Biden and Climate: What’s Next?

eighth largest agricultural county in the country

Here’s a well thought-through piece called “Five great things Biden did for the climate in 100 days — and 4 things he should do next.”

The author mentions Biden’s work in undoing the damage caused by his predecessor.  Trump was a wrecking ball for everything pertaining to the environment, climate being an important piece of this. At the very least, the world knows that the United States is back in the game, rejoining the development of solutions that will help turn the planet around from its race to destruction.

The article concludes with the advice that the President invest in nature-based climate solutions: “Communities across the U.S. are increasingly experiencing the devastating impacts of extreme weather that climate change makes worse. By advancing a national climate resilience strategy that includes investments in large-scale natural infrastructure that protects communities, such as restored wetlands and floodplains, Biden’s administration can reduce the impacts and costs of future disasters, while creating local jobs.”

This is good, but it needs to include sustainable farming, and, in particular, the replacement of red meat with plant-based products that are, at this point, virtually indistinguishable from beef.  These processes can only get better and less expensive over time, and have the potential to stop the destruction of Earth’s rainforests.

We’re clearing 3900 square miles of Amazon rainforest per year, largely for cows.  That’s the equivalent of the area of one championship golf course every 29 minutes.  3900 square miles X 680 acres/square mile X 1 golf course/145 acres X 1 /365 years/day X 1/24 days/hour X 1/60 hrs/minute  = 0.035 golf course/minute, or 29 minutes/golf course.