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If is the turn-around decade for environmental issues, then let's get on with it; let's make some choices and get on with the show. As you will read in the article on Sweden's goal for improving the environment affected by agricultural production, that country has made choices. Canadians can too, but we aren't. The environmental question cannot wait for others to provide all the answers and the fear of making mistakes should not be used as an excuse for not seeking solutions. The key is to keep progressing, learning and evolving. To date, the country has experienced a lack of leadership and Canada risks environmental desecration as a result. Canadians have been too complacent and need a kick in the butt; this country needs a contribution from its population or it may go the way of Argentina (once the 95th most prosperous country in the world).
Canadians need to start making choices. They don't need any more reports on the environmental sustainability of agriculture, more repetitions of what is already well known. They need fewer technological fixes to alleviate technological problems. The phosphate problem from milk-house wastes is a good example. More engineers to engineer their way out of the problem brought on by the use of phosphate-based soaps and cleaners is not' the answer. Clear though' is needed to produce some clear choices; phosphate free cleaners are required to clean dairy house equipment instead of dumping phosphates into tile drains and creeks. Residual milk needs to be fed to calves to reduce bacteria counts. There will be clean beaches in rural areas if the right choices are made. These two are easy ones. Let's make them, let's not sit on it, let's find out more about it so a move can be made now on things like phosphate wastes. Let's start to make a turnaround, let's lose our complacency. Complacency is destroying our country; complacency could destroy our planet.
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