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Archive for July 27th, 2012
House drought bill keeps $5 billion subsidy targeted by reformers
Posted by Reuters: Charles Abbott on July 27th, 2012
Reuters: Farmers would get another round of the $5 billion a year "direct payment" subsidy, targeted by reformers as wasteful spending, in a Republican-drawn offer of disaster aid for farmers hurt by the worst drought in half a century.
The package, unveiled on Friday, combines drought relief with a one-year extension of the farm program. If passed by the House next week and accepted by Senate, it would end a farm-bill stalemate by deferring work until 2013, when cost-cutting pressure may be intense. ...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on House drought bill keeps $5 billion subsidy targeted by reformersMidwest crops, fish, water supply punished by drought
Posted by Reuters: Sam Nelson and Karl Plume on July 27th, 2012
Reuters: Temperatures heading north of 100 degrees Fahrenheit and scarce rain portended another blistering weekend for much of the U.S. Midwest, where the most extensive drought since 1956 is devastating crops, evaporating rivers, and threatening to push world food prices higher.
Violent storms brought rain to the extreme eastern portions of the corn belt in Ohio on Thursday night, but moisture was sparse further west.
The mercury soared in Missouri, where St. Louis was expected to reach 101 degrees...
Petition to waive ethanol mandate could come next week
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 27th, 2012
Reuters: At least one of four states hoping to ease requirements on adding grain-based ethanol to gasoline is expected to petition the federal government as soon as Monday as the worst drought in 50 years spikes corn prices and lowers profits for livestock producers.
Governors from states that may petition the Environmental Protection Agency to waive the mandate known as the Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS, include Republicans Nikki Haley of South Carolina, Dave Heineman of Nebraska, Rick Perry of Texas...
Keystone Pipeline Advances
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 27th, 2012
New York Times: TransCanada, the company seeking to build the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline from oil sands formations in Alberta to Gulf Coast refineries, received the final go-ahead from the federal government on Friday for the southern leg of the project. The Army Corps of Engineers granted the final permits for a 400-mile portion of the pipeline that will run from the major oil depots of Cushing, Okla., to refineries on the Texas coast. President Obama has blessed the southern portion of the pipeline, now...
Paraguay Opens Doors to Unregulated Foreign Investment
Posted by Inter Press Service: Natalia Ruiz Diaz on July 27th, 2012
Inter Press Service: In his first month as president of Paraguay, Federico Franco has thrown open the doors of his country to foreign investments that have raised questions about environmental safety.
Among the measures taken by the new government were fast-track approval of the planting of transgenic cotton and authorisation of the construction of an aluminium plant.
Franco was named to replace Fernando Lugo after the centre-left former Catholic bishop was removed as president in a swift impeachment trial on Jun....
Climate Change, Extreme Weather Link Becoming More Apparent
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 27th, 2012
Reuters: Scientists are finding evidence that man-made climate change has raised the risks of individual weather events, such as floods or heatwaves, marking a big step towards pinpointing local costs and ways to adapt to freak conditions.
"We're seeing a great deal of progress in attributing a human fingerprint to the probability of particular events or series of events," said Christopher Field, co-chairman of a U.N. report due in 2014 about the impacts of climate change.
Experts have long blamed a...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Climate Change, Extreme Weather Link Becoming More ApparentTwo dead and 100,000 without power after storms hit north-east US
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 27th, 2012
Guardian: Heavy thunderstorms and high winds hit the north-east US on Thursday, felling trees and power lines and causing a state of emergency to be declared in the upstate New York city of Elmira.
Two people were killed in the storms: a 61-year-old man who died after scaffolding collapsed outside a church in Brooklyn, and a woman who was hit by a tree in Pennsylvania.
Some 33,000 people were left without power following the storms, which moved through New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Two dead and 100,000 without power after storms hit north-east USScientists discover ‘Grand Canyon’ of Antarctica buried deep in ice
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 27th, 2012
Mongabay: British researchers have discovered a one mile deep rift valley hidden beneath the icy surface of West Antarctica, according to research published this week in Nature. The canyon may be hastening ice loss in the region.
Scientists from the University of Aberdeen and British Antarctic Survey (BAS) made the discovery below Ferrigno Ice Stream, an extremely remote area that has been visited only once previously. They used ice-penetrating radar to map the valley.
Site of the rift valley (marked...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Scientists discover ‘Grand Canyon’ of Antarctica buried deep in iceUS Drought Linked to Climate Change
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on July 27th, 2012
Voice of America: As one of the worst droughts ever continues to grip major portions of the United States, a new study links this summer's record-setting dry spell, and other extreme weather events, to the world's warming climate.
Parched earth
In Texas, the earth is parched. Rivers have dried up, and pasture land has turned brown from the heat. It's been this way since January 2011. The southwestern state is the fourth largest producer of rice in the United States but the drought could cut production by half....
Islamabad’s taps dry up as water shortages worsen
Posted by AlertNet: Saleem Shaikh and Sughra Tunio on July 27th, 2012
AlertNet: Fatima Batool lives in a two-story house in a posh residential area of Islamabad that features shiny air-conditioned shopping plazas and restaurant-lined streets.
But for the past two months, she has been lacking one key thing: water. As the reservoirs that supply Pakistan's capital with water run dry, so has Batool's tap.
"It really feels traumatic, like living in a village, when one has taps like this without water for weeks,' said the 34-year-old mother of three, as she tested a tap in her...