Links tagged “Gates”

One Georgia farmer and environmental advocate, John Quarterman, told NBC that while he expected that Gates would encourage more sustainable practices after buying farmland nearby, his acquisition of that land didn’t change much. And the National Farmers Union has suggested that the growing number of non-farmer owners like Gates buying up farmland — and renting it out — could lead to practices that hurt the environment: Short-term farmers who rent land are less likely to take long-term conservation steps, the organization argues, and non-farmer owners don’t have the experience to “understand the importance of protecting natural resources.”

Others have floated the opposite idea: that Gates’s massive investment in farmland might have a direct relationship to his other climate efforts. Newsweek, for instance, recently suggested his land ownership “may be connected to his investments in climate change agricultural developments and Impossible Foods,” though it didn’t offer much support for that premise. ...

More broadly, Gates and other wealthy buyers of farmland have also been criticized for contributing to the concentration of land ownership. Because they can usually make higher bids than what local farmers can afford, fewer people end up owning their own farmland. As University of New Mexico professor Nick Estes wrote for the Guardian in April, this results “in a greater push for monocultures and more intensive industrial farming techniques to generate greater returns,” while Indigenous people and small farmers “are more cautious with the use of land.”

NBC News Investigative Tech Reporter April Glaser in June 9, 2021 NBC News video segment: "Local farmers I spoke to in south Georgia and north Florida said Gates is doing the same thing that Big Ag did before he got there. He uses a lot of fertilizer that leaches into the rivers and causes big algae blooms." ...

"Bill Gates is not the one in overalls. He is not the one on the tractor doing the farming. He is the landlord here."

"Young farmers ....going up against billionaire investors. Who can compete with the likes of Bill Gates? More and more we are seeing farmers turn into renters." ... More farmland could be "gobbled up by investor class."

NBC News article: The trend worries young farmers who cannot compete with the likes of Bill Gates when buying land, according to Holly Rippon-Butler, a farmer in upstate New York and the land campaigns director at the National Young Farmers Coalition.

“If you’re looking at what this means for farmers on the ground looking to access land, there’s significant competition from nonfarmers, and that really affects young farmers because it means that the price that they’re trying to compete with on the marketplace is driven and determined by people who are not dependent on a farming income,” Rippon-Butler said. ... “Shell of a shell of a shell” - Public records suggest Cascade Investments has bought its farmland through a web of at least 22 limited liability shell companies across the country. These shell companies have made it difficult to find out where and how much farmland the Gateses own even for local farmers, like John S. Quarterman, a farmer and landowner who grows okra, corn, squash and other vegetables in Lowndes County on the southern edge of Georgia. ...

But some farmers whose land is adjacent to that of the Gateses have expressed disappointment that despite the couple’s wealth, they have not done more to preserve the environment.

More on 'Net Zero' here: Growth will be a thing of the past if we allow ‘net zero’ emissions – ‘A blueprint for the extinction of capitalism as we know it’ - RUPERT DARWALL: "There was more rationality to Soviet-style central planning, which at least had the aim of producing something of value rather than producing nothing."

Morano: "This is a redo of the 1970s. Before fossil fuels caused global warming, fossil fuels caused global cooling and the coming ice age in the 1970s! They were worried that our fossil fuel pollution was blocking out the sun creating global dimming and the next ice age and they wanted to put black soot on the artic to melt the ice. They suggested using nuclear energy to melt ice. So they were trying to geoengineer the climate back in the 1970s and here we have come full circle now trying to do it the other way by essentially cooling the planet instead of trying to warm it."  ...

They are saying, 'We are being forced to do this risky radical experiment on our planet' and so the implication is if we would only reduce our emissions, 'We need to embrace the Green New Deal. We need to embrace it so we cannot alter and dangerously experiment with our planet.' ... 

Some people are terrified to think of Bill Gates as their doctor. But think of Bill Gates controlling Mother Nature. That may be scarier."

‘Green Fraud’ dethrones Bill Gates’ ‘Climate Disaster’ book: ‘Green Fraud’ hits Number 1, 2 & 3 in Amazon’s ‘Environmental Policy’ – Pushes Gates’ book to number 4

Mark Steyn on Amazon being pressured to cancel Morano’s ‘Green Fraud’ book: ‘The warm-mongers are opting for their preferred method of disposal – get ’em canceled’

Meanwhile, the Biden admin continues to impost the Green New Deal on America: 

Watch: John Kerry touts fighting the ‘climate crisis’ in ad for upcoming ‘Leaders Summit on Climate Change’ on Earth Day

Biden mulls giving farmers billions to fight ‘climate change’. Even farmers are unsure about the plan.

NYT: ‘Biden’s Lesson From Past Green Stimulus Failures: Go Even Bigger’ – The more the plans fail, the more the planners’ plan!

Democrats see $4 trillion infrastructure bill as a way to accomplish Green New Deal goals