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Good evening, welcome to New Orleans.

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I don't know if you knew this,

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but you are sitting within 15 minutes[br]of one of the largest rivers in the world:

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the Mississippi river.

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Old Man River, Big Muddy.

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And it goes as far north[br]as the state of Minnesota,

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as far east as the state of New York,

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as far west as Montana.

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And 100 miles from here, river miles,

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it empties its fresh water and sediments[br]into the Gulf of Mexico.

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That's the end of Geography 101.

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(Laughter)

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Now we're going to go[br]to what is in that water.

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Besides the sediment, there are dissolved[br]molecules, nitrogen and phosphorus.

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And those, through a biological process,

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lead to the formation[br]of areas called dead zones.

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Now, dead zone is a quite ominous word

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if you're a fish or a crab.

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(Laughter)

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Even a little worm in the sediments.

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Which means that there's not enough oxygen

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for those animals to survive.

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So, how does this happen?

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The nitrogen and the phosphorus

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stimulate the growth of microscopic plants[br]called phytoplankton.

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And small animals called zooplankton[br]eat the phytoplankton,

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small fish eat the zooplankton,[br]large fish eat the small fish,

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and it goes on up into the food web.

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The problem is that there's just too much[br]nitrogen and phosphorus right now,

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too much phytoplankton[br]falling to the bottom

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and decomposed by bacteria[br]that use up the oxygen.

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That's the biology.

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Now, you can't see it[br]from the surface of the water,

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you can't see it in satellite images,

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so how do we know it's there?

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Well, a trawler can tell you,

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when she puts her net over the side[br]and drags for 20 minutes

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and comes up empty,

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that she knows she's in the dead zone.

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And she has to go somewhere else.

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But where else do you go[br]if this area is 8,000 square miles big?

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About the size of the state of New Jersey.

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Well, you either make[br]a decision to go further,

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without much economic return,

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or go back to the dock.

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As a scientist, I have access[br]to high-tech equipment

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that we can put over the side[br]of the research vessel

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and it measures oxygen[br]and many more things.

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We start at the Mississippi River,

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we criss-cross the Gulf of Mexico[br]all the way to Texas,

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and even I sneak into Texas[br]every now and then and test their waters.

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And you can tell by the bottom oxygen,

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you can draw a map[br]of everything that's less than two.

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Which is the magic number[br]for when the fish start to leave the area.

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I also dive in this dead zone.

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We have oxygen meters[br]that we have to deploy offshore,

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that tell us continuous measurements[br]of low oxygen or high oxygen.

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And when you get into the water,[br]there's a lot of fish.

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Tons of fish, all kinds of fish,

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including my buddy here, the barracuda[br]that I saw one day.

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Everybody else swam this way,[br]and I went this way with my camera.

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(Laughter)

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And then, down at 30 feet[br]you start to see fewer fish.

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And then you get to the bottom.

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And you don't see any fish.

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There's no life on the platform,[br]there's no life swimming around.

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And you know you're in the dead zone.

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So, what's the connection[br]between the middle of the United States

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and the Gulf of Mexico?

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Well, most of the watershed is farmland.

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And in particular, corn-soybean rotation.

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The nitrogen that is put in fertilizers[br]and the phosphorus goes on the land

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and drains off into the Mississippi River

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and ends up in the Gulf of Mexico.

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There's three times more[br]nitrogen in the water

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in the Mississippi now,

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than there was in the 1950s.

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Three times.

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And phosphorous has doubled.

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And what that means is more phytoplankton[br]and more sinking sails and lower oxygen.

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This is not a natural feature of the Gulf,[br]it's been caused by human activities.

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The landscape is not what it used to be.

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It used to be prairies and forests[br]and prairie potholes

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and duck areas and all kinds of stuff.

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But not anymore -- it's [unclear] crops.

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And there are ways that we can address[br]this type of agriculture

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by using less fertilizer,[br]maybe precision fertilizing.

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And trying some sustainable agriculture,

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such as perennial wheatgrass,[br]which has much longer roots

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than the six inches of a corn plant,

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that can keep the nitrogen on the soil[br]and keep the soil from running off.

