This short personal essay from “farmer Steve” in North Dakota appeared as a comment on WUWT here. I thought it was a succinct and clear message based on personal experience and values, and thus worth sharing. I’ve made some formatting changes to make it easier to read, otherwise it is exactly as he posted his comment. For background on the North Dakota carbon credit program extended to farmers and ranchers, see this, this, and the program home page. Anyone who wishes to repost this essay has my permission to do so. – Anthony
Carbon Credits
I have changed my mind about participating in the carbon credit program. And have resolved to give the money I received to St Jude’s Children’s Hospital.
Here is why.
Recently I sat in the fire hall with a few dozen farmers. We had been invited to hear how we can get paid for carbon credits.
The speaker explained how their satellites can measure the carbon in our land individually and how much money we could get. Then asked for questions.
I asked “what is the source of this money”?
The presenter said it comes from big companies that pollute.
I asked “where do they get this money”? He had no answer.
So I answered for him, asking, “won’t it come from everyone who pays their power bill”? He then agreed and said “that could be”.
I then said isn’t this about the theory of man made global warming? he said “we are not going to talk about that”. Here they are on the prairie soliciting land for carbon credits tempting us with free money.
I believe that agreeing to take their money means you agree with taxing cattle gas also, because methane is a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than carbon. I believe taking this money without considering its source makes us no better than the bankers who lent money to people, knowing they could not pay it back. Collecting their fees then selling the bad loans in bundles to someone else. They did not care where the money came from either.
Let’s be clear.
Carbon is not a new commodity! No new wealth is being created here! Is this the way we want to make a living? Let me ask you, what if their satellites determine that your land has lost carbon? You will get a bill, not a check, right? If you make a tillage pass you will get a bill for emitting carbon, is this not correct?
It is also a fact that this income will, in short order, get built into your land cost. You will keep very little and be left with the burden of another bureaucratic program.
Let’s be honest, we feel compelled to take this money because of the need to be competitive, however we also need to hold true to our values and lead by example that means placing our principals ahead of money.
No good citizen is opposed to using the earth’s resources wisely, however, wisdom means a person who has both intelligence and humility. In my view many of the proponents of man made global warming have the first and lack the second. We are able to exercise our freedom in this country because we have abundant, reliable and affordable power. It is ironic that we sat in front of the flag in that fire hall and considered trading our liberty for money.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Roy Disney:
“Decision making becomes easier when your values are clear to you”
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This essay should be enlarged and posted on bill boards around the country. Steve is one smart farmer.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the farm-based carbon credit pay farmers for not running farm machinery? By doing so, crops are not grown with efficiency, thus reducing the effect of a major carbon sink. The net results would be higher residual carbon in the atmosphere.
My town has a large herd of goats eating the grass near houses so they don’t have to till it under as a fire break. By not running the D-6 dozer dragging discs, the town is ostensibly reducing carbon emissions. I pointed out that the goats exhale CO2 and toot methane from the other end, both a result from the carbon content of the grass. I’d guess the net results are higher carbon emissions compared with simply plowing the weeds under. Nobody got it.
Zero till farmers here in Canada will be able to get carbon credit money, most zero till is round-up ready canola etc .(genetically engineered) that means Monsanto will be a big winner in all this. The enviromentalists hate monsanto and geneticly engineered crops! Strange times…
Right! CO2 is well mixed, so say IPCC, but they can measure output from a farm?
Really? What happens if the farm is down wind from a large city?
It seems that unless the crop is used in permanent textiles or some other long lived item that the CO2 will go right back into the atmosphere after its eaten or used as fuel.
I own two cows and a goat on three acres of property. Do I get money for the grass on the property or a bill for the cows and goat?
Farmer Steve is a credit to his occupation. An excellent, thoughtful statement. I especially appreciate his point that
“No good citizen is opposed to using the earth’s resources wisely, however, wisdom means a person who has both intelligence and humility. In my view many of the proponents of man made global warming have the first and lack the second.”
I am doing my best in my college composition classes, with students who want to write about AGW, to inject some critical thinking into the process and get them to look at all sides and justify outlandish conclusions like the 6 degree projected increase in global temperatures. It is not easy going. The brainwish fix is in.
Well done Steve. Values do matter. fm
My personal experience with farmers (my in-laws have had a dairy farm for 40 years) is that they see through these types of shenanigans in short order.
Well said, Farmer Steve!
Thank you Farmer Steve.
I suggest you cover up though, lest you suffer the fate of Joe the Plumber and have a bunch of folks looking through your private records.
The whole economy is crumbling and the government is intent on selling carbon credits. They are going to destroy the economy.
In Ayn Rand famous book, “Atlas Shrugged” the government also controls the science and uses it. She was incredibly accurate in that book. Now we’re living “Atlas Shrugged”.
Interesting post. I’m happy to see a fellow North Dakotan speak up about this. Incidentally, nice picture–here on the flat east side of the state I envy the scenery of the West River Dakota country.
On the scientific side, the piece mentioned a method of scanning farmland by satellite to determine the level of carbon emission or sequestration. Given the highly arbitrary and opaque methods by which government bureaucracies construct data about temperature (a regular topic of WUWT), can any informed person honestly believe that federal agencies can construct objective, accurate data about carbon levels of small plots of ground?
