Amanda Little on the farm.

If you pinned a map of the United States to a dartboard, Kansas would be the bull's-eye. Smack dab in the center of the country, the Sunflower State is one of America's most productive agricultural hotbeds -- the fifth-biggest producer of crops and livestock in the country. More than 90 percent of the state consists of farmland endowed thousands of years ago with rich glacial loam. This fertile topsoil is no longer as robust as it once was, having offered up its nutrients season after season, decade after decade, century after century, to produce great bounties of wheat, corn, soybeans, sorghum, hay, and sunflowers. I could almost sense the exhaustion of the land as I drove through the back roads of northeastern Kansas one chilly November morning -- past sagging wooden farmhouses silvered by age and weather, barbed-wire fences with listing wooden posts, general stores and swinging-door saloons, a Native American heritage museum commemorating the Kansa tribes that once roamed and tilled these prairies, and mile after desolate mile of denuded farmland.

It wasn't that this dormant soil was incapable of producing -- on the contrary, during the previous summer and fall it had yielded one of the most plentiful harvests in Kansas history, many times greater than the bounty of a century earlier, when the land was more inherently fertile. But now, like an aging bull receiving shots of testosterone, this well-worn ground reaps the benefits of modern chemistry -- and good old-fashioned fossil fuels.

That late fall morning, thousands of tractors combed the Kansas countryside, priming the soil for next spring's planting with a "booster shot" of nutrients that would turn the weary earth into some of the world's highest-producing farmland. That chemical nourishment, also known as fertilizer, has transformed America's economy over the last century, and expanded the global population, too, by vastly increasing the food supply.

Nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous are the three most common nutrients in the fertilizers applied to American farmlands, nitrogen being by far the most prevalent. The main form of nitrogen fertilizer is known as anhydrous ammonia, and natural gas is its primary feedstock. Nitrogen fertilizers take many forms, ranging from the Miracle-Gro sold at your local Home Depot to the industrial-strength anhydrous ammonia that's used on tens of millions of acres of U.S. corn and wheat crops.  Each year, American farmers apply 6.2 billion pounds of fossil-fuel-based fertilizers to their croplands.

Ken McCauley's corn fields getting their booster shots.

To see fossil fuels in action on the farm, I paid a visit to Kansas corn grower Ken McCauley.  His vast tracts of land—rolling stretches of bone-colored soil—reminded me of nothing so much as the ocean with their sheer expanse.

To distribute his fertilizer, Ken hitched a 2.2-ton canister of nitrogen to the back of his apple-green John Deere tractor. A series of tubes and wires connected the tractor and fertilizer tank to a mechanism that looked like a giant rake spanning eight rows of corn. The dozens of prongs at the end of the rake were tipped with knifelike cutters that would pierce into the soil, opening it up so that hoses embedded within the blades could blast the chemical nutrients six inches into the ground. The liquid fertilizer freezes into golf ball–sized lumps in the wintertime that then thaw and release into the soil in the spring. It's best to inject the fertilizer in the late fall or early winter, Ken explained, so that the soil doesn't have to be opened up in the spring, which would release precious moisture.

I climbed up into a plush passenger seat in the tractor cab next to Ken's foreman, Nick James. Though the seats were mounted on shock absorbers, they still bounced and pitched as we trundled over the rough, hilly ground. I grabbed the dash to steady myself as we began to move slowly down the field.

Maneuvering a tractor throughout a cornfield is a little like steering a ship through waves -- it's hard to keep the vessel in a straight line on the sloping, bumpy earth and then to repeat that straight line exactly as you traverse the rest of the field, without overlapping any areas on which you've already sprayed nitrogen. Conventional tractors routinely overlap on fertilizer application, wasting precious resources. Ken is able to overcome this costly human error because his tractor drives itself. "See the GPS system?" Nick asked, pointing to a small round blinking device on the dashboard. That device was feeding signals to a satellite monitoring the position of the tractor on the field. The satellite was then automatically feeding those location coordinates into an autopilot system that steers the tractor on a precise course, never double-applying fertilizer to the same patch of soil.

