“It rubbed me the wrong way to hear catastrophizing and alarmist predictions,” says farmer Johnny Parker about climate change coverage. “I knew we were already doing good things for the environment and not getting recognized. And I wanted to reframe what we were doing, and get really serious and focused about what we were doing with carbon.”
Parker and his wife, April, farm 90 acres in rural northwestern Pennsylvania. Together they’ve operated Edible Earth Farm for 10-plus years, first in Tionesta, then in Sandy Lake, after purchasing their current property three years ago.
“I made sort of a crude carbon plan (for the farm) about energy use and energy expenditure,” he said. “It evolved slowly.”
Parker is referring to the need to reduce carbon dioxide in the air to help slow down and mitigate climate change. Carbon is an element in carbon dioxide and it cycles naturally through the environment. But, due to excessive amounts of carbon dioxide emissions going into the air — mostly from burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas, especially since the 1950s — the natural carbon cycle has not kept up. The current level of carbon dioxide today is about 414 parts per million. The goal is to bring that back down to 350 parts per million, says Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org.