In recent decades, public awareness has been growing around the topic of climate change and its adverse effect on our lives. The impacts of human activities on the natural world is becoming harder and harder to ignore. Pollution, loss of diversity, severe land degradation extreme weather events, soaring temperatures, potential threats to the global food supply, rapidly dwindling harvests, and other effects are increasingly concerning for billions of people around the globe.
However, there is one elephant in the room, one potential problem and simultaneous cause for optimism, that the world has failed to see: Soil. Soil is the world’s largest carbon sink and thus could be a powerful solution for storing excess carbon in the atmosphere. If soil is kept healthy, it could also store enough water to reduce the need for irrigation in agriculture, thus leading to better overall water conservation. Additionally, if soil is kept rich in organic content, use of fertilizers could be reduced, resulting in less pollution in rivers and waterways.
The Save Soil movement is a global movement that was launched by Sadhguru to bring the world together, including the leaders to institute national policies to increase and maintain the organic content in the cultivable soil. In this video, Sadhguru talks about how this movement took birth and what it took to move 3.91 billion people in 100 days!
Early in the Save Soil movement, discussing the importance of this movement and plans for his monumental, March 2022 motorcycle ride to raise awareness for the cause, Sadhguru explained: “Well in the last year and a half, we’ve formed another platform called Conscious Planet. So as a part of Conscious Planet, one thing is, how to rejuvenate this soil. First of all, in the last 50 years time over 40% of the top soil is gone. UNCCD has said that we have soil only for another 80 to 100 crops. So in 50 years time, max, there will be a serious food crisis. So in 75 days we will do a rally which is mainly to create a poignant story to change the narrative in the world towards soil because soil is the most precious thing we have and it’s in a most dangerous condition right now.”
“This rally will start from London through 23 Nations to Delhi in 75 days. Lone motorcycle, nobody else. You think I’ll survive 30,000 km? Let’s see. 30,000 km is not a joy ride anymore. It’s serious work. I’m willing to stick my neck out. Not just my neck, my all out. Whatever it costs because this needs to be done as a generation of people. Another 15 years if you don’t do anything, then turning it around is going to be a serious serious challenge. ‘Speed crushes time and space,’ this is a quote. But speed can crush your bones if you don’t do it right. We may not do perfect things but we’ll do the right things. Will it work? It’ll work.”
“The word human comes from the word humus. Ecological issues must become election issues. Governments must be elected for their concern for ecological issues. Unless people say this is what they want, that is not going to happen so let’s create a conscious planet. We are talking about soil extinction. That’s where we are going. That’s not the world we want to leave behind for our children. So please, for this 100 days, keep yourself alive 5 to 10 minutes of your time could save the world. That’s what it means. We want to make at least 3 to 3.5 billion people conscious that there is a threat to the soil and something needs to happen.”
Reflecting on the Save Soil movement and its effects after his monumental motorcycle ride, Sadhguru says: “It’s very important that we understand Global momentum to cause that, it takes a certain strategy and well, I use the word drama because I had to do little drama, dangerous drama, very dangerous drama. So when I said I’m going to ride, at the age of 65, I’m going to ride from London to Cauvery 30,000 km on a motorcycle. And I also on the way not just riding, I did 691 events along the way. It’s suicide. So by 13th/14th day, all these millions of volunteers and supporters who are there all over the place, who are like cicadas sleeping, by 13th/14th days, slowly all the cicadas woke up and they made the noise. And managed to touch 3.91 billion people in 100 days.”
“Now at the beginning of 2022 in January, they had the COP26 in Glasgow. The word ‘soil’ was not even mentioned, this is what people who are there told me. Today, in COP28, in less than 20 months, now it’s become the center piece. Now, the UNCCD put up a title for one of the events saying ‘Soil the Superstar.’ The soil has become the Superstar suddenly and the UNCCD COP which is COP16 happening in Riyad, they want soil to be the centerpiece. Usually for these kind of Affairs, European Union is always the model. So they have declared, Soil regeneration is an important part of climate mitigation, which is never said before. So we have managed to move the focus from oil to soil. This is the achievement of Save Soil movement and it’s a great thing but still action needs to happen. It’s not enough just getting attention. Let’s make it happen.”
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