I caught a 2-hour special on the History Channel titled, “Black Blizzard.” Everyone should try to catch this as it relates to man and climate. The next airing will be this Sunday, April 26th, at 10:00 am. After seeing this I have to ask: Is history repeating itself in a bigger venue because there are a lot of similarities between the Great Depression and the Dustbowl drought with today’s global warming trend and worldwide recession? Let’s look:
1920’s-30’s U.S. Agricultural Economy
Industrial Revolution is moving ahead yet agriculture still big part of economy.
During Hoover’s presidency the Farm Board is created.
Farm Board decides to boost income of U.S. farmers by withholding grains from world market to drive up prices and for federal banks to make liberal loans to farmers to sustain them while holding back their yields from the market.
The Farm Board establishes the Grain Stabilization Corp. that begins buying up wheat, which boosts prices above world prices for a short time.
Wheat farmers prosper causing a huge flow of people West to farm in areas known to suffer regular drought patterns.
The plan backfires when other countries begin supplying wheat to the world markets and the U.S. wheat farmer loses out.
The massive back load of U.S. wheat inventory further depresses market prices.
The same happens to the U.S. cotton industry.
Herbert Hoover refuses to intervene for the farmer and states the market will correct itself.
Meanwhile, U.S. foreign trade decreases drastically and what should be a recession turns into a depression. The U.S. quits buying foreign and so the foreign powers default on their debts to the U.S.
Everyone ignores the environmental impacts of over-farming the land and the dustbowl begins.
1920’s-30’s Climate
Normal drought patterns in the central plains didn’t produce huge dust storms prior to the big wheat rush because much of the unfarmed areas are covered with desert grasses adapted over time to withstand drought and winds. These grasses keep soil from eroding.
With the wheat rush farmers uproot most of these grasses. When wheat cannot endure normal patterns of drought no vegetation is left to stop the wind from blowing the dirt away.
The most fertile layer of soil blows away. Dust storms are thousands of feet into the air and carry some 50 million tons of earth at a time not unlike volcanic ash rising like clouds across miles of terrain.
The normal arrival of a jet stream from the New Zealand/ Australia area offering rain is diverted due to the massive dust clouds.Â
The dust storms increase in duration and strength perpetuating the drought.
The Great Dustbowl sets a precedent that man did and therefore can affect our climate. Much of what happened during the Dustbowl sounds familiar like forcing false markets, a greedy rush for a piece of the pie, destroying land/nature for wealth, a horrible economic crash, and subsequent devastation to ourselves and the earth.
Over farming aggravated the normal climate processes throughout the central states during the 30’s to the point it helped to sustain a prolonged and increasingly volatile weather pattern beyond the normal period of drought that had serious impacts for thousands of people especially their health. We still do not fully understand the extent to which all our ecosystems are intrinsically related. As was evidenced by the Great Dustbowl, setting one out of balance for even a brief period of time can cause increased and devastating climate patterns far past the norm.
Watch a video of the extraordinary dustbowl storms of the 30’s:
If you can find a copy of The Surplus Farmer by Bernhard Ostrolenk published in 1932 about what was happening in the agricultural industry at the time, it should be a pretty good read. Ostrolenk stated: “The Farm Board had advised the farmer to gamble with his crop instead of urging him to market it, and these repeated statements of the Board had led farmers to believe that by withholding their wheat and cotton they could get higher prices. During 1930 it was the known surplus of agricultural commodities in the U.S. which forced farmers to face the most drastic price cuts in a decade.”
The Farm Bill is on the senate floor this morning getting its final going over. The Farm Bill has some very good changes compared to all the years it went on as is. The following is a summary of the new changes to the S2419 Farm Bill I found on gov.track. I highlighted the items that many people and organizations like The Sierra Club pushed to get through.
·The following summary was for the Passage With Amendment for this bill on 2007-12-14. The bill may have changed since then. It hasn’t.
·-Creates a tax penalty for transactions designed exclusively to avoid federal tax (Sec. 12522).
·-Lowers an income tax credit for ethanol blenders from 51 cents to 46 cents after the sale of 7.50 billion gallons (Sec. 12315).
·-Establishes the Agriculture Disaster Relief Trust Fund to provide disaster assistance for crop losses (Sec. 12101).
