Summary
Not only do soils provide 98.7% of the calories consumed by humans, they also provide numerous other functions upon which planetary survivability closely depends. However, our continuously increasing focus on soils for biomass provision (food, fiber, and energy) through intensive agriculture is rapidly degrading soils and diminishing their capacity to deliver other vital functions. These tradeoffs in soil functionality – the increased provision of one function at the expense of other critical planetary functions – are the focus of this review. We examine how land-use change for biomass provision has decreased the ability of soils to regulate the carbon pool and thereby contribute profoundly to climate change, to cycle the nutrients that sustain plant growth and ecosystem health, to protect
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