The approach to climate change has been a topic of debate for as long as the concept of climate change has been around. Some believe that the Hamiltonian response, a focused national response from the government, is necessary in order to get the country to correctly react to the problems the world is currently and will be facing. Others believe that the Jeffersonian response is more appropriate since it means that citizens would be in control of the changes and therefore more willing to make the changes and more likely to accept, follow, and tell others about these changes. However, to truly implement the kind of change necessary to combat climate change, a mixed approach is necessary to not only ensure that a larger portion of people want to follow the changes, but also ensures that the changes are practical and efficient. Any extremes in the matter will result in a large portion of people not taking the matter seriously or only affect a specific group of people. So why is neither response alone the right response and where should the government's control end and the people's begin in order to create the most effective response to climate change?
It is obvious that the community has been the source of some of the most creative and successful practices that have been proven to weather the problems of climate change. Henry Hurage, who is a farmer from Kenya, convinced 300 other farmers to follow practices he had learned in England. The result was that this particular group of farmers were the ones who fared the best when a drought had hit the area. They also became more self-reliant (McKibben, 2011). This is only one of the many examples of "experimental" innovations that communities all over the globe are adopting. However, whil...
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...is means that communities are choosing to be more environmentally aware, and therefore the people are more likely to follow these conservation programs.
Works Cited
Kadlecek, M. (2010). A Change in Climate. New York State Conservationist. Retrieved from
http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/administration_pdf/0210changeinclimate.pdf
Kegans, M. (2005). Mountains of Corn and a Sea of Farm Subsidies. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://artsci.wustl.edu/~anthro/articles/09harvest.html.
Kennedy, D.M., Lizabeth, C., & Bailey, T.A. The American Pageant. Boston, M.A.: Houghton Mifflin Company.
McKibben, B. (2011). Eaarth. New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Press.
Richardson, J. ( 2011). Are All Farm Subsidies Giveaways to Corporate Farmers? Nope, Here's a Rundown on Both Good and Bad Subsidies. AlterNet. Retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/food/150621?page=entire.
In the New York Times article “When a Crop Becomes a King”, author Michael Pollan argues there is an overproduction of corn that does more harm than it does good. He writes this in response to a farm bill signed by then President Bush to increase the budget for corn production which caused much controversy. Pollan uses an infuriated and frustrated tone in order to convince American consumers that corn has taken over their environment and economy. Michael Pollan uses rhetorical strategies to challenge conventional views of corn and to argue against additional corn production.
In 1919, farmers from thirty states, including Missouri, saw a need. They gathered in Chicago and formed the American Farm Bureau Federation. In 1919, they had one goal, they wanted to speak for themselves with the help of their own national organization. Since 1919, Farm Bureau has operated by a philosophy that states: “analyze the problem of farmers and develop a plan of action for these problems” (Missouri). In the past 94 years, the A...
...nergy from an acre of Iowa farmland. Unfortunately, for more than fifty years, farm policies is designed to encourage the overproduction of this crop and hardly any other. It simply because the government subsidize high-fructose corn syrup in this country. While the surgeon general is warning the epidemic of obesity, our government is still signing bills encouraging the river of cheap corn flowing. It is clearly shown that food production in America is partly a mixture of politic, economic and morality.
...ed access to federal subsidies that were given to all farmers. These federal programs were administered locally by a small class that controlled the counties. If they said that their county didn’t have the need for these checks they were returned, or in some cases pocketed by the landowners themselves instead of giving them to the sharecroppers. (Kreisler internet)
In this report, I will detail the factors that contribute to the price of farmland in Iowa. Agriculture plays an essential role in the economy of this state. As one of the top soybean and corn producers in the United States, an understanding of the cost of land correlates to the cost of these crops……
Sugar growers continue to benefit from favorable economic conditions provided by the U.S. government. Yet empirical data reveal a decrease in the aggregate support for sugar legislation in recent years. In 1978, there were 9,187 full or part owners of sugar cane and sugar beet farms, compared to 7,799 farms in 1987. The level of sugar subsidy allocated to the farmers, however, has increased and even favored certain sugar growers disproportionately over others. Such empirical findings suggests that politics, as much as economics, affect the level of sugar subsidy. This paper examines why an increasingly smaller number of sugar farmers receive a steadily larger government subsidy.
A. “Farm Policy.” CQ Researcher 10 Aug. 2012: 693-716. Web. The Web. The Web.
“Climate change is real. It is human-caused. We’re seeing the effects now.” (Romm, 2014). Climate change is an important issue the public is aware of, but do not see how their individual responses can have an impact on such a large global issue. Changing people’s temporal habits and attitudes about climate change will be a challenge. As the impacts of anthropogenic climate change are felt more often in our daily lives, people around the world will begin to adjust their temporal habits for greater sustainability of the natural environment we solely depend on for our survival.
