The 1990 map was based on temperatures from 1974 to 1986, the new map from 1976 to 2005. The nation’s average temperature from 1976 to 2005 was two-thirds of a degree higher than it was during the old time period, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

The new map is generally one half-zone warmer than the previous map throughout much of the United States. Cities as varied as Boston, Honolulu, St. Louis, Des Moines, Iowa, St. Paul, Minnesota, and Fairbanks, Alaska, are in newer, warmer zones. Almost all of Ohio, Nebraska and Texas are in warmer zones.

The Washington Post quoted several experts who noted the new map, whose changes in hardiness zones are based on rising minimum temperatures across the nation, isn’t news to gardeners.

Boston University biology professor Richard Primack:

People who grow plants are well aware of the fact that temperatures have gotten more mild throughout the year, particularly in the wintertime.

George Ball, chairman and CEO of the seed company W. Atlee Burpee:

Climate change, which has been in the air for a long time, is not big news to gardeners.

Stanford University biology professor Terry Root:

It is great that the federal government is catching up with what the plants themselves have known for years now: The globe is warming and it is greatly influencing plants (and animals).

Vaughn Speer, an 87-year-old master gardener in Ames, Iowa, said he has seen redbud trees, appear ten miles north of their traditional limit in recent years. Our nation’s forests are dying with the changes. Lodgepole pines, aspens, walnut trees, and other dominant species adapted to a climate without greenhouse pollution are already suffering in our hotter planet.

In coming decades, the rate of global warming will increase significantly, a result of the rapid rise in fossil fuel pollution, making it ever more difficult for plants to adapt, and destabilizing all of our nation’s ecosystems.

GOP politicians have crowed that driving immigrants out of the state will reduce unemployment by letting native citizens fill those jobs. But they’ve quickly discovered that Americans are simply unwilling to do the back-breaking labor of harvesting crops.

To stave off the disastrous collapse of state agriculture, Alabama officials are seriously considering replacing immigrant workers with prison laborers who they could perhaps pay even less than immigrants. Earlier this year, the head of Alabama’s agriculture department floated this idea. Now, the department is actively promoting it to the state’s farmers:

Alabama agriculture officials are considering whether prisoners can fill a labor shortage the agency blames on the new state law against illegal immigration.

The Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries is meeting with south Alabama farmers and businesses in Mobile on Tuesday. Deputy commissioner Brett Hall says the agenda includes a presentation on whether work-release inmates could help fill jobs once held by immigrants.

Georgia implemented a similar scheme to deal with its post-immigration-law exodus, but the program had mixed results, with many inmates walking off the job early. In fact, some in Georgia were amazed Alabama did not learn from their mistakes before implementing an immigration law that jeopardized agricultural and construction industries. “It was like, ‘Good Lord, you people can’t be helped. Have you all not been paying attention?’” said Bryan Tolar, president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council.

Replacing skilled workers with virtually free (and sometimes actually free) prison laborers has become a trend in Republican-led states. Under Gov. Scott Walker’s (R-WI) anti-collective bargaining law, at least one Wisconsin county replaced some union workers with prison labor. And Georgia is considering replacing firefighters with prisoners to save money.

Proponents of local food production have long argued that you drastically decrease your carbon footprint by eating locally-sourced food.

There have been numerous studies in recent years showing that non-local food, especially imported food, which is making up a larger and larger percentage of Americans’ diets, has a much higher emissions impact than locally produced food. A study from the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has the numbers to prove it. Here is some of the data on the staggering impact imported food has in California:

• In 2005, the import of fruits, nuts, and vegetables into California by airplane released more than 70,000 tons of CO2, which is equivalent to more than 12,000 cars on the road. These are all foods that can be grown in California
• Almost 250,000 tons of global warming gases released were attributable to imports of food products—the equivalent amount of pollution produced by more than 40,000 vehicles on the road or nearly two power plants
• More than 6,000 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides were released into the air— the equivalent of almost 1.5 million vehicles or 263 power plants
• 300 tons of sooty particulate matter were released into the air—the equivalent of more than 1.2 million cars or 53 power plants
• Approximately 950 cases of asthma, 16,870 missed schools days, 43 hospital admissions, and 37 premature deaths could be attributed to the worsened air quality from food imports, according to freight transport–related projections by the California Air Resources Board.

These numbers show the major impact that our food choices have on the environment and human health. This heavy reliance on imports is alarming considering that California is the number one state for agricultural production in the U.S. After examining the top six imports to California (table grapes, navel oranges, wine, garlic, rice, and fresh tomatoes — all grown in the state), NRDC discovered a disturbing trend:

Harmful air pollution in California produced from transporting these six foods into California was up to 45 times more than local or regional transport of California grown foods—and global warming pollution went up to 500 times that of locally grown foods when the food was imported by airplane.

In another study comparing the impact of local versus non-local produce, researchers at Virginia Tech conducted an assessment of carbon dioxide emissions of local broccoli and non-local broccoli. Here’s what they found:

The average distance traveled by nonlocal broccoli delivered to Virginia Tech during the month of October 2009 was 2786.0 miles. The total amount of carbon dioxide emitted as a result of this transport was 105,830.0 pounds. This averaged to approximately 11,758.9 pounds carbon dioxide per shipment and 15.3 pounds carbon dioxide per pound of broccoli delivered.

In contrast to the high mileage of non-local broccoli:

The distance traveled per trip by the cargo van transporting the local broccoli was 19.1 miles. The amount of carbon dioxide emitted per trip was 23.2 pounds, which added up to 258.3 pounds of carbon dioxide emitted during all transport occurring in the month of October. Per pound of broccoli, 0.04 pounds of carbon dioxide were emitted.

This is a very specific case study. But it shows how local food can substantially reduce emissions. Just look at this map of the non-local broccoli’s trek across America when it can be grown in Virginia to be eaten in Virginia.

And here’s the much more sensible journey of local broccoli:

There is, however, valid criticism of the idea that local food is always the best. Christopher Weber and H. Scott Matthews, of Carnegie Mellon University did a life-cycle analysis of the average American diet by tracking greenhouse gas emissions through all phases of a food’s production, transport, and consumption. Weber and Matthews found that overall, transport accounts for about 11 percent of the food system’s emissions. Agricultural production accounts for the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions, or 83 percent. They found that the kind of food is much more important than where it comes from. A diet containing meat and dairy products is much more resource intensive than a plant-based diet. The Worldwatch Institute’s article on Weber and Matthews’ report sums it up well:

Weber and Matthews calculated that reducing food miles to zero-an all-but-impossible goal in practice-would reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the food system by only about 5 percent, equivalent to driving 1,000 miles less over the course of a year.

