• Question: What are some reasons why you like dirt?

    Asked by ThatOnePig to Clay on 3 May 2016.
    • Photo: Clay Robinson

      Clay Robinson answered on 3 May 2016:


      I don’t like dirt!
      Dirt gets on my shoes, carpet, pants, hands, and under my fingernails.
      Dirt blows around in the wind, or washes down the street after a rain.
      Dirt has no function in an ecosystem. (Though soil eroded from the Sahara Desert and carried by the wind across the Atlantic Ocean falls as dirt on the Caribbean Islands and the Brazilian rainforests and adds a tiny bit of fertility with it.)
      I like soil. Soil is the foundation of every terrestrial (land) ecosystem. Soil supports life, provides materials for your food and clothes, purifies water and provides air for you to breathe (because plants grow in the soil). And that is just the beginning of the list.
      A brief statement of why I like soil can be summarized as
      Know soil, know life. No soil, no life.
      This video shows a more exciting version of me talking about why I love soil, and why you should, too!

Comments