Climate change got you down? Try a little Dirt.

For this purpose, you’ll want the Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations by David R. Montgomery though, not the Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking by Bill Buford.*

I stole my copy of this book from my friend, Dan, who had brought it to the beach one year. My beach posse used to travel with a huge Lands-End bags of books – just one per person – and upon arrival at the house, we decanted them onto the huge square coffee table in the living room. We read voraciously – between dips in the ice cold ocean, naps, and visits to Buxton Books – and foraged among the collection for our next read. I started Dirt late in the trip and had to bring it home with me to finish. I felt so guilty for absconding with his copy and dog-earing it so thoroughly, that I bought Dan a fresh copy later that year. (I am unapologetic about dog-earing pages and cracking spines; if that makes your skin crawl, don’t loan me your books – just recommend them or give me a copy – because you won’t receive them back in the same condition you loaned them out in.)

I find Dirt reassuring. It covers various periods throughout history when humans destroyed the soil – and then, once humans repaired the damage and got out of the way, the earth recovered.

You probably already know that the dust bowl was caused by poor soil management practices but did you also know that America suffered a similar eco-catastrophe in New England during the colonial period? And again in Virginia during the time of Washington and Jefferson? And again in the antebellum south, where slave labor led to single-crop farming that destroyed the soil? (The rich plantation owners could desert the depleted land and buy new land in the West – an incentive for wanting slavery to be legal in the new states – everyone else were trapped on their poor lands; and you know where that led.)

Montgomery also covers soil erosion in ancient Mesopotamia, China, Europe, Greenland, and some of the current problems around the world.

For a book about soil erosion, it’s a strangely compelling read. You’d expect a book on this topic to be a dry slog, but it’s easy to read and full of interesting stories and historical factoids.

Have you seen those before and after photos of different areas of the world, where private citizens have taken it upon themselves to replant trees? They’re pretty inspiring and offer hope that, as much as we have damaged the world, we can repair it to some extent.

Humans – and Americans in particular – have the habit of abusing their bodies in their younger years. We (speaking collectively here) drink and smoke, we party or work instead of sleeping or exercising, we eat foods packed with preservatives (which play havoc with the good bacteria in our microbiome), calories, fat, salt, and sugar.

As we grow older and mortality stares us in the face, we take one of two approaches: we tune up our diets, start exercising, and do our best to get sleep. Or we throw up our hands and say, oh well, too late, why even try – and either wallow in our bad habits, or sink into apathy. Either way, we can never 100% repair the damage. But people who do their best to undo the damage have more agency over the results.

And this sense of agency is critical when things look dire. One of my biggest complaints about nature programs is that they get you hooked on the story of the land or the animals and then, in the last 5 minutes of the show, beat you over the head with how dire everything is, leaving you with a sense of hopelessness that makes you want to sink into apathy. In my mind, this is the wrong approach: I say, start 10 minutes before the end to touch on the challenge, bring it home to the viewer, then talk about situations where progress is visible. Maybe a place where someone has replanted the forest, cleaned the water, or restored a keystone species, and things have gotten better. Then maybe wrap up with one small thing that people can do to take action: just something simple.

Meanwhile, until the TV gods start listening to me, you can read Dirt.

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^{*Which, oddly enough, also resides on my shelves although I have not read it, my husband’s encouragement not withstanding. He likes behind-the-scenes-chef books, such as by Bourdain and Buford, but it’s not a genre I’ve dipped into… yet… aside from Julie & Julia.}