Flyover Country
Far from the glittering lights and Alpen Glow of Davos-Klosters and the World Economic Forum is America’s Flyover Country. That’s us. And thank goodness for that. We enjoy the subtle beauty of the land around us and avoid many of the crowding problems more glamorous parts of the world face.
Davos, Switzerland, site of the World Economic Forum
What we have in common, however, is a role to play in averting the worst effects of climate change. The Davos crowd of global moneyed power brokers must do more than simple greenwashing, or lip service, to fight climate change through the government and business entities they command. And, the Midwest must reduce its significant contribution of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, much of them due to agriculture.
In 2007, a report published by the World Resources Institute (WRI) stated with respect to GHG emissions that “If the Midwest were its own country, it would be the fifth largest emitter in the world.” While the relative positions of who is emitting how much more than whom over the years certainly has changed, particularly with China and India augmenting their GHG contributions, none have gone down, as described in the WRI report.
Agricultural activities — crop and livestock production for food — contribute to emissions in a variety of ways:
Application of synthetic and organic fertilizers, growing nitrogen-fixing crops, drainage of organic soil and irrigation practices.
Livestock, especially ruminants such as cattle, produce methane as part of their normal digestive processes. This process, called enteric fermentation, represents almost one third of the emissions from the agriculture economic sector.
Manure management. Different manure treatment and storage methods affect how much greenhouse gas is produced.
Smaller sources of agricultural emissions include carbon dioxide from liming and urea application, and both methane and nitrous oxide from burning crop residues.
Credit: Cates Family Farm, LLC. They are committed to sustainable agriculture.
Last year, reports from the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change scientists advocated for significantly increasing the amount of land that's covered in trees and other vegetation and reducing the amount of methane and other greenhouse gases that come from raising livestock such as cows, sheep and goats.
Through good stewardship, as described in the multimedia report, Climate Change and Agriculture, produced by the Union of Concerned Scientists, Midwest farmers can make a huge difference.
We can only hope the powerful Davos glitterati will do the same. You can read more about the progress being made in that arena here.
Please join us on Sunday, February 16, at 1 p.m. at the McFarland Public Library for our program on The Promise of Ag Stewardship. Find more details here.
Splash photo credit: Cates Family Farm, LLC.
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This blog is written by LWVDC’s Climate Team. If you receive blog posts by email, our system automatically inserts “by Brook Soltvedt.” Brook is the webmaster, not the author of the blog.