When I go into a Lowe’s or Home Depot store to buy plumbing or
electrical supplies, I’m assaulted as soon as I go in the door by the
smell of lawn chemicals. Plastic jugs of Roundup are stacked six feet
high right near the entrance of these stores for easy grabbing by
shoppers heading for the garden supply area. At Costco, I found myself
in line at the checkout counter behind a man who had a huge bag of
grass seed that the label on the bag promised was already treated with
“fertilizer and weed killer for a perfect lawn.” The weed killer, I
discovered on checking further, is of course Roundup.
Most of Europe has banned Roundup because of both a determination
that is carcinogenic and because its widespread use has been linked to
the decimation of the world’s bees, essential for the pollination of
some 90 percent of all plants and of 30 percent of food crops, and
Monsanto/Bayer has so far lost three major lawsuits levying a total of
over $2.4 billion in punitive damages against the company for cancers
found caused by their glyphosate herbicide. Yet despite all this, the
American public wants its pristine green lawns, unblemished by
dandelions and other transgressors like violets, buttercups and wild
strawberries.
-- Dave Lindorff, "Americans’ Extinction Denial Syndrome" (COUNTERPUNCH).