On the ground, in real life, there are a lot of good things going on. Consider the passionate young farmers living in Hawaii, who are featured in these short videos at http://www.soilsolution.org. They are building the soils and regenerating the health of much of the land that was once dedicated to sugar plantations.
If you dig into the content at soilsolutions.org, you will learn a lot about the vital importance of soil to planet and human health. For example, did you know that there are more micro-organisms in a teaspoon of healthy soil than there are humans on earth? Every thing that lives in soil serves a purpose, from feeding the plants that grow there to sequestering carbon from the atmosphere.
I’m heading out to my compost pile right now, to give it a stir and marvel at the transformation taking place there: veggie and other plant waste turning to soil with the help of time, water, heat, worms and lots of micro-organisms!