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The view from Rural Route #8

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La What?

A patch of Pacific Ocean measured for temperature to signify weather changes has swiftly cooled significantly, the National Weather Service said last week, and it was enough to signal the end of El Nino, which is blamed for all that snow and more snow we had last winter.

Now it seems scientists are bracing for a new La Nina, which translated means hotter than normal this summer in the Midwest, wherever that is. Usually that means in the Corn Belt, but we're fringy enough to be included in the discussion, or at least as interested neighbors. After all, we had that snow-on-snow, too.

On June 5 I saw several soybean farmers planting, and it was hot-hot and had been for several days. It is not unusual for farmers in northeast Kansas to be planting soybeans this late after a damp, cool spring and on their heavy soils. But predicted rains had not

materialized and temperatures had reached heat index equivalents of 100 degrees. It's not for nothing that this late spring feels as if we've moved right into mid-summer.

I hope we are wrong, my bones and the scientists. If not, there could be substantial yield reductions, bottom line. And bigger air conditioning bills for consumers.

Which brings me to energy. It is time to man up and not allow climate change legislation to be driven by the emotion of the Gulf disaster. If we move to all electric cars, for example, the electricity for their batteries will have to come from someplace. The alternatives are not nearly reliable or big or inexpensive enough to replace today's power plants run on coal. We need electricity generated by nuclear power. We have a way of cutely ignoring facts or crab-crawling away into denial about many things we don't like.

Can you imagine the truck, train and ship transport systems without fossil fuels to drive them? Can you imagine farm machinery without powerful fuels to do the heavy work?

Shifting gears a bit, it was now some 20 years ago I interviewed a Texas A&M agronomist about organic agriculture. I asked him what the results would be if we shifted to all organic. His short answer was a 40 percent decline in food production. That means there would be 40 percent less food to eat. He also thought it would bring more marginal land into production as people scrambled to stay alive, bringing more erosion, environmental harm and loss of precious water, seed and labor wasted on non-arable dirt.

Then the other day I read where going organic would be a great way to sequester carbon. That may or may not be true, but among the carbon sequestered would be that of the corpses of those starved to death at the altar of this faddish folly in thinking among the well fed and well heeled. We should instead be trying to increase yields on good lands while using biotech to develop plants that make some of their own nitrogen, use less water and resist more diseases. These elitist organic policy leaders, not one with a blister or splinter earned from working to feed their

families or live-ins, must not like poor folks much. If they did, they'd quit their relentless hectoring to starve them by forcing us all to give up modern farming tools like fertilizer, herbicides and other "chemicals," not to mention plant genetics engineering. Even if the Texas A&M professor overstated the percentage, any decrease means starvation in a world with a growing population. In fact, we need to increase production if we care about the lives of others already here.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.

The good you do today may not be remembered tomorrow. Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness may make you vulnerable to attack. Be honest anyway.

People who need help can be confused and distressed and they may attack you when you try to help. Help them anyway.

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Try to love them anyway.

If you are successful, you may win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.

Author Unknown



Copyright 2010 The Wabaunsee County Signal-Enterprise, Alma, Kansas. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from SmallTownPapers, Inc.

© 2011 The Wabaunsee County Signal-Enterprise Alma, Kansas. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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