On Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases “may endanger public health or welfare.”

On this issue, the science is sound. Whether it’s a manmade phenomena, a natural phenomena or a combination of both, the reality is the climate is changing and the consequence of inaction could be devastating to millions of people on the planet.
While there’s a global recession going on, fighting the effects of global climate change isn’t something people do when economic times are good. It’s something that must be accomplished — good times or bad times.
The findings that greenhouse gases contribute to air pollution that may endanger public health or welfare were the results of the EPA conducting a thorough scientific review ordered in 2007 by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The proposed finding, which now moves to a public comment period, identified six greenhouse gases that pose a potential threat.
“This finding confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson.  “This pollution problem has a solution – one that will create millions of green jobs and end our country’s dependence on foreign oil.”
And the creation of those green jobs is good news for Nebraska’s economy as the state can be one of the nation’s leading energy states with ethanol production, wind energy and solar.
According to the EPA, the proposed endangerment finding states, “In both magnitude and probability, climate change is an enormous problem. The greenhouse gases that are responsible for it endanger public health and welfare within the meaning of the Clean Air Act.”
EPA’s proposed endangerment finding is based on rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific analysis of six gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride – that have been the subject of intensive analysis by scientists around the world.
In a world where both ends of the political spectrum insist on “sound science”, the EPA scientific findings clearly show “that concentrations of these gases are at unprecedented levels as a result of human emissions, and these high levels are very likely the cause of the increase in average temperatures and other changes in our climate.”
We can haw and hem all we want to about this, but around the world, the signs are there and the consequences are very real.
The EPA scientific analysis also confirms that climate change impacts human health in several ways.
Findings from a recent EPA study titled “Assessment of the Impacts of Global Change on Regional U.S. Air Quality: A Synthesis of Climate Change Impacts on Ground-Level Ozone,” for example, suggest that climate change may lead to higher concentrations of ground-level ozone, a harmful pollutant.
Additional impacts of climate change include, but are not limited to:
— Increased drought.
— More heavy downpours and flooding.
— More frequent and intense heat waves and wildfires.
— Greater sea level rise.
— More intense storms.
— Harm to water resources, agriculture, wildlife and ecosystems.
In proposing the finding, Jackson said EPA also took into account the disproportionate impact climate change has on the health of certain segments of the population, such as the poor, the very young, the elderly, those already in poor health, the disabled, those living alone and/or indigenous populations dependent on one or a few resources.
In addition to threatening human health, the EPA analysis finds that climate change also has serious national security implications.
Consistent with this proposed finding, in 2007, 11 retired U.S. generals and admirals signed a report from the Center for a New American Security stating that climate change “presents significant national security challenges for the United States.”
Those 2007 findings found that as a result of global warming escalating violence in destabilized regions can be incited and fomented by an increasing scarcity of resources – including water. This lack of resources, driven by climate change patterns, then drives massive migration to more stabilized regions of the world, according to the military.
According to Jackson, the proposed endangerment finding now enters the public comment period, which is the next step in the deliberative process EPA must undertake before issuing final findings.
Jackson said the proposed finding does not include any proposed regulations. Before taking any steps to reduce greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, she said EPA would conduct an appropriate process and consider stakeholder input.
But there’s always unintended consequences from changes in government policies. It only makes sense that some of the same industries contributing to the problem of global warming will be the ones hurt most from any government program dealing with greenhouse gas emissions.
Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., is concerned that ruling will allow EPA to make future regulations of such emissions under the Clean Air Act that could financially hurt agriculture and other industries.
That’s especially true with the biggest segment of Nebraska’s billion dollar agricultural industry — livestock production.
According to Johanns, the EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act “… would have a devastating impact on livestock producers because cattle emit methane, one of the gases the EPA proposes to regulate.”
If you want to rally public support for something, all opponents have to do is say that the ruling will raise taxes. That what Johanns called the EPA regulations, “a steep tax that would result is commonly referred to as the “cow tax.”
Johanns said the legislation he’s co-sponsoring will “prevent this regulation from adversely affecting producers by amending the Clean Air Act to preclude regulation of naturally occurring livestock emissions, including methane and carbon dioxide.”
“For a state like Nebraska, which ranks first in the nation in commercial red meat production, this EPA proposal could have devastating consequences,” Johanns said. “This ‘cow tax’ could cost farmers and ranchers tens of thousands of dollars per farm per year.”
He said with the rising costs of production, “… this could put family farms at risk of going under.”
“The legislation I am co-sponsoring applies some common sense to ensure the Clean Air Act isn’t stretched to far-reaching applications that it was never intended to cover,” Johanns said.
Similar arguments can be made for each of the six  greenhouse gases the EPA wants to regulate. But the time has come for action. New regulations have to be flexible because jobs will be effected.  Business can’t be put ahead of environmental concerns.
But environmental concerns can also create more business opportunities and jobs that those regulations will impact. Things just shift a different way. That’s the power of a free market system. It can still operate rather efficiently regardless of the barriers imposed upon it. (And that is where government regulation would really hurt.) One thing for certain, business stagnates if there’s isn’t change of some kind. It’s opportunities that create commerce. Like life, business finds a way to survive.

