>There's also the impact it has on the neighboring water systems--just ask
>anyone in Maryland!  They're still cleaning up the Bay and the crabs,
>oysters, etc. still haven't come back to full strength (or they hadn't last
>I'd heard).  Part of this was the result of large scale erosion caused by
>clearing land, part by what was then put on said cleared land.


thanks for bringing water to my mill , I went very quickly about the hidden
impacts of human interventions on the ecology of soils made by the tilling
, the fertilisation, the weeding ,the irrigation of the land in chemical or
even organic agriculture , but it will be enough to just observe the
difference  in total biomass , health,  between still intact ecosystems and
cultivated lands to save us from focusing in the details of the devastation.
I wish this awareness alone could incitate everyone to make radical change
toward expanding our sense of self and become REALLY selfish.
what i do to other beings i am doing  it to myself!
The microorganisms of the soil didn't get a chance yet to be respected.
with water where we waitted for  the poisonning to get very bad , to start
to do something ( rather to stop doing) , I hope we are not going to wait
for the desertificaton process happenning to almost all land to become so
obvious to question our relationship with ourselves ( our needs ...)
jean-claude