From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: Topsoil as a commodity
Distribution: world
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 92 05:08:05 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <STEINLY.92Nov22165049@topaz.ucsc.edu> steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu writes:

 > I do believe the point is that there is not intrinsic reason
 > for this, namely in principle poor land may be made better
 > by addition of proper topsoil, as is done persistently on
 > a world wide basis.

Look, global practice is to add fertiliser, compost, earthworms, lime,
dolomite and whatever else might be appropriate to each local site to
improve its poor soil, *not* other topsoil. If anyone wants to build
up a contour, or a levee perhaps by trucking in landfill that is quite
a different proposition; it remains that dirt never has been topsoil
and never will be, however long you wish to argue the pitch and toss
about it.

If any of you would care to actually do some basic homework on the
topic you will very quickly discover that good topsoil is in ever
diminishing supply just about everywhere you care to look. Nobody
anywhere can possibly afford to be digging up what remains of it and
trucking it off to somewhere else in the vain hope that the poor land
there might be improved.

I suggest rather that one might well ask why that land has become poor,
before dumping good topsoil on it with the probable outcome of *both*
sites becoming impoverished.

 >                      The issue is whether such activity is best
 > left to geology, weather and rivers, or whether we might
 > take active part...

We had better take an active part; geology, weather and rivers leach
trace elements and nutrients from topsoil and erode it away. It is
living things which strive to reverse that process and thereby create
for themselves a sustainable niche by bringing in such nutrients and
by recycling their own biproducts back into their local environment.
That very same process is absolutely certainly what humans as a species
depend upon for their own survival, in case you have not yet come to
terms with that order of reality.

Why don't you go outside and have a look at an earthworm occasionally,
and get a grip on what it is trying to achieve while you sit there with
your head in the clouds expecting to be supplied food by somebody else?
That particular little beastie is among the best friends you will ever
have, fellow.

 > Gil, do you approach all cultures you interact with with the same
 > bluster as you have the Net? 

No, only the US "culture" (description taken from supportive mail to
me on this very same topic) in endeavouring to cope with the bluster
coming from that particular corner of the Internet. Other cultures
are polite and well mannered, exhibiting a degree of respect for the
different opinions and a coherent discourse in reply yet to be found
among the so-called "free speaking" American contingent to this world
forum.

 > Maybe it is time to add some history of the Net to Required Reading
 > For Newbies (as if a definitive one could ever be agreed on...).
 > A little research however, might show you Gil that Prof McCarthy is
 > probably a significant part of the reason why you can post here,
 > having put his authority behind a number of major free speach and
 > net access issues during the early days of the net. As I recall
 > Australia was one of the more persistent censors in the Good Old Days.
 > Although I suspect that Prof McCarthy had no direct hand in the 
 > opening of Oznet, I equally suspect the principles he championed
 > when the same issues were debated in the US and Canada were what
 > brought you (and many others) your access. 

Well, perhaps the good professor has since tired of championing such
virtue, and has decided instead to lend his authority to the insulting
so grievously of anyone whose opinion differs from his.

For my part in having to so constantly defend myself from attacks
only coming from the US, hysterical at the idea that I myself may be
attempting to undermine their precious "right" of "free speech", let
me repeat once more here that I simply do not regard the chatter of
people just wanting to open their mouths for no other reason than that
that is all their country may require of them, "free speech".

Chatter is chatter is chatter, whichever way you want to look at it.
What an appalling waste of such a resource that it be just handed
over to the constant chatter of people who have nothing sensible to
say! The very notion is itself an insult to our intelligence.

How about some reasonably coherent discourse among the Internet news
groups which may be of some value to the world, instead of people
having to take their refuge in private mailing lists in order to get
any sensible discussion going on matters of relevance and concern to
them?

--
Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
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