Monday, February 3, 2014

What Impact do People Have on the Geosphere?

Humans have done many things to affect the environment as a whole, but through land and soil contamination, people are not only hurting the geosphere, but collaterally hurting themselves as well. These two articles on soil pollution in China and in North Carolina are only a couple of examples of how soil contamination has harmed the geosphere and human life.


Terrence Laster

China Could Lose Millions of Hectares of Farmland to Pollution


Millions of hectares (10,000 sq. meters) of agricultural land in China could be withdrawn from production because of severe heavy-metal pollution running through rivers that are near farmland. This not only pollutes the rivers, but the surrounding soil and land making it unsafe to yield crops from. An estimated 3.3 million hectares of land have been polluted which accounts for 2% of China’s total farmland. The author credits his information to Chex Xiwen, deputy director of China’s top agricultural authority and the Central Committee of the Communist Party’s efforts to restore contaminated farmland this year, outlined in The No 1 Central Document. The source of this information is not a small party, nor one individual, giving this information a much more ominous feel seeing as to how many people it pertains to and creates a sense of urgency to immediately resolve the problem. Although this information does not pertain directly to the U.S., it is worrisome because the source of the pollution was industrial plants, pesticides, and fertilizers, all of which exist in the United States. Being able to learn from this incident abroad and taking steps to prevent it from occurring anywhere else in the world would be nice, but seeing as how industrialized businesses treat the environment as it already is, it is doubtful that steps of prevention will be taken until it is already too late. This information relates to topics we’ve discussed in class by exemplifying the effects that soil pollution and land contamination can have on an economy, and how we treat the earth. After reading this article, I find it most interesting that there was such a long response time to this incident seeing as how contaminated crops were found in early 2013. It is also interesting to see the connection between earlier course readings and how an expanding economy affected the environment which came back and affected the economy.

Abby Hammond

Soil Contamination and Possible Threats to Human Health

In 2007, Salisbury, North Carolina bought land that formerly belonged to a service station. The property had been given a clean bill of health in 1991 and again in 2007 right before the property was purchased. As the city began preparations to build a new office for the local schools, massive amounts of soil contamination were found on the property. Seven underground storage tanks were still on the land and apparently there had been seven more on the land prior to the new ones and were removed years earlier and replaced with the current ones. 3,500 tons of contaminated soil was removed which came to a price of around $500,000. The Senior Vice President of EMSL Analytical Inc. described that just by simply touching contaminated soil, it can allow chemicals to be absorbed into people’s skin and go airborne and inhaled. There have also been many cases in which people can accumulate organ damage and even cancer just from touching soil contamination. The fact that incidents like this happen so close to home and land can be just as easily overlooked and marked "safe" by some higher opinion makes me wonder what is really going on. If something like seven UST's can be buried in a random piece of land, what does that say about the land near your own home? finding storage tanks underneath your house is unlikely, but landfills, for example, are completely common. This also relates back to our discussions in class by providing a real life example of the extremely negative effects of pollution. 





Discussion Questions

-  What would be some effective ways to reduce the amount of contamination in soil?

- If we continue treating our geosphere like we have been, what do you think it will look like in 50 years? Why?

- How is the geosphere important to human life?




Duggan, Jennifer. "China Could Lose Millions of Hectares of Farmland to Pollution."Theguardian.com. Guardian News and Media, 23 Jan. 2014. Web. 04 Feb. 2014.



EMSL Analytical, Inc. "Soil Contamination and Possible Threats to Human Health."On Environmental Expert. N.p., 1 Mar. 2013. Web. 04 Feb. 2014.