I was recently invited to a showing of the documentary film dirt! at Audubon Greenwich. My first reaction when hearing about the movie was, ‘Wow, this could possibly be the lamest movie ever made’. Then as I learned more about dirt!, I realized it had the potential to be very interesting and thought-provoking.
dirt! is a humorous, insightful and sobering look into an admittedly unsexy topic – soil. It’s something most of us never give a second thought to. Oh, but we should, because our relationship with the soil is more important than most people realize. The movie starts, and ends, with a simple yet profound statement, ”Of all the planets in the known universe, only Earth has a living, breathing skin”.
If you haven’t seen dirt! yet I encourage you to do so. To whet your appetite for this unconventional movie, here are a few interesting facts about dirt to get you thinking about this incredible resource which is quite literally right under our feet:
- It can take up to 500 years to form one inch of topsoil.
- We have lost 1/3 of our topsoil in the past 100 years.
- Industrialized farming , growing monocultures and the heavy reliance on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, is literally killing our soil.
- Dead dirt, or infertile soil, has led to the suicides of over 200,000 farmers in rural India in the past decade. Their weapon of choice? Ironically, drinking pesticides. (How is it possible this is not headline news?)
- Droughts, floods, climate change and even wars are directly related to how we are treating soil.
- 10% of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions are stored in soil.
- Scientists are testing methods of using soil to produce energy!
Note: Dirt facts taken from Audubon Magazine, June 2010 edition and www.dirtthemovie.org
I just put this on my movie list to watch. Thanks for the great tip, can’t wait to see it!
Marguerite, I think you would enjoy dirt!. It’s very well done and is one of those films that makes you laugh and cry. It’s very moving and thought-provoking.
Very insightful thoughts on a subject that most people take for granted. Thank you!
With a soil scientist for a brother-in-law, I am *never* allowed to forget about dirt! Seriously, though, I believe that as we move towards more sustainable gardening (and lifestyles in general) understanding soils will be key.
Jocelyn, I agree. Soil is a topic most gardeners never really think about but I think it will become more mainstream as its importance becomes recognized. Kind of like the benefits of using native plants, years ago only ‘fringe’ gardeners were talking about them but now even the big box stores are advertising them.