This tractor is high-tech.

Ken's tractor is also outfitted with new computer software that enables him to vary the distribution of nutrients according to soil quality. Ken estimates that about 10 to 15 percent of the fertilizers applied on U.S. farms actually go to waste because they're blindly doused on areas of soil that in fact have sufficient levels of nitrogen. Other agriculture experts I interviewed put that number even higher, saying that up to 35 percent of the nitrogen typically sprayed on farmland goes to waste, draining out of the soil and polluting nearby bodies of water.

As natural gas and oil prices surged in recent years, the costs of fertilizers nearly quadrupled. In 2005, when natural gas prices were low, a 2.2-ton tank of anhydrous ammonia cost under $400. When gas prices shot up in 2008, that same tank of fertilizer cost nearly $2,000. To fertilize Ken's 4,000 acres, that added up to an expense of roughly $500,000 a year -- about 40 percent of his total operating costs of $1.2 million a year. Even with soaring costs, he explained, "fertilizer is the most economical thing we do because it gives you your production on the top end." In other words, while Ken spent nearly half a million dollars on fertilizers in 2008, these additives still created significantly more value in enhanced crop production.

What would happen if Ken cut out chemical fertilizers altogether? "If you don't put your fertilizer on," he told me, "you'll cut your yields by half or more. No farmer is going to stop using nitrogen altogether. Look at the poor countries -- when you travel to places that don't use the fertilizer you'll see they're raising a third of the yield." He boiled the issue down to six words: "Nitrogen is yield. Yield is nitrogen." And yield, he added, is everything. "Worst thing that can happen to a farmer is getting a reputation for having a low yield. It's like being a race car with a lawnmower engine or a newspaper that's always a week behind." 

Sustainable farming advocates such as author Michael Pollan put forth a different vision for agriculture in America: total reform of the food system, beginning with the dismantling of large single-crop farms and the end of fossil fuel–based inputs. They argue that farmland can be naturally replenished through farming practices including the application of animal manure, which is high in nitrogen. Pollan describes a virtuous cycle of nutrient recycling between crops and animals:

But, he maintains, simply removing fertilizers and other petrochemical additives from industrial farming is not the whole answer: "Only a fifth of the total energy used to feed us is consumed on the farm; the rest is spent processing the food and moving  it around," Pollan wrote in his book The Omnivore's Dilemma. For that reason, he added, the large-scale organic farms that produce most of the organic products in your grocery store are, just like conventional megafarms, "floating on a sinking sea of petroleum."

Reformers want to see a network of small and midsized organic farms that is organized into regional cooperatives. These aggregates would enable small farms to serve local markets but think like big farms, working together to make bulk purchases of equipment and aggregate distribution systems. They want to see crops and animals reintegrated into the same farms, naturally feeding and fertilizing one another, correcting the current system in which cattle, chickens, and pigs are concentrated on huge feedlots, producing an oversupply of nitrogen-rich manure far removed from croplands.  

On the other hand, most agronomists will tell you that we can't rapidly shift to growing food on a global level without chemical fertilizer and fossil fuel–powered machinery. The United Nations has predicted an increase in fertilizer use worldwide of roughly 35 percent by 2030. Jeffrey Sachs, the United Nations special advisor who wrote The End of Poverty, told me plainly that fertilizers will be necessary to human survival for the foreseeable future: "We will not feed 6.7 billion people on the planet without chemical fertilizers." On weathered tropical soils like those of farmlands in large portions of Africa, says Sachs, fertilizers will play a key role. "In all the world but Africa, farmers are using around 100 kilograms per hectare on average of fertilizer. In Africa it's essentially zero, which is one of the real reasons for the massive hunger there."

