Christmas wishes

Christmas is a magical time for little kids, and for adults lucky enough to have little kids around. Our Christmases are quiet. There are no little ones in the family close by and the extended family has gotten old enough that they go other directions, creating new family traditions. I laugh though,since whenever I comment on our quiet Christmas, others at work wish they could have a quiet Christmas. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.

This winter, we’d have to talk about brown grass. Another downer for some this Christmas is the lack of snow, a true rare occasion in this part of the north. One friend with little kids commented they were thrilled when one morning they had an inch of snow on the ground. It didn’t last the day. We’re seeing a lot of that this winter -- it’s barely cold. Christmas Day’s high along the Canadian border was nearly 40 degrees. Now, that IS unheard of.

We’re all waiting for the real winter to come blasting in. After all, the average temperature over a year’s time generally only varies by a degree or two. Thus, with an extraordinarily warm fall and early winter, the chances are very high that we’ll have some extreme cold this winter. I remember well my first New Year’s in North Dakota, Jan. 1, 1979. It was 40 below (and it doesn’t matter which scale, at 40 below the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales are the same). It didn’t stop us from going out that night.

It’s been years since we’ve had cold winters like that. But if there’s anything this past year has taught us, the new norm is extreme weather. My husband, the retired farmer, has a good memory for farming seasons. He’s commented how the current system of large-scale farming developed over several decades of relatively stable weather. We’ve wondered whether the erratic weather will impact farming patterns. The delayed planting and drawn-out harvests may not lend themselves to large farming, but rather favor smaller, more diverse farms.

I can certainly see where the many alternative crops being explored for biofuels production – both for cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel – may become more attractive, even with high corn prices, if they help to spread the weather risk. Crops that can be seeded and harvested before or after the main crops, and that are less weather sensitive. Certainly, any time I’ve done an article about the research behind some of these crops, the agronomists talk about needing to fit these alternative crops into just such niches.

So here’s my Christmas wish: That the often acrimonious relationships between biofuels supporters and environmentalists be healed. The environmentalists’ best bet to see greater crop diversity and the possibility of ecologically sensitive lands being planted to perennial grasses is if advanced renewable fuels are successfully developed. The best way for that to happen is if both the biofuel industry and the environmental community learn how to work together to convince policy makers this ought to be a high priority for multiple reasons. Wishful thinking you say? I said it was my Christmas wish.

Merry Christmas. May your wishes come true.