Today, for the first time in humanity’s history, we have to talk about protecting this planet which has nourished thousands of generations of human beings. In the last fifty years, 73% of the vertebrate population and 80% of the insect biomass on the planet has been wiped out. The way we are living, it is like we are planning to be the last generation on this planet.
A few years ago, someone was telling me that a few million light years away, there are many planets exactly like Earth. They said, “We must go and find them.” I said, “If you think that is a solution, best of luck to you!” We are born out of this planet, and we will die in it. There is really no other place you can live yet – not the moon, Mars or anywhere else. The only place suitable for our life is this planet.
People believe that their life will be wonderful if the stock market soars. No, our life will be wonderful if we eat nutritious food, drink clean water and breathe pure air. For all this, we need a rich ecosystem. But approximately 27,000 species on the planet are going extinct every year.
The most fundamental ecological issue of all is soil extinction. 95% of life on the planet depends on soil, but soil is in such a dangerous situation right now that United Nations agencies are saying the planet has agricultural soil for only another eighty to hundred crops.
One of the fundamental problems is we are treating soil as an inert substance. No, it is a living system – the largest living system we know in this universe. A handful of soil in a tropical country has 5-7 billion organisms. Without their activity, we cannot exist. Even in the evolutionary scale of things, it is the activity of these microorganisms which has made us the way we are.
People think plants take nourishment from the soil. No! Without the agency of microorganisms, plants cannot absorb any nourishment from soil. Right now, those agencies have become very weak because the volume of microorganisms has gone down. If the soil is weak, the plant will be weak. If the plant is weak, what makes you think you have not become weak?
Once there is not enough strength in the soil, vital micronutrients are no longer present in the food you eat. A study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States says that all Americans are potassium deficient. 90% are deficient in vitamin E, 70% in vitamin K, 45% in magnesium, 43% in vitamin A and 39% in vitamin C. And this is in the most affluent nation! This simply means that even if you eat enough food, it does not have sufficient nutrients because soil has no life left in it.
As microbial life disappears, remaining psychologically stable is going to be a big challenge – that means our “software” will start collapsing. There is substantial evidence today to show that mental health conditions are directly related to lack of micronutrients. But if species loss continues, even our “hardware” will start collapsing over 25 to 40 years.
This is why we launched a massive movement across the world called Conscious Planet – Save Soil to bring about a global policy that there must be a minimum of 3-6% organic matter in agricultural land, based on regional conditions. Now the world’s attention has been successfully turned to soil and I am very sure soil policies will be implemented. But we must understand that the damage to soil happened over a century; we cannot fix it overnight.
But the first signs of the human software beginning to collapse are already visible. Just a few decades ago, mental health problems were something that happened to someone else. But today, either someone you know is going through it or you yourself might be going through it. In the United States, the surgeon general is saying one out of two people are lonely. This is not just in the United States. It is starting to happen across the world. Once loneliness happens, it is the incubation period for psychological illnesses.
To address this, in February 2025, we launched the Miracle of Mind app, which offers a simple seven-minute meditative process that can be practised anywhere to bring a sense of peace, joy, and exuberance into one’s life.
It is high time we understand that this idea of individual life is a stupid idea. It is the magnanimity of creation that it has given us an individual experience, but life is happening as one big phenomenon. Once you break one part of it, every other part will be affected. This Earth Day is the right occasion to remind ourselves of this. We as a generation of people have taken the largest bite from the planet. This is the time for us to rise and take corrective action for ourselves and the wellbeing of coming generations.
(Ranked amongst the fifty most influential people in India, Sadhguru is a Yogi, mystic, visionary and a New York Times bestselling author. Sadhguru has been conferred the Padma Vibhushan by the Government of India in 2017, the highest annual civilian award, accorded for exceptional and distinguished service. He is also the founder of the world’s largest people’s movement, Conscious Planet– Save Soil, which has touched over 4 billion people.)
(Views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author)
