I went to a Rose Cafe today where we talked to the head of the Finger Lakes Land Trust. This was a really interesting conversation because we talked about environmental problems, especially in relation to the Cayuga Lake and the growth of toxic cyanobacteria. One big problem is fertilizer runoff that contaminates the lake with phosphorous and allows harmful bacteria to grow. Fertilizer is a great tool for modern farming because it allows the world to feed its inhabitants but I’ve never thought about the fact that it can also be damaging to the environment. A potential solution might be to mandate that farmers only use “green” fertilizer which doesn’t have an excess of phosphorous, but this might come at a financial cost. Another potential problem is the salt that we use during the winter times. Even though this isn’t a huge problem due to the size of Cayuga lake, it definitely has a negative impact. Salting our roads seems essential in the wintertime but there are other options. A couple years ago, I went to Alaska over the summer. We learned that during the harsh winters, a lot of places use gravel to generate traction for cars and make wintertime travel possible. This might be a solution that we should consider, but again, this might generate its own problems like damaging cars or the road itself. As we discussed, we can also plant more trees to hold the soil down. Even though this will come at a financial cost, it will also have the added benefit of making our planet greener. All of these measures would be to ensure that cyanobacteria don’t grow to an extreme level. With other species, we can usually introduce natural predators to curb the population if need be, but we can’t do that with bacteria. All we can do is ensure that the conditions are such that they find it very challenging to grow. Today’s talk mentioned a lot of the problems that climate change causes. Not only does it mess with the weather and makes the planet warmer as a whole, it also impacts individual species and does damage to the environment that way. We should do whatever we can to combat climate change before it’s too late