Perhaps the challenge, then, is not so much to go cold turkey on modern farming methods as it is to significantly improve methods for getting the greatest amount of food production using the least amount of fuel and fertilizer. With the world's population poised to hit 7 billion by 2012, we can't get started soon enough.

This piece was excerpted from Amanda Little's book Power Trip: From Oil Wells to Solar Cells—Our Ride to the Renewable Future.

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If humanity stays near our current greenhouse gas emissions path, then Americans face hell - every state will be red:

The thermometer in this landmark U.S. government report puts warming at 9 to 11°F over the vast majority of the inland U.S. - and that is only the average around 2090 (compared to 1961-1979 baseline).  On this emissions path, the IPCC's A2 scenario, most of the inland United States will be warming about 1°F a decade by century's end.  Worse, we are on pace to exceed the A2 scenario (which is "only" about 850 ppm in 2100):  See U.S. media largely ignores latest warning from climate scientists: "Recent observations confirm ... the worst-case IPCC scenario trajectories (or even worse) are being realised" - 1000 ppm.

So this part of my not-so-well-funded analysis appears to hold up well:  "Yes, the science says on our current emissions path we are projected to warm most of U.S. 10 - 15°F by 2100."

But I'm getting ahead of the story.  On Tuesday at 1:30 PM, the US Global Change Research Program is releasing its long-awaited analysis of Global Climate Change Impacts in United States with NOAA as lead agency.

But impatient CP readers need look no further than here for the third draft of the report, which has been online since April 27.  That's where I got the figure above from. [You can see the letters F and T from "DRAFT" stamped across the figure. I'll update this post with the final figures when they are online.]

How hot will it be?  Here's another stunning figure from the report:

The average number of days per year when the maximum temperature exceeded 90°F from 1961-1979 (top) and the projected number of days per year above 90°F by the 2080s and 2090s for lower emissions (middle [550 ppm]) and higher emissions (bottom).  Much of the southern United States is projected to have more than twice as many days per year above 90°F by the end of this century.

Look at Kansas.  By 2090, it'll be above 90°F some 120 days a year - more than the entire summer. Much of Florida and Texas will be above 90°F for half the year.  These won't be called heat waves anymore.  It'll just be the "normal" climate.

Again, this isn't news to CP readers.  Last July I summarized the very modest U.S. "heat wave" literature as follows (see "When can we expect extremely high surface temperatures?"):

Bottom line: By century's end, extreme [i.e. peak] temperatures of up to 122°F would threaten most of the central, southern, and western U.S. Even worse, Houston and Washington, DC could experience temperatures exceeding 98°F for some 60 days a year.

So this is truly Hell - to match the High Water: Greenland ice sheet melting faster than expected and could raise East Coast sea levels an extra 20 inches by 2100 - to more than 6 feet.

The time to act is long past.

I will have much more to blog on this essential report this week.

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Not in Kansas anymore.That better be one helluva of a health care plan you're drafting, Kathleen Sebelius, because Kansas already misses you.

The state approved a new coal-fired power plant today, undoing a signature environmental accomplishment of former Gov. Sebelius, who left the state last week to become President Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services. Sebelius four times vetoed plans for two new 700 megawatt generators planned by Sunflower Electric Power. She scotched the deals on the basis of carbon dioxide emissions the plants would produce, the first rejection of the sort in the U.S.

Today her replacement, Mark Parkinson, announced a compromise with Sunflower and the state legislature that would let Sunflower build a coal-fired plant of about half of its originally proposed size. The plant comes in exchange for legislative support for a renewable energy package supported by Parkinson and Sebelius.

Kansas Jackass laments the move but notes the silver lining:

Sunflower PR info [PDF] on the new plant talks up its ability capture dirty particulate emissions, but doesn’t mention plans to capture CO2 emissions. The deal also includes a notable provision that limits the ability of the state Secretary of Health and Environment to block future plants on the basis of CO2. This seems to acknowledge the key role that Rod Bremby played in backing Sebelius’s position (Grist interview with Bremby here).