By comparison, replacing red meat and dairy with chicken, fish, or eggs for one day per week  would save the equivalent of driving 760 miles per year. Replacing red meat and dairy with vegetables one day a week would be like driving 1,160 miles less. “Thus,” they write, “we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than ‘buying local.’”

So yes, eating less meat and dairy will greatly reduce the impact your diet has on the planet. However, the combination of choosing the right foods with a local approach will have the biggest impact:

Weber acknowledges, “These calculations were done assuming that local foods are no different than non-local foods.” And that’s not usually the case. For example, local-food advocates also emphasize eating seasonal (often meaning field-grown) and less-processed foods. Those qualities, along with shorter distances from farm to table, will also contribute to lower emissions compared to the “average” diet.

Separating the debate into an either/or is a red herring. Ideally, we’d do both.

Cole Mellino is an intern on the energy team at the Center for American Progress

As the climate talks unfold in Durban, South Africa, farmers all over the world are feeling the impact of extreme weather exacerbated by a warming planet.

Changing weather patterns, especially rainfall, are having disastrous affects on global crops. Last year in the Caribbean, banana and vegetable crops were hit hard by months of drought followed by torrential rains that resulted in flooding. The story is the same in Southern Africa. Droughts and erratic rainfall in the South African desert are destroying the Redbush tea plant, known by its Afrikaner name Rooibos. In other areas of the world, a range of agricultural products like coffee, chocolate, peanuts, and pumpkins are all being harmed by extreme weather.

But farmers in Africa — a continent that would be worst hit by climate change — are not idly sitting by. Protesting outside the Durban climate talks, members of the Southern African Rural Women’s Assembly are expressing their frustration with international inaction on climate:

“We’ve come to join other rural women farmers from the southern African region,” said Thandiure Chidararume, a member of ActionAid, an international organization that helped bring together this meeting of the Southern African Rural Women’s Assembly. “We have come as one voice from Africa, we are saying no to damning deals, Africa is not for sale, we want this air pollution that is causing climate change to stop now.”

The assembly unites women’s farming and agricultural unions and movements from around the world.

Women from all across Africa, some as far north as Kenya, came out to the rally at a Kawaulu-Natal University in Durban, several kilometers from the downtown convention center where the more subdued, official meetings on climate change are taking place.

The protesters, who also have the support of women’s movements in Latin America, do not believe that government negotiators represent their interests.

They lament the inaction by developed countries, and point to schemes in which biofuel companies or other firms buy land in countries in Africa and Latin America to make money off of trading carbon credits. These land grabs drive people off the land and often don’t reduce carbon emissions. That’s why Mercia Andrews, the director of the South African Trust for Community Outreach and Education, calls the situation “climate apartheid”:

“We have a responsibility, we have to begin to mobilize and we have the power. We have shaken this country before, we brought down apartheid, now is another turn. This is a bigger struggle, a more important struggle and this is a struggle that we must unite around. We must say, ‘No, to climate apartheid, no.’ ”

The concerns are real, said Theresa Marwei, an activist from Zimbabwe.

“I think if we can agree, all the countries that we are here, not to let the air be polluted, because we are having hunger, no water to drink, no gardens, no money to send our children to school because no rain,” she said. “If the rain comes it will be floods, we can’t do anything.”

This group of women representing rural farming interests is just one of many protesting outside the Durban climate talks in an attempt to get negotiators to see the human consequences of their actions.

— Cole Mellino is an intern with the energy team at the Center for American Progress

You have these people from the EPA saying, “You don’t understand! This is particulate matter! Here it is on page whatever of the Clean Air Act!“

Watch it:

“I can’t make these things up,” Gingrich concluded.

In reality, agricultural dust pollution is no joking matter. The Bush administration issued emissions monitoring guidelines for dust kicked up from poorly maintained rural roads. Industrial agribusiness in California puts up tens of thousands of tons of particulate matter every year. Regulations on particulate matter have been issued under the Reagan, Clinton, and Bush administrations. The “dust” Gingrich jokes about has been found to cause hospital admissions for heart disease, hospital admissions and doctors’ visits for respiratory diseases, increased respiratory symptoms in children, and premature death in people with heart or lung disease.

Despite the health threat from the tons of toxic dust produced by industrial agribusiness, there are no federal regulations protecting agricultural workers. Only two states, California and Arizona, have rules on farm dust. Although “farm dust regulation” is a popular Republican talking point, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson has repeatedly affirmed that her agency has no plans to issue a farm dust rule.

Industrial agriculture is a major part of the global ponzi scheme. By continuing to fool ourselves into thinking we can infinitely produce more fossil-fuel laden food with limited resources, we’re setting ourselves up for a major catastrophe.

And that fooling happens on every level. Take the disturbing ways in which we create flavors for foods.

The “all natural” label applied to food means absolutely nothing by federal standards. And yet, food companies prey on growing consumer demand for wholesome healthy food by slapping the label on anything they can. The Food and Drug Administration, which is charged with protecting and promoting our health through regulation and oversight of the food industry, has not developed a definition for the “all natural” label. However, “the agency has not objected to the use of the term if the food does not contain added color, artificial flavors, or synthetic substances,” according to the FDA’s website.

People have a false perception that our food industry is well regulated, when it simply is not. To shed some light on what is in our food and what concoctions can even be labeled as “all natural,” Bruce Bradley, a former food marketer at companies like General Mills, Pillsbury, and Nabisco, keeps a blog about the food industry. In 2008, he left the corporate world and decided to devote the rest of his life to promoting healthy food and criticizing the Big Food industry.

Because our food has become so highly processed and because by FDA law, food companies can list spices and flavorings as natural or artificial flavors, unbelievably strange and disgusting things are being added to our food:

• Beaver anal glands, known as castoreum (I guess anal glands was a hard sell), are typically used in vanilla and raspberry flavoring and can legally be labeled natural flavoring
• L-cysteine or cystine is used a dough conditioner. It’s sometimes made from human hair, but more and more from duck feathers and can be found in breads and baked goods.
• A red food coloring additive that goes by many names (Carmine, Crimson Lake, Cochineal, or Natural Red #4) is made from insects like the cochineal beetle.

