Tag Archives: Soil

Silent Earth Review

Posted on by

“Silent Earth” has received a five-star “must read🏆” review on Reedsy. Blending scientific depth and practical foresight, this book is both a wake-up call and a guide for navigating environmental collapse.

Synopsis

Silent Earth is a technical reference for civil engineers, land-use and urban planners, and city administrators. It covers a broad range of topics and should serve as a springboard for specialists wishing to learn more about adapting to climate change and biosphere decline.

As the Earth’s living systems deteriorate at an unprecedented rate, human societies face the urgent challenge of adapting to an increasingly unstable environment. Physical Geographer Garry Rogers offers a clear-eyed examination of our options, arguing that while complete restoration of the biosphere is no longer feasible, strategic adaptation remains possible. Drawing on extensive research, Rogers outlines practical approaches for communities to maintain essential functions as ecosystem services decline. While large-scale adaptation efforts face significant barriers, this groundbreaking work shows how planners and administrators can implement effective strategies to enhance resilience in a transforming world. Essential reading for navigating our environmental future. Ideal for policymakers, scholars, environmentalists, and engaged citizens, Silent Earth challenges readers to envision a future where, even amidst biosphere decline, adaptation and innovation can pave the way for survival.

Garry Rogers’ Silent Earth: Adaptations for Life in a Devastated Biosphere explores the escalating degradation of Earth’s biosphere, offering strategies for human adaptation. It points to the realistic inevitability of this need to adjust, as humanity is facing the consequences of irreversible damage already done. Rogers goes beyond the simple dialogue of climate change, expanding and examining the interconnected impact of the entire biosphere, from current impacts such loss of biodiversity to coral reef bleaching.

In Section IV, Rogers draws upon research to emphasize that as soon as 2030 we are on the brink, and that we urgently need to act not only to prevent further destruction, but also to prepare for survival:

The cumulative and synergistic effects of human impacts are pushing ecosystems closer to tipping points. Feedback loops and shifting ecosystem boundaries are accelerating environmental change, while these effects interact in complex ways, amplifying their individual impacts. As we approach 2030, addressing these interconnected challenges will require an integrated approach to conservation and climate action to mitigate the far-reaching impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem stability.

The strength of Silent Earth lies in Section V, which presents a blueprint for adaptation. Rogers proposes various strategies from water management to cultural and governance reforms. His emphasis on grassroots action and local resilience is both pragmatic and empowering, especially given his acknowledgment of the political and societal inertia that is likely to hinder adaptation on a wider scale.

Silent Earth is thoroughly researched, intellectually stimulating, and well-cited. Rogers excels in synthesizing vast amounts of ecological, social, and technological data into a cohesive narrative.

Silent Earth is a valuable resource for those interested in interdisciplinary approaches to global challenges. It’s an important and thought-provoking read for anyone seeking to understand and address the complex realities of ecological decline.

Reviewed by: Brittney Banning

Latest Posts

Alpine soils storing up to a third less carbon as summers warm – Carbon Brief

Posted on by

Robert McSweeney, 13.06.2016:  The top metre of the world’s soils contains three times as much carbon as the entire atmosphere. This means that losing carbon from the soil can quicken the pace of human-caused climate warming.

A new paper, published today in Nature Geoscience, finds this is already happening in the forests of the German Alps. Soils there are losing carbon as summer temperatures rise, the researchers say.

In the last three decades, soil carbon across the German Alps has decreased by an average of 14% – and by as much as 32% for certain types of soils.  Source: Alpine soils storing up to a third less carbon as summers warm – Carbon Brief

Save

Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas | Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative

Posted on by

Source: Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas | Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative

GR:  You can download the Atlas free.

Better land use one of the keys to slowing global warming

Posted on by

Soil Erosion--3GR: Carbon storage in soils equates to fertility. Over most of the Earth’s land surfaces, grazing and farming lead to loss of topsoil, the upper soil layer that holds the carbon. It will be very difficult to improve the current wasteful practices since the growing human population is urgently demanding more meat and potatoes. Unlike disaster movies with a positive conclusion, our waste of the soil will lead to a bad ending. Unlike the alien invaders in the movie Independence Day, we humans cannot move on when our resources are exhausted.

Bob Berwyn's avatarSummit County Citizens Voice

Study quantifies climate benefits of sustainable land use

Staff Report

Switching to more sustainable forms of land use management could significantly boost the carbon-storing capacity of the planet’s soils — by up to 8 billion tons of greenhouse gases, scientists reported in a new study. Previous research shows that soils currently lock away around 2.4 trillion tonnes of greenhouse gases, which are stored underground as stable organic matter.

The measures identified by the researchers include growing crops with deeper root systems and using charcoal-based composts. Widespread adoption sustainable land use practices and and application of best available technologies could help soils store up to 80 percent of greenhouse gases released by fossil fuel combustion, the researchers calculated.

