By Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent, www.guardian.co.uk 7 September 2012 Barack Obama chose the biggest night of his re-election campaign to acknowledge the dangers of climate change – and to take a swipe at Mitt Romney for turning global warming into a laugh line in his convention speech. Obama thrilled Democrats when he accepted his […]
By JACK HEALY5 September 2012 GREELEY, Colorado – A new race for water is rippling through the drought-scorched heartland, pitting farmers against oil and gas interests, driven by new drilling techniques that use powerful streams of water, sand and chemicals to crack the ground and release stores of oil and gas. A single such well […]
By JACK HEALY6 September 2012 DENVER – People move to the mountains to be closer to nature. But not this close. At least two candy stores have been burglarized this summer by ravenous, drought-starved bears. They are being struck by cars as they roam dark highways, far from their normal foraging grounds. Growing numbers are […]
By VIKAS BAJAJ3 September 2012 MURUMA, India – Vilas Dinkar Mukane lives halfway around the world from the corn farmers of Iowa, but the Indian sharecropper is at risk of losing his livelihood for the same reason: not enough rain. With the nourishing downpours of the annual monsoon season down an average of 12 percent […]
30 August 2012 (BBC) – This summer is set to be the second wettest in the UK since records began – and the wettest summer in 100 years – provisional Met Office figures suggest. The wettest summer – defined as June, July and August – since national records began was in 1912. Figures up until […]
By Larry Elliott, www.guardian.co.uk2 September 2012 The last decade saw the end of cheap oil, the magic growth ingredient for the global economy after the second world war. This summer’s increase in maize, wheat and soya bean prices – the third spike in the past five years – suggests the era of cheap food is […]
By P.J. Huffstutter; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz2 September 2012 CHICAGO (Reuters) – For more than half a century, the Shew family has harvested mountains of popcorn kernels to be buttered, salted and munched by movie fans. But as a crippling Midwestern drought sends commodity soybean and grain prices soaring, the family’s farmland in west-central Indiana […]
By Apilaporn Vechakij30 August 2012 World climate change negotiators faced warnings Thursday that a string of extreme weather events around the globe show urgent action on emission cuts is needed as they opened new talks in Bangkok. The week-long meeting in the Thai capital, which was devastated by major floods last year, aims to prepare […]
By Larry Elliott, www.guardian.co.uk30 August 2012 The World Bank issued a global hunger warning last night after severe droughts in the US and eastern Europe sent food prices to a record high. Damage to crop harvests from exceptionally dry weather this year raised sharply the Bank’s food price index taking it above its peak in […]
By JEAN H. LEE, with additional reporting by Foster Klug30 August 2012 SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – Twin typhoons renewed fears of a humanitarian crisis in North Korea, where poor drainage, widespread deforestation and crumbling infrastructure can turn even a routine rainstorm into a catastrophic flood. Typhoon Bolaven struck the North on Tuesday and Wednesday, […]
