California regulators urge 35 percent reduction in water use for some areas – ‘The gentle nudge is no longer sufficient’

By Matt Stevens, Taylor Goldenstein, and Chris Megerian8 April 2015 SACRAMENTO, California (Los Angeles Times) – In an aggressive push to reduce water usage statewide, California regulators are proposing that the biggest urban water users cut consumption by as much as 35 percent over the next year. The State Water Resources Control Board’s plan, unveiled […]

For some Wisconsin state workers, ‘climate change’ isn’t something you can talk about

  By Eric Roston8 April 2015 (Bloomberg) – Discussing climate change is out of bounds for workers at a state agency in Wisconsin. So is any work related to climate change—even responding to e-mails about the topic. A vote on Tuesday by Wisconsin’s Board of Commissioners of Public Lands, a three-member panel overseeing an agency […]

California’s new era of heat destroys all previous records – Sadly, this is only the beginning

By Tom Randall10 April 2015 (Bloomberg) – The California heat of the past 12 months is like nothing ever seen in records going back to 1895. The 12 months before that were similarly without precedent. And the 12 months before that? A freakishly hot year, too. What’s happening in California right now is shattering modern […]

Carly Fiorina blames environmentalists for California drought – ‘It is a man-made disaster’

[It is a “man-made disaster”, but not in the way she thinks. –Des] By Kendall Breitman6 April 15 (Politico) – Carly Fiorina is blaming liberal environmentalists for what she calls a “man-made” drought in California. “It is a man-made disaster,” Fiorina, who is “seriously considering” a run for president in 2016, told the Blaze Radio […]

Global debt increased by $57 trillion since 2007, outpacing world GDP growth – China debt quadrupled

February 2015 (McKinsey Global Institute) – Seven years after the bursting of a global credit bubble resulted in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, debt continues to grow. In fact, rather than reducing indebtedness, or deleveraging, all major economies today have higher levels of borrowing relative to GDP than they did in 2007. […]

Tree-cover loss spikes in Russia and Canada, remains high globally

By Nigel Sizer, Rachael Petersen, James Anderson, Matt Hansen, Peter Potapov, and David Thau2 April 2015 (WRI) – New, high-resolution satellite-based maps released today by the University of Maryland and Google on Global Forest Watch, a partnership of over 60 organizations convened by the World Resources Institute, reveal a significant recent surge in tree cover […]

Worst drought in history of Yosemite National Park alters familiar landscape – ‘No one in the park has experience with snowpack levels this low’

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, 31 March 2015 (Los Angeles Times) – Yosemite National Park is bracing for its driest year on record, with visitor bureaus downplaying the allure of the park’s most famous waterfall and instead touting the park as a destination for hiking, bicycling and photography. Yosemite Falls will probably go dry in June — […]

Massive amounts of fresh water, glacial melt pouring into Gulf of Alaska – Melt adds 57 cubic kilometers of water per year

CORVALLIS, Oregon, 19 March 2015 (OSU) – Incessant mountain rain, snow and melting glaciers in a comparatively small region of land that hugs the southern Alaska coast and empties fresh water into the Gulf of Alaska would create the sixth largest coastal river in the world if it emerged as a single stream, a recent […]

Even scarier than California’s shrinking reservoirs is its shrinking groundwater supply – 15 to 20 percent of U.S. groundwater is coming from the Central Valley alone

By Colleen Shalby   20 March 2015 (PBS) – Last week a startling headline on California’s dire water supply fueled a wave of reports that the state was on borrowed time: “California has about one year of water left. Will you ration now?” read the Op-Ed that first appeared in the Los Angeles Times. Several other […]

WikiLeaks releases secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) investment chapter – ‘Finally everyone can see for themselves that the TPP would give multinational corporations extraordinary new powers that undermine our sovereignty’

WASHINGTON, D.C., 25 March 2015 (Public Citizen) – The Trans-Pacific Partnership’s (TPP) Investment Chapter, leaked today, reveals how the pact would make it easier for U.S. firms to offshore American jobs to low-wage countries while newly empowering thousands of foreign firms to seek cash compensation from U.S. taxpayers by challenging U.S. government actions, laws, and […]

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