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Archive for April 26th, 2013
Drought to Floods For Some; Dryness Holds On To West
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on April 26th, 2013
Climate Central: As the Midwest has lurched from severe drought conditions in late 2012 to record flooding during the past two weeks, the focus of the drought has shifted west, with drought conditions continuing to intensify in the West and Southwest, where many states are facing long-term rainfall deficits from up to three years of unusually dry conditions.
According to the latest edition of the U.S. Drought Monitor, released on Thursday, an unusually cold and stormy weather pattern across the U.S. has helped...
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Obama Administration Announces 21M-Acre Oil and Gas Lease Sale Offshore Texas
Posted by Green Car Congress: None Given on April 26th, 2013
Green Car Congress: The US Department of the Interior will offer more than 21 million acres offshore Texas for oil and gas exploration and development in a lease sale that will include all available unleased areas in the Western Gulf of Mexico Planning Area.
Proposed Lease Sale 233, scheduled to take place in New Orleans in August, will be the third offshore auction under the Administration’s Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing Program for 2012-2017 (Five Year Program). The sale builds on the first two auctions...
Some Worry Australia’s Great Artesian Basin, Outback Water Supply, Being Drawn Too Fast
Posted by Public Radio International: None Given on April 26th, 2013
Public Radio International: Australia's Outback communities rely on the water in the Great Artesian Basin, deep underground, for their water supply. But some now worry the aquifer is being drawn down too quickly. If it ever went dry, it would leave a whole host of Outback communities without a nearby water supply.
Winton, population 954, sits in the heart of Queensland.
There is not much to the town -- just a crisscross of about a dozen streets in the vast Australian bush. But, in a way, Winton should not exist at all....
Small farmers hold the key to tackling climate change
Posted by AlterNet: Frank Rijsberman on April 26th, 2013
AlterNet: As a lifelong scientist I have attended climate change meetings for over 30 years. Our aim was to convince scientists and policymakers to take climate change seriously. The message was: 'Take action now, to leave a better world for your grandchildren.' In the past, many of my colleagues working in development were not convinced - poor and hungry people cannot afford to worry about climate change. Such was the conventional wisdom. The conference on "Hunger-Nutrition-Climate Justice' that I attended...
In Midwest, Drought Abruptly Gives Way to Flood
Posted by New York Times: Monica Davey on April 26th, 2013
New York Times: The nation’s midsection, which was for months parched by severe drought, suddenly finds itself contending with the opposite: severe flooding that has forced evacuations, slowed commercial barge traffic down the Mississippi River and left farmers with submerged fields during a crucial planting time. The flooding, driven in part by rainfall of as much as eight inches in some places last week, has affected a remarkably wide stretch in states along swollen rivers in the Midwest. The deaths of at least...