I always enjoy my Minnesota news fix, thus when I find an article about Minnesota with this level of media bias that you all know I love, I really get a "Warm Fuzzy". According to this article some Minnesota lakes are becoming increasingly polluted with phosphorus (from fertilizer) and thus are being clogged with algae and other plants and are no longer as clear as they had been. On a side note, my experience with "Arguing Creatively to Save the Planet" has kept me in touch in how arguments may be formed to help the cause of always unbiased environmentalists.

According to the article the reason for the pollution: Agriculture (oh and some houses, but we don't see that right away). Just wait one second, agriculture is making lakes green only now after a couple hundred years of agriculture in Minnesota? Let's analyze this story a bit further... So where are most of these lakes located? Twin Cities suburbs. What is unique about suburbs? Maybe suburbians like green grass. What do they do to get green grass? They use fertilizer, and lots of it (when compared to per acre usage of farmers). But of course the article lists the top two reasons as related to agriculture and that is complete crap. So while it is not implicitly bad that people want green lawns, however, they have to be aware that their actions have consequences and must be willing to accept them. This article is not properly informing readers of the consequences and even steers away from what some of the solutions may be. The end is insightful, but still the article left me thinking that it is giving farmers an almost no ability to defennd themselves.

These articles are sometimes the scariest as they seem to be preaching a universal message that a healthy environment is good (which it is). The bad part is that it usually implicates the wrong group. So sure, we can stop fertilizing our crops, but as long as we have clear lakes (which isn't necessarily going to happen if farmers stop fertilizing), why should we care if the price of corn and soy beans jump due to a decrease in supply? There seems to be a clear causality in this case, over-fertilization of grass, but of course I have been known to be wrong before.

-Trevor