Courtesy of pixels.com
This New Year, the world stage leaves us with so much worry, there’s little incentive to get out of bed each morning. Adding to the malaise is a fresh, looming disaster.
Not long ago, I mentioned that good topsoil around the globe is eroding at the rate of 1% a year. Without it, we won’t be able to grow crops to feed ourselves.
Climate change is a factor. When excess carbon dioxide it finds its way into the ground and synthesizes with sugars and starches in plant life, protein and other vitamins get reduced. Plantlife becomes less nutritious, affecting the health of animals that feed upon it, including humans whether they be vegans or carnivores.
Already grasses show a 10% decline in protein since 1994 strains. Vitamins like B(1), B(2), B(5) and B(9) are especially vulnerable. (“The Fault In Our Starch,” Tom Philpott, Mother Jones, Jan/Feb, 2020 pg. 64)
The irony is that we have ways to counteract the crisis. Take wheat, for example. Scientists have discovered a soil fungus that accepts a plant’s production of excess carbon dioxide and exchanges it for nitrogen phosphorous– a symbiotic relationship that also reduces the need for chemical fertilizers. Unfortunately, the solution has gained little acceptance because, under Donald Trump’s administration, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has issued “an implicit directive not to promote agriculture research related to climate change.” (Ibid pg. 64.)
Apparently, some politicians who took their oath of office with one hand upon the Bible either didn’t read it or forgot its scriptural charge to protect the planet:
“Then God said, ‘let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them, and it was so…” (Genesis 1:24)
