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About 1,400 Minnesota waterways are polluted; nearly 2,600 are impaired. What about our vaunted aquifers? Essentially, Minnesota’s southeastern streams worsen annually. More aquatic life struggles; fish disappear. Consumption advisories include more water and fish species every year.
Wisconsin and Minnesota jointly dump about 2.8 million tons of salt on roads annually. Farmers and others spread or spray 400 million plus pounds of chemical fertilizer each year. We are surprised water is unfit and smart enough to worry?
Environmentally, correction costs rise exponentially the longer we decimate our living space. This includes feedlots, new homes and over producing crops. We will reach a point of no return, so why not stop? Corporate pressure? Spin about farmer hardships?
Wrong! Citizen apathy and meaningless single issues are why.
It is time to literally take pesticides from homeowners and farmers, halt the feedlots and stop new construction and pavements for tax revenues. Just removing fertilizer will do wonders. Back to manual weeding and compost? Fine! Beats illness, starvation and dying because chemicals killed the bees needed to pollinate crops and drinking water is poisoned.
Agriculture’s argument about producer cost is spin. Moreover, their profits should be less to pay for the needed clean-ups. If corporations, farmers and we have to toil longer, tough! Healthy life outweighs corporate greed and leisure time any day.
The pollution plume consuming the Gulf of Mexico, created by upstream lawn and farm fertilizer, is one major factor contributing to the Katrina desolation, among other things — such as humans being stupid because they prefer more playtime and profits to working to maintain a healthy world.
The deadly irony is the more we try to make things easy for ourselves, the more mess we make. It is alarmingly clear humans simply cannot do what is good for themselves, unless bossed.
It is time humans stop being the ultimate Darwin award candidate. (Someone acting stupid enough to remove his or her genes, permanently.) This is an award we humans do not want to win.
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