Pig shit

With the coming of hurricane Florence, the Carolina coastline is about to get a nasty taste of the consequences of human misbehavior -- and I'm not talking only about the greenhouse-gas emissions that drive climate change and consequent extreme weather events.  There is also pig shit involved.

The Daily Kos explains.  Hog farms in the region generate huge amounts of pig shit, which creates serious problems even under normal, hurricane-less conditions.  The post quotes Steve Wing, a professor of epidemiology:  "It’s easy for a big hog operation to have as much waste as a medium-sized city."  Dense concentrations of humans -- that is to say, cities -- can be kept sanitary only by means of sewer systems.  Without these, the giant cities of Roman times or the even larger ones of today would have been uninhabitable; the filthy cities of medieval Europe were cesspits of disease, despite their smaller populations.  Such hygienic standards are impossible to maintain with other animals such as pigs when they are crowded together on farms in far higher densities than would ever occur in nature.

As a result, hog farms accumulate lagoons of pig urine and excrement, the stench of which makes the air around them unendurable.  As even these fill up, the stuff is sprayed on fields in the form of a mist, as fertilizer.  The mist, of course cannot be confined to the fields but drifts with the wind, causing health problems for the residents of nearby communities.  In North Carolina, the problem is so bad that it has led to a class-action suit.

This is an inevitable result of the practice of farming self-aware animals so that humans can kill them and eat their flesh.  Not only is it a grossly inefficient use of farmland, but unnaturally dense concentrations of animals produce unnaturally dense concentrations of shit.  There is no way around this.  We are literally beshitting the air people breathe, for the sake of perpetuating the cruel production of unhealthy food.

Now, enter the hurricane:

During big storms, uncovered lagoons -- especially those that haven't been drawn down -- can fill up with rain and overflow..... Here's the really bad scenario: Water starts overflowing and erodes the lagoon wall, causing a wall to collapse, spreading animal waste across the landscape and into rivers. Rising rivers could also inundate some low-lying lagoons and hog houses..... Those lagoons are full of nothing but feces and urine.....

Humans abuse and kill pigs for the sake of pork and bacon which aren't even healthy for us.  A post-hurricane landscape stinking of pig shit is a natural price to pay for that.  If the pigs could understand, they might even call it karma.