By Robert Pore
robert.pore@theindependent.com
A decision by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) earlier this month to solicit public comments solely on delaying the implementation of a new feed ban, rather than soliciting public comment on the ban itself, is being criticized by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
According to NCBA, it has been opposed to the enhanced feed ban since it was originally proposed in 2005 and continues to urge FDA to open the rule to public comment and delay implementation until they have had adequate time to consider the many problems caused by the ban.
“Cattle producers across the country have been suffering as a result of this proposed rule months before it is scheduled to take effect,” said Dr. Elizabeth Parker, chief veterinarian for NCBA.
She said members of Congress and the Senate have joined NCBA in petitioning the FDA to reopen the rule itself for public comment so that the people impacted can share their stories.
“Instead, the FDA is only allowing seven days of comments on whether to delay the implementation of the rule by 60 days,” Parker said. “This is a weak and ineffective response to the issues already arising from this ill-considered action.”
According to NCBA, during the past two decades industry and government have worked together to put in place science-based measures that have proven successful in preventing and reducing the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the U.S.
NCBA said the incidence of BSE worldwide has “dramatically” decreased due to the many measures put into place, including a series of interlocking safeguards and science-based mitigation practices.
“We must continue to look to the science to avoid over-regulating the industry and creating policy that doesn’t meet our objective of a safer animal health system,” Parker said.
Since 1997, Parker said, the U.S. proactive “ruminant to ruminant” feed ban, combined with other government and industry safeguards, has proven to be “highly successful in limiting BSE in the U.S. herd.”
Parker said the U.S. has an extremely low-level risk of BSE, as demonstrated by years of robust USDA surveillance and confirmed by the U.S. “BSE Controlled Risk” designation by the OIE, the international animal health standard setting body.
“The FDA did not do a risk assessment for this so-called enhanced feed ban,” said Parker. “The prevalence of BSE in the healthy cattle population of the United States is negligible, and globally this situation has nearly been eradicated.”
Parker said the enhanced feed ban would move beyond the current ban in that it would prohibit certain cattle-derived risk materials from all animal feed. As such, she said, the enhanced feed ban would provide negligible benefits to animal health or food safety.
“It would also create tremendous costs for ranchers, exacerbate disposal issues, and generate environmental concerns,” Parker said.
Beginning as early as December 2008, NCBA reports that many renderers stopped picking up dead livestock because of the severe economic realities of this proposal.
For several months, NCBA said, they have received numerous reports from producers and veterinarians having increased difficulty in getting dead animals picked up. If they are able to find pickup services, the prices charged by haulers and renderers are significantly higher than they ever have been.
“This rule has essentially ended rendering services in many parts of the country, and left producers with no legal alternatives,” said Parker.“These are 1,200-pound animals. It is unrealistic and simplistic to think that producers can dispose of them in their backyards. The environmental and economic consequences are enormous and FDA has the responsibility to consider those concerns before implementing this rule.”
According to NCBA, FDA estimates the new regulations would generate an additional 28 million pounds of prohibited material derived from healthy cattle at the slaughter plant level and will create an estimated 26.2 percent to 41.6 percent decrease in cattle carcasses being picked up by rendering services. That translates into an additional 369 million to 577 million pounds annually that will have to be disposed of by some other means.
This is in addition to the approximately 3 billion pounds of ruminant carcasses resulting annually from natural causes, according to NCBA. Parker said that while FDA acknowledges these very real concerns, it has yet to identify any viable solutions.
NCBA said the rule, as originally proposed in October 2005, failed an economic cost benefit analysis as required by the Office of Management and Budget and was sent back to FDA for revision.
According to NCBA, the revised final rule published in April 2008 was a political decision, disregarding the economic consequences and ignoring risk analysis.
The FDA is providing the public with seven days — through this Thursday — to submit comments on whether the enhanced feed ban should be delayed for 60 days.
According to R-CALF USA, USDA increased the risk of BSE in the United States by allowing into the U.S. millions of Canadian cattle, particularly cattle more than 30 months (OTM) of age that are of higher risk for the disease. USDA states that the prevalence of BSE in the Canadian cattle herd is between three cases per million and eight cases per million. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the level of BSE prevalence in the Canadian cattle herd is up to 48-fold higher than the prevalence estimated in the U.S. cattle herd.
Just in 2008, nearly 1.6 million Canadian cattle, including OTM cattle, were imported into the United States. A recent USDA risk assessment model that incorporated a BSE prevalence rate for Canada of fewer than four cases per million head of cattle predicted the U.S. would import more than 100 BSE-infected cattle from Canada during the next 20 years.
R-CALF USA said that the current U.S. feed ban, implemented in 1997, is “actually weaker than Canada’s initial feed ban because it does not ban the feeding of plate waste and poultry litter to cattle.”
It said that Canada’s feed ban has proved ineffective in controlling the spread of BSE in Canadian cattle, and after Canada began detecting multiple cases of BSE in animals born years after the feed ban, it relented to the repeated urging of international scientists and then enhanced its feed ban.
Canada’s enhanced feed ban, implemented in July 2007, now protects Canadian consumers against the spread of BSE from Canadian cattle by closing known transmission routes, including cross-contamination and inadvertent feeding of contaminated cattle parts, according to R-CALF USDA.
But according to R-CALF USA, the FDA now plans to delay providing U.S. consumers with the same level of protection afforded Canadian consumers against these same Canadian cattle that are now being imported into the United States.
“This last-minute proposal to postpone the new FDA feed ban, needed to minimize the heighten BSE risk from Canadian cattle, is designed to position the U.S. cattle industry between a rock and a hard place, and we hope that U.S. producers and U.S. consumers will see through this manipulative tactic and force USDA and the FDA to do what’s right,” said R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard.
Like the original Canadian feed ban, Bullard said, the current U.S. feed ban is insufficient to address the heightened BSE risk in Canadian cattle.
“Either USDA must immediately eliminate the source of this heightened BSE risk by prohibiting the importation of OTM Canadian cattle, or FDA must immediately implement the 2008 BSE final rule to mitigate this heightened risk. There are no responsible alternatives,” he said.

