U.S. corn belt experiencing rapidly depleting topsoil
The Environmental Working Group (EWG) reports that Iowa farms are rapidly losing topsoil, up to 12 times faster than government estimates. Their report is based on data accumulated by Iowa State University (ISU), whose methods provide an unprecedented degree of precision in monitoring soil erosion.
EWG provided additional data in their report based on aerial surveys they conducted over the affected regions, along with information gathered from interviews with Corn Belt experts, that indicate soil erosion and polluted runoff are likely far worse than even the disturbing ISU numbers suggest.
“What is happening on Iowa farm fields is shocking but goes largely unnoticed,” said Craig Cox, who manages EWG’s agriculture programs from its Ames, Iowa office. Cox is the lead author of Losing Ground.
“We’ve grown complacent thinking we have the soil erosion problem under control, but instead it looks as if we are losing ground in our decades-old fight against this most fundamental and damaging problem in agriculture,” Cox said.
See the full report here: “Losing Ground” by Environmental Working Group
EarthTalk: Soil depletion and nutrition loss; and is it too late for the polar bears?
Dear EarthTalk: What’s the nutritional difference between the carrot I ate in 1970 and one I eat today? I’ve heard that that there’s very little nutrition left. Is that true?
– Esther G., Newark, NJ
It would be overkill to say that the carrot you eat today has very little nutrition in it—especially compared to some of the other less healthy foods you likely also eat—but it is true that fruits and vegetables grown decades ago were much richer in vitamins and minerals than the varieties most of us get today. The main culprit in this disturbing nutritional trend is soil depletion: Modern intensive agricultural methods have stripped increasing amounts of nutrients from the soil in which the food we eat grows. Sadly, each successive generation of fast-growing, pest-resistant carrot is truly less good for you than the one before.
Although fruits and vegetables are still
our best source of nutrients, those
grown decades ago were much richer
in vitamins and minerals than the
varieties most of us get today. The
main culprit in this disturbing
nutritional trend is soil depletion.
Photo credit: Martin Poole, Digital
Vision/Thinkstock
A landmark study on the topic by Donald Davis and his team of researchers from the University of Texas (UT) at Austin’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry was published in December 2004 in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. They studied U.S. Department of Agriculture nutritional data from both 1950 and 1999 for 43 different vegetables and fruits, finding “reliable declines” in the amount of protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin (vitamin B2) and vitamin C over the past half century. Davis and his colleagues chalk up this declining nutritional content to the preponderance of agricultural practices designed to improve traits (size, growth rate, pest resistance) other than nutrition.
“Efforts to breed new varieties of crops that provide greater yield, pest resistance and climate adaptability have allowed crops to grow bigger and more rapidly,” reported Davis, “but their ability to manufacture or uptake nutrients has not kept pace with their rapid growth.” There have likely been declines in other nutrients, too, he said, such as magnesium, zinc and vitamins B-6 and E, but they were not studied in 1950 and more research is needed to find out how much less we are getting of these key vitamins and minerals.
The Organic Consumers Association cites several other studies with similar findings: A Kushi Institute analysis of nutrient data from 1975 to 1997 found that average calcium levels in 12 fresh vegetables dropped 27 percent; iron levels 37 percent; vitamin A levels 21 percent, and vitamin C levels 30 percent. A similar study of British nutrient data from 1930 to 1980, published in the British Food Journal, found that in 20 vegetables the average calcium content had declined 19 percent; iron 22 percent; and potassium 14 percent. Yet another study concluded that one would have to eat eight oranges today to derive the same amount of Vitamin A as our grandparents would have gotten from one.
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EarthTalk: Toxic ingredients in cleaning products; getting rid of fast-spreading non-native reeds without chemicals
– Patricia Greenville, Bethel, CT
Since cleaning products aren’t food, beverages or drugs meant to be ingested, they aren’t regulated, per se, by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. However, makers are required by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to list ingredients that are active disinfectants or potentially harmful. Otherwise, they usually keep their other ingredients secret, presumably so competitors can’t copy their formulas.
The government only requires companies to
list “chemicals of known concern” on their
labels. And the operative word is “known,”
because the government has no idea
whether most of the chemicals used in
everyday cleaning products are safe because
it doesn’t test them, and it doesn’t require
manufacturers to test them either.
