"I'm not a climate change guy, but...": Farmers reckon with new reality in the heartland

[bronxiteforever]

CBS News
ROSA TUIRAN CBS NEWS July 26, 2019, 7:57 AM

Watch the CBSN Originals documentary, "A Climate Reckoning in the Heartland," in the video player above. The full hour special premieres on CBSN Sunday, July 28, at 8 p.m., 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. ET.

Walking over soggy lifeless crops, Brett Adams, a fifth generation Nebraska farmer, paused to catch his breath. Under the dark grey clouds of the Midwestern spring, he was forced to come to terms with an alarming reality: 80% of his farmland was under freezing floodwater.

Adams put it in personal terms. "When I was a kid," he said, "an inch of rain, or an inch and a half of rain, was a big deal. Now it's like we get four- or five-inch rains all the time, or six-inch rains, even. That was unheard of." "I'm not a climate change guy, as far as climate change, global warming, or any of that stuff," Adams said. "But have I seen the weather change in, say, my 20-year farming career? Absolutely."

While some farmers in conservative parts of the country may be reluctant to define increasingly extreme weather as climate change ... more attitudes start to change.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/climate-reckoning-in-the-heartland-cbsn-originals/

To quote Nobel Laureate Mr Dylan, “ you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowing”. Climate change is accelerating. The party of choice of these farmers has spurned scientific thought and the overwhelmingly evidence of climate change.

[femmedem]

1. Someday he and others will be climate change guys

and when they do, their fury at being duped and betrayed will be boundless.

[bronxiteforever]

2. I agree. Let's hope they wake up real soon.n/t

[luvtheGWN]

17. Maybe by the end of this (non)growing season,

when the massive bills come due with no money in the bank, and they have to go out and try to find a job -- any job -- to avoid losing their farm, and the only job they can find is dishwasher in the local diner....then....maybe then.....they'll start to believe those scientists and NOT their dear leader.

[exboyfil]

26. They do have their checks signed by Sonny Perdue

So all is good.

[luvtheGWN]

33. Those cheques won't be nearly enough.

And they'll be fighting over why Farmer X is getting more than Farmer Y.

[raccoon]

37. Good. nt

[Fla Dem]

3. His statement could not be more "head up his ass" stupid.

"I'm not a climate change guy, as far as climate change, global warming, or any of that stuff," Adams said. "But have I seen the weather change in, say, my 20-year farming career? Absolutely."

[PaulRevere08]

4. This!! He's a farmer ffs, he should be keenly aware of what's happening to the climate.

It's his livelihood!!

[Bayard]

13. Fencing Fan?

[Saviolo]

19. Here too!

En garde!

Competitive épée for a little over a decade (and now ruined knees!)

[Bayard]

21. Many years ago, I did Foil

Its where I met my ex. Still have my equipment.

Touche'!

[PaulRevere08]

20. Yes - epee, still competing but in the Vet60

came in 11th at nationals earlier this month. Been fencing since college with a long break in the middle. Boy has the sport changed!

[luvtheGWN]

18. Absolutely right!

When your entire livelihood depends on the weather, ya better start believin' what you've been told by those climate science guys.

[NickB79]

6. It's like a cop saying "I'm not a laws and regulations kinda guy....."

IT'S YOUR FUCKING JOB!

[bronxiteforever]

7. Our monkey brains have difficulty with long term consequences

But especially after large doses of Fox News, Ted Cruz and Inhofe.

[Merlot]

9. Follow up question: What do you attribute these weather changes to?

That's a real head scratcher, right Mr. Farmer?

[LiberalArkie]

12. Obama

[exboyfil]

27. The gays and abortion

[femmedem]

39. I'm starting to think he meant that culturally: I'm not a liberal extremist climate change guy

Not a nitro coffee drinking, coastal elitist guy, the kind of guy he's always thought he hated. But the more I ponder it, I think he's acknowledging that he believes in climate change.

[spike jones]

5. Another appropriate Dylan quote:

“The climes they are a-changin’ “

No, wait a minute….

