Protection of the World's Topsoil
The protection of the worlds topsoil is vital to us. The soil is still the major medium for plant and crop growth and our basic resource for land use and development. Imagine our world without soil! A barren land with almost no plant growth and constant dustbowls to block out our sunlight. Erosion would destroy our mountain ranges. Our lakes, rivers and oceans would be clogged with sediments. Like any of our worlds problems, we must educate people about the problems and risks and how the depletion of topsoil affects our everyday needs. (Kirby, 1997)
Protection of the Worlds Topsoil
THE "BIG THREE"
There are many reasons why our soils become damaged. The three biggest contributors are: erosion, deforestation and overgrazing. Erosion can be the most damaging of all three because we cannot control the weather. Erosion exists when either water or wind removes important soil particles from the earth leaving the land useless for growth. AS Vice President Al Gore states in his book, Earth in the Balance, "Iowa has lost eight inches of the best topsoil in the country and it now resides in the Gulf of Mexico" (1992). Although we cannot control Mother Nature, we can combat erosion by insuring plant or crop growth is present to naturally to dissipate the effects of erosion. If not properly managed, the damaging effects of erosion can alter out lives both socially and economically.
The second of the contributors is called deforestation. Deforestation is simply the clearing of forests to support our demands for lumber, paper products, and fuels. Without proper management of this activity, the soils are susceptible to erosion...
... middle of paper ...
...orrow it from our children'". (Gore, 1992)
References
Brockway, S. (1992) . An Environmental, Political, and Social Handbook. Cambria, CA: Macrocosm USA, Inc.
Ehrlich, P.E. (1990) . The Population Explosion. New York, NY:
Touchtone Books.
Fox, M.W. (1997) . Eating with Conscience: The Bioethics of Food. Troutdale, Or: Newsage Press.
Gore, A. (1992) . Earth in the Balance. New York, NY: Plume
Kirby, C. (1997) . Biodiversity, Soil, and Ecologically Sustainable Development. Australian Environmental On-Line.
Available E-mail:
http://kaos.erin.gov.au/portfolio/esd/biodiv/articles/soil.html
Nebel, B.J. & Wright, R.T. (1981-1998). Environmental Science (Sixth Edition). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Tate, R.L. (1995) Soil Microbiology. New York, NY: John Wiley & Son, Inc.
Tibbetts, John. "Environmental Health Perspectives." January 2006. Louisiana-A lesson in Nature Appreciation Vol. 114, Number 1. 4 December 2010 .
“The Earth is 4.6 billion years old. Scaling to 46 years, human have been here 4 hours, the industrial revolution began 1 minute ago, and in that time, we’ve destroyed more than half the world’s forests.” - Unknown. One major environmental problem in our world is deforestation - what is that, you ask? According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, deforestation is the action or process of clearing of forests. Some consequences of this include a large contribution to global warming and climate change (about 1.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year), loss of biodiversity especially in tropical rainforests, and the extinction of many known or yet to be discovered species. But, through some Debt-for-Nature Swaps, leaving forests
Wright, R. T., & Boorse, D. F. (2011). Environmental science: Toward a sustainable future (11th ed., pp. 349-369). Boston: Benjamin Cummings.
Seideman, D. (1993). Out of the Woods: Vol. . A Forest of Voices (2nd ed.) [Conversations in Ecology].Mayfield.
Gonzalez, Julina Roel. ""The Philosophy of Food," Edited by David M. Kaplan." Ed. Michael Goldman. Teaching Philosophy 36.2 (2013): 181-82. Print.
Deforestation is a widely used term, but one with different meanings. Disturbance deforestation refers to all man made disturbances that alter a forest, these are the most common. This argumentative essay discusses the positive and negative aspects of deforestation. In the first part of the essay the pro arguments of deforestation will be discussed. For example, the issue of Global population and how forests are being used, land use and the ways forests contribute, wood use, forest growth, destruction and the reasons for cutting down the trees. The second half of the essay will cover the issues that are harmful to the environment because of deforestation. Many environmental issues take place everyday; a big question that arises, is if the global economy will ever finds middle on the issue of forest thinning. If deforestation was used only in the most crucial of times, the world might become a better place.
Raven, Peter H., Linda R. Berg, and David M. Hassenzahl. "Wiley: Environment, 6th Edition." Wiley: Home. Web. 05 Feb. 2012. .
Withgott, J., & Laposata, M. (2012). Essential environment: The science behind the stories. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Withgott, J., & Brennan, S. (2011). Environment: the science behind the stories (4th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Pearson Benjamin Cummings.
Rachels, J. (2013). The Moral Argument for Vegetarianism. In L. Vaughn, Contemporary Moral Arguments - Readings in Ethical Issues Second Edition (pp. 617-622). New York: Oxford University Press.
There are problems Nigerians are facing when it comes to soil degradation. The country is striving to come out from this problem, but the lack of education at an increase mong its working class and farmers have not allowed it to fight a good fight against soil degradation. Today, many lands are no longer useful for agriculture or pastoral activities. This also affects the revenue the government generates from exportation of cash crops and animals. This growing soil degradation also affects industrialised farmers. This is causing many Nigerians to go out business or loss their job. On a general term, here is some the effects of soil degradation in Nigeria.
Agriculture also leads to soil erosion, both through rainfall and wind. This soil can damage the aquatic ecosystems it ends up in, an...
Scientists themselves are just beginning to understand the serious problems caused by deforestation. Deforestation occurs all over the world by all types of people. Peasant farmers even add to the problem because in most tropical countries the farmers are very poor only making between eight hundred and fifty four hundred dollars annually (NASA Facts). Therefore, they do not have enough money to buy what they need to live therefore they must farm to raise crops for food and to sell. In these poor countries the majority of people are peasant farmers this farming adds up to a great deal of deforestation. These farmers chop down a small area of trees for there plot to farm on and burn the tree trunks (NASA Facts). The combined number of farmers maintaining this process creates a great deal of clearing and burning of the land they need to cultivate, which results in land being treeless. Commercial logging is also another common form of deforestation. This commercial logging wipes out massive amounts of land sometimes deforesting several miles at...
Soil is the most important non-renewable resource on any farm. Healthy soil is key to a good
People have been deforesting the Earth for thousands of years, primarily to clear land for crops or livestock. Although tropical forests are largely confined to developing countries, they aren’t just meeting local or national needs; economic globalization means that the needs and wants of the global population are bearing down on them as well. Direct causes of deforestation are agricultural expansion, wood extraction (e.g., logging or wood harvest for domestic fuel or charcoal), and infrastructure expansion such as road building and urbanization. Rarely is there a single direct cause for deforestation. Most often, multiple processes work simultaneously or sequentially to cause deforestation.