This is just one more example of how distorted our food system is. To see a longer list of the strange food additives that can be grouped under “natural flavors,” go to Bruce Bradley’s blog.

— Cole Mellino is an intern with the energy team at the Center for American Progress

Urban homesteading, in which households grow their own food and often raise animals for food in an urban environment, is becoming more and more popular as people decide to opt out of our globalized, industrialized agricultural system.

Concerned about the state of agriculture and the impact our farming methods are having on the environment, a growing number of people are doing it themselves — often in the urban setting. But growing large amounts of food and raising animals in an urban or suburban area can cause conflict too.

There is mounting pressure on cities to update old zoning laws that place restrictions on urban homesteading. In many cities, practices such as beekeeping, selling produce, and raising and slaughtering animals for food are outlawed. Those who want to change the laws argue that it’s a basic right to be able to produce one’s food. Those who are opposed raise concerns about animal welfare, cleanliness, safety, noise and general unsightliness.

Oakland has become the key battleground between these competing groups.

As of November 3, citizens of Oakland can sell the fruits and vegetables they grow at home. Oakland City Council just re-wrote its 46-year-old zoning code to allow Oaklanders to directly sell their produce to one another. City officials are in the process of creating rules on how big urban farms can get, when and where people can sell their produce, and whether residents can slaughter animals for food.

This last part, backyard slaughter, is highly controversial. In Oakland, a group called Neighbors Opposed to Backyard Slaughter (NoBS) has formed to speak out against the pending laws. NoBS fears that neophyte farmers will abuse or neglect the animals or improperly dispose of their waste. Many urban homesteaders, such as Kitty Sharkey, who raises chickens, ducks, dairy goats, rabbits, quail and bees, are quick to defend their practices. Sharkey takes extra care to clean up animal waste and to ensure that her birds are safe from predators at night. She received extensive training in proper slaughter techniques at a farm in Sonoma County before she ever killed a chicken on her own.

However, it’s not even clear under the city’s old code whether backyard slaughter is unlawful. Law enforcement only gets involved if a neighbor complains. So Sharkey and many other Oaklanders will continue to harvest their own food. But if they had the support of the city, especially in allowing direct sale of food from resident to resident, they’d be even happier and Oakland’s impact on the earth would be a little lighter.

Hopefully, more municipalities will adopt smart, progressive laws that allow for an increase in urban homesteading — allowing potential farmers to be good stewards of the earth and good neighbors.

— Cole Mellino is an intern with the energy team at the Center for American Progress

by Tom Laskawy, in a Grist cross-post

Now that we’re surrounded by 7 billion of our closest friends, it’s probably a good time to talk about how we’re going to feed them. The government, along with corporations like Monsanto, Syngenta, Dupont, and others who are part of our current industrial agriculture system, will tell you that feeding the world is all about more. More yield from crops, more chemicals, more fertilizer, more genetically engineered seeds. More, more, more!

Of course, it’s easy to say that when you’re willing, as they are, to ignore the health effects, climate and environmental impacts, resource constraints, and every other real world consequence of large-scale industrial agriculture.

Our ability to feed this expanding population (let alone reduce world hunger) is generally discussed in terms of bushels of grain or total calories produced. It’s as if other aspects of the food production system — from agriculture’s carbon footprint, to the amount of crops now used for biofuels and animal feed, to the availability and price of oil and other depleted resources like phosphorus, a key fertilizer — are somehow irrelevant.

So it’s nice to see an article in the preeminent science journal Nature that tries to look at the big picture of world agriculture, warts and all.

The report was written by a team of international scientists led by Dr. Jonathan Foley of the University of Minnesota’s Institute of the Environment, and the goal was to address how our current food system is failing to feed the world. And yes, that was “is failing” –not “might fail in the future.” After all, any system that leaves nearly 15 percent of the world’s population — and 50 million residents of the world’s richest country — hungry while wasting an astounding amount of food can’t possibly be considered a success.

On the bright side, Foley’s team of researchers concluded that we can indeed produce enough food and do so in a way that both minimizes environmental and climate damage while treating water as the precious resource it is. We will, however, have to make a few adjustments to our approach to agriculture. The to-do list is surprisingly short:

• Close agricultural “yield gaps” — the difference between the most and least productive regions — while minimizing farming’s environmental footprint
• Stop agricultural expansion into sensitive areas, such as rainforests
• Stop wasting so much food
• Eat less meat and put less food (i.e. ethanol) into our gas tanks.

Though few, the changes called for won’t be easy to enact. According to the researchers’ analysis, however, these are the only real options if we are to produce food for all 7 billion of us without destroying the planet in the process.

The report also points out that conventional attempts to expand food production, such as the recent increase in farmland, do more harm than good. Much of that new farmland is, for the most part, former tropical rainforest — and it turns out converted rainforest land is neither particularly productive as farmland nor climate smart, since creating it releases huge amounts of carbon sequestered in trees. The study provides evidence that we’re better off letting the rainforest sequester carbon than burning and bulldozing it to grow grains or sugarcane (which mostly end up as biofuel rather than human food).

The report adds that the relentless focus on exporting Western-style industrial agriculture is a dead-end. This is true for many reasons, but one is that our system is incredible resource inefficient. While much of the world could benefit from increased fertility, the overuse of fertilizer — responsible for the ocean “dead zones” throughout the world — is caused by the agriculture practiced the U.S., Western Europe, Northern India, and China. As the study notes, “only 10 percent of the world’s croplands account for 32 percent of the global nitrogen surplus and 40 percent of the phosphorus surplus.” According to Foley and his team:

… conventional approaches to intensive agriculture, especially the unbridled use of irrigation and fertilizers, have been major causes of environmental degradation. Closing yield gaps without environmental degradation will require new approaches, including reforming conventional agriculture and adopting lessons from organic systems and precision agriculture.

That’s right, they used the “O” word. In fact, these scientists concluded that if we’re to grow more with fewer resources and a smaller environmental and carbon footprint, we’ll have to look not to high-tech solutions like genetic engineering but rather to:

agroecological innovations in crop and soil management [which] … show great promise for improving the resource efficiency of agriculture, maintaining the benefits of intensive agriculture while greatly reducing harm to the environment.

Agroecology is a broad term, but generally involves a balanced approach to agriculture that takes account of natural systems when choosing what to grow and how to grow it. While it’s the form of food production rarely discussed at USDA and in the U.S. generally, agroecological principles have been endorsed by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization as well as by the U.N.’s Right to Food program as the best way forward. They’ve also been explored in depth in a report produced by hundreds of scientists for the World Bank.

