Blue-green algae blooms in Florida's waterways are a menace. I've seen posts asking why the mainstream media isn't covering it. They are. What I'd like to know is why isn't anyone talking about the same problem in
Lake Erie and all throughout the
Mississippi River deltas? It can't all just be contained in local news.
This is actually a nationwide problem - and since water is life sustaining for everything on earth, that makes it a CRISIS.
I posted about consumer products that can help, but there's more to it. The main culprits are phosphates and nitrogen - found in commercial/industrial
fertilizer. So, let's turn our attention there.
It comes down to science. Not science fiction. Not electronics technology. Not medical science. But agricultural science. The Union of Concerned Scientists has garnered over 450 signatures to influence Congress on pursuing sustainable agriculture practices. It's really bizarre that taxpayers subsidize farms for excess commodities, then pay again to clean up their bad messes, and then complain about high food prices and then complain again that the Western diet is making them fat and sick. Probably on their way to pick up some fast food.
Wtf?
It's hard to stay focused on a single topic when it comes to food.
There's the production (soil health or deterioration,
slaves on farms in this day and age)
There's the shipping (gasoline and manpower)
There's the variety (monoculture farming is bad, so
avoid palm oil)
There's the climate change (methane gas from cow farts)
There's the living conditions of the animals (the FDA allows a certain amount of
pus in your milk)
There's the nutrition (nutrition science is pretty new and ever changing and contradictory)
There's the shopping for it (making sense of the labels and the
plastic bags, which wind up in the ocean and the poor
sea turtles mistake them for jellyfish - their food - and die. This could lead to an overabundance of jellyfish)
There's the storage of it (plastic
containers right? Get GLASS)
There's the preparation (is your utility's power source sustainable or petroleum based?)
There's the garbage and excretion (all comes back to water)
How could I find a point in the chain to even begin the conversation without sounding bipolar? (that's a joke, right? I have bipolar and my meds are working. It's the vast enormity and complexity of topics like this that start my mind racing ahead of me. So I write it down so I can get back in the driver's seat and stay calm)
Election season is here, so let's start with farm policy. Sustainable agriculture is the way to go. They're calling it agroecology. I'll let you check out the
Union of Concerned Scientists' article and in the very near future, I hope to find candidates who are serious about the environment and not kneeling before the throne of Big Sugar and industrial farms.
Information overload, I know. But, we are NOT POWERLESS. We have to start getting serious right away because there's so much we CAN DO.