Nebraska is a pretty good state to live in when it comes combating Frequent Mental Distress (FMD), according to the June 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Frequent Mental Distress (FMD), defined as having 14 or more days in the previous month when stress, depression and emotional problems were not good , is not evenly distributed across the United States.

Combining data from annual large-scale surveys in 1993-2001 and 2003-2006 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers found that the adult prevalence of FMD was 9.4% overall, ranging from 6.6% in Hawaii to 14.4% in Kentucky. FMD prevalence varied both over time and by geographic area within states. From the earlier period to the later period, the mean prevalence of FMD increased by at least 1 percentage point in 27 states and by more than 4 percentage points in Mississippi, Oklahoma and West Virginia. The Appalachian and the Mississippi Valley regions had high and increasing FMD prevalence, and the upper Midwest had low and decreasing FMD prevalence.

The state-based Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) has asked questions about mental health since 1993 and collects data from random telephone surveys of adult residents across the U.S. More than 1.2 million people were surveyed in each of the two periods. FMD prevalence was determined by county, and the results were smoothed to reduce variation from random sampling due to small sample sizes in less populous counties.

For the 1993 period, the smoothed FMD prevalence was less than 8% in 31.8% of the 3112 counties analyzed and was ≥12.0% in 4.8% of the counties. For the 2003 period, the smoothed FMD prevalence was < 8% in 15.9% of the 3113 counties analyzed and was ≥ 12.0% in 16.1% of the counties. Consistent multicounty geographic patterns were evident for both periods—including areas where smoothed FMD prevalence was < 8% in adjoining parts of several states in the upper Midwest region (ND, SD, NE, KS, MN, IA, MO, WI, IL) and an area where FMD prevalence was ≥12% that was centered on Kentucky (IN, OH, KY, WV, VA, TN). Differences in physical conditions (like disability or diabetes mellitus), stressful life events (like job loss), and social circumstances (like income) may be associated with differences in FMD prevalence.

