Spring - that beautiful season is time to plant and make things grow.
It’s about rebirth - and new life.
It’s also about pesticides - about killing plants and wildlife and ourselves.
Walk into any of the big box stores, or any hardware store. You will find walls of pesticides, poison to dump on lawns, on trees, into the water.
In a community here, ducklings are dying because the lawns were “landscaped.”
Eagles are dying. The pesticides flow into the waters, the fish ingest them….
Bees and butterflies are disappearing.
Dogs, cats, farm animals, frogs, turtles, small mammals - not a single living creature is safe.
The children in our lives are at risk.
We are at risk.
Some of these chemicals have been banned in other countries. Here they are advertised, pushed, and sold. Then they are used with abandon.
Class-action suits have already won millions of dollars for the victims of cancers proven to be caused by these chemicals and pesticides.
We all want to live in a beautiful place. Do we need to redefine what ‘beauty” really is?
Maybe we need to quit waging war on weeds. Maybe the odd dandelion or buttercup could make your lawn prettier than it is now.
Maybe we need to hear birdsong - but how can birds sing when we have killed them off?
Maybe we need to know that the fish in our waters are fit to eat.
Maybe our streams and water sources need to be free of poisons.
Maybe we need to be confident that our crops will sustain us, not kill us.
Maybe we need to find other, better, safe solutions to caring for our crops.
Maybe we need to wake up and demand that these products be banned.
Maybe - maybe - we need to quit killing ourselves.
Roz Gregor
Lewes
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