| | Council’s Vice-Chair
by Larry Kitz
Northern Region Sub-Committe
Farmers and ranchers love talking about the weather. Rarely a day passes that we do not include it in our everyday conversation. And why not? Weather governs much of what we do in agriculture. So when topics such as global warming arise, we of course want to be engaged and participate in the debate.
Scientists know that greenhouse gases occur naturally in the Earth’s atmosphere, keeping the Earth warm. But they have also discovered that concentrations of these gases have rapidly increased over the last century, due to emissions of these gases resulting from modern industry, land use and lifestyles. The majority of scientists studying this issue believe that these increasing concentrations are contributing to changes in temperature, precipitation and wind patterns around the world.
Well, I haven’t spent my career studying things like sediment cores from the bottom of the ocean or ancient tree rings to understand how the Earth’s climate has changed over thousands of years. And I haven’t analyzed the detailed meteorological data currently being collected all over the world, on both land and sea, to understand current global weather patterns. So sometimes I find the predictions about climate change and its possible consequences hard to fathom.
We live on a big planet, I prefer not to think of this issue on a global basis, but bring it down to something I can comprehend: my farm. Carbon does my farm much more good when it is sequestered in the soil profile rather than being released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. And it’s much better for my farm if the nitrogen fertilizer I apply to my crops is used by the crops rather than being lost to the atmosphere as nitrous oxide, a very potent greenhouse gas.
I’m using beneficial management practices, like direct seeding and timely fertilizer applications, to maintain the soil carbon and nitrogen levels needed for healthy crops. These practices make economic sense. If they also happen to do some good in terms of the global climate, that’s even better because the predicted impacts of climate change are very serious.
Scientists are projecting effects like more severe and extreme weather events, more forest fires, damage to water resources, and increasing insect invasions. Such effects could have important economic and environmental consequences globally – as well as right here in Alberta.
This issue of Green Matters looks at efforts to improve our ability to adapt to the impacts of changing weather and climate patterns. The first article is about a national network of researchers, producers and policy makers working on issues related to agriculture’s ability to adapt to climate change. The other three articles look at the implications of the warmer, drier future predicted for the Canadian prairies, for irrigated agriculture, woodlots and other aspects of our lives.
I am a strong believer that we should all do our part to reduce our impact on the environment. For agriculture, beneficial management practices like the ones promoted at a local level in the AESA Program are the vehicle to do this. If we focus on what we can achieve in our little corner of the planet, we can attain our own goals of sustainability and good stewardship. And along the way, we will be contributing to some much larger goals. |
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