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U.S. Plains flooding refills soil moisture, farmers’ wallets

CHICAGO Farmers are reaping higher yields and ranchers’ feed costs have fallen sharply since flooding swept across the southern U.S. Plains in May, with the record rains providing tangible benefits to agriculture despite causing damage that will likely cost billions of dollars to repair. The storms inundated fields across Texas and Oklahoma but they broke a years-long drought that wreaked havoc on the profitability of growers and cattlemen. Even though floods tend to grab more headlines, drought is actually much more costly in terms of its impact on agriculture. "The thing that differentiates it (drought) from all other natural hazards is the fact that it covers such a wide swath or spatial extent," said Don Willhite, climatologist in the School of Natural Resources at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "Floods are much more localized. (Drought) goes on for so long. The impacts accumulate year to year." Floods also are less costly […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Risk of Extreme Weather From Climate Change to Rise Over Next Century, Report Says

Photo Drought in Puerto Rico has left the La Plata reservoir nearly empty. A study in The Lancet predicts a growing number of people will be affected by extreme weather over the next century. Credit Alvin Baez/Reuters WASHINGTON — More people will be exposed to floods, droughts, heat waves and other extreme weather associated with climate change over the next century than previously thought, according to a new report in the British medical journal The Lancet. The report, published online Monday, analyzes the health effects of recent episodes of severe weather that scientists have linked to climate change . It provides estimates of the number of people who are likely to experience the effects of climate change in coming decades, based on projections of population and demographic changes. The report estimates that the exposure of people to extreme rainfall will more than quadruple and the exposure of people to […]

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Society will collapse by 2040 due to catastrophic food shortages, says Foreign Office-funded study

The model, developed by a team at Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute , does not account for society reacting to escalating crises by changing global behaviour and policies. However the model does show that our current way of life appears to be unsustainable and could have dramatic worldwide consequences. Dr Aled Jones, the Director of the Global Sustainability Institute , told Insurge Intelligence : "We ran the model forward to the year 2040, along a business-as-usual trajectory based on ‘do-nothing’ trends — that is, without any feedback loops that would change the underlying trend. "The results show that based on plausible climate trends, and a total failure to change course, the global food supply system would face catastrophic losses, and an unprecedented epidemic of food riots. "In this scenario, global society essentially collapses as food production falls permanently short of consumption." Plastic tree #20, Bolivia 2014 by Eduardo […]

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EPA defends controversial biofuels program at Senate hearing

WASHINGTON The U.S. environmental regulator on Thursday defended its handling of the nation’s controversial renewable fuels program at a congressional hearing, the first since its new biofuels targets last month provoked a furor among corn farmers and oil refiners. At the hearing by the Senate subcommittee on regulatory affairs and federal management, U.S. lawmakers criticized the agency for years-long delays to quotas and for last month setting unattainable targets for the amount of corn-based ethanol and other biofuels that must be used in the nation’s motor fuel supply over the next two years. They also questioned the future of the decade-old Renewable Fuels Standards (RFS), which critics say has inflated prices of food and fuel at the pump. The panel will likely increase congressional attention to the pitfalls of the decade-old biofuels policy as it faces a fresh wave of criticism from policymakers, the oil industry and environmentalists. But […]

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Pope Francis, in Sweeping Encyclical, Calls for Swift Action on Climate Change

Photo Pope Francis was greeted by crowds at St. Peter’s Square this week. Credit Filippo Monteforte/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Thursday called for a radical transformation of politics, economics and individual lifestyles to confront environmental degradation and climate change , as his much-awaited papal encyclical blended a biting critique of consumerism and irresponsible development with a plea for swift and unified global action. The vision that Francis outlined in the 184-page encyclical is sweeping in ambition and scope: He described a relentless exploitation and destruction of the environment, for which he blamed apathy, the reckless pursuit of profits, excessive faith in technology and political shortsightedness. The most vulnerable victims are the world’s poorest people, he declared, who are being dislocated and disregarded. The first pope from the developing world, Francis, an Argentine, used the encyclical — titled “Laudato Si’,” or “Praise Be to […]

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Pope Francis Aligns Himself With Mainstream Science on Climate

Photo An Indian boy with a bag filled with recyclable material at a garbage dump in Gauhati, India. Credit Anupam Nath/Associated Press The new papal encyclical on the environment is a ringing call to action, a critique of consumerism and a prophetic warning about the dangers of ignoring what Pope Francis calls “the ecological crisis.” But amid all his soaring rhetoric, did the pope get the science right? The short answer from climate and environmental scientists is that he did, at least to the degree possible in a religious document meant for a broad audience. If anything, they say, he may have bent over backward to offer a cautious interpretation of the scientific facts. For example, a substantial body of published science says that human emissions have caused all the global warming that has occurred over the past century. Yet in his letter, Francis does not go quite that […]

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A child born today may live to see humanity’s end, unless…

Tags: carbon | climate change | geoengineering | global warming A couple hugs while standing on a hilly area overlooking Cairo on a dusty and hazy day where temperatures reached 114 Fahrenheit, May 27, 2015. REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih Humans will be extinct in 100 years because the planet will be uninhabitable, according to Australian microbiologist Frank Fenner, one of the leaders of the effort to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s. He blames overcrowding, denuded resources and climate change. Fenner’s prediction is not a sure bet, but he is correct that there is no way emissions reductions will be enough to save us from our trend toward doom. And there doesn’t seem to be any big global rush to reduce emissions, anyway. When the G7 called on Monday for all countries to reduce carbon emissions to zero in the next 85 years, the scientific reaction was unanimous: That’s far too late. […]

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Day Of Reckoning For Fossil Fuel Industry

The fossil fuel industry is facing its day of reckoning – and not just because one of the world’s most prominent religious leaders, Pope Francis, is calling for action . In fact, the industry’s moment of crisis has been in the making for years, as a variety of trends – from rising production costs to cheaper renewable energy and expanding carbon-reducing rules – have taken stronger hold. Today, the fossil fuel monolith is under attack from some of the same people it used to count as its closest friends – Wall Street analysts, investors and governments – because fossil fuels are no longer a safe bet. It has become impossible to ignore the systemic financial risks inherent in the production of coal, oil and other fossil fuels. Perhaps the most glaring, pressing risks are those associated with carbon reserves still in the ground. Better known as “carbon asset risks,” […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple