Billionaire philanthropist, MacKenzie Scott, recently pledged to donate $50 million to the National 4-H Council. I think that money should be used to teach youth about politics and how to run for political office locally, statewide, and nationally.

I believe the commonsense, hard work and caring for their fellow man that they learn at a young age would benefit our government. In fact, commonsense should be a requirement for those who wish to hold public office.

I know many of these youth want to work in agriculture, but they could still benefit agriculture by spreading the truth about agriculture to other lawmakers who have no idea how their food is produced.

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And speaking of commonsense, they would know that it’s not possible to trade in all the farm implements in the United States, much less the world, for electric vehicles is ridiculous.

They also understand that oil is used for more than just fuel for vehicles or natural gas to heat your home. The U.S. Department of Energy provides a list of hundreds of products produced using oil and natural gas.

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According to the energy department, “Petrochemicals derived from oil and natural gas make the manufacturing of over 6,000 everyday products and high-tech devices possible. Major petrochemicals — including ethylene, propylene, acetylene, benzene, and toluene, as well as natural gas constituents like methane, propane, and ethane — are the feedstock chemicals for the production of many of the items we use and depend on every day.”

You can see a list of these products at https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/11/f68/Products%20Made%20From%20Oil%20and%20Natural%20Gas%20Infographic.pdf.

They also know that cattle produce more than just methane. In fact, I was reading Blog the other day that listed several important products produced from cattle byproducts.

“More than 100 individual drugs performing such important and varied functions as helping to make childbirth safer, settling an upset stomach, preventing blood clots in the circulatory system, controlling anemia, relieving some symptoms of hay fever and asthma, and helping babies digest milk include beef by-products. Insulin is perhaps the best-known pharmaceutical derived from cattle. There are 5 million diabetic people in the United States, and 1.25 million of them require insulin daily. It takes the pancreases from 26 cattle to provide enough insulin to keep one diabetic person alive for a year,” according to the Blog.

If that’s not enough, go to https://www.extension.iastate.edu/sites/www.extension.iastate.edu/files/allamakee/Lesson1Activity4Dairy_By_Products.pdf, to see even more byproducts.

Some of these byproducts may be made using other host products but it is not going to happen overnight, and a large, complex plan must be established for it to happen.

Raising the price of gasoline and making it more difficult and expensive to drill for oil isn’t a smart plan for weaning us off fossil fuel.

So, let’s elect smart, hardworking people who grew up with honor and values into government offices and bring back commonsense.

I also know that 4-H youth are taught public speaking, which would have been helpful for our vice president to learn.