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Archive for August, 2013
U.S. government paid $17 billion for weather-withered crops last year
Posted by Grist: None Given on August 28th, 2013
Grist: Desiccated corn and sun-scorched soybeans have been in high supply lately - and we`re paying through the nose for them.
The federal government forked out a record-breaking $17.3 billion last year to compensate farmers for weather-related crop losses - more than four times the annual average over the last decade.
The losses were mostly caused by droughts, high temperatures, and hot winds - the sizzling harbingers of a climate in rapid flux.
Could some of these costs have been avoided? The...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on U.S. government paid $17 billion for weather-withered crops last yearNearly Half of All Western Wildfire Costs Go To California
Posted by Climate Central: Alyson Kenward and Urooj Raja on August 28th, 2013
Climate Central: With one of California's largest-recorded wildfires still burning largely uncontained and threatening water and electricity for millions, the total bill for fighting U.S. wildfires in 2013 is now likely to soar well past $1 billion. By the time the blaze is put out, which could be weeks from now, California's Rim Fire will likely be among the most expensive wildfires of the year. In fact, during the past 10 years, $4 billion has been spent fighting wildfires in California, more than in any other...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Nearly Half of All Western Wildfire Costs Go To CaliforniaCoalition asks Gov. Jerry Brown to halt fracking in California
Posted by LA Times: Marc Lifsher on August 28th, 2013
LA Times: A coalition of more than 100 environmental and political activist groups is denouncing oil fracking legislation as too weak and calling on Gov. Jerry Brown to order an immediate halt to the controversial drilling practice.
"The truth is that there is no proven way to protect California from fracking besides prohibiting this inherently dangerous practice," said the letter delivered to the governor's office Wednesday.
Fracking, formally known as hydraulic fracturing, is a drilling technique that...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Coalition asks Gov. Jerry Brown to halt fracking in CaliforniaDrill next door: Here’s what it looks like when a fracking rig moves in
Posted by Grist: None Given on August 28th, 2013
Grist: When my wife and I pulled into a relative’s subdivision in Frederick, Colo., after a wedding on a recent weekend, it was a surprise to suddenly find a 142-foot-tall drill rig in the backyard, parked in the narrow strip of land between there and the next subdivision to the east. It had appeared in the two days we`d been gone.
This couple hundred grassy acres, thick with meadowlarks and bisected by a creek crowded with cattail, bulrush, willow, and raccoon tracks, sits atop the DJ Basin shale deposit....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Drill next door: Here’s what it looks like when a fracking rig moves inWhy Big, Intense Wildfires Are the New Normal
Posted by National Geographic: Melody Kramer on August 28th, 2013
National Geographic: The large wildfire burning in and around Yosemite National Park has already consumed more than 184,000 acres, and shows no signs of slowing down. The blaze, which has been dubbed "Rim Fire," is now the largest fire in the Sierra Nevada mountain range and one of the largest in California's history. elated: "With Rim Fire Near, a Look at Yosemite's History With Fire.")
The Rim Fire is one of more than 30 blazes currently churning across the West. And a combination of higher temperatures, untamed...
Fracking fears expose confusion about risk
Posted by Reuters: John Kemp on August 28th, 2013
Reuters: Should oil and gas producers be allowed to hydraulically fracture wells even if there is a small but hard-to-quantify risk to the environment, property and human life?
That is the question politicians, environmentalists, local residents and the media are all grappling with across large parts of the United States, Britain and other countries.
For some environmental campaigners and local residents, the answer is No. Fracking should not be allowed unless and until it can be shown to pose no threat...
Pennsylvania officials attempted to supress controversial study that criticized shale gas
Posted by National Public Radio: Marie Cusick on August 28th, 2013
National Public Radio: A state report outlining how climate change will impact Pennsylvania is currently a year and a half late -- and there`s still no indication of when it will be released publicly.
The Department of Environmental Protection missed its legally-mandated deadline to publish the report in the spring of 2012.
Today at a meeting of the DEP`s Climate Change Advisory Committee, the department said the report is still going through the review process.
However StateImpact Pennsylvania has obtained a...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Pennsylvania officials attempted to supress controversial study that criticized shale gasVermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant to Close in 2014
Posted by Burlington Free Press: Joel Banner Baird and Dan D’Ambrosio on August 28th, 2013
Burlington Free Press: In the end, the price of power and the quirks of the energy market — not a protracted legal battle with the state — is forcing the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant to close down.
Plant owner Entergy Corp. announced Tuesday it will shut the 41-year-old Vernon plant at the end of 2014, a move cheered by critics and mourned by employees and supporters.
“This decision was based on economic performance,” Bill Mohl, Entergy’s wholesale commodities president, said at a Brattleboro news conference...
TransCanada Wins Right to Build Keystone XL Through Texas Family Farm
Posted by Bloomberg: Laurel Brubaker Calkins on August 28th, 2013
Bloomberg: TransCanada Corp. won a state appeals court ruling allowing it to lay the Keystone XL pipeline across a family farm in northeastern Texas, eliminating one of the last obstacles to completion of the southern leg of the Canadian tar-sands line. Julia Trigg Crawford claimed TransCanada lacked the right to use state eminent domain laws to cross her 600-acre family farm near the Oklahoma border without her permission. Crawford failed to convince the trial or appellate courts that Texas law grants condemnation...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on TransCanada Wins Right to Build Keystone XL Through Texas Family FarmGet rich in the ‘Age of Megafires’: 2014-20
Posted by MarketWatch: Paul B. Farrell on August 28th, 2013
MarketWatch: New investment strategies, dead ahead. Not just for America’s 95 million investors. But for the climate-change deniers like Big Oil and the Koch brothers. The trigger: “megafires” destroying treasures like our national parks. Time for a “mega-wakeup call.”
Act now, because the climate deniers will soon do a megashift and stop denying. Got that? Denialism will soon stop. End. So get out in front of this historic shift.
Reuters A sign on the edge of Yosemite National Park, in California, is surrounded...