The Nature study also noted that worldwide, only 62 percent of our crops go towards food we actually eat. A third goes to livestock and around 3 percent goes to biofuel, fiber, or seed production. But those numbers vary greatly by region. The scientists produced a “heat map” that looks at what percentage of a region’s crop production is fed to humans vs. animals and fuel tanks. Red indicates cropland totally dedicated to food while blue indicates cropland used to grow fuel, fiber, or other industrial products.

Notice that cold blue swath that covers the American Midwest? The same area touted as the key to America’s “feeding the world”? Well, the map shows that the vast majority of food grown there is not destined for people’s stomachs. That’s something that will need to change if we are to have any hope of making food available to those who need it.

With the tools currently at our disposal, we can reduce carbon emissions to address climate change; we can create jobs to address economic inequality; and, yes, we can “feed the world,” though the better term is “feed ourselves.” What Foley and his team are really telling us is that, as with the other challenges we face, the main obstacles are political.

The fact is that the people and corporations who run things at the moment don’t want to change. And certainly not in the direction this report recommends. That’s a shame, because it’s a lot easier to change by choice than in a time of crisis. But unless we find ways to adopt the principles that scientists like Foley and his team are describing soon, we’re likely to have change forced upon us. And I’m guessing we’ll like the results a whole lot less.

There’s a heated debate among proponents of urban agriculture about whether vertical farming is truly feasible. Most people agree that it would solve many of our current agricultural problems, such as land and water use, heavy reliance on chemical inputs, fertilizer runoff and soil erosion, and carbon emissions from transportation.

However, real estate is expensive in cities. And no one has yet figured out a way to get sunlight into a skyscraper so that the plants grow evenly.

But innovators like as John Edel, owner and developer of the Chicago Sustainable Manufacturing Center, appear have found solution. Edel built a mini-vertical farm, called The Plant, in a former meat-packing facility complete with an aquaponics farm and a food business incubator that offers low rent, low energy costs, and a licensed shared kitchen.

Located in the economically distressed Back of the Yards neighborhood in Chicago, the Plant was relatively cheap to buy. That solved the property cost problem. As for the issue of evenly-dispersed sunlight, The Plant utilizes indoor grow lights that are operated as part of an off-grid net-zero energy system, run by an anaerobic digester and a combined heat and power system. The digester consumes food waste produced in the facility and by neighboring manufacturers, meeting the energy needs of the entire building. So not only does The Plant produce net-zero energy, but it also produces net-negative waste by turning those waste products into energy.

Here’s a diagram of The Plant’s remarkable industrial ecology:

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The Aquaponics system is another innovative closed-loop system in which fish (Tilapia) produce ammonia-based waste that is filtered and broken down into nitrates. Those nitrates are used as nutrients for the hydroponic beds, thus cleaning the water and returning those nutrients to the fish. This aquaponics system solves the problems with aquaculture (too much waste) and hydroponics (needs nutrient inputs) by combining them and mimicking a natural ecosystem. The fish and vegetables are then sold to local food markets and restaurants.

Along with the aquaponics system, The Plant houses a beer brewery, a kombucha (fermented tea) brewery, a composting company, a company that creates vertical growing systems, and a mushroom farm. Waste from one business is used as food for another. For example, the spent distiller grains from the brewery will be fed to the tilapia and the solids from the tilapia waste are fed to the mushrooms.

The company is very committed to proving that its operation is not only sustainable, but profitable and replicable. The staff will soon put a business case study on their website and will also host seminars. The Plant is still very young. But it is proof that vertical farming can be a viable way to produce truly sustainable food.

— Cole Mellino is an intern with the energy team at the Center for American Progress

Related Post:

• Urban Hydroponics: A Model for Feeding a Growing Population Using Fewer Resources?

As the global community considers the interwoven issues of food access, resource scarcity, increased urbanization and climate change, innovation in the agriculture sector is blossoming. We’re going to continue to highlight important projects and scientific developments in agriculture that help address those problems.

And sometimes, those answers are very simple ones.

Earlier this summer, New York City became home to the nation’s first commercial urban hydroponic greenhouse. Gotham Greens, the company that operates the 15,000 square-foot facility in Brooklyn, has harvested and delivered the first of its 100 annual tons of local and organic vegetables and herbs. The rooftop facility, which runs on 55-kilowatt solar panels, provides year-round produce for nearby New York grocers. This means the company can supply local lettuce, even in the dead of winter, to New Yorkers.

There are myriad benefits to urban hydroponics. Many of the problems with conventional agriculture are solved in this controlled environment. The facility uses 10 times less land and 20 times less water compared to conventional agriculture. Pesticide use and fertilizer runoff are eliminated. The company’s strict food safety program ensures that food will not be contaminated by E. coli or Salmonella. And because the food is grown and distributed in New York City, transportation costs are minimal and far less carbon dioxide is emitted than conventionally-sourced food, which travels, on average, 1,500 miles.

The greenhouse is “on a pretty sophisticated computer control system that has sensors all over the place and will deploy lights and fans and shade curtains and heat blankets and irrigation pumps automatically,” according to the Co-Founder and CEO Viraj Puri.

This type of innovative, tech-smart, urban agriculture is an important model to consider as we try to figure out how to feed a growing global population with limited resources.

— Cole Mellino is an intern on the energy team with the Center for American Progress

Crop Scientists Now Fret About Heat, Not Just Water

Crop scientists in the United States, the world’s largest food exporter, are pondering an odd question: could the danger of global warming really be the heat?

For years, as scientists have assembled data on climate change and pointed with concern at melting glaciers and other visible changes in the life-giving water cycle, the impact on seasonal rains and irrigation has worried crop watchers most.

What would breadbaskets like the Midwest, the Central Asian steppes, the north China Plain or Argentine and Brazilian crop lands be like without normal rains or water tables?

Those were seen as longer-term issues of climate change.

But scientists now wonder if a more immediate issue is an unusual rise in day-time and, especially, night-time summer temperatures being seen in crop belts around the world.

Interviews with crop researchers at American universities paint the same picture: high temperatures have already shrunken output of many crops and vegetables.

“We don’t grow tomatoes in the deep South in the summer. Pollination fails,” said Ken Boote, a crop scientist with the University of Florida.

The same goes for snap beans which can no longer be grown in Florida during the summer, he added.

