The Good News: Fixing Global Warming Can Help Arkansas

Fortunately, proven techniques exist today to reduce and recapture global warming emissions, and some of them offer special opportunities for Arkansas farmers and rural economic development. We can dramatically reduce the need for fossil fuels by developing our full potential in renewable, sustainable energy — including new types of ethanol, biodiesel made from waste products, methane capture, wind energy and solar power. Arkansas farmers and woodlot owners stand to make big gains by providing the feedstock for ethanol plants.

New Ethanol Sources

Today, most ethanol comes from corn and sugarcane, but recent scientific breakthroughs will allow it to be made from many different kinds of plant material, including cornstalks, switchgrass and wood chips, and even from garbage and manure. This new "cellulosic" ethanol requires less energy to produce than traditional ethanol, making it helpful in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It could also mean new prosperity for forward-looking farmers and rural communities. Nearly half of U.S. ethanol plants today are owned by farmers' cooperatives.

Homegrown Diesel

The biodiesel industry is also growing rapidly. When biodiesel is made from animal waste and leftover grease from restaurants, it can help meet our energy needs while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Livestock producers, meanwhile, can capture the methane from animal waste facilities, run it through a generator and produce electricity and heat to power their own operations and sell the excess back to the local utility.

Carbon Trading

Arkansas farmers and woodlot owners could also gain from a new system of carbon trading. This system would set a mandatory limit on emissions by major greenhouse gas polluters like power plants, but provide them flexibility in meeting the goal by allowing them to buy and sell carbon credits, much like the trading system that has successfully reduced acid rain. Farmers and woodlot owners could participate by voluntarily implementing practices that store carbon in soil or vegetation and selling credits for that offset.