On a sunny afternoon in the southern U.S. state of North
Carolina, Gwen Pitt is supervising the cotton harvest. As a
large machine mashes the cotton into a solid brick a bit smaller
than a train car, Pitt says her crop is destined for one of the
world's most popular fashion items. "We have found out that most
of our cotton here in eastern North Carolina goes to make
jeans," she says. She says it takes a lot of fuel to grow and
harvest all that cotton. The picking machine alone guzzles down
nearly 400 liters of fuel per day. And while they're harvesting
cotton in this field, they're planting wheat in fields nearby.
"Tractors are always running," she says. "So we're always
burning fuel." Opponents to Copenhagen deal fear higher expenses
As climate negotiators meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, many
scientists say that farmers around the world will have to adjust
to more extreme temperatures, droughts and floods as a result of
global warming. But in the United States, the nation's largest
farmers' organization, the Am