, on 05/01/2008, -1/+11Yeah, and digging up gigantic amounts of oil, coal and gas over a few decades to pump the waste greenhouse gases into the atmosphere has no effect either. And the billions of cows we are growing for food have no impact. The skyrocketing population increase: no impact. The mountains of waste filling the oceans, no problem. The deforestation and removal of 80% of the planets' forests leads to no change either. The billions of cars and power plants and industrial complexes spewing greenhouse gases and pouring rivers and oceans full of toxic waste, not dangerous. The massive impact on the ecosystem from human hunt and continuous decline of every animal on the planet (except ***** cows), just dandy!
Everything is fine! When is American Gladiator on? - briankoenig03, on 05/01/2008, -5/+15Yes, and the Great Dust Bowl was great for everyone, so we shouldn't do anything to prevent a similar catastrophe. That's your logic, right?
The fact that this is a political issue is saddening. Skepticism is good, but ignoring every scientific article relating to conservationism just because you don't like Al Gore or Barack Obama is moronic. - rinote, on 05/01/2008, -3/+12... as we know it!
- defenswens26, on 05/01/2008, -2/+11Hydroponic farming anyone?
- Malacandra95, on 05/01/2008, -1/+9Those future "changes or advancements" will only come from the work of those who take these kinds of predictions seriously - and apply themselves to the difficult work of addressing them. Dismissing such predictions as being "alarmist" is precisely the kind of attitude that would keep those solutions from being researched, financed and developed.
- JonTheGoose, on 05/02/2008, -0/+8and it all ends up in Jersey.
- ROFLance, on 05/01/2008, -0/+7If only I could figure out a way to empty out all the dirtbags in New Jersey...
- choopie911, on 05/01/2008, -1/+8But you soil yourself when you die...is that good enough?
- Zera, on 05/01/2008, -5/+12Interesting the article doesn't mention that erosion (at least in first world nations) is at a 80 year low. Farmers aren't the stupid people that many think they are. The last 50 years there has been intensive effort to reduce erosion by literally dozens of ingenious methods, not only basic methods, like leaving grass grow on often washed out steep sections, but technologies like no-till planting, and the mere fact that farming has become SO much more efficient we have actually consistently reduced the total amount of land farmed in the united states over the last 50 years, because the remaining land still farmed is more productive.
Ethanol production might actually increase the amount of farmland in use for the first time in decades, but the government has given farmers incentives to leave their most difficult to farm, (steep slopes) and thus the most erosion prone areas to just be left to grow wild, and in some cases, given incentives to plant trees on those slopes.
But I guess if you tell the truth and say "a problem we used to have has nearly been conquered" doesn't get headlines, so "EROSION STILL SCARY" and boom, front page. - yomamaphat, on 05/02/2008, -0/+7Soil is far more than "dead vegetation matter" ... I've had many soil science classes. It's largely mineral material. It weathers from geologic parent material at varying rates, depending on the parent material. Some soils have very little organic matter at all! Young soils such as entisols are a good example of this.
Although organic matter improves a soils ability to support plants in many ways, many plants can grow in sand. - MindTrigger, on 05/01/2008, -2/+9YES, someone who gets it. Technology is not moving fast enough to solve the overpopulation problem. Everyone is sitting back and hoping for the best, on the ride to oblivion. Since the human race cannot deal with this issue directly, it will be up to 'mother nature' to handle it, unfortunately. This planet did fine before humans, and it will repair itself and do fine after. The biggest mistake mankind ever made was thinking they could improve on nature.
- j1ggy, on 05/01/2008, -4/+10Now I feel bad for eating dirt as a kid...
- neurobox, on 05/01/2008, -1/+7'n I feel fine.
- SkippyDoorknob, on 05/01/2008, -2/+8I've been burying it in the backyard. Should I stop?
- mlavergn, on 05/01/2008, -2/+8... well thankfully we have unlimited fresh water to turn desert back into farmland! Yeah, see the conundrum there? Farmland dries out due to lack of water, turns into desert; solution, return non-existent water back into desert, revert it to farmland. A better solution is to bite the bullet, factor in higher food prices, and export food production to countries where water is more abundant.
- BlueSkyfish, on 05/02/2008, -0/+6Or a way to make sugar in a factory using only carbon dioxide, water, and electricity.
- bromac, on 05/01/2008, -1/+7The third sentence of your post is spot on.
Without dirt, we don't have places to plant crops, or trees and other vegetation to produce oxygen that we rely on. We're not so separate from the biosphere as we arrogantly believe we are. - falkonv7l, on 05/01/2008, -2/+8So I guess I should invest in some land.
- inactive, on 05/01/2008, -1/+7OMG!!!! Waterworld? Dirt will be as valuable as Gold.
- z0mbie2099, on 05/01/2008, -5/+11It's the end of the world...
- MilesyMiles, on 05/02/2008, -0/+5Mmmm......desertification..... *drooool*....
- iHeartMoz, on 05/01/2008, -1/+6I guess I should stop eating dirt-cakes and dirt-on-the-cob.
- Wacer, on 05/01/2008, -0/+5In the US, farmers and government have been fight soil loss for decades. This topic is not new. There have been great strides in farming without tilling. For the rest of the world, I don't have a clue how they fight erosion.
- briankoenig03, on 05/01/2008, -1/+6I agree that many times programs and laws are created for political reasons and either miss their target or wasted.
I think it is stupid that many liberals will believe a sensationalist article without doing basic fact-checking.
I also think it is stupid that the "conservatives" in charge of the party outright deny that humans have any influence on what is going on. Yes, when we strip-mine the Earth it "knows" that we are here. When we have massive deforestation it "knows" we are here.
The problem is that instead of having a rational, research-focused debate on what is going on, what the likely effects will be, and how we can sanely modify our current processes to avert disaster, we have one side screaming "You Bushies in your Hummers hate the world" and the other side yelling "You stupid atheist liberals think it's all our fault!"
I don't think you'll disagree that the historic event you mentioned, The Great Dust Bowl, was caused by a confluence of factors, both man-made and natural. Years of irresponsible crop cultivation leached the soil, while we didn't know about planting windbreaks to suppress dust storms. A few years of drought on top of these issues resulted in millions losing their livelihood and emigrating out of the midwest.
I am not trying to insult your intelligence at all. I am just frustrated that instead of saying something along the lines of, "We should get a scientific study underway before we do anything rash", you make it sound like the hippie anti-Bush liberals are inventing another problem to raise taxes. - ultraJesus, on 05/01/2008, -0/+5So the world will end in my lifetime.....
I'm not sure if I'm happy about it, but it should be neat. - Godlike, on 05/02/2008, -1/+5My cats breath smells like cat food.
- dafragsta, on 05/01/2008, -0/+4Bees, dirt, large hadron colider, global warming, and a plethora of other reasons I can't think of for us to die. Who would bring a kid into this world of worry, honestly? The less time we spend surviving in the wild, the more time we spend contemplating how we are going to die.
- RevoFM, on 05/02/2008, -0/+4Soil Science classes?
- choopie911, on 05/01/2008, -3/+7I know this has nothing to do with the article, and it's probably a fairly easy explanation, but if evidence of the past (fossils, bones, etc) is found under layers and layers of dirt, and we can see passages of time in the different layers of dirt (ash from volcano, etc) how does that work? How is the earth not growing if theres layers being added on top of previous layers. Maybe I'll start googling....
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