Archive for June 8th, 2013

Experts Urge Focus on Aquifers in Push for Water From Mexico

New York Times: As Texas lawmakers say farmers in the Rio Grande Valley are hurting because Mexico is not honoring a treaty on surface water delivery, experts caution that greater attention should be paid to water deep below the surface. At least 20 aquifers stretch across the United States-Mexico border, said Gabriel Eckstein, a professor at the Texas Wesleyan University School of Law and the director of the International Water Law Project. Some are being mined at a record pace, he said. "I know you have...

Eight ways to solve world hunger

Guardian: PREVENT LAND GRABBING An ugly side of current scares over future food supply is wealthy, land-poor states, like those in the Gulf and South Korea, acquiring tracts of undeveloped countries to use as allotments. It is a campaigning cause of the multi-charity IF campaign against hunger. Ethiopia, Sudan, Madagascar and Cambodia have been targeted and a total area the size of Spain may already have been acquired. Problem: Hard to police. Difficult to distinguish between genuine investment in Africa...

Climate science tells us the alarm bells are ringing

Washington Post: In a recent op-ed for The Post, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.) offered up a reheated stew of isolated factoids and sweeping generalizations about climate science to defend the destructive status quo. We agree with the chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology that policy should be based on sound science. But Smith presented political talking points, and none of his implied conclusions is accurate. The two of us have spent, in total, more than seven decades studying Earth's climate,...

Firefighters gain some ground against New Mexico blazes

Zelie Pollon: Firefighters, taking advantage of cooling temperatures, gained ground on Friday against a pair of blazes in New Mexico, one of them threatening dozens of archeological sites and sacred Native American landmarks west of Santa Fe. The so-called Thompson Ridge fire, burning for a week in the Valles Caldera National Preserve, had scorched at least 14,000 acres of rugged forest lands as of Friday, with containment lines carved around 10 percent of the blaze so far, fire information officer Jan Bardwell...