Global threat to agriculture from invasive species

21 June 2016 (CSIRO) – The research, which is published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that although the chances of invasive species entering Australia were relatively high, the overall threat to agriculture is lessened due to our robust management practices. The research examines the worldwide distribution of nearly 1300 invasive […]

Poorer than their parents: Between 2005 and 2014, real incomes in advanced economies were flat or fell for 65 to 70 percent of households, more than 540 million people

By Richard Dobbs, Anu Madgavkar, James Manyika, Jonathan Woetzel, Jacques Bughin, Eric Labaye, and Pranav Kashyap14 July 2016 (McKinsey) – Most people growing up in advanced economies since World War II have been able to assume they will be better off than their parents. For much of the time, that assumption has proved correct: except […]

Algae bloom engulfs Florida’s Lake Okeechobee as agricultural operations dump nitrogen and phosphates – ‘Enjoy your vacation on Playa Guacamole’

By Carl Hiaasen8 July 2016 (Miami Herald) – They say a picture tells a thousand words. If it’s a picture of an algae-covered beach, it can also cancel thousands of hotel reservations. That’s the new dread in Florida, as photos and news videos of gunk-covered shorelines are making headlines all over the world. Why would […]

Half of all U.S. food produce is thrown away, new research suggests

By Suzanne Goldenberg 13 July 2016 (Guardian) – Americans throw away almost as much food as they eat because of a “cult of perfection”, deepening hunger and poverty, and inflicting a heavy toll on the environment. Vast quantities of fresh produce grown in the US are left in the field to rot, fed to livestock […]

Mexico teacher protests gain steam as hundreds set to be fired, after six killed in police crackdown – ‘As soon as they arrived, they began to attack. And we were few, very few.’

11 July 2016 (teleSUR) – Deepening neoliberal education reforms, Mexican government officials plan to fire or lay off more than 350 teachers in the southern state of Guerrero, even as they prepare to continue negotiations Monday with striking parents, teacher and activists in the state of Oaxaca who have been protesting similar school reforms for […]

‘Water windfall’ found in drought-stricken California – Deep groundwater resource threatened by land subsidence and oil production

By Bobby Magill27 June 2016 (Climate Central) – California’s Central Valley has three times more freshwater in underground aquifers than previously thought, drinking water that could help the state weather future drought and fortify itself against a changing climate, according to a new Stanford University study. But tapping that water, locked thousands of feet beneath […]

Piles of dirty secrets behind a model ‘clean coal’ project – ‘Hope is not a strategy’

By Ian Urbina5 July 2016 DE KALB, Mississippi (The New York Times) – The fortress of steel and concrete towering above the pine forest here is a first-of-its-kind power plant that was supposed to prove that “clean coal” was not an oxymoron — that it was possible to produce electricity from coal in a way […]

California drought killing trees by the millions, NASA scientist says – Tree mortality in the Sierra Nevada range ‘is far greater than previously observed’

By Michael Edison Hayden3 July 2016 (ABC News) – The devastation the California drought has caused to conifer trees in the Sierra Nevadas over the last couple of years “is far greater than previously observed,” NASA scientists said in announcement of the publication of new map of the region. David Schimel, a senior research scientist […]

Ranch crisis in Mexico: 45,000 cattle killed this year by severe drought and heat

[Translation by Google.] By Gerardo Sanchez Source25 June 2016 VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico (Televisa News) – The herd of Tabasco is undergoing one of its worst crises in recent years, severe drought and heat are killing animals. “If you do not have livestock water is consumed, is spent their energies, their body fat and muscle, there are […]

Climate change could be even worse for Boston than previously thought

By David Abel 22 June 2016 (Boston Globe) – The consequences of climate change on Boston are expected to be far more calamitous than previous studies have suggested, a new report commissioned by the city says. In the worst-case scenario, sea levels could rise more than 10 feet by the end of the century — […]

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