Will the U.S. become one of those stakeholders? Or will our leaders side with the Monsantos and Bill Gates of the world, and continue to promote an agricultural system that directly and indirectly contributes 50 percent (or more) of the greenhouse gas emissions that are burning up the planet? A system that has failed to feed the world, failed to reduce the use of toxic poisons, failed to bring prosperity to the world's small farmers, failed to produce healthy, nutritious food--a system whose successes can only be counted in terms of gross profits, shareholder value and political clout.
Whatever it takes
President Obama, who attended the COP21, hasn't been shy about linking global warming to national security. The President recently told PoliticPro:
"If we let the world keep warming as fast as it is, and sea-levels rising as fast as they are and weather patterns keep shifting in unexpected ways, then before long we are going to have to devote more and more and more of our economic and military resources not to growing opportunity for our people, but to adapting to the various consequences of a changing planet," Obama said. "This is an economic and security imperative that we have to tackle now."
If focusing on the economy and national security is what it takes to motivate Obama to tackle climate change, we're all for it. After all, global warming threatens to displace millions of people, many of whom already are in a struggle just to survive.
We're also all for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, which is why we support the Obama administration's Clean Power Plan which requires states to cut carbon emissions by 32 percent by 2030. Absolutely, let's transition from an extractive, fossil fuel-intensive energy system to a clean, renewable alternative. That transition should be a vital part of any global strategy to mitigate climate change.
But reducing emissions solves only half of the problem. We also have to draw down the billions of tons of CO2 currently heating up the atmosphere. Unless we address the climate change elephant in the room--Big Ag--we will fail to solve the climate crisis.
Scientists estimate the world's soils have lost 50 -- 70 percent of their carbon stocks and fertility. Modern chemical-intensive, factory-farm, GMO-based industrial agriculture is largely responsible for that loss. Left unchecked, Monsanto and corporate aqribusiness will continue to destroy our soils, pollute our bodies and eventually take the whole planet down with them.
The French Initiative is the most direct, most practical, and only shovel-ready plan for reversing climate change.
We don't need, and don't have time to wait for expensive, unproven techno-fixes-- la Bill Gates, some of which haven't even made it to the prototype stage, and many of which could come with unintended consequences.
We don't need a corporate-focused "Climate-Smart Agriculture" scheme that promotes business as usual.
And we definitely shouldn't put our faith in Monsanto's "carbon-neutral" but "poison-positive" plan.
What we need is to pressure President Obama to pledge U.S. support for France's 4/1000 Initiative, now. If we're going to subsidize any form of agriculture, it should be the regenerative, truly climate-friendly, health-friendly, farmer-friendly type.
Katherine Paul is associate director of the Organic Consumers Association and a board member of Regeneration International.
Ronnie Cummins is international director of the Organic Consumers Association (U.S.) and Via Organica (Mexico) and a member of the Regeneration International Steering Committee.
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