·-Ends assistance by the year 2010 for persons who have an average adjusted gross income of $750,000 or more and earn less than two-thirds of their average adjusted gross income from farming, ranching, or foresting (Sec. 1704).
·-Reauthorizes the Federal Food and Nutrition Program, the Commodity Distribution Program, and the Nutrition Information and Awareness Pilot Program (Secs. 4801, 4802, 4803).
·-Extends the Conservation Reserve Program and the Wetlands Reserve Program through 2012 (Sec. 2311, 2321).
·-Establishes programs to provide assistance for improving land for wildlife and forests (Sec. 2313, 2331).
·-Establishes a mandatory labeling of country of origin on meats (Sec. 10003).
·-Increases loan rates for sugar producers (Sec. 1501).
·-Requires the Department of Agriculture to purchase certain dairy products to support their prices, extends the Dairy Export Incentive Program and the Dairy Indemnity Program, and extends the Dairy Promotion and Research Program (Sec. 1601, 1603).
·-Provides a tax credit for energy generated from wind (Sec. 12301).
·-Expands and extends programs that provide credits for renewable fuel production (Sec. 12311, 12312, 12313, 12314).
This Farm Bill doesn’t appear to have any changes since December 2007. The only thing I see missing that is really important is tax incentives for good stewardship of the land, which gives farmers more freedom to rotate the crops of their choice. Our country pretty much locks farmers into 5 crops: corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and hay. As a result of all the corn, we end up with high fructose corn syrup in practically everything that’s packaged. One would think the HFCS would have a high enough caloric value to use as fuel instead of dumping it into our food. I bet some farmers in the Tennessee hills know how to make that stuff into high octane.
Finding the list, I found this really good website for people who go organic even sometimes. It is Organic Consumers Association website. This is the largest organization of organic consumers in the country. They have been campaigning for the USDA and organic companies to preserve strict organic standards. I don’t think a responsible company should have to be pressured to do this but considering the warning list above…help by joining the campaign. Look around the OCA website. It covers all types of topics even children’s health.
The basic premise of the Organic Consumers Association as it relates to food is that change for pure food is in the consumer’s hands. Buying locally grown and harvested organic fruits and vegetables as much as possible assures better quality control in a product. And many times this means buying from a smaller farm market. I do this all of the time, always have. It’s cheaper and much of the produce, even chicken, is from Michigan, and raised naturally. I grow my own fruits and vegetables too.
By supporting smaller local farms we help spread the wealth around and show congress that we’re serious about eating healthy foods so that the next time the Farm Bill comes around maybe we can change it for the better. The Farm Bill needs to address the needs of local farmers who want to be good stewards of their land, and despite a big farm lobby.
It’s really weird how getting sick can break a person’s momentum. I was used to writing about 5 blogs per week, writing an essay or two along with that, and working on a book of all things. I get sick and bam, I’m perfectly contented to lay around in my jammies and watch reruns of “Cheers, Frazier, Just Shoot Me, Three’s Company, Reba…” and makeover programs for houses and people. I can see how America slips right into a comfort zone by not listening to one iota of news, not turning on any intelligent programs, not picking up Time Magazine, U.S. News and World Report, or Rolling Stone, or any of the myriad of environmental stuff like I get daily in the mail. It’s really pretty easy to be blind and numb to the world.But I did check my e-mail and that served as a pretty big tell all. I saw that the wolves were de-listed from the protected list. I immediately read about the backlash from doing that. Anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 phone calls lit up the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and big organizations like Earthjustice have already moved to take that decision to court. Gotta love all those organizations I’ve listed as links. They are on it immediately. I got e-mails that said “the fight has just begun!” I hope Earthjustic ties that decision up until Bush/Cheney are out of office.
I got an e-mail back from Representative Dingell about the wolves too. Both he and Carl Levin don’t just e-mail back, they usually e-mail back some pretty good information about new bills that just hit the house or senate floor that pertain to whatever subject I’ve written about. For instance: Representative Dingell is one of the authors of the Endangered Species Act, and he’s very concerned over the decision to de-list wolves. He went on to say that on March 9, 2007, Rep. Tom Udall (D-NM) introduced H.R. 1464, the Great Cats and Rare Canids Act of 2007, which would assist in the conservation of rare felids and rare canids, including gray wolves, by supporting and providing financial resources for conservation programs. H.R. 1464 has been referred to the House Natural Resources Committee. He assured me that while he did not sit on this Committee, he would take my comments into consideration should the bill come before him. Boy it takes a long time for a bill to move.
