• Twitter
  • Facebook
News-Sentinel.com Your Town. Your Voice.
Opening Arguments

Weather report

Why farmers scoff at climate change hype:

Year-to-year variability in the weather dwarfs any impact from a long-term shift in the climate. Consider this: A farmer in Iowa might deal with a 10-degree-Fahrenheit shift in average temperatures from year to year, so why worry about a 3- or even 4-degree shift over 100 years? As the old saying goes: If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes and it will change.

Few would have to change their livelihoods as radically as American farmers if efforts to combat climate change became more serious.

Because they have to deal with the weather and know what the hell they're talking about, in other words. Weather is deadly serious business for farmers, not fodder for cocktail-party liberals always looking for a reason to turn over more of our lives to the government.

But, interestinly, it turns out that farmers are doing all the right things for the climate even if they don't believe in climate change. The key to feeding 7 billion people "will be diversity of crops, which will help ensure resiliance." Many American farmers are already working on that, with "precision agriculture to cut back on fossil fuel use, low or no-till farming, cover crops, biodigesters for animal waste, and the like."

Quantcast