Oak Point Agronomics

At some point in our adolescence most of us came to the shocking realization that our parents weren’t perfect, that they made errors in judgment. But it took some time for us to figure this out, to sort out truth from fiction. Such is the case with global warming, with learned (and not so learned) opinions on both sides of the issue. This a “hot button” issue, what with some scientists telling us that we’re near the tipping point, that unless something is done in the next ten years or perhaps less, global warming will have progressed past man’s ability to “solve” the problem.

On the other side of the issue are what global warming proponents call “deniers”, who say that changes in global temperatures aren’t nearly as much due to carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as to natural phenomena such as solar radiation, El Nino and La Nina. Among these detractors (and most definitely in the minority among scientists) is Drew Lerner, an agricultural meteorologist who predicts that the earth is actually starting a cooling cycle this year that should be evident in about five years. Talk like this really gets under the skin of folks like Al Gore, who’s claiming that global warming will cause sea water levels to rise by 20 feet in the next 20 years, putting much of the U.S. coastline under water. Of course, this is the guy who claimed to invent the Internet…

I don’t know whether we’re getting hotter or colder, how fast, or the reasons for it. Most scientists with knowledge on the subject say we’re warming, but this isn’t an election.  However,whether or not fossil fuels and the carbon cycle are having an effect on global temperatures, what’s undeniable is that our supply of petroleum is finite and some day our global oil tank will run dry. This makes energy conservation, on a global, national and local scale, a responsible course of action. And with current energy costs, it’s simply good business. This is something on which both global warming proponents and deniers can agree.

For months now when people asked me when I was going to retire I said “Sometime this summer.” As summer has dragged on, the questions have changed a bit, including “I thought you were going to retire?” and ”You haven’t retired yet?”. A bit of clarification might help:

In the first place I never intended to completely retire, as my recently-established consulting business and this website (though the website was my son’s idea) will attest. But complicating the matter is that MIner Institute so far hasn’t been able to find anyone to fill the position of agronomist. Don’t know if it’s because of the (unfair) reputation of the four seasons in the North Country as consisting of Winter, More winter, Mud season and Drought, or because the job description is pretty complex. But after working at the Institute for most of my career–actually just about all of it through my positions with Cornell University and then Miner Institute–I’m not about to let things drop and hope that someone will pick up the pieces. I’ll continue to write for and edit the ”Miner Institute Farm Report”–that’s been in the plans right along–but will continue to teach college classes and provide some oversight of the crops program (not in the original plan). Winter quarters in Richmond, VA (November through March) will make this an untidy arrangement but we’ll somehow make it work.