[bronxiteforever]

8. I prefer "It's not dark yet but it's getting there"

[yaesu]

10. what are they crying about, their golden hitler is giving them a YUGE bailout. nt

[Fla Dem]

16. Yep, payola. Paying them off to keep them on the team.

[questionseverything]

40. big ag is getting most of the bail out...family farms not so much

you want to see a nation in real trouble ,wait til big ag gets its hands on all the land

heck not even just the nation, the entire world

[Ramsey Barner]

11. "You don't need a weather man/To know which way the wind blows"

Paraphrase in OP; quote above.

[Cousin Dupree]

14. Mr. Dupree and I drove a car from Kansas City to Omaha yesterday. For most of the 180 miles,

there was farm land on both sides of the road in Missouri and Iowa. And almost all of it was under a few inches of water. It was shocking because there was so much of it. We live in Ohio. We honestly didn’t know about this on-going problem out here.

[Auggie]

15. Not a "climate change guy?" Better become one real soon.

[Politicub]

22. Perhaps mr. "I'm not a climate change guy"

should close his eyes and cover his ears with his hands. Perhaps by not acknowledging climate change, it will not be real.

Mr. Adams is nuts. He has been in the crosshairs of climate change for years and only now can allow himself to naughtily call it weather change?

[Botany]

23. No worries Trump is getting rid of all the scientists @ the Dept. of Ag.

Such as the ones who study climate change.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/22/usdas-plan-to-move-research-agencies-to-midwest-starts-a-brain-drain.html

BTW ATTN Mr. I'm not a climate change guy aka Trump voter .... when you melt the north pole you change
the weather such as no longer having a "jet stream" that moves weather systems through an area so they
don't sit there and rain for for 4 or more days.

[Mountain Mule]

24. On behalf of farmers

While I'm not a farmer myself, I come from a family of small farmers and I now live in a house on a hay/alfalfa farm here in rural Colorado. We have been experiencing drought conditions for almost 20 years, and many years farmers now only get two cuttings of hay instead of the three that were common back in the day. I studied climatology/environmental sciences in college and I've lived in Colorado all my life, so I know where-of I speak.

My part of the country has been severely impacted by climate change. Wide swaths of trees up in the near-by mountains have been killed by beetle and the summer fire season gets worse by the year. When I first moved out here, I made the mistake of asking the ranch foreman what he thought about climate change. This normally congenial, kindly guy just completely lost it and told me that I was delusional and the climate thing was a lie, etc.,etc. Whoa! I haven't mentioned the subject to him again, but I did do some thinking, wondering why he couldn't see the hand in front of his face.

It is very hard to accept that your way of life is becoming a thing of the past. It's like watching an abyss opening up under your feet. These farmers just don't want to see it because the implications are so dire. This is only human nature. As the saying goes, "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt." Farmers and ranchers are hard working people and have more than enough worry just bringing in their crops and paying the bills. If you add the existential crisis brought on by climate change, it can be too overwhelming. The mind just shuts down, but as agricultural conditions worsen, I have seen a few begin to come around.

We are going to achieve exactly nothing by vilifying farmers and calling them idiot Trumpers. How many here have ever actually worked a family farm? Precious few, I think. So, if you have been working a farm or ranch all your life and someone comes along who knows exactly zilch about agriculture and starts critiquing who you are and how you work your land, you are not exactly become new best friends forever.

Quit bashing the people who grow the food on your tables, folks. It gets us all exactly nowhere. Aren't we better than this? I would hope so.

[bronxiteforever]

25. But aren't these farmers telling scientists

That they know nothing about science. Imagine being a scientist dedicated to the scientific method being told that your work is destroyed by a political agenda. They are having their research suppressed, destroyed and hidden by the people these farmers voted for.

[Mountain Mule]

30. I understand all too well how scientists feel

Since I studied to be a scientist myself. Frustration and anger hardly begin to describe how I feel. However, I don't blame farmers for this nation's scientific illiteracy and new found contempt for education in general. The root of the problem is not to be found among farmers, but instead in ourselves, our political system and our cultural norms. Scientists seek to understand the reason of things - what is the cause and what is the effect. It's been given to me to have an open, curious mind. Should I use my understanding to go barricade myself into an isolated lab somewhere and hate people for their ignorance? That will get me nowhere. The farmers will finally come around. I don't need to back them into a corner for them to do this. Climate change is doing that particular job for me already and I'm seeing some changes in attitude among my farming and ranching neighbors even as we speak.

