The massive climate change issue you've probably never heard about — and how these activists are working to fix it
Why It Matters
Soil is a vital player in a trifecta for human health: carbon capture, food and water security. 95 percent of our food comes from rapidly diminishing top soil. Experts warn that if the world’s soils are not revitalised, they could release 850 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere contributing to climate change - which is more than all of humanity’s emissions in the last 30 years combined.
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The Latin word for humans comes from humus, which means soil.
Yet soil, similar to the plight facing humanity amidst the climate crisis, is at threat. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that all the world’s topsoil could become extinct in 60 years at the current rate of degradation. In other words, a complete loss of topsoil, which is responsible for almost all of the world’s entire food production. Given this, the scientific community has warned that by 2045, the planet’s food production could drop by 40 percent while the planet’s population continues to grow towards 9.3 billion.
For Jaggi Vasudev (Sadhguru), author and environmental advocate, the mission to save soil has become his sole focus. In spring of 2022, Sadghuru took to the road by motorbike for over 30,000 kilometers, from London to South India, to raise awareness on the looming extinction of soil. Save Soil, a movement launched by Sadhguru with the support of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, has partnered with organizations around the world in an effort to raise awareness and spur action to address the soil crisis while promoting solutions for communities.
“We need to understand that this very body of ours is soil. This is the truth. One day people have to realize this truth in order to save themselves,” says Sadhguru.
Save Soil aims to inspire 3.5 billion people (60 percent of the world’s electorate) to support policy redirections that would revitalize and bring back the topsoil — an ambitious goal amidst a rapidly escalating environmental crisis.
“The biggest challenge that we are facing is a lack of awareness and denial of reality about soil extinction. One teaspoon of soil has more microorganisms than [there are] humans on the earth. It is a living entity. If we don’t act now, we will have lost most of the world’s agricultural soil,” explains Ruchika Wadhwa, an organizer and spokesperson for Save Soil.
The awareness raised by Sadhguru and the diplomatic motorcycle tour has created waves of impact in just a matter of months, with 74 nations signing memorandums of understanding (MOUs) in support of Save Soil’s calls to action for soil health management.
From wildfires and heat waves to floods and droughts, the climate crisis is often reported when there are immediate disasters. But perhaps the canary in the coal mine, soil health, is one of the lesser discussed environmental issues that is inextricable from climate and public health.
According to the latest report on climate change and health published by the University of Waterloo, “Changes in climate are affecting food security and food safety in Canada. Climate change is increasing risks of food insecurity through disruptions to food systems, rises in food prices, and negative nutritional effects.”
And soil is a major part of that. According to Canada’s Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, soil degradation is already costing Canadian farmers a collective $1 billion in income per year. “[W]e are clearly in danger of squandering the very soil resource on which our agricultural industry depends,” the Senate committee wrote in one report.
Meanwhile, soil stores three times as much carbon as living plants, making it one of the most crucial ecosystems for carbon sequestration. But not only will the degradation of soil contribute to the climate crisis, it is also linked to food crises and water scarcity. Poor soil means poor nutritional value. Because the quality and health of soil continues to become more compromised, fruits and vegetables already contain 90 percent fewer nutrients. This steady decline has been taking place over the last 70 years.These depleted soils also cannot absorb or regulate water flows — and a lack of water retention leads to water shortages, droughts and floods.
While soil can be created over time through decomposition and decay, it erodes 10 to 30 times faster than the rate at which it is produced. Contributing to this erosion is mass industrial-scale agriculture practices which pillage top soil for monocrops — fields of one crop only, which don’t rotate with other crops and therefore strip soils of certain nutrients — alongside increasing drought and heat, and deforestation. “In erosion hotspots such as Nigeria, 80 percent of the land has been degraded,” according to Nature.
For Save Soil, their work is not a protest. It is an inclusive movement and a legacy for future generations. “We are all going to return back to soil. The conscious movement is a way forward. Food has always brought people together, and soil is at the root of it. So hopefully the fight for soil will bring humanity together too,” says Wadhwa.
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