Was Barack Obama talking about the end of peat-based composts?

For a split second it seemed the 44th President of the United States was getting behind the push for peat reduction, says earth-friendly gardening writer John Walker.

I’ve been kicking myself this week because I only came across the following quote - from a speech by the President of the United States Barack H. Obama - after I’d posted my piece ‘Are the Growing Media Association working against Government peat reduction targets?’

I don’t know where gardeners and growers in the USA stand on the use of peat in their composts (anyone care to tell us?), but the 44th President’s remarks could have been crafted as a fine contribution to the limp ‘debate’ we are (or rather aren’t) having over the failure of the UK’s growing media industry to meet Government peat reduction targets.

Please note that I have taken the absolute liberty of changing certain words to make my point.

“The closer we get to this new peat-free growing media future, the harder the opposition is going to fight, the more we’re going to hear from special interests and those lobbying the All-Party Parliamentary Gardening & Horticulture Group , whose interests are contrary to the interests of eco-savvy organic gardeners and the world around us. Now, there are those who are also going to suggest that moving towards a peat-free growing media future is going to somehow harm the economy or lead to fewer jobs. And they’re going to argue that we should do nothing, stand pat, do less, or delay action yet again.”

Of course Obama wasn’t, unfortunately, talking about peat reduction targets. This is an extract from a speech he gave in October 2009 about the urgent need to build a US ‘clean energy economy’ - so there’s at least a hint of affinity with the need for us to move swiftly toward a ‘clean and green’ way of gardening that doesn’t cost us the earth.

I spotted the quote on the fast-moving and readable US blog Climate Progress, which offers regular updates on US and global climate change policy. It also does a fine job of seeing off the most virulent of climate change sceptics cum deniers.

Blog author Joe Romm says of Obama’s recent speeches that “If you want to hear the best progressive messaging on energy and climate - if you want to know the best phrases and framing - listen to the President. In two recent speeches Obama has gone out of his way to criticize the disinformers and delayers.”

For a fleeting moment, and with a bit of wishful reading, for all the world I thought Obama was talking about our own horticultural and gardening industry which is so tightly controlled by ecologically blinkered vested interests, and which seems more than adept at delay.

As the first signs of a widespread transition to a greener, more sustainable way of gardening begin to sprout, what the UK gardening scene needs, so desperately, is a voice that can offer some persuasive and Obama-esque ‘progressive messaging’.

We’ve lost one of our most genuine and eloquent voices on explaining the link between gardening and the world around us, and no one with quite the eco-aware gravitas has stepped up. The BBC might be courting Alan Titchmarsh in a much muttered-about return to TV gardening, but it’s Monty Don they should really be talking to.

And so, for the record, here is what Obama actually said...

“The closer we get to this new energy future, the harder the opposition is going to fight, the more we’re going to hear from special interests and lobbyists in Washington whose interests are contrary to the interests of the American people.Now, there are those who are also going to suggest that moving towards a clean energy future is going to somehow harm the economy or lead to fewer jobs.

And they’re going to argue that we should do nothing, stand pat, do less, or delay action yet again.”

Sorry, Mr President, but your phrases and framing were spot on - and just too good to miss.