“Because FMD often indicates potentially unmet health and social service needs, programs for public health, community mental health and social services whose jurisdictions include areas with high FMD levels should collaborate to identify and eliminate the specific preventable sources of this distress,” said Dr. Matthew M. Zack, the study’s lead investigator. “With the growing scientific literature linking FMD to treatable mental illnesses and preventable mental health problems, the increased use of these surveillance data in community mental health decision making is especially warranted. The continued surveillance of mental distress may help these programs to identify unmet needs and disparities, to focus their policies and interventions and to evaluate their performance over time.”

Technology has not only changed the face of agriculture during the 20th century, it is still defining its future in the 21st century.
As the world’s population increases and environmental challenges mount, technology will help agriculture met those challenges with food to share.
A hint of those technological trends that lie ahead and will define ag’s immediate- and long-range future were recently revealed to 50 investment fund managers last monty during Ag Day in New York City, according to No-Till Farmer.
The event was co-sponsored by No-Till Farmer and Wall Street Access. It was designed to help Wall Street fund managers better understand the food production cycle and this year’s fertilizer markets.
From No-Till Farmer, here are some of the ideas presented at the event by the participants.
— Take a closer look at government payments. While no-tilling, seeding cover crops, practicing nutrient management and tiling each earns us a separate government payment, there is a $20-per-acre bonus available by using all four practices on our farm.
— Turning off spray nozzles individually when approaching grass waterways or overlapping end rows saves 20 percent on chemical costs.
— Less than 20 percent of new tractors are GPS equipped, even though a typical payback is 12 to 18 months.
—S ales of self-propelled sprayers will rise as growers insist on more timely pesticide application.
— Lime is the most cost-effective way to correct many soil problems.
— The popularity of anhydrous ammonia is not going away, but there’s going to be more pressure on using it safely and properly.
— Turning off individual seed boxes on a planter when you cross grass waterways can save 15 percent on seed costs.
— Agriculture will recover quicker than general businesses from the current economic downturn.
— Versus conventional tillage, strip-till saves  2,250 hours of labor per year. That works out to a savings of $27,000 with 4,700 acres of corn.
— No-till and strip-till save 3 to 5 gallons per acre in fuel costs. With 5,000 acres, that saves up to $40,000 per year.
— Using GMO corn hybrids for insect and weed control offers up to a 30-bushel-per-acre yield increase. With $4 corn, that could amount to as much as $564,000 in extra income per year in our operation.
— Use of biotech corn hybrids has resulted in a 7.8 percent reduction in pesticide costs.
— Some no-tillers are applying a double dose of phosphorus and potassium every two years to cut down on field trips without losing any yield.
— Variable-rate nitrogen application can cut rates by 60 to 80 pounds per acre.
— Many sulfur deficiencies are due to the fact that electrical power plants fueled with coal are no longer releasing as much sulfur into the atmosphere. A recent Iowa State University study shows spending $5 per acre for sulfur can boost corn yields by 15 bushels per acre.
— No single factor will do more to boost yields than reducing planting speed. Operating a 12-row no-till planter at 4 mph allows more uniform and high-yielding stands with corn and soybeans.
— Early planting is critical as more sunlight can be utilized during the growing season.
— One of the new innovations is attaching a strip-till toolbar to the front of the tractor to do a better job of accurately building berms while pulling a fertilizer tank directly behind the tractor.
— One farmer is looking at growing twin-row corn or shifting from 30- to 20-inch rows. This should allow them to push seed populations up to as much as 45,000 seeds per acre.
— Water-use efficiency is the biggest barrier to growing 300-bushel-per-acre corn.
— Corn yields average 180 to 220 bushels per acre with GMO hybrids compared to 160 to 180 bushels per acre with non-GMO corn in refuge areas.
— Farmers want to get to where they can continually monitor the performance of all ag machinery from the farm office.
— Tillage does more harm to a cropping system than chemicals will ever do.
—  Producers are gearing up to grow switchgrass for ethanol production.
— Electronic guidance systems are used on only 30 percent of farms with more than 500 acres. Auto-steer is still in its infancy with only 10 percent market penetration.
— Working ground even once will set back your no-till progress.
—The technology for a single operator in a pickup truck running two, three or four combines within the same field is here. Grower acceptance is still a few years away.
— When we look at growing 300-bushel-per-acre corn, narrowing down the row widths, using twin rows and varying nitrogen rates should help reach this goal.
Innovation, field experience, ingenuity and new technology is defining this new century of agriculture. The challenges are there but human imagintion and ingenuity are boundless with the right attitude and the willingness to change and try new ideas.