When word leaked about Sebelius’ HHS nomination in February, Grist reported on what it meant for coal in Kansas, especially considering Parkinson was a Republican (and former state party chairman) until he decided to join the Sebelius in 2006.

There’s also this Grist interview with Sebelius last summer, when she was considered a potential Obama VP candidate.

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Climate change is a global problem—but as of yet, there’s no global solution. That’s why mayors across the U.S. are taking action, from building green to organizing bike rides, from redeveloping downtowns to cutting emissions. Here are just a few of the municipal leaders who have worked to take our collective future into their own hands.

Bloomberg unveils his grand Plan.PlanNYC 20301. Michael Bloomberg, New York City.
Pop.: 8.2 million
Call New York the accidental eco-city: cram millions of people onto an island, and you’ve got to figure out how to build up, not out. Throw a big park in the middle, and voila: you’ve got an anti-sprawl city that values open space. During his tenure, Bloomberg has made the most of that happy accident, creating an ambitious 127-point initiative called PlanNYC 2030 that encompasses everything from reclaiming waterfronts to repairing electrical grids to reducing traffic congestion. (OK, that last one hasn’t gone so well.) A year after unveiling the plan in 2007, the city had launched a full 93 percent of its components.

Nickels at a climate rally with King County exec Ron Sims, since tapped to head HUD.Oran Viriyincy 2. Greg Nickels, Seattle.
Pop.: 594,000
In some ways, Greg Nickels became synonymous with the phrase “green mayor” after spearheading the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement in 2005. Since then, more than 900 of Nickels’ fellow mayors have come on board, Republican and Democrat alike, from all 50 states. No stranger to eco-ideas at home, Nickels—who has led the Emerald City since 2002—has also been instrumental in bringing light rail to the area, pushing to increase investments in open space, and launching an ongoing series of “clean and green” community-service events. He’s up for reelection this year, and one challenger says he hasn’t done enough on the environment. Only in Seattle.

Newsom uses a white hanky to demonstrate clean diesel emissions. Seriously!MTC3. Gavin Newsom, San Francisco.
Pop.: 765,000
Another mack daddy of sustainability, Newsom is almost too green to believe. Since he took office in 2004, the city has reduced government emissions to below 1990 levels, launched the nation’s largest solar incentive program, banned plastic bags, and introduced ambitious green building and green jobs programs. Sometime in the not-too-distant future, city leaders hope to increase wind power by the Bay, including underwater turbines at the Golden Gate Bridge. Speaking at a conference of green IT entrepreneurs this spring, Newsom—who also recently confirmed his 2010 gubernatorial ambitions—offered up his city as guinea pig: “If you have an idea, let me know. We are a laboratory for innovation.”

Malloy in a glamorous mayoral moment.Will Merydith/flickr4. Ed Malloy, Fairfield, Iowa.
Pop.: 9,650
In November, the city fathers in this liberal southeastern Iowa outpost unanimously adopted a Green Strategic Plan. Their vote was more than ceremonial: they also secured a state-funded grant to hire a sustainability coordinator, inventory their greenhouse gases, and create educational materials for residents. The new plan envisions everything from conserving energy to supporting local farms. Malloy, who’s been mayor since 2001 and heads up a local oil company, says the environment-economy connection is clear. He hopes Fairfield’s ideas will catch on: “We want to create a model community, a virtual template that other small towns can adopt to create the same results.”

What a difference a Daley makes.www.drugabuse.gov5. Richard Daley, Chicago.
Pop.: 2.8 million
Since announcing his intention to make Chicago the country’s greenest metropolis, Daley has made great strides. Green roofs cover or are planned for 3 million square feet, topping everything from City Hall to a McDonald’s. Redevelopment and landscaping have revitalized gathering places across the city, from prominent landmarks like Grant Park to neighborhood playgrounds. And the Windy City is committed to increasing its use of renewable energy (though a recent revelation showed things lagging in that area). Chicago is even bidding to host the 2016 Olympics—a bid that hinges on the event being the greenest Olympics in history.