“As temperatures rise we are going to have trouble maintaining the yields of crops that we already have,” said Gerald Nelson, an economist with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)….

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Cost of Subsidizing Fossil Fuels is High, But Cutting Them is Tough

The bankruptcy this summer of Solyndra — a solar company heavily subsidized by the U.S. government — unleashed a torrent of concern about the risks of wasting taxpayer money on renewable-energy projects.

There have been similar worries in Europe, where bountiful state support led to a boom and bust in the Spanish solar sector and where targets for some biofuels may contribute to greenhouse emissions.

But what are the effects of subsidies that continue to flow to fossil fuels?

Two years ago, in Pittsburgh, the Group of 20 industrialized and developing nations acknowledged that many of these subsidies were wasteful, impeding investment in clean energy and undermining efforts to deal with climate change, and they pledged to step up efforts to get rid of them.

These subsidies are fiendishly difficult to dismantle because of the political risks involved.

In December, Bolivia had to rescind fuel price increases less than a week after announcing them, after violent protests. Early this year, Iran managed to institute sweeping changes, but only after overcoming major obstacles.

In the developed world, some of the beneficiaries include French taxi drivers, who receive an annual rebate on diesel and gasoline; British householders, who pay a reduced value-added tax for heat and power; and oil and natural gas companies in Alaska, which receive tax credits to offset the cost of drilling and exploration.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group in Paris that advises mostly high-income nations on their economies, said this month that these supports were worth as much as $75 billion each year in 24 of its 34 member countries.

Solar Power is Beginning to go Mainstream

Solar energy may finally get its day in the sun.

The high costs that for years made it impractical as a mainstream source of energy are plummeting. Real estate companies are racing to install solar panels on office buildings. Utilities are erecting large solar panel “farms” near big cities and in desolate deserts. And creative financing plans are making solar more realistic than ever for homes.

Solar power installations doubled in the United States last year and are expected to double again this year. More solar energy is being planned than any other power source, including nuclear, coal, natural gas and wind.

“We are at the beginning of a turning point,” says Andrew Beebe, who runs global sales for Suntech Power, a manufacturer of solar panels.

Solar’s share of the power business remains tiny. But its promise is great. The sun splashes more clean energy on the planet in one hour than humans use in a year, and daytime is when power is needed most. And solar panels can be installed near where people use power, reducing or eliminating the costs of moving power through a grid.

India Likely to See 3,000 MW Wind Power Addition in 2011

Helped by strong policy framework and better cost competitiveness compared to conventional power generation, India is expected to see wind energy installation of about 3,000 MW this year, says a report.

The anticipated capacity addition would be 39% higher than that of 2,142 MW witnessed last year, according to a HSBC Global Research.

Further, the country is projected to have wind capacity addition of nearly 7,500 MW between 2011-15 period.

“The key drivers for growth are primarily a strong policy framework and improving cost competitiveness of wind technology compared to conventional generation,” the report said.

Going by projections, this year alone would see a capacity addition of 2,984 MW.

The country had a wind energy capacity of nearly 15,000 MW at the end of August 2011, as per official data.

Historically, a significant proportion of installations in the Indian wind market have been by non-utilities/ non-developers.

China Trade Petition Divides Solar Industry

The U.S. solar industry is divided over a petition by a handful of companies aimed at pressuring the Obama administration to impose duties on Chinese solar imports.

The rift within the industry – which has pitted a group of seven solar panel manufacturers against major solar developers and power generators – underscores the complexity of the United States’ trade relationship with China on renewable energy.

SolarWorld Industries America, a solar panel manufacturer, filed petitions Wednesday with the Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission alleging that China is illegally subsidizing its solar industry.

The company alleges that China is flooding the U.S. market with underpriced solar panels and subsidizing its solar industry in violation of World Trade Organization rules. China’s efforts, the company says, are burdening U.S. solar manufacturers and are partly responsible for seven U.S. companies going out of business or downsizing in the last year.

Kenya Steps Up its 1,300 MW Geothermal Electricity Plan

Kenya has stepped up plans to produce over 1,300MW of geothermal power in the next seven years to stem its overreliance on hydro and thermal sources of energy.

Through its main power generator Kengen, Kenya has drawn an ambitious plan that targets production of more than half of its total power from geothermal sources by 2018 and, in the process, phase out its longtime dependence on thermal power and the not-so-reliable hydro and wind power.

“The company is deliberately pursuing a green energy strategy to cushion Kenyans from weather-induced power shortages and high power prices associated with the rising global oil prices, while assuring availability of adequate electric power for development” said Kengen managing director Eddy Njoroge.

The company has earmarked a total 3,189MW to the national grid over the period, a challenge that requires expansion of geothermal plants and building of new ones and also investing more in wind and hydro power.

Another hot, dry summer has devastated this year’s peanut crop, sending prices for the legume skyrocketing and forcing peanut-butter brands including J.M. Smucker Co.’s Jif, Unilever NV’s Skippy and ConAgra Foods Inc.’s Peter Pan into startling price increases.

Wholesale prices for big-selling Jif are going up 30% starting in November, while Peter Pan will raise prices as much as 24% in a couple weeks. Unilever wouldn’t comment on its pricing plans, but a spokesman for Wegmans Food Markets, the closely held supermarket chain in the Northeast U.S., said wholesale prices for all brands it carries, including Skippy, are 30% to 35% higher than a year ago.

Kraft Foods Inc., which launched Planters peanut butter in June, is raising prices 40% on Oct. 31, a spokeswoman said.

“Only 38% of the U.S. peanut crop was rated good or excellent last month, down from about 60% a year ago,” the Journal reports.

The cost of global warming to America’s farmers — and then to American families at the dinner table — is growing rapidly. However, many of the industry groups and politicians who purport to represent the interests of U.S. agriculture, like the American Farm Bureau and Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), deny the threat of climate change to farmers.

“The drought conditions should sure that have plagued farmers this growing season have taken a toll on the area’s peanut crop. Withered blooms, burned pods and few undeveloped peanuts define this year’s peanut crop for many area farmers.” (Photo/Jaine Treadwell)

First, we heard that climate change could decimate the chocolate industry. Now it’s peanut butter. Sending lovers of Reese’s Pieces into a panic, the recent spell of record-setting heat has caused “startling price increases,” according to a piece in the Wall Street Journal:

Wholesale prices for big-selling Jif are going up 30 percent starting in November, while Peter Pan will raise prices as much as 24 percent in a couple of weeks. Unilever would not comment on its pricing plans, but a spokesman for Wegmans Food Markets said wholesale prices for all brands it carries, including Skippy, are 30 percent to 35 percent higher than a year ago.

