The Spring Conundrum

Even the protection is synthetic

The days are getting longer. Warmth greets you as you step outside. You feel a pull toward open windows, bare feet on grass, the intoxicating anticipation of renewal, growth, and new beginnings. The cold confinement is coming to a close.

I feel it too. Every year, without fail, I feel it.

Spring

And then the reality of what spring means in our modern world sets in.

Modern Chemical Toxicity.

In less than one hundred years we have completely saturated our planet and our lives with synthetic chemical toxins. Modern synthetic pesticide use began in the 1940s, born directly out of wartime chemistry during World War II. What was developed to kill insects carrying disease on the battlefield came home after 1945 and was applied to farms, lawns, and homes. Within a single generation it had saturated the planet.¹

And it has never stopped.

Spring is peak season for pesticide and herbicide application across the United States. Agricultural fields, suburban lawns, golf courses, roadsides, schoolyards, parks, recreational and tourist attractions are doused in poison as reliably as the flowers return. More than one billion pounds of pesticides are applied across the United States every single year, with the majority concentrated in these coming months. That number surges to 5.6 billion pounds annually.¹

Spring has always been a universal sign of life, of growth, of rebirth since ancient times. We still feel that pull. And yet the modern world has chosen to greet it with poison.

Research published in Environmental Health Perspectives found that April, May, and June collectively account for nearly half of all annual pesticide release incidents in the United States, driven by the surge in agricultural planting and lawn care activity that arrives with warming temperatures.²

Glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in North America, is applied to an average of 298 million acres of cropland per year in the United States alone, with the majority of those applications concentrated in spring and early summer.³

It travels. It drifts. It enters waterways. It becomes one with our environment.

And it’s not the only contaminant wreaking havoc. Synthetic fertilizers, pre-emergent herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides are simultaneously saturating the soil, the runoff, and the air we are so eager to breathe again. The EPA reported that 59 million pounds of pesticide active ingredient were applied in U.S. homes and gardens alone in a single year, and that figure does not include commercial lawn services.⁴

This is what blooms alongside the flowers and fills your lungs as you enjoy the “fresh air.”

Every civilization that has ever existed has looked to spring as a cosmic signal. A confirmation that life persists, that darkness is not permanent, that the earth itself is on the side of growth.

And now we greet spring with poison. We send our children outside into the first warm air of the year, we dig our hands into soil, we sit outdoors enjoying the weather, we breathe deeply and call it healing. All the while the chemical saturation that has become the architecture of modern life continues, normalized and accepted.

The conundrum is not that poison exists in spring. The conundrum is that we have stopped noticing. That we have normalized modern chemical toxicity upon our world and ourselves.

Still, spring is not ruined. The longer days will remain. The warmth will continue. Growth will still take place. And hopefully, soon, humanity too will be reborn into a people that choose purity and potential over convenience and contamination.

To dive deeper into the conundrum of modern spring and pesticides, check out our Circle community where we analyze, comment, and explore a multitude of elements that comprise what spring actually looks like on a chemical level, how to protect your space during peak season, and what it means to build a life where purity is the standard.

Join Circle: https://evernorthfoundation.circle.so/join?invitation_token=d2ea779de7e8094cf79c53bdeaf70d7eaa8e653c-a26eea23-a28b-4229-a4d9-27953605efee

Sources:

1. Pesticide Use and Exposure Extensive Worldwide — PMC, Damalas & Eleftherohorinos 2011. Documents over one billion pounds of pesticide use annually in the U.S., 5.6 billion pounds worldwide, and the WWII origin of modern synthetic pesticide use.

2. Surveillance Data on Pesticide and Agricultural Chemical Releases — PMC / Environmental Health Perspectives, 2003–2007. Identified April, May, and June as peak months for pesticide release incidents in the U.S.

3. Trends in Glyphosate Herbicide Use in the United States and Globally — Environmental Sciences Europe, Benbrook 2016. Documents average annual glyphosate application across 298 million U.S. acres.

4. Reducing Pesticide Use in the Home Lawn and Garden — Virginia Cooperative Extension, citing EPA data, 2012. Reports 59 million pounds of pesticide active ingredient applied in U.S. homes and gardens annually, excluding commercial lawn services.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​