Where’s Hugh Bennett? Climate debate needs him!

“It’s one thing to persuade hipsters in Portland, Ore., or Brooklyn to grow organic — hey, how cool is an artisan radish — in their rooftop gardens. It’s a much tougher push to get Big Ag, made up mostly of stubborn older men, to change its ways.

“But imagine if a farmer led the cause against climate change. Franklin Roosevelt chose Hugh Bennett, a son of the North Carolina soil, to rally Americans against the abusive farming practices that led to the Dust Bowl. Big Hugh was blunt, smart and convincing. ‘Of all the countries in the world, we Americans have been the greatest destroyers of land of any race of people,’ he said, without apology.

— From “Hicks Nix Climate Fix” by Timothy Egan in the New York Times (March 7) 

For a little more background on the too-seldom-remembered Bennett (UNC, Class of 1903), click here.

For a lot more, click here.