As I went on through my e-mail I found that Senator Debbie Stabenow is one of a handful of legislators that is working out the details of our new Farm Bill. Defenders of Wildlife wanted their members to call her about protecting habitat for the Swift Fox and other endangered species with the Farm Bill. Well since she’s a Michigan Senator and I found out she’s on the Farm Bill committee, sick or not, I called Lansing. This Farm Bill is so important to finally put a moratorium on those stinking CAFO’s, diversify our crops more, to quit putting high fructose corn syrup in all of our food, to reward farmers for good stewardship of their land like crop rotation, organic farming, and give subsidies to farmer’s to use part of their land for wind or solar energy so that if their crops suffer due to poor weather they still have income from alternative energy sources. Yep I spouted off all of it. Hey they want to hear from us. Well maybe not Bush/Cheney, or Kempthorne, Secy. of the Interior because so far they’ve paid little to no attention to petitions or phone calls about the wolves or aerial hunting. Some of the petitions I signed were for over 25,000 signatures, yet they turned a blind eye and ear to us anyway. Figures.
All in all I got quite a lot of news just reading my e-mail. I see that Arctic drilling is still threatening the polar bear habitat and that conservation groups are arming for that battle while Bush continues to stall on whether or not to list the polar bear as an endangered species. Like I said before oil vs. polar bear, guess who’s going to die, unless we can keep the oil men at bay until they’re out of office. It’s going to be quite a year of fighting for the environment since the last leg of this administration is still 10 months long.
The last e-mail I read today got me off my duff to start blogging again. I was reading Motley Fool about investments and there is a new kind of nuclear plant that is being built. I’ve never heard much about this type of plant and it peaked my interest. It seems there are plans for over 20 of these across the country. I’m going to read up on it and blog about it tomorrow. “They,” whoever they are, claim that these plants don’t use as much uranium fuel and there is less spent fuel in the end. My husband said that he read “they,” whoever they are, are digging out areas in the Nevada desert to dump the spent fuel from nuclear reactors “they” plan on building. Just something else I’ve got to know about, along with that deep well “they” are digging somewhere in Michigan to inject CO2 into. You know, I’m starting to feel better already.There is a bunch of new stuff happening I just have to know about. A little vacation from the news is kind of nice, but I guess I’m just too curious, and a whole lot mistrustful of things that happen when I’m not paying attention to ever give up my interest in our world and just about everything in it.
The U.S. just had the largest beef recall in history. Who can tell? We’ve had so many. Is it slowing anyone down from eating more burgers? Probably not. Most of the beef, 143 million lbs. was heading to school cafeterias. There was enough tainted beef to provide two burgers to every man, woman, and child in the U.S. according to ABC. Finally, ABC news aired film footage showing how sick, downed animals that are too ill to stand are pushed, prodded, even fork-lifted into a slaughterhouse to be hacked into our food. The news said: “It might be disturbing.”
Disturbing? If we really wanted to cure obesity in America, everyone should have to visit a petting zoo and interact with farmyard animals, pet their soft muzzles, feel their innocence, then visit a CAFO and a slaughterhouse. How about inhaling some fumes from the open-air lagoons while we’re there? It just might work to cure our eating disease.
What I saw on TV this morning is why I quit eating pigs and cows. If the average American experienced where our food came from, how it is processed, we would be a much, much thinner nation. We are an absolutely cruel nation in our utilization of Confined Animal Factories or CAFO’s, and are neglectful in paying any attention to the treatment of our farm animals. The only thing we are interested in is putting the feedbag on ourselves.
