Trump Country Farmers Fight Climate Change And Deny It

In America’s Heartland, Discussing Climate Change Without Saying ‘Climate Change’

Hiroko Tabuchi, January 28, 2017 (NY Times)

Editor’s note: This is a long article entirely work some time. But is it about resisting reality or extreme reality?

“…Doug Palen, a fourth-generation grain farmer on Kansas’ wind-swept plains, is in the business of understanding the climate. Since 2012, he has choked through the harshest drought to hit the Great Plains in a century, punctuated by freakish snowstorms and suffocating gales of dust…To adapt, he has embraced an environmentally conscious way of farming that guards against soil erosion and conserves precious water. He can talk for hours about carbon sequestration — the trapping of global-warming-causing gases in plant life and in the soil — or the science of the beneficial microbes that enrich his land. In short, he is a climate change realist. Just don’t expect him to utter the words ‘climate change.’…Here in north-central Kansas, America’s breadbasket and conservative heartland, the economic realities of agriculture make climate change a critical business issue. At the same time, politics and social pressure make frank discussion complicated. This is wheat country, and Donald J. Trump country, and though the weather is acting up, the conservative orthodoxy maintains that the science isn’t settled…So while climate change is part of daily conversation, it gets disguised as something else…” click here for more

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