Europe
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Can we not use football fields and such as measurements like filthy Americans? Especially in a freaking academic context.
Europe loses about 1,500 sq km (580 sq miles) a year to construction. About 9,000 sq km of land β an area the size of Cyprus β was turned green to grey between 2018 and 2023, according to the data. That is the equivalent of almost 30 sq km a week, or 600 football pitches a day.
A great example of why football pitches are used. People cannot visualize an area of 1500 kmΒ², because nobody has ever seen such an area while being aware/told that that is the size of said area.
Most people in Europe knows roughly how large a football pitch is, and might even be able to visualize an area covered by 600 of those.
Although I guess "4kmΒ²/day" isn't that bad to visualize either.
I have never in my life seen 600 football pitches. And I find it hard to visualize what that would look like. Surely if we're going to draw a comparison there is something more sensible to use?
People cannot visualize an area of 1500 kmΒ²
That's where hectares are useful and a sensible, well known metric.
How do you guys reach a point where you're arguing for less effective science communication? They're summing up values as universally recognized objects. Wow! That sounds like the perfect way to communicate with people.
It's such a no brainer. The "anything but metric" meme turned people into dorks.
That's horrifying. If it continues, there will be nowhere to play football.
There are unfortunately many studies that point all in a similar direction, and it is not a European but a global problem.
In 2024, for example, a map from the Save Soil movement β backed by the UNEP, UNCCD, UNFAO, WFP, and IUCN amongst others β illustrates that 95% of the Earthβs soil is on course to be degraded by 2050.
[Globally] every second, an equivalent of four football fields of healthy soil becomes degraded β adding up to a total of 100 million hectares every year. Non-degraded healthy soil is a direct necessity for 95% of the food production for more than 8 billion people.
For nations across the globe, this degradation is also causing a rapid increase in climate shocks such as droughts, threatening hundreds of millions of lives, crippling livelihoods, and forcing millions of people into migration.
How much is that in square-fathoms?
No no no, I need that in imperial washing machines.