U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced today an new measure in the states to do just that. It's a way to capture the huge amounts of methane that cows emit through their (ahem) manure. Methane is 21 times more potent than CO2 and is a key GHG to rapidly reduce. Vilsack's new plan is to reduce GHG emissions from the dairy industry 25% by 2020. A main component of this plan is to convince farmers to invest in an anaerobic digester, which will capture the methane and turn it into energy.
Agriculture accounts for 7% of the U.S. GHG emissions, and 15-22% of world emissions. Investing in clean energy technologies to decrease agriculture emissions will be a great step forward to stopping climate change. Vilsack, former Governor of Iowa stated in a press release today that "Rural economies will benefit from the incentives in comprehensive energy legislation that reward production of renewable energy and sequestration of greenhouse gases."
The midwest has a great opportunity to lead the U.S. in transitioning to a clean energy economy, and investing in farmers is a great first step.
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