H1N1 Increasing & Climate Change on the Back Burner

H1N1 Increasing & Climate Change on the Back Burner plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

As climate change has seemingly taken a back seat to health care on Capitol Hill - some members of Congress are urging the administration to get more involved. Senator John Kerry believes the administration needs to be more aggressive. But Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley doesn't think climate change legislation will come to the Senate for a vote this year - and has this advice for President Obama.

GRASSLEY: Whatever efforts the President is going to make in that direction he might as well wait until January next year to promote it because I think we are going to spend the rest of this year on healthcare reform and maybe on some tax legislation but I don’t think Cap & Trade is going to come up, global warming stuff is going to come up.

The Centers for Disease Control and Preventions has confirmed 16 deaths last week, attributable to the H1N1 virus. Three other deaths were – likely to be H1N1 related. 76 pediatric deaths have been recorded since April. 37 States are reporting widespread influenza activity as hospitalization rates for laboratory-confirmed influenza are higher than expected for this time of year.

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

Every once in awhile a well meaning individual will offer suggestions on possible books I might be interested in reading. One such literary list included “Caught in the Middle” by Richard C Longworth. It quickly became blaringly evident that Mr. Longworth has no love loss for rural America, strange, since he grew up in rural Iowa. He states that, “There is no place in a globalized world for the small town and family farm…Most of the region is in denial.”  Mr. Longworth is quick to assume that rural America will die a slow and painful death as globalization runs over it due supposedly to rural communities’ inability to adapt.  You know what they say about assuming anything, and Mr. Longworth seems to be a pretty big assumer.  It appears that perhaps the author has some deep seeded resentment about his hometown that have clouded his judgment and left him with a very singular and narrow-minded view of rural America, its development and its survival. The people living in rural America have what it takes to survive, and they will, long after Mr. Longworth’s book has been forgotten.

Thanks Lacy. That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.