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.