James Martin lists these sad numbers:
Every year, because of our misuse of the Earth’s resources, we lose 100 million acres of farmland and 24 billion tons of topsoil, and we create 15 million acres of new desert around the world. An inch of good topsoil can take a thousand years to form, but when people destroy windbreaks by cutting down trees, the topsoil can be washed or blown away in months.
(From The Meaning of the 21st Century: A Vital Blueprint for Ensuring Our Future, by James Martin. Berkley Publishing Group, 2007. We Sauntered upon it not there but on page 19 of Global Climate Change and the Road to Extinction: The Legal and Planning Response, by James A. Kushner. Carolina Academic Press. 2009.)
For a brief biography of James Martin, click here. For information on the James Martin 21st-Century School at the University of Oxford, click here. For a brief biography of James A. Kushner, click here.
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