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Paris and Pittsburgh, pesticides in Indonesia: When none is best
Rice is a “political commodity” and governments’ ability to guarantee rice production and supply earns them the people’s trust.
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Climate impact – A farmer takes a look at the condition of soil in his paddy field, which goes dry due to a long drought, in Cot Trieng village, Muara Satu, Lhokseumawe, Aceh, on Oct.16.
(Antara/Rahmad)
D
onald Trump famously said, “I was elected to represent the people of Pittsburgh, not Paris,” when he announced the withdrawal by the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement (PCA). Pittsburgh is a city in the Rust Belt, which suffered from economic decline due to deindustrialization. It was purportedly the Rust Belt that paved Trump’s path to the presidency.
But what was the Pittsburgh mayor’s reaction? “We’re actually with Paris on this.” In fact, the majority of Rust Belt states are also. It just goes to show, climate change and global warming goes beyond politics (although pssst! For your information, Pittsburgh did vote for Clinton!).
Well, that’s the way it should be. If there’s one thing that people have in common, it is that we all live on this one fragile, precious planet.
Another thing we have in common is that we all eat. In the past 50 years, the number of people in the world has doubled, and so obviously, so has food production. Modern agriculture has relied even more on pesticides to get rid of pests and vermin which damage crops, but like anything, too much of a “good thing” can be bad.
