USDA puts a chill on “climate change” policies
New crop of USDA policies actually promote American agriculture.
As I have noted in previous posts, Trump’s EPA chief has refocused the agency back to its core mission of protecting the environment from actual pollutants.
Legal Insurrection readers may recall that President Donald Trump picked Georgia’s former governor, Sonny Perdue, to head the United States Department of Agriculture. Like Scott Pruitt, Perdue is scaling back positions and making significant changes in his agency’s policies. For example, there have already been alterations in the Michelle Obama’s signature school lunch program.
…With a new administration in Washington, lots of changes are upon us, including some announcements from Sonny Perdue, the new head of the USDA, which governs the School Lunch program which will go into effect on July 1, 2017.
With the first change they have lessened the restriction on whole grains from the 100% whole grains. This is helpful in reducing the amount of food waste as students did not care for the whole grain product.
The second change will allow 1% fat back in the flavored milks, such as chocolate and strawberry, while maintaining fat free in regular milk. Again, this 1% increase has been found to be more palatable for students.
The third change is placing a halt on further reducing sodium limits from their current standards as previously stated by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.
Also, like Pruitt, Perdue is refocusing his agency back to its core mission that consists of food safety and rural community support. This new approach has led to a request by the USDA to its employees, instructing them to avoid using language that directly references climate change.
… Instead of “climate change,” workers are told to refer to “weather extremes;” instead of talking about how the country can “reduce greenhouse gases,” they’re asked to talk about “build[ing] soil organic matter.”
The director issuing these statements, Bianca Moebius-Clune, stressed that this wouldn’t alter the scientific modeling, just how it’s discussed. Still, some in the organization aren’t happy. One staffer was worried that altering the language would jeopardize the “scientific integrity of the work.”
I think I can put that staffer’s heart at ease: There really isn’t any “scientific integrity” about this politicized science to worry about. To put it in terms related to USDA activities…that horse has already left the barn.
Shockingly, Moebius-Clune dares make a novel suggestion: Employees should promote American agriculture.
In contrast to these newly contentious climate terms, Moebius-Clune wrote that references to economic growth, emerging business opportunities in the rural US, agro-tourism and “improved aesthetics” should be “tolerated if not appreciated by all”.
In a separate email to senior employees on 24 January, just days after Trump’s inauguration, Jimmy Bramblett, deputy chief for programs at the NRCS, said: “It has become clear one of the previous administration’s priority is not consistent with that of the incoming administration. Namely, that priority is climate change. Please visit with your staff and make them aware of this shift in perspective within the executive branch.”
With all the emphasis on Russia, the press is seemingly clueless as to why the stock market has hit new highs and people are positive about the economy. The new crop of policies at the USDA is surely a contributing factor.
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Comments
More plants = more photosynthesis = less CO2.
Even if you don’t buy into the alarmism, this doesn’t sound like a bad thing.
CO2 is NOT poison! It is a vital gas required to maintain life on the planet. The balance is simple and it is an ever-changing equilibrium.
Animals require oxygen (O2) for respiration. They give off CO2 as a waste byproduct.
Plants require COS for respiration. They give off the O2 required by animals as a waste byproduct.
Just a basic chemical equilibrium.
“Plants require COS for respiration”
Sorry, that should read CO2 not COS LOL. Why can’t we edit posts?
actually plants only give off o2 during photosynthesis, all other times plant behave just like all other creatures on earth, take in O2 give off CO2
What a novel idea that people promote sh1t they are supposed to be promoting!?!?!
here is thought, why not give parents a chance to influence what kind of milk their children get, maybe even soy/coconut it they want, I’ve been ticked that just about all the chocolate milk you buy is low fat, so I ended up buying heavy cream to add to it.
Granny cooked with lard and Grandpa drank real milk and ate bacon for breakfast. He finally died after 90 healthy years on this earth. Of course, he didn’t sit around thinking about it.
At college there was a period where there were a bunch of optional seminars and activities. I walked into one that talked about the role of cholesterol in the human body. OK I was a nerd but then all the seminars were nerdy …
At that seminar they told me, an undergraduate in the 1970’s, that when you eat cholesterol it does not get deposited in your circulatory system, that if you eat fat it does not get deposited in your body as fat, and that your body regulates the levels of cholesterol and makes whatever cholesterol it uses. Decades ago, no medical school required to learn this.
Then 10 or so years later there was this big push among licensed doctors, who surely knew so much more than I did, to limit fat intake, regulate cholesterol and give something called statin drugs. I was so confused, why were they doing this? (But by then I had learned that “the adults” sometimes just really brainless things.)
And sure enough, now they’re backing off that a bit. After damaging people’s health for decades and spoiling their fun of eating besides.
Lard is about the best thing there is to fry food in. Canola oil is about the worst. My wife tends to lose weight when she eats gluten-free chocolate chip cookie dough made with coconut oil and organic chocolate chips. I don’t know why she doesn’t have some around all the time, except maybe it’s because I tend to eat it all…. Me, I don’t trust doctors any further than they’ll let me throw them. The science is settled (statistically proven): You are 9000 times more likely to be killed by a doctor than by someone who happens to own a gun. I don’t remember where I read that, but I’m sure it’s floating around on the web somewhere.
Fat-free and almost fat-free milk for kids? That’s terrible. Kids’ brains need fat to grow. They are being starved during the critical growing years (at school no less!) by not giving full-fat milk.
I noted this:
“The third change is placing a halt on further reducing sodium limits from their current standards as previously stated by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act.”
So this may be of interest:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/aug/08/a-danger-to-public-health-uproar-as-scientist-urges-us-to-eat-more-salt
Yet another agency that needs to be shut down instead of ‘fixed’. It cannot be fixed.
I really haven’t noticed a change from where I’ve been sitting. The (unnamed) agency has been plugging ‘Carbon sequestration’ since 1980s because the more crop residue remains on the field, the greater the water and wind erosion reductions. And that even makes sense, because dirt that washes downstream or into the air winds up somewhere you don’t want it, and can’t be used to grow anything. Topsoil depletion is a major long-term issue, less so in Iowa with meters-thick black soil, but moreso in the plains states.
As opposed to global warming/climate change/cooling, soil loss is a serious issue that has been the focus for Federal assistance since the days of the dust bowl (may they never come again).
Climate Change/Global Warming is a progressive hoax.