full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Jane Zelikova: The hidden wonders of soil
Unscramble the Blue Letters
But over the last 12,000 years, we have lost billions of tons of corabn from our soil as humans converted gsdlasarns and forests into agricultural fields and range ldans, building roads and ceitis. One of the major drivers of that loss was the plow, which, at the time, was a major tglcohacenoil breakthrough that really revolutionized agriculture and altered the trajectory of human history. With each pass of the plow, those plant roots and soil aggregates that we know are really important are broken apart, exposing carbon to dpscmiooieton. Today we use more than a third of our land to feed and clothe billions of people on this planet. But we're losing our soils at an alnmiarg rate, and with it, we're losing their fertility. Without that soil, it's going to be a lot harder to feed what is going to be close to 10 billion people on this pelnat by 2050. That's going to put a lot more pressure on what is already a disappearing and rugelsiondny underappreciated rersucoe.
Open Cloze
But over the last 12,000 years, we have lost billions of tons of ______ from our soil as humans converted __________ and forests into agricultural fields and range _____, building roads and ______. One of the major drivers of that loss was the plow, which, at the time, was a major _____________ breakthrough that really revolutionized agriculture and altered the trajectory of human history. With each pass of the plow, those plant roots and soil aggregates that we know are really important are broken apart, exposing carbon to _____________. Today we use more than a third of our land to feed and clothe billions of people on this planet. But we're losing our soils at an ________ rate, and with it, we're losing their fertility. Without that soil, it's going to be a lot harder to feed what is going to be close to 10 billion people on this ______ by 2050. That's going to put a lot more pressure on what is already a disappearing and ____________ underappreciated ________.
Solution
- technological
- resoundingly
- resource
- carbon
- cities
- lands
- decomposition
- alarming
- grasslands
- planet
Original Text
But over the last 12,000 years, we have lost billions of tons of carbon from our soil as humans converted grasslands and forests into agricultural fields and range lands, building roads and cities. One of the major drivers of that loss was the plow, which, at the time, was a major technological breakthrough that really revolutionized agriculture and altered the trajectory of human history. With each pass of the plow, those plant roots and soil aggregates that we know are really important are broken apart, exposing carbon to decomposition. Today we use more than a third of our land to feed and clothe billions of people on this planet. But we're losing our soils at an alarming rate, and with it, we're losing their fertility. Without that soil, it's going to be a lot harder to feed what is going to be close to 10 billion people on this planet by 2050. That's going to put a lot more pressure on what is already a disappearing and resoundingly underappreciated resource.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| changing climate |
3 |
| climate change |
3 |
| carbon underground |
3 |
| carbon cycle |
2 |
| microbial carbon |
2 |
| agricultural fields |
2 |
| climate solution |
2 |
Important Words
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- agricultural
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- building
- carbon
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- close
- clothe
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- major
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- people
- planet
- plant
- plow
- pressure
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- range
- rate
- resoundingly
- resource
- revolutionized
- roads
- roots
- soil
- soils
- technological
- time
- today
- tons
- trajectory
- underappreciated
- years