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And how do we convince[br]our neighbors to the north,

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maybe 1,000 miles away or more,

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that their activities are causing problems[br]with water quality in the Gulf of Mexico?

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First of all, we can take them[br]to their own backyard.

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If you want to go swimming in Wisconsin,

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in the summer, in your favorite[br]watering hole,

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you might find something like this

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which looks like spilled green paint[br]and smells like it,

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growing on the surface of the water.

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This is a toxic blue-green algal bloom

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and it is not good for you.

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Similarly, in Lake Erie,[br]couple of summers ago

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there was hundreds of miles[br]of this blue-green algae

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and the city of Toledo, Ohio,[br]couldn't use it for their drinking water

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for several days on end.

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And if you watch the news,

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you know that lots of communities[br]are having trouble with drinking water.

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I'm a scientists.

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I don't know if you could tell that.

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(Laughter)

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And I do solid science,[br]I publish my results,

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my colleagues read them,[br]I get citations of my work.

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But I truly believe that, as a scientists,

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using mostly federal funds[br]to do the research,

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I owe it to the public,

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to agency heads and congressional people

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to share my knowledge with them

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so they can use it,[br]hopefully to make better decisions

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about our environmental policy.

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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(Applause)

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One of the ways that I was able to do this[br]is I brought in the media.

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And Joby Warwick from The Washington Post

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put this picture in an article

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on the front page, Sunday morning,[br]two inches above the fold.

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That's a big deal.

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And Senator John Breaux, from Louisiana,

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said, "Oh, my gosh, that's what they think[br]the Gulf of Mexico looks like?"

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And I said, "Well, you know,[br]there's the proof."

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And we've go to do something about it.

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At the same time, Senator[br]Olympia Snowe from Maine

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was having trouble with harmful[br]algal blooms in the Gulf of Maine.

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They joined forces -- it was bipartisan --

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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And invited me to give[br]congressional testimony,

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and I said, "Oh, all I've done[br]is chase crabs around south Texas,

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I don't know how to do that."

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(Laughter)

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But I did it.

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And eventually, the bill passed.

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And it was called -- yeah, yay --

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It was called The Harmful Algal Bloom

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in Hypoxia Research[br]and Control Act of 1998.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)

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Thank you.

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Which is why we call it[br]the Snowe-Breaux Bill.

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(Laughter)

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The other thing is that we had[br]a conference in 2001

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that was put on by[br]the National Academy of Sciences

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that looked at fertilizers, nitrogen[br]and poor water quality.

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Our plenary speaker[br]was the former governor

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of the state of New Jersey.

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And she ...

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There was no thinking she wasn't serious[br]when she peered at the audience

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and I thought, "Surely[br]she's looking at me."

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"You know, I'm really tired[br]of this thing being called New Jersey.

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Pick another state, any state,[br]I just don't want to hear it anymore."

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But she was able to move the action plan

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across President George H.W. Bush's desk

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so that we had environmental goals

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and that we were working to solve them.

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The Midwest does not feed the world.

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It feeds a lot of chickens, hogs, cattle

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and it generates ethanol

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to put into our gasoline,

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which is regulated by federal policy.

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We can do better than this.

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We need to make decisions

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that make us less consumptive.

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And reduce our reliance on nitrogen.

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It's like a carbon footprint.

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But you can reduce[br]your nitrogen footprint.

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I do it by not eating much meat --

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I still like a little[br]every now and then --

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not using corn oil,

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driving a car that I can put[br]non-ethanol gas in,

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and get better gas mileage.

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Just things like that,[br]that can make a difference.

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So I'm challenging, not just you,

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but I challenge a lot of people,[br]especially in the Midwest --

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think about how you're treating your land[br]and how you can make a difference.

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So my steps are very small steps.

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To change the type[br]of agriculture in the US

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is going to be many big steps.

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And it's going to take political[br]and social will for that to happen.

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But we can do it.

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I strongly believe[br]we can translate the science

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bridge it to policy and make[br]a difference in our environment.

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We all want a clean environment.

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And we can work together to do this

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so that we no longer have[br]these dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)