Doomsday has already begun, and you'll never guess why

Soil. That's it.

Hello fellow tin foil hat enthusiasts, now it's time to challenge you...what will kill humanity? Climate change? A meteor strike? nuclear war? A celebrity wedding broadcast that replaces the Superbowl? The last one is the most frightening to many.

I've dug up some dirt, which is hard to come by, beacuase there is literally not enough. Soil is formed by the decomposition of foliage AKA fallen leaves, now what happens when you take away a tree? No soil, no more trees, trees self sustain themselves, given the foilage, other species can survive extreme conditions, so I hope your grandchildren like eating cacti.

The recent idiocy in the Amazon will prove my point in time, unless something is done, we need trees for soil to create more trees and more soil means food for crops, photosynthesis needs a helping hand, no soil no crops.

So the next time you mow your lawn or trim the hedges, don't throw away the clippings, leave them be because as one scientist once said "we are four inches away from extinction"

This is just a PSA letting you know there is another global catastrophe to worry about.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

Our own stupidity more than lightly.

Or quite possibly the technological singularity that approaches.

It's not death or extinction as such all the same if we manage to spawn Humanity 2.0.

Given the fact that we refuse to learn from one generation to the next, and seem doomed to repeat our past historical transgressions time after time, transcending/upgrading our biological bodies might not a bad thing.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

Very Composed . Great Thread Sir !

Very composted

but why lawns, America?? sheesh.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie
Proper nutrient replenishment is the number one roadblock most people have when they say "i am terrible at gardening/growing plants!"

Light and water are easy enough. Just position your crop in the right part of your property for the correct light levels needed. Most fruit/vegetables like full sun, so thats easy enough.

Watering for the most part is also very similar. Water until wet, do not water again until you feel dry Earth about an inch into soil with your finger.

But nutrient levels, thats a factor most people forget about. I compost all my kitchen scraps, including dairy.
I have better success than my neighbors at my home garden/farm.

Compare my little strip of land to my neighbors? My earth is much darker, damper, and has a naturally more lush appearance. And its a tiny strip in the city. I compost, always have. I bury stuff in a grid pattern all over, and just move to another chunk when I fill it in. Water it all and turn it with hoe and claw every so often for proper decomposition.

Its really fulfilling actually. Feels great getting my hands in the Earth. More humans in cities should adapt this as second nature, I know I have.

I rotate seasonally. So where my current crops reach end of season, I just flip to the side I have been composting on, and then begin composting over the parts where the old crops were. Rinse and repeat, year after year.

Seriously considering moving to the MidWest to become a farmer, I absolutely love it.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

...what will kill humanity?

Apathy!!!

WOQ

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

Indeed, the microorganisms that eat that leaf litter and crap it back out as humus are literally the building blocks of life, not only is removing trees killing them but so are pesticides, it's a race to the bottom unfortunately.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

Plant a tree.
Always.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

If you want to take it to that level, then do not pull dandelions either. The roots can grow upto something like 10 feet into the ground and pull up nutrients to the surface.

You realize that for hundreds of years the rainforest was cleared off by Indians and farmed?Their cities are being found by Lidar buried by jungles.At the same time Europe's forests had mostly been cleared as well.a reply to: Thecakeisalie

a reply to: ridgerunner
The thing is, Earth always reclaims its land. This theory that us human will destroy our own planet is silly. All we will do is make it too uncomfortable for ourselves, or at least those that require climate control and machines/computers to feel happy. To the point where many will perish, and then Earth will do what it always has. Take the land back.

Those who manage to live in balance with the planet will simply inherit the paradise. Until we progress once again to do it all over again.

One of my hobbies is to try and germinate every avocado I eat lol!

I got six plants going now. Two at my house, one big one at my parents. The other three I planted during rainy season at a major local park. Two seasons deep they are, our climate handles it fine. Hopefully my grandkids will enjoy the fruits of my labor

originally posted by: Thecakeisalie
Hello fellow tin foil hat enthusiasts, now it's time to challenge you...what will kill humanity? Climate change? A meteor strike? nuclear war?

Circular Elegance. If the Bee's die we die.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

A third of Earth's top soil is already destroyed because of intensive agricultural practices. It isn't going to be one single event that is going to destroy the planet but a combination of all of the above.

originally posted by: MonkeyFishFrog
a reply to: Thecakeisalie

A third of Earth's top soil is already destroyed because of intensive agricultural practices. It isn't going to be one single event that is going to destroy the planet but a combination of all of the above.

We won't destroy the planet, the planet will be fine, it's us people that are in danger.

The soil in my hard wood swamp is literally alive. From tiny one celled fungus, algae and bacteria, to large moles about 6 inches long. It is generally about 4 inches of top soil over a find sand topped with a thin layer of dead leaves.

It is so full of bugs, worms, salamanders, toads, frogs, snakes, mice, voles, moles and other burrowing critters that it is soft and spongy everywhere except the main lawn and driveway. It is so full of fungus, that when I dropped a wooden clothes pin on the ground, a week latter is was rotted. Mostly it's the fungus breaking down the wood, with leaf worms, millipedes, and other insects in the leaf litter helping to decomposing that. Then there are the leaves, sticks and other material that fall into the swamp and turns to soil by a whole other host of plants and animals.

