As The Washington Post reported on Monday, since the first Earth Day 40 years ago, the United States has significantly reduced the amount of manmade pollutants known to cause acid rain, global warming and dead zones (areas in lakes, rivers and oceans that are too oxygen-depleted to sustain most forms of life); however, the amount of “natural” pollutants generated by the United States has increased dramatically, in the form of animal manure from modern mega-factory farms.
Because animals are so densely packed on today’s industrial farms, they produce more manure than can be absorbed by the land as fertilizer. This excess manure emanates methane, and is the fastest-growing source of this greenhouse gas. It also generates manure run-off that travels into our nation’s waterways, resulting in the 230 dead zones along the U.S. coast (up from 16 dead zones in the 1950s).
While the Obama administration, the EPA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture are taking steps to address the threat of mounting manure from a rampant factory farming system, they are already being met with fierce resistance by big animal agribusiness.
Click here to read The Washington Post article in its entirety.