Franklin, my dear, she does give a damn.City of Atlanta6. Shirley Franklin, Atlanta.
Pop.: 519,000
Often held up as the poster child for sprawl, Atlanta boasts more green than meets the eye—and Franklin is to thank for much of the recent progress. Mayor since 2002, she has attacked infrastructure and intangibles with the same gusto, from overhauling the city’s sewer systems to creating a Climate Action Plan. The city is building a public-transit BeltLine, is tops in LEED-certified buildings, and has implemented practices in City Hall that led to a 20 percent decrease in energy usage. A comprehensive private-sector group called Sustainable Atlanta is developing recommendations for further actions, and all eyes are on the future. “We are building a green, sustainable city,” Franklin says. “We do this for our children, and we do this because it is the right thing to do.”

Planner, politico, father, grandfather.RalphBecker.com7. Ralph Becker, Salt Lake City.
Pop.: 179,000
Building on the groundbreaking work of predecessor (and official Grist crush) Rocky Anderson, Becker—who took office in 2008—has already made ripples in the eco-community. Upon taking the helm, Becker introduced his Blueprint for a Green City, in which he pledged to improve public transit, expand greenways, create neighborhood centers to promote walkability, and improve air and water quality. And the former urban planner isn’t just talking the talk; among other concrete steps, the city is piloting hybrid police cars and has undertaken an overhaul of its city code to make sustainability easier for all residents to achieve.

Don’t mess with Jerramiah.Byron Smith/Jersey Journal8. Jerramiah Healy, Jersey City.
Pop.: 242,000
He’s a rough and tumble guy running a historically rough and tumble city. But that just goes to show that green can be pursued anywhere, by anyone. Healy was recently given a Green Leadership Award by the state U.S. Green Building Council chapter. During his five-year tenure, he has held polluters accountable, opposed a controversial reservoir development scheme, and redeveloped brownfields. Up for reelection this month, Healy recently introduced ordinances that would require city departments to pursue LEED certification and green purchasing, and is reportedly considering a ban on plastic bags.

Manny being Manny.City of Miami9. Manuel Diaz, Miami.
Pop.: 410,000
Though some critics have dubbed him “Concrete Manny” due to his love of development, Diaz is paving the way for sustainability in Miami. An early signatory to the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, he created Miami’s first sustainability department and a community-wide Green Commission. He has pushed green building, led an energy-retrofit of City Hall that included solar-panel installation, and is converting the city’s fleet to more efficient vehicles. Late last year Diaz launched Bike Miami Days, and this spring the city hosted a week of events leading up to Earth Hour. “We’re on the front line of global climate change here,” Diaz told Newsweek in 2007. “The water level doesn’t have to rise too much for us to be riding around Miami in canoes.”

Walker? I’d rather bike.Robert the Noid/flickr10. Elaine Walker, Bowling Green, Ky.
Pop.: 53,000
This TV producer-turned-politician has her hands full, from increasing affordable housing to contending with the crash of Big Auto, but green is on her radar screen. Transportation issues loom large in this western Kentucky city, and Walker has worked with local bike-advocacy groups (even creating a Mayor’s Bike Ride) and launched a Rethinking Transportation Choices task force. A signatory to the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, she is a proponent of green building and downtown redevelopment. “There’s too much of a perception that going green is a little bit out there and idealistic,” she has said. “It’s not idealistic—it’s vital.”

Cicilline envisions a model future.Cicilline.com11. David Cicilline, Providence, R.I.
Pop.: 175,000
In late March, this native son signed an order requiring all new municipal buildings to be LEED-certified, saying such a move would help create jobs and boost the economy. It was the first step in a 30-point plan called Operation Opportunity that seeks to help this mid-sized New England city rise from the doldrums; other steps include doubling the recycling rate, creating a green jobs training corps, and finalizing site plans for wind turbines. Cicilline, at the wheel since 2003, has also named walkability and sustainable leadership among his goals for the city.