But it is a wooded swamp with deciduous trees a major feature. There are coniferous forests along with bogs, prairies, and fields with mixed grasses, all of which produce organic material that turn into soil. Also, animals contribute with decaying corpses and dung of course. Don't forget that rivers, ponds and lakes all contribute to the composition of soil as well.

Without trees, we would be in trouble for a whole host of reasons, but soil is a complex subject and the factors involved are dependent on the particular environment. It is rather narrow minded to think that trees are the only thing contributing to the production of new soil. Actually, for being a swampy forest for the past 10,000 years or so, 4 inches of topsoil isn't much from all those fallen leaves, branches and trees. In Michigan, the prairie lands historically had deeper and richer soil than the woods back during the logging era in the 1800s.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

I seem to remember a story about an elderly man in southern France over a century ago whom was walking around with a stick poking holes in the ground and dropping acorn's and other tree seed's into them, apparently the whole region had suffered a massive climate change resulting in prolonged draught and flash flooding after deforestation by the people for farming, grazing and wood and it had been the result of the removal of the trees, after his sapling's reclaimed the land the climate went back to being as it had once before.

Ahh I think that particular tale was an allegorical one but still a good one as the internet seam's to believe it was from a work of fiction in the 1950's, even if so it was far sighted and very good.


The Amazon is irreplaceable, the farmers burn the tree's and then get one or two usable crop's after which the land is no longer fit for anything since actually under the top layer the ground there is very poor, even grazing need's fresh land so the farmers are forced to burn more and more tree's to reveal more and more fresh and fertile - if only for a while - soil that they and there animal's can exploit.

We have two main sources of the oxygen we breath in the world, the Forests are the secondary source but are extremely important for the water cycle and weather control over region's - expect the Amazon to be a semi arid desert in the future once the tree's are gone because that is what I believe it will become.
The other is of course our plankton in the ocean's (the real lung's of the world) which is also under severe threat as big pharma crap flood's off the ground in third and first world nations into there rivers and into the sea were it is causing the eco system to collapse - all part of the plan don't you know so they can charge you for the air you breath.

As for Soil, Monsanto/Bayer etc are involved in a deliberate soil sterilization scam forcing farmers to buy there GM seed that will only grow if they also buy and use the toxic - to everything else including us and especially the soil - Pesticides and fertilizers, this both leads to the loss of heritage variety's (seed's that the farmers have used for generation's which are naturally adapted to there environment and are irreplaceable once gone) and also kill's the soil ensuring that nothing else will then grow in that ground,. This crap then washes out into the Ocean killing life in the sea especially phytoplankton's etc (which are even more important to the air we breath than the forests are).

Maybe the ancient people were faced with a similar problem but may also have developed a solution. There's evidence that suggests that these people experimented with different soil types and managed to develop a very potent and stable soil called "Terra Preta" (wiki). We can fix it if we really wanted to.

Another thing about soil...to make most of it productive, you have to add fertilizer. Now, in most people's minds this might call up the image of bovine excrement (literally) or the like, but what is really going into fertilizers these days is OIL. Most fertilizer is derived from fossil fuels, and in fact has become "addicted" to it: Even in "breadbasket" areas like Ukraine or the Midwestern USA, if you remove the fertilizer the soil is no longer capable of producing bumper crops. One farmer once famously (or infamously, if you like) described the US midwest soil as "a sponge for oil." Without oil, he went on, you would have a loose collection of near-sand-and-gravel with lots of airpockets, like little bubbles. Not exactly the most productive material for growing corn, soy, or anything else for that matter.

Now, people these days don't worry as much about oil shortages as they did even a decade ago, and maybe it's not such a big matter of concern after all. But its worth keeping in mind that if you take away the oil, you take away more than gasoline in SUV tanks...you take away basic agricultural productivity in most of the world. This may not be a emergency per se, but it doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

Ironically, the entire reason they're burning the Amazon is to restore Nitrogen to soil the rain forest occupies that is otherwise too nitrogen poor and nutrient weak to grow anything but the native canopy trees and plants. This isn't commercially fertile soil we're talking about.

a reply to: Thecakeisalie

Soil is very unappreciated. It is also super interesting when you get into all the fungi networks and microbial systems that come into play with making proper soil.

We compost as much as possible here. It's painfully difficult to get good topsoil in my area. We live in a pine forest with mixed hardwoods, but the soil/substrate is sand.
The pine needles are a pain in the you know what to deal with. And we literally have tons..

Our most effective way to turn them into soil has been to add as much grass clippings/leaves and plant matter(kitchen/garden scraps) and a lot of lime. We have rabbits for fertilizer makers so that gets added, as well as our woodfurnace ashes.

Pitchfork it 4-5 times a year while its cooking, and don't disturb it in winter.

It's been hard to find the right combination, but 4 years later we are finally making good soil.

Experimenting with hugel mounds is also something we've just started this year. We had firewood chunks that weren't splitable or just sat too long, so that became the base for our hugel mound berm.

The long term plan is for the berm to be a living fence/property line that is mostly raspberries, BlackBerries, blueberries.

We like the wildlife, and our privacy.