View original post 277 more words

A Weapon Against Climate Change May Be Right Under Our Feet

Posted on by

Healthy soil may play a huge role in mitigating global warming and helping us adapt to it.  From: www.huffingtonpost.com

GR:  Healthy soil contains a rich array of microorganisms that are adapted to the site and to the plants and animals growing on the soil. Healthy soil blocks weed invasions, reduces flooding by absorbing precipitation, and produces the most plant growth.  Centuries of farming and livestock grazing have destroyed most soils.  Cows compact the soil, break up the essential surface and subsurface biological crusts. Flooding increases and carries with it the finest soil, the topsoil. Researchers have learned that it takes decades and even a century for damaged soils to recover.  I know of no places that gauge their rest-rotation cycles in decades.  However, that is what is required to restore the soil.  We must begin now restoring our soils. It’s too late to block climate change, but healthy soil is essential if we hope one day to have healthy ecosystems again.

U.S. Should Join French and Civil Society in Initiative to Solve Global Warming with Regenerative Farming Plan

Posted on by

“France, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, the U.K., Germany and Mexico are among the more than two dozen countries that have so far signed on to what one day will likely be recognized as the most significant climate initiative in history.”  From: www.organicconsumers.org

GR:  There are some good ideas here, but like everything else that would be good for the Earth; they aren’t likely to be accepted by our corporation-controlled governments.  Here are just a few of the problems I see with this movement:  1) Corporate investors are backing destructive land-use satisfy demands of the growing human population.  2) The large farms that are responsible for the greatest percentage of soil loss are also using vast amounts of pesticides and artificial fertilizer.  3) The organizers (or at least this reporter) of this group don’t seem to understand the history and science of their topic.

 

Enhancing our soils’ biodiversity can improve human health

Posted on by

Colorado State University’s Diana Wall and coauthors make the case to integrate soil biodiversity research into human health studies in a paper published online in Nature November 23.  phys.org

GR:  This research adds to doubts of human abilities to survive for very long on another planet or on this one if the ecosystems are replaced by concrete.

Soil Erosion, Deforestation, Farming

Posted on by

“The Orinoco Basin extends across Veneuela and Colombia. The river’s delta is covered with tropical rain forest. For many years now, colossal palm oil plantations have been encroaching on this forest.

“But the forest floor is relatively poor in nutrients and rich in oxygen, making it unsuitable for monocultures. Once the soil is depleted, the planters use artificial fertilizers to keep production going as long as they can, and then they move on. But there’s another way. Planting many diverse crops in the same ground can help balance out soil use.” Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.dw.com

GR:  Forest soils are conditioned to support forests.  In dense forests, large proportions of the nutrients are contained in the trees.  Remove the trees and much of the natural wealth of the ecosystem is lost. Moreover, without their protective tree cover, soils wash away leaving behind little opportunity for forest recovery.  The suggestion that planting diverse crops is a good option is not a good one. Remove the trees and much of the local biodiversity is lost.  Even if crops can be planted that will protect the soils and maintain the amount of local biomass production, the loss of biodiversity and the loss of regional climate effects of the forest are not acceptable.

Forests are removed to produce food and desired products for human use.  The process is not sustainable.  We have to have the forests to maintain healthy Earth ecosystems. Thus, we have to reduce human need for food and products.  We have to reduce the human population.  Letting it continue to grow will bring about a terrible disaster for the Earth and all its life, including us.

See on Scoop.it – GarryRogers NatCon News

Extinction Resources: Information, Opinion, Ideas, & Questions

Posted on by

Extinction Information Resources

PassengerPigeon

Passenger Pigeon

Stopping human-caused extinction of Earth’s plant and animal species is the greatest challenge of our time. This post provides access to the latest articles on extinction. The first item (Ceballos et al. 2015) is the latest detailed report on what we know and how we acquired the information.

 Ceballos, Gerardo, Paul R. Ehrlich, Anthony D. Barnosky, Andrés García, Robert M. Pringle, and Todd M. Palmer. 19 June 2015. Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction. Science Advances Vol. 1, no. 5 (e1400253, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1400253). Corresponding author. E-mail: gceballo@ecologia.unam.mx.

More than a thousand recent articles are linked to my blog (https://garryrogers.com/blog):

Causes of Extinction

My blog covers the things that people do to cause extinctions and reduce biodiversity. These deeds of ours are woven into individual and our collective habits and beliefs. Stopping them will alter our society and our culture. It will be difficult. Our population must be reduced, our food choices must change, and our resource harvest must decline. Nothing less will succeed. Search the blog using the following terms for recent reports:  Burning, Coal, Construction, Deforestation, Desertification, Energy, Farming, Fishing, Fracking, Grazing, Hunting, Invasive Species, Logging, Mining, Oil, Pesticides, Pet Trade, Pollution, Population, Roads, and Soil.

Climate change will become the major cause of extinction.  Here’s its search link on my blog:  Climate Change.

For more reading, my Internet newsletters include a wider variety of articles than my blog.