Wednesday, 9 November 2005 - 8:15 AM
260-2

SOIL and DIRT - - Enigmatic Acronyms?.

Thomas Fenton, Iowa State Univeristy, Ames, IA 50011 and Richard Arnold, USDA-NRCS (retired), 9311 Coronado Terrace, Fairfax, VA 22031-3835.

These words convey powerful messages.. A global revolution, a major course of change, is underway – sustainability. People resist change. People do not like to hear that: (1) since 1980 the “ecological footprint of humanity” has exceeded the carrying capacity of the Earth; (2) individualism and shortsightedness are the greatest problems of the current social system and a root cause of unsustainability; and (3) the world's leaders do not know any better than anyone else how to bring about a sustainable society. An ecological footprint is the land required to provide the resources and absorb the wastes of the global society. As individuals, we have ‘parent materials' as capable of developing essential interpersonal skills as technological aptitudes, so why isn't soil science making a bigger impact? Stop – look – listen. A simple message is carried by the word SOIL: Share Our Intellectual Legacies. There are tremendous opportunities to heed ‘soil' if we obtain the right balance of thinking, learning, and teaching. To fulfill the mission of helping people understand soils, DIRT also has a message. “Design Intelligent Rational Techniques” to address the wide-ranging issues associated with local and global sustainability. DIRT has a further admonition – “Develop Innovative Revolutionary Tactics”. A rallying cry to action! The revolution's tactics will require some interpersonal tools we don't yet know how to use effectively. They include: visioning, networking, truth-telling, learning, and loving. Educating a new generation of soil scientists? If we get hung up on SOIL and cannot operate in a world with DIRT, our attitudes could make us unsustainable. Instead, let us begin to “Do It Right Today”.

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