[bronxiteforever]

34. For some it is hatred, for me it is anger at the damage

To life on earth. But there is stupidity as well. A professor once remarked that stupidity is characterized by causing losses to another person or group while incurring no gain and suffering losses to yourself. That is the very definition of climate change denial.
The sad part is that the antidote to stupidity is a scientific way of thinking, the very thing they attack.

Of course we could not survive without the hard work of farmers and I venture we both agree with Carl Sagan
“We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.”

[luvtheGWN]

35. I grew up on a large dairy farm.

Those were the days when NEWS (not opinion) and WEATHER forecasts were paid attention to. They were also the days (in Ontario) when religion and politics (along with one's sex life, I'm sure) were private matters. Since there was never a great deal of difference between the Conservative and Liberal parties, Dad always claimed to be an Independent. Still to this day my siblings and I do not discuss religion, and it's only lately that we even discuss our political leanings. Imagine that?!!

I think we're forgetting the many media influences on today's farmers. They have radios and TV monitors, not to mention their cell phones, in their tractors, harvesters etc, and, because they tend to be conservative by nature, it's conservative voices they hear -- all day long. I've no doubt that most of them ARE worried about climate change, especially now that they are seeing evidence of it -- on their land and in their pocketbooks. But it's damn hard to change one's mind -- sort of like being in a cult. I do wonder, though, if the farmers who are receiving money from Sonny Perdue are considering that it's "socialism"......Might be a good idea to remind them of that once in a while.

[Mountain Mule]

38. Spot on!

And I couldn't agree with you more - all those hours in a noisy machine under the hot sun with only Rush Limbaugh for company would drive anyone right around the bend!

[Botany]

29. My Grandfather on my mom's side was a fruit grower and had a sheep operation in Oregon, her 1st ....

... cousin had a vineyard and a wine production in Roseburg OR, and on my Dad's side of the
family we had dairy cows and corn, beans, & wheat farmers in Indiana and all I can say to the
Trump voting farmers is fuck 'em. For 30 years they have made fun of the real science behind
climate change and voted for Trump because Hillary was a d**e b***h with a liberal agenda and
now the chickens have come home to roost. Fuck 'em.

[Mountain Mule]

32. Well, I often want to say "fuck 'em" myself

I have a cousin who posts tRump garbage all over her facebook page, so I've put her on "ignore." But at this point in time, anger is a luxury we can ill afford. I am of the "Let us all sit down and reason together" crowd these days because my anger towards my fellows accomplishes exactly nothing. You don't see Jim Hansen - a climatologist whom I deeply admire - out there on the barricades with a sign that says "Fuck the farmers." Instead, Hansen is an activist who speaks on behalf of our children and grandchildren and if ever there was a scientist who is actually bringing people around, I'd say it was him.

[mopinko]

36. i think it is also that it undermines their whole knowledge base.

not just what they need to do to cope w the impacts, but to access their own culpability for the problem.
they have been doing things a certain way for generations, and that way has been "under assault" for a long time from the growing body of knowledge that industrial scale ag is no small part of the problem.

so half of it is resistance to adapting the current generations knowledge of very different farming methods, and the other half is wondering what is even going to work in the future at.all.
i think they will come around to changing their methods to be more sustainable, as the numbers are there now to show how well it can work.

you are right. just writing off farmers is a mistake. and they arent all trumpkins. there is a huge cohort out there trying to do better.

[Locrian]

28. sigh - we've got a long way to go...

Except stage 6 is "game over"

[mr_lebowski]

31. As the interview continued, Jim Bob alternated between puffs on his O2 tank and his cigarette

"Touch of the (cough, cough) Emphysema, according to my idiot (cough, cough) doctor ... course I ain't much of a 'cigarettes are bad for you (hack, spit) kinda guy', so ..."