Keynote: Eaarth; Making a Life on a Tough New Planet
Presenter: Bill McKibben, Author, Eaarth: Making Life on a Tough New Planet and
DEEP ECONOMY: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future

Bill McKibben says that global warming is no longer a philosophical threat. It’s our reality. In fact, the earth has changed so much that it merits a new name: “Eaarth.” With climate change underway, we now live on a far less hospitable planet than our ancestors, with much less diversity, vanishing ice, dying forests, encroaching deserts, acid oceans and diminishing food crops. The “cascading effects” of climate change are alarming, but do not have to be devastating, says McKibben. At the Iowa Environmental Annual Conference, McKibben will chronicle these events and demonstrate how innovative, proactive individuals and groups can and are embracing more desirable and resilient food and energy systems, and more creative and conscious ways of living.

Rural Iowa Air Quality
Presenter: James A. Merchant, M.D., Dr.P.H.
Merchant is one of the foremost experts on air quality in Iowa, with an emphasis on the health effects of agricultural air pollutants. Currently a professor of environmental health and pulmonary medicine at the University of Iowa, he served as the first dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Iowa, from 1999 to 2008. He is a nationally known expert on occupational and environmental health, rural health, and public health policy.

The impacts on the health of those living near industrial farm animal production facilities have increasingly been the subject of research. Dr. Merchant will share research findings regarding fine particle pollution from agriculture, rural asthma, and the relationship between confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and health effects. Rural air pollution in the form of greenhouse gases, methane and certain odor and other emissions are also a part of his topic.

Dr. Merchant, who served as a Pew Commissioner for a 2-year study of Industrial Farm Animal Production, will share the consensus recommendations of the Commission. This was a project of the Pew Charitable Trusts and John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, which resulted in the 2008 report entitled: Putting Meat on the Table: Industrial Farm Animal Production in America.

Iowa’s Water and Land Legacy
Presenter: Mark Langgin, Campaign Manager, Iowa’s Water and Land Legacy
Iowa voters will have a historic opportunity on November 2,2010, to vote in support of a Constitutional amendment establishing a trust fund to preserve Iowa’s natural resources and outdoor recreational opportunities. Trust fund revenue will aid in conservation of agricultural soils and improve water quality and natural areas in Iowa, including parks, trails, and fish and wildlife habitat. Langgin will answer questions about the trust fund and tell us what Iowans can do to help get out the vote.

Barriers to Implementing Sustainable Farm Practices – Iowa Farmer’s Perspectives (Film)
In her book, From the Corn Belt to the Gulf, Joan Nassauer says that unintended societal and environmental costs can be avoided in the future if policymakers are able and willing to anticipate the consequences of new technologies and policies.  That means that policy advocates, like the Iowa Environmental Council, must work together with farmers and others to understand why current farm policies are not resulting in desired outcomes and how policy advocates, farmers and others can work together to support a vision for agriculture that creates robust rural livelihoods AND healthy ecosystems.  As a first step towards this goal of working together, the Iowa Environmental Council has invited five Iowa commodity crop farmers to share with us their challenges and successes when attempting to farm sustainably given current federal farm policy and under the current market pressures. This summer, farmer interviews are being recorded and made into a video presentation.

Revisioning the Corn Belt
Presenter: Joan Nassauer
Author of From the Corn Belt to the Gulf; professor at School of Natural Resources and Environment University of Michigan

Is it possible to have a healthy U.S. agricultural economy, a healthy food supply, healthy rural communities, healthy agricultural ecosystems and healthy streams? Should we have to compromise any one of these environmental and societal goods to achieve another? Can this be achieved while the United States helps to feed the world, aims to achieve greater energy independence, and trades equitably with other nations? Can agricultural landscapes be reclaimed as desirable places to live and delightful places to visit? Is each of these a legitimate goal of federal agricultural policy? Joan Nassauer addressed all these questions in her research for the book, From the Corn Belt to the Gulf, using two watersheds in Iowa as the basis for her studies. She will share what she discovered at our annual meeting in October.

Barriers to Implementing Sustainable Farm Practices – A Policy Perspective
Panel Moderator: Lois Wright Morton
Panel Members: Policy Experts to be Announced

Policy experts will share comments regarding the two previous presentations (film and Joan Nassauer’s presentation) and their thoughts about possible public policies that would support agricultural production that creates robust rural livelihoods AND healthy ecosystems.