Which Numbers Do You Believe?
By: Doug Busselman, Executive Vice President
Given the various numbers of projections that the federal agencies have put out in their effort to justify the advancement of the Climate Change, Cap-and-Trade program, it’s understandable that you could have a mix-up on which numbers you might actually want to have used.
In this news release from ranking U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee member, Senator Saxby Chambliss, it would seem the recent analysis by the United States Department of Agriculture might need some explaining.
In one area they are thinking that a certain amount of productive crop lands would be taken out of production in order to chase the federal government’s market of carbon credits, but another projection by the Environmental Protection Agency suggests a different level…
One of the problems when you start getting your story crossed-up with what you’ve got on the record already – which numbers are the right numbers and what numbers are just the ones you want somebody to accept, because they work out better.
Given the various numbers of projections that the federal agencies have put out in their effort to justify the advancement of the Climate Change, Cap-and-Trade program, it’s understandable that you could have a mix-up on which numbers you might actually want to have used.
In this news release from ranking U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee member, Senator Saxby Chambliss, it would seem the recent analysis by the United States Department of Agriculture might need some explaining.
In one area they are thinking that a certain amount of productive crop lands would be taken out of production in order to chase the federal government’s market of carbon credits, but another projection by the Environmental Protection Agency suggests a different level…
"It appears that the June 2009 EPA analysis would suggest a minimum of 78 million acres of cropland would be converted to forests by 2050. That is nearly 20 percent of total cropland in the United States."If that much crop production gets turned into trees, and there is also a level of production put into alternative fuels; what will be result on food prices? After all, it was only a summer ago that the cries and wailing was over a lot less than these amounts of production supposedly headed for gas tanks instead of grocery isles.
One of the problems when you start getting your story crossed-up with what you’ve got on the record already – which numbers are the right numbers and what numbers are just the ones you want somebody to accept, because they work out better.
Posted by Doug Busselman at 7/27/2009 9:06 AM 
Categories: Climate Change
Tags: USDA Projections Senate Agriculture Committee Cap-and-Trade Congress
Categories: Climate Change
Tags: USDA Projections Senate Agriculture Committee Cap-and-Trade Congress
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