World Environment Day wake-up call: Save soil

About 95 per cent of life on the planet depends on soil, but right now the United Nations agencies are saying the planet has agricultural soil for only another eighty to hundred years read more
Today, for the first time in humanity's history, we have to talk about protecting this planet which has nourished thousands of generations of human beings. In the last fifty years, 73 per cent of the vertebrate population and 80 per cent of the insect biomass on the planet has been wiped out. The way we are living, it is like we are planning to be the last generation on this planet.
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People believe that their life will be wonderful if the stock market soars. No, our life will be wonderful if we have nutritious food, clean water and pure air. For all this, we need a rich ecosystem. But approximately 27,000 species on the planet are going extinct every year.
The most fundamental ecological issue of all is soil extinction. About 95 per cent of life on the planet depends on soil, but right now the United Nations agencies are saying the planet has agricultural soil for only another eighty to hundred years! We are treating soil as an inert substance. But soil is a living system — the largest living system we know in this universe. A handful of soil in a tropical country has 5-7 billion organisms. Without their activity, we cannot exist.
People think plants take nourishment from the soil. No! Without the agency of microorganisms, plants cannot absorb any nourishment from soil. Right now, those agencies have become very weak because the volume of microorganisms has gone down. If the soil is weak, the plant will be weak. If the plant is weak, what makes you think you have not become weak?
Once there is not enough strength in the soil, vital micronutrients are no longer present in the food you eat. A study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States says that all Americans are potassium deficient. About 90 per cent are deficient in vitamin E, 70 per cent in vitamin K, 45 per cent in magnesium, 43 per cent in vitamin A, and 39 per cent in vitamin C. And this is in the most affluent nation! This simply means that even if you eat enough food, it does not have sufficient nutrients because soil has no life left in it.
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There is substantial evidence today to show that mental health conditions are directly related to lack of micronutrients. As microbial life disappears, remaining psychologically stable is going to be a big challenge — that means our 'software' will start collapsing. If microbial species loss continues, even our 'hardware' will start collapsing over 25 to 40 years.
This is why we launched a massive movement across the world called Conscious Planet – Save Soil to bring about a global policy that there must be a minimum of 3-6 per cent organic matter in agricultural land, based on regional conditions. The movement reached over 4.1 billion people. Now the world's attention has been successfully turned to soil and I am very sure soil policies will be implemented. But we must understand that the damage to soil happened over a century; we cannot fix it overnight.
High time for humans to take care of the environment
The first signs of the human software beginning to collapse are already visible. Just a few decades ago, mental health problems were something that happened to someone else. But today, either someone you know is going through it or you yourself might be going through it. In the United States, the Surgeon General is saying one out of two people is lonely. This is not just in the United States. It is starting to happen across the world. Once loneliness happens, it is the incubation period for psychological illnesses.
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To address this, in February 2025, we launched the Miracle of Mind app, which offers a simple seven-minute meditative process that can be practiced anywhere to bring a sense of peace, joy, and exuberance into one's life.
It is high time we understand that this idea of individual life is a stupid idea. It is the magnanimity of creation that it has given us an individual experience, but life is happening as one big phenomenon. Once you break one part of it, every other part will be affected. This World Environment Day is the right occasion to remind ourselves of this. We as a generation of people have taken the largest bite from the planet. This is the time for us to rise and take corrective action for ourselves and the wellbeing of coming generations.
Yogi, Mystic and Visionary, Sadhguru is among the most influential of our times. A New York Times bestselling author, Sadhguru helps shape global policies and ideas. He is the only living Indian to have received three Presidential Awards from three different Presidents, among which is India's highest annual civilian award, the Padma Vibhushan and India's highest environmental award, the Indira Gandhi Paryavaran Puraskar. As part of the Conscious Planet initiative, he has launched the Save Soil movement, which has so far reached over 4.1 billion people, and the Miracle of Mind app, with the aim of empowering 3 billion people with tools for mental wellbeing. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost's views.
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