I predict that if current carbon restriction plans actually go forward, the scientific obfuscation that’s currently employed to buttress climate alarmism is going to be multiplied a hundredfold. The current regime of attack and castigation against those who question dangerous AGW will have to be greatly expanded so as to silence those who question the arbitrary findings of the federal carbon accounting authorities.
Steve, Stan, and P Folkens get it…and hats off to Farmer Steve for his clear thinking and ethical strength. Too bad the money-grubbing politicians, myopic environmentalists, and the dumbed-down public don’t get it.
By the way…can someone here explain to me why Europeans are so edgy about AGW and CO2 emmisions…then go to their cars are drive 200 kph, sucking down gas at a ravenous rate and spewing CO2 in volumes much larger per kilometer than at slower speeds? I guees its the same logic as the folks that want windmills all over the place, but not within sight of THEIR homes.
Chuckle !!!!!!
Farmer Steve is much smarter then all of Obama’s “experts”!!!!
This is what COMMON SENSE and PRINCIPLES are all about. These in the farmers hearing and GREED and EVIL among the ones offering “carbon shares”.
Is it making money without producing any good whatsoever not the same as falsifying currency?
There is criminality behind “global warming”, “climate change” or whatever “they” could call it.
What they want folks, in the end, is your property and your liberty, your right to be human beings. If we let them they will become our landlords.
In Washington State the government is waiving environmental requirements to allow heat pumps. Their rationale is that by saving electrical usage associated with AC and heating, there is a reduction in carbon pollution.
For those of you in the east or mid-west, there might actually be some fuel savings where electricity is generated using coal or bunker fuel, but here in Washington, more than 90% of electrical generation comes from hydroelectric sources (Grand Coolee, Bonneville, etc.).
There is only one coal plant in the state – located next to a coal mine in Centralia in Western Washington. Strangely enough it is right next to the Bonneville transmission lines and supplies much of the power for the state capitol 20 miles north.
When the WA government began accounting for carbon (in preparation for cap’ntrade) they decided that hydro power didn’t count. They also mandated that the state would build 20% of all future power using only renewable sources, but left out hydro power as part of that 20%.
Its all a scam. And what’s worse is that everybody knows it and still plays along for fear of the greenies.
I have this feeling of nausea reflecting on this story. Life seems to abound with the ‘Go along to get along’ mentality of the government aparatchik (who is after all very like someone we know-like maybe ourselves) and yet how rare are people of farmer Steve’s moral calibre.
And just exactly when was it decided that government was our guardian? The last thing I need is an omnipotent super-mommy nagging me (or garnishing my allowance). In fact, they treat our earnings as if it were allowance and they feel they can extract as much of it as they want to, especially if they feel we are earning more than we “deserve” to.
I think the two basic differences of the political polarity are this:
One side sees government as a benevolent guardian. The other side sees the potential for it to be a malevolent tyrant. One side wants to give government more control over our daily lives and the other side sees this as potentially dangerous and unnecessarily restrictive.
Howarth (08:39:51) :
I own two cows and a goat on three acres of property. Do I get money for the grass on the property or a bill for the cows and goat?
Yes
I can only say that I respect this Farmer’s common sense.
Something we unfortunately can not say about our politicians and all involved in the process of putting us in “Green Shackles”.
Just for the record: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=324171476115016
Dear Farmer Steve: For you the words of an american poet:
The atmosphere is not a perfume, it has no taste of the
distillation, it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever, I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.
The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, buzz’d whispers, love-root, silk-thread, crotch and vine,
My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing
of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore and
dark-color’d sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,…
Walt Witman
I love it! “We’re not going to talk about that.” Translation: I don’t want to talk about that. What a scam! You realize that big business (including big Ag) and big government are in bed together over this. Businesses are set to make a ton of profits all by offloading the price for the ‘permits’ on to the consumer (i.e., you and me). Whether they do that directly through pricing, or by selling their leftovers to other businesses on some sort of carbon-trading market, the effect will all the be the same. Owens-Corning is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Virtually every company invested in any form of energy related products (e.g., General Electric) loves this kind of scheme. And they’ll have expert after expert testifying to Congress how the earth is going to burn unless we all install energy efficient lightbulbs, drive around in electric vehicles like the PUMA, and buy Owens Corning insulation by the truck full. Wake up and smell the coffee, people! This is your own elected government doing this to you (with the help of big business)! And the happy-go-lucky face of this is President Obama himself. And if Congress doesn’t do anything, which it probably won’t to save face, then you can bet the EPA will. After all, you can’t unelect the EPA. You think things are bad now. If they get their way electricity will cost you per kwH what gas costs you per gallon. Try footing THAT bill.
“Do I get money for the grass on the property or a bill for the cows and goat?”
Silly you should ask. You get a bill for the cows, the goat, AND the grass, of course.
…the net results are higher carbon emissions compared with simply plowing the weeds under. Nobody got it.”
[snip]
Satellites watching us smacks of “1984” and “Big Brother.”
People who live on and by their land have a whole different perspective than the urbanites & subs, a natural ability to see things more clearly. I am concerned for the future when the cities are are deemed most important with their bulk of the population, and can vote for things they not only know nothing about, but have a distorted, misplaced concern for. Thank you, farmer Steve, for speaking up, and to Anthony for posting this.