Kraft Foods Inc., which launched Planters peanut butter in June, is raising prices 40 percent on Oct. 31, a spokeswoman said.

The US Department of Agriculture estimates the current spot price for a ton of unprocessed Runner peanuts, commonly used in peanut butter, at about $1,150 a ton, which is up from about $450 a year ago. A pound of shelled peanuts, meanwhile, would fetch $1.20 currently, one broker said, up from 52 cents a year ago.

Chalk up peanut butter as yet another potential causality of climate change. With heat waves getting worse, and the historic Texas drought expected to last well into the decade, the quality of the peanut crop may continue to get worse:

Scorching heat, especially in Texas, singed many peanut plants as they developed, leaving more peanuts destined to be processed into oil, rather than the edible quality that is shelled and turned into peanut butter. Only 38 percent of the US peanut crop was rated good or excellent last month, down from about 60 percent a year ago.

As with any crop, the challenges facing peanut farmers begin and end with the weather. In Georgia, the leading US peanut producing state, the planting season was the driest in memory for John Harrell, 56, a sixth-generation peanut farmer.

“I don’t remember a year that you didn’t catch a shower or had so little moisture in the ground to get the seed up,” said Harrell.

The dismal peanut yields this mean consumers will soon be paying more for peanut butter products at the supermarket — adding to the list of gastro-delights like French wine, Italian pasta and German beer that are threatened by a changing climate.

Related Posts:

• Too Hot For Chocolate? Climate Change Could Decimate the $9 Billion Cocoa Industry, Study Finds
• Humans Are Altering Fall Foliage, Studies Find
• Food Prices Expected to Climate, Get More Volatile

According to the 2007 USDA Agricultural Census, the median age of farmers in the U.S. is 57. As of 2008, approximately 2-3% of the U.S. population is directly employed in agriculture. Only a century ago, half the U.S. population was employed in agriculture. The number of farms in the U.S. dropped from 7 million in 1930 to 2 million in 2000 — and of those 2 million farms, just 3%, produced 75% of the nation’s farm output.

All this means that food is being produced by a very small handful of older farmers — many of whom are not really farmers, but businessmen who hire low-paid farmworkers to do the work in massive, industrialized operations. This is not to say that there aren’t plenty of innovative and sustainable farmers of an older generation. But it’s time for a new younger generation to become interested in farming and change the way that we farm altogether in this country.

That’s especially true since feeding 7 billion people, then 8 billion, and then 9 billion in a world of ever-worsening climate change will  be the greatest challenge the human race has ever faced (see “Global Food Prices Stuck Near Record High Levels” and links below).

What to do?

As it turns out, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has created two programs specifically because of a desperate need for youth engagement in food and agriculture.

Since 2009, the USDA has allocated about $18 million in grant money every year as part of the Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program (BFRDP) to help beginning farmers and ranchers run successful and sustainable farms.

The BFRDP, established by Congress in the 2008 Farm Bill, is an “education, training, technical assistance and outreach program designed to help U.S. farmers and ranchers — specifically those who have been farming or ranching for 10 years or less,” according to the USDA.

Another new program, FoodCorps, part of AmeriCorps, places young adults in limited-resource communities for a year of public service to teach children about nutrition, to grow school gardens, and to facilitate farm-to-school programs that put local food in school lunches.

The grants provided through these programs have allowed UC Berkeley to train minority, immigrant and limited-resource farmers and ranchers on sustainable production. They’ve allowed the Center for Race, Poverty, and the Environment to create a training program for hundreds of beginning farmers in the South San Joaquin Valley on successful and sustainable farming practices while also creating community gardens, co-operatives and small-scale farms. Mississippi State University is distributing training material to high school and college students who plan to enter farming and ranching. And the University of Nevada is teaching Native American, Hispanic, women and low-income farmers and ranchers about sustainability and good farming practices.

All of these universities and non-profit organizations across the country are educating and training the next generation to be stewards of the land.

It’s time for a paradigm shift in farming. These two programs, if properly designed and funded, could help provide the catalyst for change.

Of course we’ll need to do a lot more.  What do you think we should be doing?

Cole Mellino is an intern on the energy team at the Center for American Progress.  Joe Romm helped with this post.

Related Posts:

• Washington Post, Lester Brown explain how extreme weather, climate change drive record food prices.
• With No End in Sight for Texas Drought, ABC News Explains: “Every Farmer in the World Will Be Affected by Climate Change”
• The Coming Food Crisis: Global food security is stretched to the breaking point, and Russia’s fires and Pakistan’s floods are making a bad situation worse; Podesta, Caldwell: “Lasting gains in agricultural productivity will require … action to confront climate change.”
• How extreme weather could create a global food crisis:  2010 was among the hottest and wettest years on record – we are entering a period of climate and food insecurity

• Jeremy Grantham must-read, “Time to Wake Up: Days of Abundant Resources and Falling Prices Are Over Forever”
• Biofuels May Push 120 Million Into Hunger, Qatar’s Shah Says: “The era of low food prices … is over.”
• The Corn Ultimatum: How Long Can Americans Keep Burning One Sixth of the World’s Corn Supply in Our Cars?)

Half of the world’s cocoa comes from the West African nations of Ivory Coast and Ghana. An expected temperature rise of more than two degrees Celsius by 2050 will render many of the region’s cocoa-producing areas too hot for the plants that bear the fruit from which chocolate is made, says a new study from the Colombia-based International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT).

“What we are saying is that if we don’t take any action, there won’t be sufficient chocolate around in the future,” said Peter Läderach, the report’s lead author.

“Already we’re seeing the effects of rising temperatures on cocoa crops currently produced in marginal areas, and with climate change these areas are certain to spread,” says Dr. Peter Laderach.

By 2030, there will be a massive decline in optimal cacao-growing regions in West Africa.

The fossil fuel pollution that is heating up the planet also threatens the production of coffee, beer, and wine.

A new report released this week finds that demand for organics may create up to 42,000 jobs by 2015, up from 14,000 today.