Photo credit: Digital Vision,
courtesy Thinkstock
But consumer advocate Sloan Barnett, author of “Green Goes with Everything,” doesn’t give manufacturers the benefit of that doubt. “Call me suspicious, but I honestly don’t think it’s because the recipe is top secret,” she says. “If it was, there wouldn’t be so many competing products with identical ingredients.” Barnett thinks manufacturers don’t want to scare off consumers by disclosing how many potentially harmful chemicals are flying under the EPA’s radar in their products.
“The government only requires companies to list ‘chemicals of known concern’ on their labels. The key word here is ‘known’,” she says. “The fact is that the government has no idea whether most of the chemicals used in everyday cleaning products are safe because it doesn’t test them, and it doesn’t require manufacturers to test them either.”
She adds that the EPA, under the terms of 1976’s Toxic Substances Control Act, “can’t require chemical companies to prove the safety of their products unless the agency itself can show that the product poses a health risk—which the EPA does not have the resources to do since, according to one estimate, it receives some two thousand new applications for approval every year.” She cites a recent study by the non-profit Environmental Working Group, which found that the EPA approved most applications within three weeks even though more than half provided no information on toxicity whatsoever.
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EarthTalk: The right to clean and fresh water; and can Japan do without nuclear energy?
– Matthew Polk, Gary, IN
In July 2010 the United Nations (UN) agreed to a new resolution declaring the human right to “safe and clean drinking water and sanitation.” One hundred twenty-two nations voted in favor of the resolution; 41 (primarily developed) countries abstained; and there were zero “no” votes. The agreement comes on the heels of a protracted effort on the part of Bolivia and 30 other (mostly developing) nations determined to improve access to clean water and proper sanitation systems for the poorer human residents of the planet.
A 2009 World Health Organization and
UNICEF study found that 24,000 children
in developing countries die each day
(one every three-and-a-half seconds)
from preventable causes like diarrhea
resulting from polluted water. Pictured:
An Ethiopian girl drinks water from a
newly-installed hand pump.
Photo credit: water.org, courtesy Flickr
Bolivia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Pablo Solon, cheered passage of the resolution that he had campaigned hard for, and stressed the need to recognize access to safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right as global supplies of fresh water get fewer and farther between. “Approximately one out of every eight people does not have drinking water,” Solon told reporters. “In just one day, more than 200 million hours of the time used by women is spent collecting and transporting water for their homes.” According to the declaration, approximately 884 million people lack access to safe drinking water.
“The lack of sanitation is even worse, because it affects 2.6 billion people [or] 40 percent of the global population,” Solon said, citing a 2009 World Health Organization and UNICEF study which found some 24,000 children in developing countries were dying each day from preventable causes like diarrhea resulting from polluted water. “This means that a child dies every three-and-a-half seconds,” added Solon.
The resolution itself carries no regulatory weight, but backers view it as important to raising awareness of the problem and engendering support for solutions. “We are calling for actions…in communities around the world to ensure that the rights to water and sanitation are implemented,” said Anil Naidoo of the Council of Canadians, a group that has been crucial in the international struggle for the right to clean water. “Governments, aid agencies and the UN must take their responsibilities seriously,” he added.
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Scientists warn that Earth is on the brink of sixth mass extinction
“Earth’s warming climate is contributing to an infection responsible
for tropical frog extinctions.
Credit: Nicolle Rager Fuller, National Science Foundation
Due to the projected steep and rapid decline of many animal species, say biologists at the University of California at Berkeley, Earth appears to be on the brink of a massive die-off, following the same patterns as five massive extinctions that have occurred in the past 540 million years.
“If you look only at the critically endangered mammals–those where the risk of extinction is at least 50 percent within three of their generations–and assume that their time will run out and they will be extinct in 1,000 years, that puts us clearly outside any range of normal and tells us that we are moving into the mass extinction realm,” said Anthony Barnosky, an integrative biologist, curator in the university’s Museum of Paleontology and research paleontologist in its Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, and first author of the paper published in the journal Nature.
“A modern global mass extinction is a largely unaddressed hazard of climate change and human activities,” said H. Richard Lane, program director in the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the research.
