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Archive for August, 2011
Record-Setting Agricultural Disaster in Texas Gets ‘Worse by the Day’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 24th, 2011
Climate Wire: After scanning the landscape surrounding this tiny (population 757) central Texas town, one immediately understands why the city's officials have decided to scratch the word "cotton" from the annual September Cotton Festival.
In normal years, these fields would be overflowing with lush cotton crops ripe for harvesting. The locals say that around this time, it's typical to see the Miles central collection point so overflowing with cotton it looks like someone tore open a giant pillow. But the drought...
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Minnesota’s bass get a boost
Posted by Star Tribune: DOUG SMITH on August 24th, 2011
Star Tribune: Josh Tutland, 12, of St. Michael, caught this 5.3 pound, 21-inch largemouth bass on Pelican lake in Wright County, using a soft plastic bait. The DNR says warming temperatures have boosted bass populations in many Minnesota lakes.
Minnesota's walleye anglers might want to invest in some bass-fishing equipment.
Rising temperatures in recent years have boosted bass populations in many Minnesota lakes, say fisheries researchers with the Department of Natural Resources.
And if the climate change...
Protests are stern warning to Obama
Posted by Politico: Bob King and Talia Buford on August 24th, 2011
Politico: Three years ago, the Obama buttons and chants of "Yes We Can' would have been a sign that the crowd gathered in front of the White House had caught inspiration from a young Illinois senator's promise of change they can believe in.
On Monday, that was still true for some of the environmental activists who came to Pennsylvania Avenue to risk jail and speak out against a proposed Canada-to-Texas tar sands oil pipeline that they call a threat to the Earth's climate. But the 2008 campaign trappings...
Keystone XL: a line in the sand for Obama
Posted by Guardian: Amy Goodman on August 24th, 2011
Guardian: The White House was rocked Tuesday, not only by the 5.9 Richter-scale earthquake, but by the protests mounting outside its gates. More than 2,100 people say they'll risk arrest there during the next two weeks. They oppose the Keystone XL pipeline project, designed to carry heavy crude oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the US Gulf Coast.
A "keystone" in architecture is the stone at the top of an arch that holds the arch together; without it, the structure collapses. By...
Indian agribusiness sets sights on land in east Africa
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 24th, 2011
Guardian: Indian agribusiness companies are ready to spend $2.5bn buying, or renting for decades, several million hectares of cheap land in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda in what could be some of the largest farming deals struck in Africa in the last 50 years.
But in a separate development, plans for a US-based investment company to lease up to 1m hectares of South Sudan for only $25,000 a year appears to have stalled following protests by local communities over the potential "land grab".
A delegation...
How many species on Earth? 8.7 million give or take
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 24th, 2011
Reuters: Scientists have yet to discover, or classify, about 90 percent of the plant and animal species on Earth, which is estimated to be home to just under 9 million species, a study says.
The study, published in the open-access journal PLoS Biology on Wednesday, vastly increases the estimated richness of life on the planet. More than 1.2 million species have been formally described and named so far.
Scientists have long tried to classify life on Earth and to finally figure out how many species there...
“D.C. Protests That Make Big Oil Quake”
Posted by Democracy Now: None Given on August 24th, 2011
Democracy Now: The White House was rocked Tuesday, not only by a 5.8-magnitude earthquake, but by the protests mounting outside its gates. More than 2,100 people say they’ll risk arrest there during the next two weeks. They oppose the Keystone XL pipeline project, designed to carry heavy crude oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
A “keystone” in architecture is the stone at the top of an arch that holds the arch together; without it, the structure collapses. By putting...
Growth of Urban Areas Poses Long-Term Threats, Study Says
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 22nd, 2011
Yale Environment 360: A new study says the explosive growth of urban areas worldwide over the next two decades poses significant risks to human populations and the global environment, from the loss of agricultural land and wildlife habitat to increased vulnerability to the effects of climate change. Using satellite data on urban growth, the study calculates that the world’s total urban area quadrupled in size from 1970 to 2000 -- an increase of about 22,400 square miles. By 2030, that urban footprint will expand by another...
United Kingdom: Soil Association ditches rockstars to go back to its roots
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 20th, 2011
Telegraph: Most charities would welcome the backing of the Prince of Wales, Sting and Gwyneth Paltrow. For Helen Browning, the new director of the Soil Association, "it's just not helpful'.
The pig farmer turned campaigner is determined to get away from the "elitist' and "Luddite' image of the organic movement.
Her first move as head of the iconic label is to prove that organic food is for not just for "people who wear sandals and drink champagne'.
"We love rock stars but perhaps people think organic...
United States: Billowing dust storm engulfs downtown Phoenix
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 19th, 2011
Reuters: A billowing wall of dust engulfed downtown Phoenix on Thursday, cutting visibility to a few hundred yards and delaying flights at the international airport, authorities and news reports said.
Driving rains and winds gusting at nearly 60 miles per hour also buffeted San Tan Valley, southeast of Phoenix in the early evening, according to the National Weather Service.
Roaring gusts downed trees and power lines in Pinal County, trapping drivers in their cars and preventing commuters from reaching...