That’s only a fraction of the 980,000 farmers in the U.S. But the organization that released the report, the Organic Farming Research Foundation, is calling on Congress to consider the growing economic impact of organic farming as it reconfigures the 2012 farm bill. Due to the rapid growth in consumer demand for organics and the labor-intensity of organic farming, OFRF says that job creation in the sector can more than double the rate of the conventional sector:

As our country has been dramatically affected by the worst economic downturn in 80 years, the organic industry has remained in positive growth territory and has come out of the recession hiring employees, adding farmers, and increasing revenue. The organic industry has grown from $3.6 billion in 1997 to $29 billion in 2010, with an annual growth rate of 19 percent from 1997- 2008. The organic agriculture sector grew by 8 percent in 2010.

The latest data indicate that 96 percent of organic operations nation-wide are planning to maintain or increase employment levels in 2011. Organic farms hired an average of 61 year-round employees compared with 28 year-round employees hired on conventional farms, according to a recent survey of organic and conventional farmers in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi.

In order to stimulate more jobs in organic farming, OFRF is calling on Congress to increase funding or research in the sector, create financial coverage for farms that are contaminated by neighboring genetically modified crops, extend insurance for cover crops, increase pesticide regulation, and enable the military and other government institutions to purchase more organics for food programs.

These policies will not only help expand job creation in the sector, they’ll also support a set of farming practices that is better equipped to handle the environmental stresses of climate change. Another report released this week from the Rodale Institute found that over a 30-year study of corn, soybean crop yields were the exact same under both conventional and organic agriculture.

But when groundwater discharge, crop performance during drought and soil health, the organic crops performed far better. The report also found that between 2008 and 2010, the average net economic return from organic crops were nearly three times that of conventional crops.

Clearly, organic farming should be an important piece of our economic-development strategy. Here are some important facts to consider as lawmakers consider changes to the upcoming farm bill:

• Organics are better for the economy because the organic industry has continued to grow for the past two decades and grew 8% in 2010, a year in which the overall economy grew less than 2%.
• Organics are better for soil and water quality because it builds up the soil, retains water, and prevents erosion and runoff. Conventional farming only depletes the soil, wastes water, and leads to massive erosion and runoff.
• Organics are better for addressing climate change because the practice allows for more carbon sequestration in soils. According to the OFRF report, “world soils, if managed carefully, could capture an estimated 5-15% of global carbon emissions. Furthermore, conventional farming produces 40% more greenhouse gases than organic farming.
• Organics are necessary for mitigating climate change because the practice is better equipped to handle the extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods, heat waves, and major storms, which will become more and more common in the face of a changing climate.

Despite all these benefits, the era of cheap, abundant fossil fuels have propped up environmentally-disastrous farming practices. Far too few of our public resources have been invested in organic agriculture. As members of Congress consider what policies to promote in the upcoming farm bill, they need to look at the overwhelming evidence in favor of organic agriculture.

— Cole Mellino, Center for American Progress intern

A round-up of recent climate and energy news. Please post other stories below.

Smaller Crops Forecast by U.S. After Planting Delays, Heat Wave

Corn, soybean and spring-wheat harvests in the U.S., the world’s largest exporter, will be smaller than the government forecast last month after a damaging heat wave that may signal higher costs for food and biofuel.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture cut its corn-crop estimate by 4.1 percent, reduced the soybean forecast by 5.2 percent, and said spring-wheat production will be 5.2 percent below what it predicted in July. The harvests for all three crops would be less than expected by analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Parts of the Midwest, the main growing region, were the hottest since 1955 last month. Smaller supplies of corn may increase costs for ethanol refiners such as Poet LLC, Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Valero Energy Corp. and meat producers Tyson Foods Inc. and Smithfield Foods Inc., which buy the grain for feed. The price of corn, the biggest U.S. crop, jumped 68 percent in the past year before today.

White House faces Senate, industry pressure on smog rule

A group of Senate Democrats is pressing the White House to “stand strong” against immense industry pressure to weaken or scuttle smog standards that have been repeatedly delayed.

In a letter to President Obama Thursday, seven Democrats and two independents that caucus with the party express “disappointment” at administration delays in issuing Environmental Protection Agency ozone standards.

The letter urges the administration to issue a standard consistent with the 60 to 70 parts-per-billion level recommended by EPA’s formal science advisers.

“We write to express our disappointment at the Administration’s continued delay in setting a health-protective ozone air quality standard. We urge you to follow the requirements of the Clean Air Act, the peer-reviewed science, and the federal Clean Air Science Advisory Committee (CASAC), and set a strong standard as soon as possible,” states the letter from senators including Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and other Northeastern members.

Bachmann knocks Pawlenty on cap-and-trade at Iowa debate

Rep. Michele Bachmann wants to tether Tim Pawlenty to his past support for cap-and-trade policies to curb climate change, even though Pawlenty has fled from the position during the GOP presidential campaign.

The two Minnesotans traded blows at Thursday night’s GOP debate in Iowa ahead of that state’s critical straw poll on Saturday (The Hill’s Cameron Joseph has much more from the Iowa debate here).

Bachmann listed Pawlenty’s support for cap-and-trade – a policy that has become politically toxic in GOP circles – among several positions he staked out as governor that Bachmann said have made Pawlenty’s record consistent with President Obama’s views.

“I would say Governor, when you were governor in Minnesota, you implemented cap-and-trade in our state,” Bachmann said, while casting herself as a fighter against cap-and-trade and several other Democratic policies.

EPA yanks tree-killing herbicide Imprelis off market

DuPont announced that it is conducting “broad scientific and stewardship reviews” after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pulled its herbicide Imprelis off the market Thursday.

In its Stop Sale, Use, or Removal Order, the EPA said that DuPont had test data that showed its herbicide Imprelis was harmful to Norway spruce, balsam fir and other trees when it was given EPA approval last August.

Despite that test data, DuPont “does not warn or caution about potential damage to trees,” the EPA said. There was nothing in the labeling or instructions that indicated that it could hurt certain species of trees, the EPA said.

Conocophillips ups estimate of China oil spill

ConocoPhillips China, a subsidiary of the Houston-based oil company ConocoPhillips , said on Friday that as much as 2,500 barrels of oil and mud leaked from an oilfield in China’s northern Bohai Bay.

A recent survey at the C platform of Penglai 19-3 oil field identified more oil-based drilling mud on the sea floor than originally estimated, the company said on its website (www.conocophillips.com.cn), adding that it expected to complete a cleanup by the end of this month.

Last month, ConocoPhillips estimated around 1,500 barrels (240 cubic metres) of oil and oil-based drilling fluids had been released into the sea and that an order to shut down the platforms would result in a temporary output reduction of about 17,000 barrels of oil per day.

