by Dennis McNair, PhD
The national news tells us to expect more named hurricanes and tropical storms in the next year, at least in part because of human caused global warming. We’re spending billions of dollars to develop technologies that will remove carbon-containing greenhouse gases from the air to reverse climate change. Meanwhile, in the soil, nearly microscopic, and highly beneficial, mites (related to spiders and ticks but not harmful) and springtails (once classified with insects and still closely related) are struggling to sequester carbon in the soil, as they have for millions of years.
Human-caused higher soil temperatures, lower moisture, and pollutants of various types are killing them off before we even get to know who they are. Humans have a long and disastrous history of destroying the webs of natural processes that sustain us while we maximize our short-term profits. We’ve just begun to identify the immense variety of species of invertebrate animals that keep us alive, not to mention the conditions that sustain them. Soil, which has historically been treated as inert, is actually a highly specialized medium that should be viewed as a living ecosystem. Its inorganic scaffolding is largely negligible compared to the living fungi, bacteria, insects, arachnids, etc. that interact and participate in the recycling of nutrients required for us and other large beings to survive.
Carbon-containing gases trap heat in the atmosphere, heating up the earth’s surface. As soil warms, the tiny organisms in it do too, and they eventually die. The moisture in soil is depleted at higher temperatures and that makes recovery from the increased heat less likely. When mites and springtails die, they stop breaking down organic debris (leaves, stems, and other dead plant and animal parts). That breakdown ultimately releases inorganic nutrients, such as phosphorus, potassium, and nitrogen, in forms needed for growth by larger plants that we eat or enjoy.
Mites and springtails are also extremely susceptible to pesticides and pollutants with which we saturate soil, intentionally or inadvertently. Add those poisons to higher temperatures and lack of moisture, and the scene is set for nonproductive soil. To compensate, we add fertilizers and pesticides, at great expense, as we kill off the organisms that provide those services naturally, for free.
I’m not advocating for untended yards and gardens. Still, it seems silly, to me, to continue destroying natural systems through ignorance and neglect, when a little foresight and patience could maintain the highly evolved, integrated systems that have sustained Earth’s abundance for millennia. We can use our remarkable human intelligence to sustain the standard of living to which we’ve become accustomed, instead of destroying the living systems that keep us alive, while simultaneously increasing our understanding of nature.
It seems abundantly clear to me which route we must take. We need to stop killing organisms that replenish our soil before we even know who they are and understand what they accomplish.
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