drought
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Critical List: China’s emissions outstrip America’s; Bill Gates hearts geoengineering
By 2015, China will emit 50 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than the United States does. The Texas drought has forced some towns to ship in their water by truck. Bill Gates is underwriting geoengineering lobbying efforts.
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Critical List: Connecting climate change to the Texas heat wave; ditching plastic straws
Climate scientist James Hansen says he can prove that climate change caused the Texas heat wave. Maine fishermen caught more lobster last year than ever before. Wave and tidal energy could provide enough electricity to meet 15 percent of current demand in the United States. In London, plastic straws are the new plastic bags. No […]
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Why does agriculture keep getting a climate pass?
An international group of scientists have taken to the pages of Science magazine to ask climate negotiators to stop ignoring agriculture.
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Buckle up for more weather weirdness, America
Last year, the climate phenomenon La Niña messed with everyone’s heads. La Niña conditions mean that the ocean temperature in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean are colder than usual, and this was responsible for (among other things) the uncannily warm winter that the Northeast has been having. Sorry, can’t blame that on climate change! Yet. NASA’s […]
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Critical List: Seattle bans plastic bags; at least 100 million trees died in Texas this year
Seattle is banning retail stores from giving out single-use plastic bags. Paper bags will cost a nickel. Google is investing $94 million in solar projects. As many as 500 million trees died in the Texas drought this year. India could join the U.S. in officially complaining that China's been selling solar panels at too low […]
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The age of thirst in the American West
This essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. Consider it a taste of the future: the fire, smoke, drought, dust, and heat that have made life unpleasant, if not dangerous, from Louisiana to Los Angeles. New records tell the tale: biggest wildfire ever recorded in Arizona (538,049 acres); […]
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This Texas town could run out of water by Dec. 6
There are 11 towns in Texas that are on a state list of places in danger of running out of water. One of them, Groesbeck, has only until Dec. 6 to find an new supply, the Houston Chronicle reports. The Texas drought has been going on for more than a year now, but what's terrifying […]
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Texas toast: State’s drought-crippled ag market has global impact
Lakeview Park, Texas.Photo: dasrooflessCross-posted from Climate Progress. In August, agronomists showed that the historic drought in Texas had caused a stunning $5.3 billion in losses in the agricultural sector. Two months later, even with some rain finally coming to the state, Texas farmers are being crippled by a drought that could stretch beyond next summer. […]
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Halloween a day late: IPCC digs into the really scary stuff of climate change
The International Panel on Climate Change is gearing up to release its next big report, and climate deniers are gearing up to poke futilely at it, claiming it's wrong in every way possible. But if you, like a normal human being, believe in science, you can get a sneak peek — the Associated Press got […]