Since the average American is not likely to come near a slaughterhouse, the next best thing is to watch the movie, “Fast Food Nation.” The movie gives many ideas as to why our food industry is serving us up tainted meat. We are processing everything far too quickly and completely neglecting what is known as “Kosher” or clean and humanely raised food. I honestly don’t think that some of the pigs and cows that are sent into the slaughterhouse are completely dead before being cut up into steaks. The cow on this morning’s newscast was so sick it couldn’t stand, yet someone was screaming at it, scaring it, prodding it to actually walk into the slaughterhouse on its own. I sometimes hate the modern world. It progresses but with less and less empathy for other living things.
Thus is our sustenance these days. Not pretty. CAFO’s and industrialized farming should be stopped. We’re all too fat anyway. I could lose ten lbs. and never miss it. How about you and especially in light of the latest link between obesity and cancer? I’ve often thought the two somehow go together, but hey I’m not a scientist. I just know lugging around 20 extra lbs. is a lot of extra heft. I know that every time I buy 20 lbs of cat litter, or topsoil, or landscaping mulch. I can lift it. I can fling it still, but I can’t imagine walking around every day with that excess hanging about.
I blogged about the Farm Bill and the changes that are needed if we are ever going to get healthy and get the nation turned around so that the small farmer thrives once again. Not going to happen. The November 12th, 2007 issue of Time Magazine had a scathing article by Michael Grunwald called “Down on the Farm” about the farm lobby and the lopsided business of farm subsidies. The article is too long to outline here. But our future for free range chicken, pork, or beef, more fruits and vegetables, and less tainted meat and food supplies in general instead of the top five commodities—corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, and rice is mighty bleak.
The article warns if you “eat, drink, or pay taxes—or care about the economy, the environment, or our global reputation” the Farm Bill is a big deal. We still subsidize farmers billions of tax dollars every year. The trouble is that it is redistributed to millionaire farmers mostly when 60% of small farmers get no subsidies at all. Some of the subsidies even go to farms that are no longer in business!
Besides wasting billions of our money by staying status quo and helping the rich, the way our Farm Bill is laid out:
It contributes to our obesity, and illegal-immigration epidemics and to our water and energy shortages. It helps degrade rivers, deplete aquifers, elimiate grasslands, concentrate food-processing conglomerates and inundate our fast food nation with high-fructose corn syrup. Our farm policy is supposed to save small farmers and small towns. Instead it fuels the expansion of industrial megafarms and the depopulation of rural America. It hurts Third World farmers, violates international trade deals and paralyzes our efforts to open foreign markets to the non-agricultural goods and services that make up the remaining 99% of our economy.
And this description is in the first column of a long article on just how construed our Farm Bill really is. Small farmers get next to nothing in help, and are forced out. This says much about our free market system that conservatives like to tout causes competition and keeps everyone in check. Baloney. I’ve been screaming that there is no such thing as a free market system in America any longer as long as we have lobbies and big interest groups throwing millions at Congress. Again, the wealthy rule and find all sorts of loopholes to get rid of the little guy. Some free market system!
For you and me, that means we will continue to be force-fed high fructose corn syrup in everything we eat. Type II Diabetes will continue to rise. The organic industry will continue to struggle. If you’ve ever complained about the high prices of organic, now you know why. The big guys producing the top 5 crops don’t want you buying that stuff. And you won’t at $1.00 per apple. I’ve walked into the organic section of my store more than once with determination to buy what I know is better for me. The prices drive me out. I look for sales instead and go home with half of what I planned on. Example: If you want to buy cranberry juice, and I mean real cranberry juice, no other fruit juices in it, no corn syrup, no additives, full strength, not from concentrate it’s over $7.00 for 32 oz. Thank the big megafarms and our Farm Bill for that. Or then again thank Nancy Pelosi. As a matter of fact, read the article, then contact Pelosi and tell her what you think of her accommodating the same ole farm lobby once again.
Thank goodness I have fruit trees, a vegetable garden, and know how to do good old-fashioned canning. But if our weird weather keeps up, I won’t be able to do that. If we have a water shortage and hot searing sun, I won’t be able to water like it’s needed. I lost most of my fruits this past season when the trees were in bloom and we had a freeze. By fall, the very few small apples I had also had a black, oily residue all over the skins. We’ve yet to determine what it is and where it came from. I’m leaning toward jet fuel and just peeling the skins before I eat the stuff. This is going to get about survival. People who only buy from major stores, who don’t eat healthy anyway aren’t going to notice until it gets really bad. But for people who are health conscious, and raise the things they plan to eat, much like the small, unsubsidized farmer, we know what can happen, and happen fast in a bad way.
