The Soil And Health

Taking our food system back is an act of revolution. Restoring the feminine is an act of sacred responsibility. Returning to the cycles of nature is an act of love. Grounding into the soil is an act of hope.

Soil is a complex system of inorganic and organic materials, living organisms, water, and air. It is home to more than one trillion species of microorganisms. Soil also plays an important role in the global carbon cycle. Because plants absorb carbon from the atmosphere, convert it to plant tissue, and return it to the soil as plant residue, soils globally act as the world’s largest sink of active carbon. Soil has role to play in food production and safety. Soil contamination undermined by modern agricultural practices that deplete soil carbon stocks. Anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have been raising recorded temperatures since the Industrial Revolution. Greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, forestry, and fisheries have almost doubled in the last 50 years and will increase by 30% by 2050 given the current trend. The primacy of arresting climate change is nowhere more evident than the adoption of 195 countries of the first legally binding global climate deal at the Paris Climate Conference in 2015. With atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) reaching 400 parts per million in 2016, soils can be an ally in bringing the CO2 level down to a sustainable level if protected for regeneration. Soil protection and regeneration is a technique that involves the conservative rehabilitation of soil ecosystem and farmland.

This volume discusses environmental effects on human health. It examines heavy metal pollution, biological effects of arsenic (on reproductive health, especially), effects of soil organic carbon, chemical pollution of drinking water, climate change and vector-borne diseases, marine fuels, particulate matter, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).