Words by Smiley Team
Did you know there’s a global movement to save our soil?
And, did you also know that soil is integral to our planet – putting food on plates, purifying water, and protecting us against flooding?
Save Soil is a campaign by Conscious Planet, spearheaded by Sadghuru, which seeks to bring about a concerted, conscious response to impending soil extinction. “When nearly 40% of climate change is affected by soil, why are we not talking about soil?” he tells Smiley News.
“All life, irrespective of anything – whether the life is in water or in the oceans – everything is the product of soil. There is no question about that. It is a well-established fact today that already over 50% of the topsoil which nourishes life is gone. In a way the whole world is slowly turning into a desert.”
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Elsewhere, says Sadghuru, there’s a lot of talk about climate change, global warming, but there’s no focus as to what the role of soil in this is.
“Open plowed soils and paved soil, these two are responsible for nearly 40% of global warming and climate change,” he says. “So soil has to be fixed. What is fixing soil mean? It’s very simple, if you take sand and add enough organic content into it, it becomes soil.
“If you take soil and take away all the organic content, it becomes sand. So, do you want sand around you or soil around you is a question. If you want life, you need soil.
This is why we are looking at establishing policy across the world, that if you own land, minimum three to six percent organic content should be in the soil.”
“The basis of all life is in the first 12–15 inches of soil,” he says. “Out of this, plants, trees, animals, birds and human beings have come. Soil needs organic content because the microbial life feeds on it. If they are not well-fed, you shall not be well-fed after some time, because 95% of the human food comes from these twelve inches of soil.”
Today, it’s common knowledge that without the help of the gut microbiome, you cannot digest the food that you eat. “Our gut microbes are essentially from the soil; they evolved themselves to live in our bodies, but they are very similar to those in the soil,” he says. “The plants cannot absorb nourishment from the soil directly by themselves. It only happens as an exchange between microbial life and plant life.
“Plant life captures carbon from the atmosphere, converts it into carbon sugars and trades very judiciously with the microbes for whatever it needs in terms of nitrogen, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, etc. Without this complex trading system in the soil, life cannot exist.”
“If we act now, in the next 10–15 years the global soil could be turned around significantly,” says Sadghuru. “If we cross this threshold, it will become very difficult for future generations to live here.”
While individual action helps – it needs a “worldwide policy”, he says.
“We have prepared a general policy document with special editions for each region of the world,” he says. “We have written to 730 political parties in the world to bring soil regeneration into their political agendas. The idea behind this motorcycle ride is just for this – if I fly into different countries, doors will not open. They have to see that I am staking my life a bit.”
He continues: “We are trying to move 60% of the world’s electorate – that is at least 3.5 billion people – to speak up about their concern for soil. You don’t have to go and fix the soil; you just have to make your voice loud and clear.
“This does not mean you have to go out and shout on the street – use technology: Twitter, Facebook, Telegram, or whatever you have. Every day, spend 5–10 minutes and say something about soil. It will all get aggregated on social media. If we can get 4 billion people talking about soil during these 100 days, no government on the planet can ignore it. Let us make it happen.”
GET INVOLVED: Find out more about Conscious Planet’s global soil movement on their website.
SIGN UP: You can sign up as an Earth Buddy – find out what it involves.
