This op-ed from former Leopold Center director, Dennis Keeney, appeared in the Ames Tribune on Friday, April 21.
Happy Earth Day!
by Dennis Keeney
Iowa Republican legislators know how to honor Earth Day (Officially April 22 but for me, everyday is Earth Day.) They just wipe out environmental programs.
It has been a tough week or so: The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture,-gone; REAP, cut; The U of I Flood Center, crippled; The Iowa Energy Center gone. It seems the Republican dominated House and Senate are getting everything environmental out of state government. Of course substantial programs remain in the DNR and IDALS but these agencies have suffered budget cuts.
Unfortunately the actions mirror those going on at the federal level with the Trump administration. And we know why. It is a substantial shift in public priorities back toward productivity at all costs.
The nation has been there before. Rivers on fire, health threats from pesticides and industrial chemicals in the water and air, foul air in industrial cities, disappearing forests, native plants and animals and though we did not see it at the time, carbon dioxide being pumped out at increasing rates, warming the earth.
Iowa and the nation recoiled when it saw what it was doing to the Earth. We rejoiced in Earth Day and the public demanded new laws and established strong agencies to develop and enforce these laws. Sweeping acts protecting water, air and wildlife were enacted. The air and water grew cleaner and fish and wildlife returned.
Surprisingly for many, protecting the environment did not send the nation into economic disaster. The returns from protecting rather than plummeting natural resources were much greater than the costs to the nation’s health and environment.
But somewhere along the line the nation, and Iowa, forgot. Our political memories are generational and mistakes bear repeating each 20-30 years. We are in a repeat now. This repeat will be more costly than the first time. There is more at stake, more people live here with more infrastructure, and more to lose politically in a sharply divided nation.
Iowa’s economy is more dependent on natural resources than most other states. Our lack of diversity means that the agricultural economy drives the state more than others. So why has Iowa traditionally turned its back on protecting these very natural resources? Why do we let, even encourage, soils to be washed down the rivers, use farming methods that are inefficient and polluting, especially for agricultural chemicals? Why do we farm land that should be left in long lasting vegetation?
For many, it seems just documenting these facts should be enough to cause the state’s citizens and elected representatives to rise in chorus and demand new ways to farm. But not so.
Instead, any suggestion of wrong doing by farmers is met with resistance from these farmers at a frightening level. They band together under one banner, the Republican banner, to organize resistance.