On Christmas Eve I think it’s important to remember where the Christ Child was born, AMONG THE ANIMALS in a manger. Every nativity scene is one with animals. A manger in those days was: “a feed trough found in a stable. In Bible times mangers were made from clay mixed with straw or from stones held together with mud; sometimes they were carved in natural outcroppings of rock,” http://www.padfield.com/1999/manger.html. There is an actual picture taken of a manger at Megiddo used in the stables of King Ahab on the linked website.
So the King of Kings was placed in the feed trough of the animals of a stable. This is a quite a statement about the beasts of the earth, that they were worthy of such an event. This Christmas take the time to reflect not only on mankind, but peace for the earth and all of the living things that are in jeopardy of extinction. The “beasts” as in animals of the earth are written about in the old and new testament over 200 times. Their importance is undeniable. We weren’t meant to live in a world without animals, especially those that have been here for centuries that are now in danger.
Tomorrow is it for the new Farm Bill I’ve been telling everyone is so important. I just received an e-mail from Defenders of Wildlife. Defenders of Wildlife understand the connection between wildlife and habitat in our world and our policies here in the U.S., among them the Farm Bill. Here is what the e-mail said:
Tomorrow, Congress is expected to vote on one of the most important conservation bills in recent memory: the 2007 Farm Bill. You can help our farmers protect wildlife and the habitat it needs to survive. Urge your Representative to support the Fairness in Farm and Food Policy Amendment and other efforts to increase conservation funding.. From wolves to warblers, farmers and ranchers can and do play an important role in protecting wildlife… when they have the resources to help.All across America, farmers and ranchers are participating in programs to restore wetlands, protect habitat, conserve natural resources and reduce agricultural runoff. These programs are funded through the Farm Bill, which, at $4 billion per year in conservation funding, is the nation’s largest source of conservation funding.
Seventy percent of the privately-owned land area of the United States is used for ranching, forestry or agriculture. Nearly 40 percent of plant and animal species listed under the Endangered Species Act are found only on private lands.
Will you support the efforts of farmers and ranchers to protect America’s wildlife? Send an email right now, and encourage your Representative to support adequate funding for conservation programs in the 2007 Farm Bill.
The version of the 2007 Farm Bill passed by the House Agriculture Committee takes important strides toward ensuring that conservation programs produce more benefits for wildlife. Unfortunately, funding for these important programs remains insufficient to meet landowner demand.
The 2007 Farm bill is our best opportunity this year to support more sustainable, wildlife-friendly farming and ranching practices. Please take action now. The Farm Bill is only debated once every few years, so it’s incredibly important that as many people as possible speak out for wildlife conservation on U.S. farm and ranch lands.
America’s farmers and ranchers are some of the most important caretakers of our wildlife and wild places. I hope you’ll seize this opportunity to support their efforts.
The website link I’ve listed goes directly to Defenders of Wildlife’s page to send to Congress. Just fill it in and make your voice heard. Let them know we’re paying attention out here and that the Farm Bill is very important.
Want to be a real patriot on the 4th of July? As independent citizens we celebrate our right to decide the direction of our country through elected representatives. So one of the most patriotic acts any American citizen can perform, outside of being a soldier, is to let our reps know what we think about anything and everything relative to the environment and “going green.” Take the time to e-mail them that we want to proceed with “going green” in Michigan by creating a brand new economy that is bursting-at-the-seams to happen. Our reps need a push, as there are many bills before them in our state’s congress. The number one bill HB 4667 and SB 444 to impose a moratorium on new and expanding animal factories or CAFO’s needs to pass!
I know I repeat, but for a state with the largest freshwater supply, with so many inland lakes that feed into that water, people looking to move up north in Michigan to enjoy the nature and peace, Michiganders cannot afford to let our natural resources take a back seat to pollution. The economy and moving ahead to “going green” go hand in hand. Advance one advance the other. Mother Nature counts and outside of ending the war, preventing terrorism, the environment should be at the top of our list. A little reminder, as proof nature counts, and to coincide with this 4th of July celebration, 2007, here is the opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, 1776:
“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
This beginning to a powerful document that is the essence of this country clearly states “the powers of the earth … the Laws of Nature … of Nature’s God.” There is no denying the respect for nature here, and as being one with God. As patriots we need to see that this respect for nature continues and direct our reps to follow our wishes. The beginning paragraph to the Declaration also addresses “the opinions of mankind” and that mankind “should declare the causes which impel them.” Pollution is a cause which should impel all of us to protect and respect nature always.
