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Archive for August 30th, 2012
Keeping low “profile” helps Canadian miner gain approval in Peru
Posted by Reuters: Mitra Taj on August 30th, 2012
Reuters: Canada-based Hudbay Minerals has begun building its $1.5 billion Constancia copper mine in southern Peru after keeping a low profile to win crucial support from local communities, company President David Garofalo said.
The groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday, in which Garofalo participated along with local leaders, came a week after Peru shelved Newmont Mining Corp's $5 billion gold mine in the northern Cajamarca region due to intractable opposition.
"We stayed focused on the people that are...
Posted in 
Drought eases in U.S. Midwest, worsens in northern Plains
Posted by Reuters: Karl Plume on August 30th, 2012
Reuters: The worst U.S. drought in a half century loosened its grip on the Midwest in the past week, helped by rain and cooler temperatures, but the drought grew more dire in the northern Plains, a report from climate experts said on Thursday.
But the improved Midwest weather arrived too late for crops in major farm states such as Kansas, Iowa, Illinois and Indiana, where severe corn and soybean yield losses have already been realized.
The portion of the contiguous United States suffering from at least...
Farming Among the Waste in Cameroon
Posted by Inter Press Service: Monde Kingsley Nfor on August 30th, 2012
Inter Press Service: - Cameroonian urban famer Juliana Numfor has six plots of land where she grows maize, cassava, sweet potatoes and leafy vegetables, including cabbages, wild okra and greens.
The soil in which her crops grow is moist and visibly marshy, and a stream of water runs near it. But if you take a closer look you will notice that the water is dark and smells unpleasant.
In fact it is wastewater, which comes from a student residential quarter in Yaoundé, popularly called "Cradat", that is less than...
Rain comes too late for Iowa’s corn crop as drought weighs on midwest minds
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 30th, 2012
Guardian: Flying into Des Moines, the corn fields look surprisingly green. America's midwest produces half the world's corn and Iowa its largest harvest, yet amid the worst drought in living memory all the untrained eye can see is the occasional brown mark, like a cigarette burn on the baize of a pool table.
But appearances can be deceptive.
In Boone, Iowa, 30 miles away from the state capital, traffic backs up for miles bringing 200,000 people to Farm Progress, the US's largest agricultural show one....
Despite Possible Attacks, Gaza Plans Half-Billion-Dollar Desalination Plant
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 30th, 2012
Inter Press Service: Last May the European Commission reported that scores of infrastructure projects in the Gaza Strip, financed mostly by the European Union, have been damaged or destroyed, wittingly or unwittingly, by Israeli military forces in the ongoing conflict in the Palestinian Occupied Territories.
Nevertheless, undaunted by this destruction, the Palestinian Authority plans to launch an ambitious half-billion-dollar project for a new seawater desalination plant in water-starved Gaza next year.
When the...
Republicans vow to end ‘war on coal’, torch green regulations
Posted by BusinessGreen: James Murray on August 30th, 2012
BusinessGreen: The extent to which the Republican Party plans to eviscerate US environmental protection rules and dramatically increase support for fossil fuel production was again laid bare this week, as the Platform document adopted at the GOP Convention reiterated the party's opposition to the low-carbon economy.
The document, which was formally adopted by the Convention earlier this week, makes only one mention of "climate change ", attacking the Obama administration for incorporating the topic in its most...
Arctic Tipping Point: A North Pole Without Ice
Posted by Yale Environment 360: Fen Montaigne on August 30th, 2012
Yale Environment 360: As the northern summer draws to a close, two milestones have been reached in the Arctic Ocean -- record-low sea ice extent, and an even more dramatic new low in Arctic sea ice volume. This extreme melting offers dramatic evidence, many scientists say, that the region’s sea ice has passed a tipping point and that sometime in the next decade or two the North Pole will be largely ice-free in summer.
NASA and U.S. ice experts announced earlier this week that the extent of Arctic sea ice has dropped...
Indian monsoon consolidates revival in past week: Met office
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 30th, 2012
Reuters: India's monsoon rains were 6 percent above average in the past week, the weather office said on Thursday, the first time they have been heavier than average in the current rainy season that began in June, in what is turning out to be a drought year.
The crucial monsoon rains, vital for the 55 percent of Indian farmland without irrigation, are 12 percent short of average so far and threaten cereal and pulses production as drought continues in some areas of west and south India.
In the previous...
Asia’s extreme storm season dominates climate talks
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on August 30th, 2012
Agence France-Presse: Climate change negotiators meeting in Thailand say a string of extreme weather events around the world point to a need for urgent carbon emissions cuts. The week-long meeting in Bangkok, which was devastated by major floods last year, aims to prepare the ground for a meeting of ministers under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Doha starting in November. "This meeting opens in the immediate aftermath of a deadly typhoon in the Republic of Korea and a hurricane that hit near New Orleans...
In Drought, Should Corn Be Food Or Fuel?
Posted by National Public Radio: Conrad Wilson on August 30th, 2012
National Public Radio: Standing outside the Central Minnesota Ethanol Co-Op in Little Falls, Minn., there's not a lot going on. The pungent smell of fermentation that typically hangs in the air here is absent. And trucks piled high with corn are nowhere to be seen.
They're idled in part because of high corn prices. And it's unclear when that will change.
"Most of the industry is just breaking even in terms of profitability or actually running at slightly negative margins," says Geoff Cooper, vice president of research...