John Block Reports from Washington

Hello everybody out there in farm country.

Do we really want to rescue the planet from global warming? The ice at the North Pole is melting. That will open the Northwest Passage and our ships won't have to go through the Panama Canal. Ethanol and biodiesel have a lot of new supporters because they burn cleaner than petroleum.

Thc whole world is worried about greenhouse gas, though. You can't pick up a newspaper that doesn't have at least one article describing the threat of global warming. It 's our fault. We are responsible for all the bad weather and a warming planet.

But is it really getting warmer? In the last 100 years, there is disagreement over which year was the hottest -- 1920, 1934, 1998. They say the ice cap is melting. However, we don't have irrefutable evidence that global warming is a reality.

Can we stop the warming by getting rid of our SUVs, our trucks, our planes, our industry? I don't think so. If we want climate stability, let's get rid of the source. 18 percent of our greenhouse gases come from 1.5 billion cattle and other livestock. Cows are the culprit, according to a 400-page United Nations report. Let's kill the cows.

It seems to me thatit's a bit of a stretch to blame all of this on man. The planet has turned hot then cold, hot then cold, many times over the last billion years. That wasn't caused by cars and trucks.

The inconvenient truth is -- there isn't any solution. Even if it is to some degree our fault that the earth is warming, we're not going to change. The Chinese are going to add millions of cars in the decades ahead. Using carbon offsets won't solve our problem either.

Well, I guess it might make some big carbon producers feel better. Get rid of their climate guilt when they have 2 or 3 houses, fly in private jets belching out carbon gases.

Enough on this subject. It's giving me a headache. The good thing is, all our worry about greenhouse gases is good for the ethanol business.

Until next week, I am John Block from Washington.