Get your Phil.Tom Story/ASU12. Phil Gordon, Phoenix.
Pop.: 1.6 million
The long-time Phoenician made a splash in March when he unveiled a 17-point sustainability plan for the desert megalopolis he’s run since 2004. During his tenure, Gordon has already overseen eco-upgrades ranging from LED traffic lights to LNG buses, as well as bringing light rail to the city. The new plan aims to make Phoenix the first carbon-neutral city in America, through green job training, building retrofits, and a massive investment in solar energy. It’s making Phoenix hot in a whole new way.

Coleman (left) and Rybak do their thing.Lou Michaels13. Christopher Coleman, St. Paul.
Pop.: 274,000
14. R. T. Rybak, Minneapolis.
Pop.: 377,000
The Twin Cities are in the hands of two progressive mayors intent on doubling the metro region’s eco-efforts. Coleman and Rybak, elected in 2005 and 2001 respectively, have both made sustainability a priority—Minneapolis, for instance, doles out climate change grants to neighborhood organizations, while St. Paul created its own hybrid car-sharing program. Together, the two leaders have created an annual sustainability report and a green manufacturing initiative, and they’re bringing bike-sharing to town. It’s all part of an effort, they say, to make theirs the most livable cities in the country.

Dixson, far left, leads the groundbreaking of Greensburg’s first eco-home.Greensburg GreenTown15. Bob Dixson, Greensburg, Kansas.
Pop.: 850
Talk about inheriting someone else’s problem: Bob Dixson became mayor of Greensburg in 2008, exactly a year after it was devastated by a tornado. But Greensburg has rallied, and the former postmaster is now overseeing the town’s much publicized green rebuilding effort (which has also been documented for TV). Learning as he goes, Dixson has become an eco-evangelist of sorts, traveling the nation to talk up renewable energy, green building, community spirit, and the common sense behind green. “In rural America,” he told Smithsonian magazine earlier this year, “we were always taught that if you take care of the land, the land will care of you.”

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Sunflower Electric Power Company has filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Kansas for its landmark denial last year of an air permit the company needed to build two coal-fired power plants in the western part of the state. The permits were originally denied by an official at the state's department of health and environment due to concerns about carbon dioxide emissions.

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Two new coal-fired power plants will not be built in western Kansas due to a failed attempt to override the governor's veto. The coal-plant saga began when a state environment official last year rejected Sunflower Energy's permit to build the new plants -- the first such rejection in the U.S. on the basis of carbon dioxide emissions. State legislators who had backed the plants responded by passing two different bills that would have allowed the coal plants to proceed and would have stripped state environment officials of the authority to deny such permits. But the state's governor, Kathleen Sebelius (D), vetoed the bills and the legislature failed to override her vetoes. The veto override vote in the Kansas House on Thursday evening was just four votes shy of the two-thirds majority needed. It's unlikely Kansas legislators will be able to pass any more pro-coal-plant bills this session as the legislature has already gone into overtime.

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With firm belief in the power of try, trying again, Kansas legislators have sent another coal-plant proposal to the desk of veto-happy Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. The governor has twice shot down legislation to allow a new two-unit coal plant to be built in her state, but legislative leaders say the new plan is a compromise: it would reduce the size of the proposed plant and set accelerated timelines for Sunflower Electric to develop renewable energy sources, create consumer efficiency programs, and track greenhouse-gas emissions. Sebelius says she will analyze the bill and bring a decision mid-next week, though she notes that the new legislation has "a number of the elements of the two bills that I've already vetoed" -- including disallowing the state environment department to impose tough restrictions on power-plant emissions. The state legislature believes that this time it has enough bipartisan support to override a veto.

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