“Its continued progression, as this paper shows, could result in unforeseen–and irreversible–consequences to the environment and to humanity,” said Lane.
According to Barnosky, if already threatened species – specifically, those officially labeled critically endangered, endangered, and vulnerable – continue toward the path of extinction, Earth could experience the beginning of the massive die-off in as little as 3 to 22 centuries.
If habitat fragmentation, invasive species, disease and global warming were effectively dealt with, the Earth’s threatened species could be saved to the point of avoiding the crisis.
“Our findings highlight how essential it is to save critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable species,” Barnosky said.
“With them, Earth’s biodiversity remains in pretty good shape compared to the long-term biodiversity baseline.
“If most of them die, even if their disappearance is stretched out over the next 1,000 years, the sixth mass extinction will have arrived.”
EarthTalk: Saving deep ocean species; and the World Bank’s eco-legacy
– Matthew Polk, Gary, IN
Unfortunately it may already be too late for some of the deep sea’s undiscovered life forms. Advances in so-called “bottom trawling” technology in recent years has meant that fishing boats now have unprecedented access to deep ocean habitats and the sea floor itself where untold numbers of unknown species have been making a living for eons. Scientists speculate that upwards of 10 million different species may inhabit the deep sea. This is biodiversity comparable to the world’s richest tropical rainforests.
Scientists speculate that some 10 million different
species may inhabit the deep sea. Pictured: a ghostly
grenadier on the Davidson Seamount, an undersea
mountain 75 miles off the coast of Central California.
The seamount is 7,480 feet tall, yet its summit is
still 4,101 feet below the sea surface.
Photo credit: National Oceanic & Atmospheric Admin.
The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), a group of more than 50 environmental and other groups dedicated to protecting cold-water corals and vulnerable deep-sea ecosystems, reports that trawlers today are capable of fishing deep sea canyons and rough seafloors that were once avoided for fear of damaging nets. “To capture one or two target commercial species, deep-sea bottom trawl fishing vessels drag huge nets armed with steel plates and heavy rollers across the seabed, plowing up and pulverizing everything in their path,” the coalition reports. In addition, adds DSCC, large quantities of coral and unwanted fish species are hauled up only to be thrown back dead or dying. Indeed, the result of a few hours of trawling can be the destruction of fragile deep-sea habitats, such as delicate coral and sponge communities, that may have taken centuries to grow and thrive.
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EarthTalk: Pesticide use and thyroid disease; and mining and water pollution
– Dora Light, Waukesha, WI
The American Cancer Society reports that thyroid cancer is one of the few cancers that have been on the rise in recent decades, with cases increasing six percent annually since 1997. Many researchers, however, attribute these increases to our having simply gotten better at detection. Regardless, exposures to stress, radiation and pollutants have been known to increase a person’s risk of developing thyroid problems.
The nonprofit group Beyond Pesticides warns that
some 60 percent of pesticides used today have been
shown to affect the thyroid gland’s production of T3
and T4 hormones. Commercially available insecticides
and fungicides have also been implicated. Women
are most at risk.
Photo credit: Getty Images
Thyroid disease takes two primary forms. Hyperthyroidism occurs when the thyroid produces too much of the T3 and T4 hormones that regulate metabolism. This can cause a racing heart, weight loss, insomnia and other problems. In cases of hypothyroidism, the body produces too few hormones, so we feel fatigued and may gain weight, among other symptoms. According to the American Thyroid Association (ATA), many people with thyroid problems don’t realize it, as symptoms can be mistaken for other problems or attributed to lack of sleep. Thyroid problems in children can delay or impair neurological development.
Doctors are not sure why some people are prone to thyroid disease while others aren’t, but genetics has much to do with it. One recent UCLA study found that genetic background accounts for about 70 percent of the risk. However, researchers have begun to find links between increased risk of thyroid disease and exposure to certain chemicals, especially among women. “Pesticide Use and Thyroid Disease among Women in the Agricultural Health Study,” published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 2002, found that Iowa and North Carolina women married to men using such pesticides as aldrin, DDT and lindane were at much higher risk of developing thyroid disease than women in non-agricultural areas. According to Dr. Whitney S. Goldner, lead researcher on the study, 12.5 percent of the 16,500 wives evaluated developed thyroid disease compared to between one and eight percent in the general population.
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