Correction, Social Media Help & Ban Lifted

Correction, Social Media Help & Ban Lifted plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. Monday was the beginning of summer or the summer solstice, not the vernal equinox as reported. That is the beginning of spring which of course it has felt more like lately. If you have not tried using social media outlets like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter the AgChat Foundation wants to help you leverage social media as a tool to tell agriculture's story. AgChat Foundation Board Member Jeff Fowle is a California farmer and rancher. He explains how this started. FOWLE: We saw a need for those in agriculture to have an opportunity to access the technology and understanding the social media in order to reconnect with the consumer. The Supreme Court on Monday lifted a nationwide ban on the planting of genetically engineered alfalfa seeds, despite claims they might harm the environment. In a 7-1 vote Monday, the court reversed a federal appeals court ruling that had prohibited Monsanto Co. from selling alfalfa seeds engineered to resist Monsanto's popular weed killer Roundup. The case is between Monsanto and a Greenleaf, Idaho, company, Geertson Seed Farms, which was founded in Oregon and has grown, bagged and sold alfalfa seed since 1942. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. A tax by any other name will probably smell twice as sweet. Take for instance proposed programs to reduce carbon emissions which are identical in every nuance but the name. When people are presented with the choice of either a "carbon tax" or "carbon offset", the carbon offset will be chosen every time; same exact program, just different name. The human mindset instantly bristles at the mere mention of any kind of taxation. So in order not to offend the human psyche the government is proposing a cap and trade in the pricing of carbon emissions. In all of this the key is the reduction of carbon emissions, and ending the dependency on oil by creating a low carbon energy source. But to get to that point we need to "sweeten the pot" so to speak. Energy produced from a source with high carbon emissions will increase in price while energy from a low carbon emissions source will not, ultimately encouraging the development of more low carbon emission energy sources. The lower priced energy source will become the preferred choice of the people. I've always heard that everything has its price. Pollution it seems is no different. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.