USDA announces $100 million for Florida wetland restoration

U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack  announced $100 million in financial assistance for Florida wetland restoration today, the largest amount of funding the state has received through the Wetland Restoration Project in a single year.

The funds will go toward acquiring easements from eligible landowners in four Florida counties, Glades, Hendry, Highlands and Okeechobee — maintaining that land as agriculture and open space. The easements will form a conservation corridor from the Kissimmee River to Everglades National Park, and “assist with wetland restoration on nearly 24,000 acres of agricultural land in the Northern Everglades Watershed,” according to a release sent out today.

The effort aims to reduce the amount of surface water leaving the land, and should ultimately lessen the concentration of nutrients reaching Lake Okeechobee and the Everglades. Nutrients in Florida waterways are a major problem, and contribute to toxic algae growth and massive fish kills. The Everglades suffers from methylmercury poisoning.

$29.1 million tab from Michigan oil spill

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it spent more than $20 million in cleanup operations from an Enbridge oil spill last year in Michigan.

More than a year after an oil spill near Marshall, Mich., the EPA said it was still working on remediation efforts in Talmadge Creek and the Kalamazoo River. The EPA said its response prevented the spill from reaching Lake Michigan.

“The EPA has incurred $29.1 million in cleanup costs, which Enbridge will be required to reimburse,” the agency said in a statement.

Line 6B of the Lakehead oil pipeline ruptured last July near Marshall, Mich. The EPA said it estimated more than 23,000 barrels of heavy oil from Alberta tar sands spilled from the pipeline.

The nature of oil from tar sand deposits causes some of it to sink to the bottom of the river, where it has soaked about 6 inches of sediment along the river bottom.

The EPA recovered about 18,000 barrels of oil that was on the surface. EPA officials said it was unclear how the remaining oil would affect the environment because there is no other spill with which to compare the Enbridge leak.

Poll: Majority of public opposes mountaintop-removal mining

The majority of the public opposes a controversial mining practice in which companies blow up parts of mountains in order to gain access to valuable coal seams underneath, a new CNN poll says.

The poll, conducted by CNN and Opinion Research Corp., finds that 57 percent of the public is opposed to mountaintop-removal mining. Thirty-six percent of those polled support the practice and 7 percent are neutral, according to CNN.

Mountaintop-removal mining, a technique used in Appalachian coal-mining operations, has come under fire from environmental groups and others, who have raised red flags about its effects on public health and nearby waterways and streams.

 

Below are old comments from the earlier Facebook commenting system:

• Shaheer Cassim · Victoria, British Columbia

Crop yield is similar to climate change and economics. The change are small and linear at first, with periodic blips. Then one day, all the food suddenly disappears to floods, droughts, pests, and fungi.

This is coming at a time when the population is climbing to 9 billion and food production needs to increase by 50%. Crops already use 70% of our freshwater.

5 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 12 at 1:04pm

Colorado Bob · Top Commenter

Poland Faces Its Worst Grain Harvest in More Than a Decade, Minister Says.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-12/poland-faces-worst-grain-harvest-in-more-than-decade-because-of-heavy-rain.html

3 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 12 at 11:17am

Colorado Bob · Top Commenter

Farmers in Scotland and the north-east of England are facing yet another wet harvest, with torrential rain causing flooding over the past week.
http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/2011/08/12/128358/Torrential-rain-hits-harvest-effort.htm

3 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 12 at 11:26am

Colorado Bob · Top Commenter

Japan heatwave kills four, sends 900 to hospital.

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Japan_heatwave_kills_four_sends_900_to_hospital_999.html

2 · Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 12 at 12:01pm

Paul Magnus · Top Commenter

http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/home-garden/earth-you/53689/our-extreme-future-predicting.asp

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 12 at 3:38pm

Paul Magnus · Top Commenter

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/aug/11/offshore-wind-farms-good-wildlife

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 12 at 5:57pm

Colorado Bob · Top Commenter

Polar Scientist Charts Melting Caused by Climate Change.
Michael Gooseff follows water to the end of the earth. The Pennsylvania State University hydrologist works in remote regions of the Arctic and Antarctic,……..At the annual convention of the Ecological Society of America in Austin, Texas this week he posed this question: “How are those polar systems responding to climate change?”.
The answer is based on his on-going research into how water crosses landscapes and what happens to it above and below ground.
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/environment/Polar-Scientist-Charts-Melting-Caused-by-Climate-Change-127591558.html

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 12 at 2:27pm

Paul Magnus · Top Commenter

something going down?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/story/2011/08/12/nb-irving-oil-production-1126.html

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 12 at 3:35pm

Climate Chaos

Natural Hazards Risk Atlas 2011: Nations Most Exposed To Natural Disasters (PHOTOS).
huff
The United States may have to grapple with the highest overall costs for natural disasters, but other emerging nations face other social and economic risks, according to a new report.

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 12 at 4:22pm

Paul Magnus · Top Commenter

US takes no 1 spot

Like · Reply · August 12 at 4:22pm

Paul Magnus · Top Commenter

There is a definite despondence developing around the democratic arena. Just have a look at the Huff home page… need some leadership. Need to start tackling GW…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 12 at 3:46pm

Paul Magnus · Top Commenter

were on for another Nuke accident some time soon…unfortunately….
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/12/nuclear-regulatory-commission_n_923098.html

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 12 at 4:01pm

Paul Magnus · Top Commenter

Houston, we have a problem…our oil pipes are jamming….

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/aug/12/shell-oil-leak-north-sea

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 13 at 3:27am

Paul Magnus · Top Commenter

Things are looking iffy in the North Sea…. why are they shutting 4 major sites dow for 7+ months? Regular maintenance… mmm.

“Shell also said it had restarted its North Sea Brent Alpha and Bravo fields on Thursday after a seven-month shutdown, while two other fields remained shut.”

Like · Reply · August 13 at 1:48pm

Paul Magnus · Top Commenter

Obama Talks ‘Jobs Of The Future’ In Key State.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/11/obama-jobs-michigan-fundraising_n_924133.html?ir=Green

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 12 at 4:18pm

Paul Magnus · Top Commenter

I refuse to buy in to GW just because its hot, Steve Colbert…
http://colbertreport.thecomedynetwork.ca/#player-area

Like · Reply · Subscribe · August 12 at 4:09pm