.
If we can put the flags and banners up, and shoot off fireworks, fireworks, and more fireworks to celebrate what this country is all about, freedom to speak, to affect change, to have a part in the decisions of our country, than we can surely drop our reps a single e-mail. There are all types of issues both federal and state that are important to the environment that are being cut beyond reason. The war funds are coming from somewhere, and all of the loans are not from China so cuts are deep.
The League of Conservation Voters newsletter said that special interests in Washington—Big Coal, Big Auto, Big Oil—have pushed for new provisions to be included in the most recent House Energy legislation that takes back the Supreme Court’s ruling that the EPA has the authority to regulate global warming pollution. It will block 12 states or more from adopting clean car standards. It also lowers the auto mileage standards that Bush proposes. The Supreme Court ruled on this already. It was a victory for the environment. But already the opposition has plans to repeal it. It looks to me more like the federal government seeks to take power away from the states.
In our state of Michigan there is a partisan stranglehold about policy to make up for the huge deficit. In the course of cutting back spending, “funding for natural resource protection has already been cut to the bone, which means a severe decrease in environmental law enforcement” as the Sierra Club reports. After reading the opening paragraph to our Declaration of Independence and comparing it to what is happening in our own state, makes me wonder what country we’re in?
While channel surfing on Sunday, I happened to catch 60 Minutes with Andy Rooney. He claimed no one drinks real milk anymore. He wondered if it still came from cows. He thought he would read the label and show it on TV. There it was, high fructose corn syrup. Andy wanted to know what that was doing in his milk, along with the usual preservatives. It seems a lot of people are reading food labels these days and there is high fructose corn syrup in absolutely everything.
Our food supply was doused with the stuff in the early 1980s, and now virtually everything has HFCS in it. But how did it get into everything? In the 70’s, American farmers started losing profits to imports. Our government needed to come up with something that would use up the corn surplus because Americans didn’t want to pay more for their groceries. The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture allowed the development of HFCS, a new kind of sweetener, that would keep corn from American farmers in demand and drive the price up. And, the HFCS in foods had a super long shelf life. Perfect. We’re eating the overload from corn production. Too much corn; so why not just switch crops? Farmers can’t very well switch to the crop of their choosing when subsidies are involved.
The environment suffered recently when the budget was cut and subsidies to farmers to use part of their land for alternative energy sources like solar and wind power fell to the wayside. This is one of the problems that arises when we don’t pay enough attention to the Farm Bill. The Farm Bill is about all of us, not just farmers, or just about what we eat. No one would have to worry about the surplus of corn, if the time, effort, and subsidies relative to corn went toward something new, something green. Instead we have had a huge rise of Type II Diabetes in this country that’s pointing toward the overuse and abuse of HFCS.
New studies are beginning to show that our body processes HFCS differently than real cane or beet sugar. The fructose is processed in the liver and the liver turns around and dumps more fat into the bloodstream. The brain doesn’t register the feeling of being full because of fructose. There are nay sayers about this of course, just like the debate on global warming. They can debate all they want. Something is causing people to eat out of control so much that our whole system is set to swamp us with food. Order fries and get a plateful, not a handful. I think frozen french fries have HFCS on them. Canned chili has it also. I was surprised about milk.
There are more studies with male rats where large amounts of HFCS halted the full development of testicles. Hmmm? And the hearts of female rats swelled until they burst. This is disgusting to begin with. I’m against animal testing, even rats (another story). But there are many, many things we are just now finding out about. Lets see, it’s been almost 30 years since someone decided it’s OK to power load high fructose corn syrup in all of our food and look at the statistics. What? Everyone in the last 30 years just went berserk and lost control? Combine HFCS with a gadget for anything and everything that keeps us sitting all the time, and we’ve got a lethal mix.
