Unintelligentsia

Salt! Good fer yer body, bad fer the earth. Maybe.

Winter is official here again, along with all the fun that comes along with it, snow, ice, sleet, wind, cold, all the various forms water takes when cold is applied really, and of course, salt. Up here in the Northeastern United States many cities dust the roads with salt to melt the snow and keep traffic flowing. This has always bothered me. It has been said that the ancient Romans after defeating the Carthaginian empire, and sacking the capital city of Carthage, sowed salt into the fields so that no crops, and thus, no city, would ever grow there again. This story, whether it’s apocryphal or not, highlights one key issue, that salt, while beneficial to the overall health of people when eaten, can do horrible things to surrounding environments hen spread about en masse. So I wonder, what’s the effect of all of this salting on our lakes, crops, plants, animals, on us, on our ecosystem? Does anyone even know? My guess is no, no one has any clue if it’s harmful or not, and my other guess is that yes, it is very fucking harmful. So not only does winter suck, but it’s also killing us! How’s that for sensationalism?