RSS Feed
Archive for February 15th, 2014
California Drought May Cause Higher Food Prices For All Americans
Posted by Triple Pundit: Gina-Marie Cheeseman on February 15th, 2014
Triple Pundit: Living in rural Fresno County these days means reading about the drought in the local newspaper every day, seeing reports about it on the local news and praying for rain. The Fresno area is smack dab in the middle of California’s fertile San Joaquin Valley. It is considered to be the "agriculture center of the world." Valley farmers supply many of the nation’s fruit and vegetables. The Valley is also home to cotton, dairy and cattle ranches. As California enters its third year of drought, farmers...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on California Drought May Cause Higher Food Prices For All AmericansThames flood: army and Environment Agency’s response leaves locals divided
Posted by Guardian: Mark Townsend on February 15th, 2014
Guardian: Neil Lemon stood at the end of his back garden and shrugged his shoulders. "Nervous? No, not really. Well not with that there," he said, nodding at the glistening steel barricade that had materialised on a nearby patch of grassland bordering the Thames.
Through the night and during Saturday morning, soldiers from the Gurkhas and the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment had erected the barrier in a race to save Penton Avenue, in the Surrey town of Staines. This is the frontline in the battle with the swollen...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Thames flood: army and Environment Agency’s response leaves locals dividedUnited Kingdom: Ed Miliband: ‘Britain is sleepwalking to a climate crisis’
Posted by Guardian: Toby Helm on February 15th, 2014
Guardian: We are on the 3.30pm train from Birmingham to London and it feels like a race against time. Outside, the fields are flooded and the rain is lashing down. More bad weather is heading in fast from the west. Two days before, on Wednesday, Virgin Trains called a temporary, early-evening halt to services in and out of Euston and passengers are worried it may do so again.
Aside from a nagging anxiety about getting home, Ed Miliband is having a decent day. Earlier, he dropped in on south Manchester,...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Ed Miliband: ‘Britain is sleepwalking to a climate crisis’United Kingdom: Climate change is an issue of national security, warns Ed Miliband
Posted by Guardian: Toby Helm and Jamie Doward on February 15th, 2014
Guardian: Britain is sleepwalking towards disaster because of a failure to recognise that climate change is causing the extreme weather that has blighted the country for more than a month, Ed Miliband has warned.
The Labour leader says in an interview with the Observer that climate change is now an issue of national security that has the potential not only to destabilise and cause conflict between regions of the world, but to destroy the homes, livelihoods and businesses of millions of British people. ...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: Climate change is an issue of national security, warns Ed MilibandUnited Kingdom: David Cameron has fumbled the flooding crisis – voters’ verdict
Posted by Guardian: Toby Helm on February 15th, 2014
Guardian: More than twice as many people think David Cameron has mishandled the flooding crisis as think he has responded well, according to the latest Opinium/Observer poll.
The survey will also alarm the Tories – Labour has increased its lead by two points to 9% and Ed Miliband's personal ratings have improved markedly to a level close to those of the PM.
Some 51% of people say Cameron responded badly to the floods, with 28% of these saying he reacted "very badly" and 23% "quite badly". Some 23% say...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on United Kingdom: David Cameron has fumbled the flooding crisis – voters’ verdictObama seeks $1 billion to fight climate change
Posted by MSNBC: None Given on February 15th, 2014
MSNBC: President Obama announced on Friday that he wants Congress to authorize $1 billion in new spending on the fight against climate change.
During a speech at one of California`s drought-stricken farms, the president said that his 2014 budget would include the funds to pay for “new technologies to help communities prepare for a changing climate [and] set up incentives to build smarter, more resilient infrastructure.”
“We know that we can innovate and meet this challenge, but we`ve got to start...
Jet stream ‘may be changing’
Posted by BBC: Pallab Ghosh on February 15th, 2014
BBC: New research suggests that the main system that helps determine the weather over Northern Europe and North America may be changing. The study shows that the so-called jet stream has increasingly taken a longer, meandering path. This has resulted in weather remaining the same for more prolonged periods. The work was presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago. The observation could be as a result of the recent warming of the Arctic....
UK weather: High anxiety among jet stream watchers
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 15th, 2014
Independent: It travels around the world at up to 200mph, at altitudes of between five and seven miles. It controls Britain's weather and can make or break a summer holiday. But something is happening to the jet stream that could explain why Britain has experienced a conveyor belt of storms dumping huge amounts of rain onto flood-battered parts of the country. Scientists are increasingly convinced that the jet stream is stuck in a position that has thrown warm, moisture-laden air from the Atlantic over Britain...
Indian Peoples Action vs. the Montana tar sands
Posted by Salon: Nick Engelfried on February 15th, 2014
Salon: On a cold winter night on January 22, 71-year-old grandmother Carol Marsh sat down in front of a megaload-sized vehicle hauling tar sands processing equipment through Missoula, Mont., en route to Canada. While more than 40 other protesters watched from the street’s edges, Marsh informed the police traveling with the load that she did not intend to move. After about five minutes Marsh was arrested, having temporarily delayed the load and driven up the cost of transporting it through Montana to the...
Extreme weather in California forces farmers to take drastic measures
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on February 15th, 2014
CBS: While most of the East is buried under ice and snow, the West is having a heat wave. It topped 80 degrees in Los Angeles Friday. President Obama is meeting with farmers in California's Central Valley who are struggling through one of the driest years in memory.
The White House is providing some help: $160 million in disaster relief. Nearly all of California is in a drought.
In 61 percent of the state, it is extreme or exceptional. Farmers have been forced to take drastic steps.
Farmer Joe...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Extreme weather in California forces farmers to take drastic measures