Farms and Fracking: A Call for Compromise

Guar plants. Source: Hindu Business Line http://tinyurl.com/guar-pic

This post was written by Dani Replogle

Last March I learned (to my slight disappointment) that I would be spending the majority of my summer in Houston, Texas. Now, the point of this post is not to bash Houston, but there was one thing about that city that would prevent me from living there in the long term: the heat. The overwhelming heat index prevents outdoor activity from being even remotely attractive between the hours of 9am and 8pm. The frightening outbreak of West Nile virus has done nothing to make an evening jog more appealing. Perhaps that’s part of the reason that Texas is ranked by the CDC as of the most obese states in the U.S. Although Texas summers have never been a picnic, there are those who speculate that the weather and health risks are worsening due to our old nemesis, climate change.

The toughest part about this for me was driving down to my aunt’s beach house in Galveston, passing by oil rig after oil rig, and thinking to myself that these problems all lead back to this. Houston boasts an unemployment rate that is consistently lower than the national average, leading people to flock to Texas for jobs that are frequently in the lucrative oil industry. The emissions from this oil are part of the climate change problem that is plaguing not only our planet, but also our health and the health of our families.

Mitt Romney wants to focus on making the U.S. energy independent. I don’t wholeheartedly disagree with him, but his focus on increasing oil and coal production while reducing subsidies for cleaner energy technology is alarmingly shortsighted. If we want the U.S. to remain a leader in the international realm, both politically and economically, it is imperative that we be on the forefront of clean energy development. This means continued subsidies for solar, wind and bio-fuel development. The source of these subsidies should be obvious. It’s widely known that until last year the federal government provided huge subsidies to the agricultural sector to feed the corn industry. This policy is disastrous for the environment. A large part of this funding should be redirected toward clean energy development.

In the interim between lowering coal (still the largest source of electric energy production in the U.S.) and oil production and lowering costs for solar and wind infrastructure, the U.S. should focus on the already growing natural gas industry to pick up the slack. “Fracking” is still a controversial topic, but as a short term solution there’s no arguing that natural gas is the lesser of two evils when compared to coal. Supporting fracking also provides a way to quiet the roar that the farm lobbyists are justifiably making by incentivising farmers to grow guar beans, a crop used in fracking fluid that natural gas companies are scrambling to buy.

The natural food movement already has a growing number of followers that could only be increased by federal propaganda. Instead, federal government regulations openly state that they make small-scale, organic farming very difficult. By growing guar organically, we would not only offset some of the negative consequences of burning natural gas, but also support the displacement of industrialized farming with greener, healthier organic farms. Struggling organic farms could use revenue from their guar crop to further promote themselves, eventually making economically unsustainable government subsidies unnecessary. For Republicans, this plan offers less dependence on Middle Eastern countries that are currently the primary guar exporters. Best of all, guar is a resistant crop that can withstand arid conditions. If this summer’s trend continues arid conditions are what farmers, and the rest of America, will be up against in the coming years.

The new Farm Bill is the perfect opportunity to finally attack agriculture’s contribution to climate change, but nothing will ever be done if our government continues to be bullied by industrial farm lobbyists and impeded by a system that discourages revisiting bills. Fracking isn’t a forever solution by any means, but I believe that it can play an important role in a long term plan that will build cleaner farms, promote energy independence and encourage green technological development. These issues are all connected, and the Farm Bill provides a way to deal with them comprehensively- if our leaders have the guts to stand up to both big business and hardcore environmentalists and do what is necessary. Environmental ethics aside, it is absolutely necessary that our policy adapts to combat climate change for the sake of all American interests.

 

3 Comments

  1. new13@duke.edu

    This was really interesting! I never knew that guar beans were such an instrumental part of the fracking process. I agree with the point you made about how growing our own guar beans will help go along with the Republican platform goal of energy independence and that it will create jobs for organic farmers. This along with the mention of subsidies for corn farmers versus clean energy initiatives touches on an important decision that we as a country have to make concerning land usage. In class we discussed how a sizable portion of the western grasslands are used for cattle farming. Another portion of our arable land is being devoted to the production of subsidized corn. I know that somewhere along the way we were experimenting with ethanol as a biofuel but I believe it has been determined that it is not a very efficient product. It is time to start repurposing to land. To a small degree we have to decide between level of energy independence versus food independence because we only have so much land. If you can’t eat the guar beans, then those are hundreds of acres less to use for food.

  2. Lauren

    I very much enjoyed reading your personal anecdotes alongside substantiated facts that support your policy recommendation. You evidenced the consistent contention between industry and environment, citing employment rates and the support of local industry alongside the counter argument citing the proliferation of oil rigs, increasing emissions and intolerable heat due to climate change. I agree that the Farm Bill and legislation in general should be consistently revisited to allow for proper adaptation and evolution of our society. I also concur with your recommendation to “compromise” that would benefit the small organic farmers as well as advocate for natural gas as an interim solution but caution that if we increase our efforts too heavily towards fracking and natural gas, we thwart a potential increase in funding and technological advancements for cleaner technologies.

  3. ten6@duke.edu

    Man…tackling the big issues…calling out politicians…I like it. The idea of using the production of guar crop I think captures the main idea of our progression into alternative fuels. The debate is and will always be, “We would like to use (insert new energy), but what about the economic consequences of those that have spent their lives (insert old energy job). In pursuing alternative fuels, we will have to employ those who will be displaced and the best way to do it seems to be giving them a job in new fuel production. Yes the items you mention are short term solutions, but using that general idea we could more easily transition into what will have to be a new era of energy production in the future.

Leave a Reply