More food producing problems

Per the National Climate Data Center, the drought in the continental U.S. is the worst in 56 years. As growing your own food is apparently a big issue (Be careful that you don’t piss off your neighbors by living sustainably), expect some seriously jacked prices...while the big boys rake in record profits. NPR had a segment today on the drought and they talked to a small farmer in Ohio about her crop. Ms. Bryn Bird raises sweet corn. Listen to the segment. At just after the two minute point, she calmly says she's looking at a $30-40,000 loss this year. And because sweet corn is not a commodity, she can't get crop insurance! According to the NY Times, politics is killing the Farm Bill overhaul, but as it stands,

...farmers who grow corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton and other crops receive about $5 billion in direct payments.
$5 billion...whether they grow crops or not...and that's not even the insurance subsidies. Now, the new bill is supposed to eliminate those direct payments, but the House elephants are divided, so it won't happen until after the election. I always thought something was wrong with paying people not to grow crops, and I'm not sure how much of the current or future farm bill goes to that specifically, but the U.S. supposedly spent
$7.4 billion last year on federal crop and revenue insurance premium subsidies for farmers.
...and at a minimum, $90 B over the next ten years for insurance premium subsidies. Meanwhile, the small, real food producers absorb not inconsiderable losses because they can't get insurance for such unsexy crops as sweet corn. It's okay to be outraged now.

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Government by a well-to-do minority

At The Atlantic, Lawrence Lessig explains that those who run America, those on both the left and the right, are much fewer than the 1%:

[W]e give the tiniest fraction of America the power to veto any meaningful policy change. Not just change on the left but also change on the right. Because of the structure of influence that we have allowed to develop, the tiniest fraction of the one percent have the effective power to block reform desired by the 99-plus percent. Yet by "the tiniest fraction of the one percent" I don't necessarily mean the rich. I mean instead the fraction of Americans who are willing to spend their money to influence congressional campaigns for their own interest. That fraction is different depending upon the reform at issue: a different group rallies to block health-care reform than rallies to block global warming legislation. But the key is that under the system we've allowed to evolve, a tiny number (with resources at least) has the power to block reform they don't like. A tiny number of Americans -- .26 percent -- give more than $200 to a congressional campaign. .05 percent give the maximum amount to any congressional candidate. .01 percent give more than $10,000 in any election cycle. And .000063 percent -- 196 Americans -- have given more than 80 percent of the super-PAC money spent in the presidential elections so far.

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Be careful that you don’t piss off your neighbors by living sustainably

A Ferguson Missouri man is being harassed by the city of Ferguson for growing vegetables in his front yard. I have no patience for heavy-handed government action like this (and attempts to prevent people from putting solar panels on their roofs) that interfere with sustainability. We are so incredibly busy rearranging the deck chairs while the Titanic sinks. Or perhaps I'm just grumpy because I saw several "clean coal" adds on CNN today in the lunch room at the office.

Continue ReadingBe careful that you don’t piss off your neighbors by living sustainably