New York Times, p. 1. Riedl, M. (2011, March 30). Farm subsidies ripe for reform?
E Much of it is given away to large corporations who, through the numerous loopholes left in agricultural policy legislature, find ways to collect as much cash as possible. Firstly, before direct payments were eliminated, they applied to people and not farms, meaning that every employee of a huge agribusiness could receive the maximum payment of $40,000 annually if the company was eligible, leading to automatic immense profits. In addition, each person could receive an additional $20,000 for every property the farm is spread out over, allowing corporations to split up business into legally separate entities to receive payments. An example of this loophole in action was Tyler Farms, an agribusiness in Arkansas, which split into 66 properties, providing for $23.8 million in extra subsidies from the years 1996 to 2000 (Riedl). Because Congress does nothing to enforce payment limits or close loopholes, agricultural subsidies had become little more than corporate welfare, with two thirds of the subsidy budget going to the top ten percent of eligible recipients
One of the most urgent environmental and social issue is climate change, its being talked about all over the world since its affecting billions of lives.The earth goes through a period of cool and warm period, which are called climate change. Climate change is when the earth gets warmer or cooler due to the amount of sunlight it receives from the sun. Climate changes isn't just affecting humans, its affecting the whole ecosystem. Coral reefs are turning white and polar ice caps are turning black. Animals are becoming extinct because their environment is being threatened. People all over the country and world are becoming aware that the climate is changing, especially after this year. It snowed in cities that usually do not get snow, it snowed in spring, and also flooding in some cities. The country is starting to realize the role human activities play on climate changes, and because humans are responsible for the rapid climate changes they must take actions to protect the environment. There has been periods of Global Warming in history that were mainly naturally caused but the most recent one which is happening now is influenced mostly by humans. Scientists have been debating on whether or not Global Warming is caused by humans. Both sides, however agree that as sunlight enters the earth's surface only a little bit is reflected back into space, most of it is absorbed into the earth which keep the earth warm, and the rest is absorbed into the atmosphere. As college students, we must work together to come up with a plan to help reduce greenhouse emission. Since in the book of Genesis 1 and 2 it says that God placed Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden as caretakers. Their job was to care for the everything in the garden, they weren't...
One of the most compelling and difficult environmental problems society is facing today is climate change. People do not realize how much the environment has changed for the worse in the last ten years, until they are told that the last two decades of the 20th century have been the hottest in the last 400 years, according to climate studies (Conserve Energy Future). Today the carbon dioxide levels have reached 396.81 parts per million (ppm). “Carbon dioxide (CO2) has also increased over the last 100 years-- from about 300 ppm to 370 ppm. Interestingly, the majority of these additions have occurred in the last 50 years, when temperature increases have been slowest” (geocraft). There are no known solutions yet to reverse these effects in the environment, however there are many things people can do to prevent it from increasing. By implementing a carbon tax the government can tax corporations on how much carbon they emit into the atmosphere. With the extra money from the tax, scientist can invest in alternative ways to reduce how much carbon is emitted. Reducing climate change is going to take years and so nothing is going to get fixed anytime soon, but meanwhile we can use that extra money to begin cleaning up the atmosphere. There are many ways to explain climate change, some say its due to the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, others say it is the burning of the fossils fuels, some even say it’s the greenhouse gases. All of these sayings mean the exact same thing, no matter how one says it. I believe there are more convenient ways to solve climate change; and if the government would to implement a carbon tax on companies they will then be forced to re-evaluate all the carbon they emit to the environment and red...
The first part of this essay discusses what the human species has done to deal with the problem of climate change. While some improvements have been made, the problem has not been addressed aggressively enough to stop the damage. What is amazing about this is the denial of so many people that problems exist. If they do realize the risks, they are simply not taking actions to contain the damage.
McKibben and the Bishops both believe that farm subsidies should be shift away from large farmers and used for other purposes that benefit small farms and communities. “Almost a third of all federal farm payments to the largest 2 percent of farms” and encourage the production of only certain crops (86). A lot of money is going into large farms that could be given to small farms and used more efficiently. Instead of giving the money to large farms, the money should be given to farms that are “environmentally sound” and use “sustainable farming practices” (7). The money should be used to help them through changes in weather and global markets that may have negative effects. McKibben explained that some places in England give subsidies to local
The change in climate has been a topic of controversy across the world throughout the past years. Scientists have done research on how climate changes has changed throughout the years around the world. In the past few years, research shows that climate has changed dramatically in the world. Although climate change is something that occurs normally in nature, there has been substantial evidence that mankind is a contributor to the dramatic increase. Most countries around the world have got together to discuss how to reduce mankind’s contribution to climate change, but there is other countries that still do not consider this as a problem. Research conducted by scientists have supported the idea that climate