Logan and Albert Conservation Association

There is no alternative to fertile soil to sustain life on Earth. Soil is a metaphor for decentralised and deep democracy.THE MOST CREATIVE and necessary work that humans do is to work with the soil as co-producers with Nature. Human effort and knowledge based on care for the soil prevents and reverses desertification, the root of collapse of so many historical civilisations. Rebuilding soil fertility is the very basis of sustainable food production and food security.

There is no alternative to fertile soil to sustain life, including human life, on Earth. It is living soil that provides sustainable alternatives to the triple crises of climate, energy and food. No matter how many songs on your iPod, cars in your garage, or books on your shelf, it is plants' ability to capture solar energy that is the root of it all.

Without fertile soil, what is life?

The age of oil has symbolised a rule of capital, of centralised control and coercive government, of pollution and nonsustainability, of injustice and inequity, of violence and war. The age of soil symbolises the age of Gaia, of the flowering of diversity and democracy, of justice, sustainability and peace.

We will either make a democratic transition from oil to soil or we will perish. The poor, the weak, the excluded, the marginalised are threatened today. In the short term, we can continue to extend the profits and consumerism of the privileged by further dispossessing the poor. But tomorrow even the rich and powerful will not be immune from Gaia's revenge and the revenge of the billions of dispossessed. We will either have justice, sustainability and peace together or we will descend into ecological catastrophe, social chaos, and conflict.

Soil, not oil, offers a framework for converting the ecological catastrophe and human brutalisation we face into an opportunity to reclaim our humanity and our future.

This has been taken from http://www.soilnotoil.com/wp-content/uploads/soilnotoil.pdf