CORRUPTION UPDATES 125
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Posted: October 25, 2007
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Climate Change Testimony Was Edited by White House
By ANDREW C. REVKIN
LAT, October 25, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/science/earth/25climate.html?
ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print
FOR REDACTED TESTIMONY SEE, The Bush Administration Continues to Muzzle Climate Science, in Science Progress, Oct 25, 2007
The White House made deep cuts in written testimony given to a Senate committee this week by the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on health risks posed by global warming, but the director agreed yesterday with administration officials who said the cuts were part of a normal review process and not aimed at minimizing the issue.
Dr. Julie L. Gerberding, the agency’s director, said in a telephone interview that news reports and comments about the changes had made “a mountain out of a molehill.”
“I said everything I needed to say,” she said.
Dr. Gerberding, who addressed the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on Tuesday, said she had freely spoken for more than a year about the implications for public health should warming from the buildup of greenhouse gases proceed as scientists project. Still, cuts made to her written testimony included the only statements casting the health risks from climate change as a problem, describing it variously as posing “difficult challenges” and as “a serious public health concern.”
The testimony that remained said, “Climate change is anticipated to have a broad range of impacts on the health of Americans and the nation’s public health infrastructure.” But a line saying “the public health effects of climate change remain largely unaddressed” was gone, and the testimony focused on the ways health agencies were already prepared to tackle any problems.
The cuts, done by the Office of Management and Budget last week, halved the 12-page draft testimony Dr. Gerberding submitted before her testimony.
Dr. Michael McCally, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility, who testified at the same hearing, called the cuts in the written testimony “a misuse of science and abuse of the legislative process.”
Corporate Politicians, Science Hacks, Continue to decieve about the Costs of Growth
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., October 25, 2007
This Administration, and every Administration since the Regan Administration, has put environmental considerations well behind economic growth, profit, and the political and economic support of the corporate interests.
But none have used the unsavory tatics this administration has employed to suppress science, let alone rational military advice, the rule of law, and common sense in every branch of government under the authority of the White House.
The link to the redacted testimony demonstrates that the edits of the White House were substantive. The Los Angeles Times article significantly underplays this fact. Gerberding's denial that the content of her speech was substantially changed are disproven by the difference between her speech and what emerged from the White House.
The reporting of the Los Angeles Times misrepresents this fact by not pointing out the significant differences between the pre and post White House versions of Gerberding's report. The Times reported Gerberding's statements as truth, without testing their truthfulness, which is significantly lacking.
Gerberding's statements of support for her redacted testimony prove she is more loyal to the Bush Administration than to Science. This separates her from the rest of her scientific colleagues in government science, who resent it when their scientific research and conclusions are edited for political reasons.
But Gerberding has been well paid for betraying science, public health, and our environment, as have the rest of Bush's Loyal Storm Troopers.
The background to the Time's poor reporting is the Bush Administration's repeated suppressions and manipulations of science.
FOR REDACTED TESTIMONY SEE, The Bush Administration Continues to Muzzle Climate Science, in Science Progress, Oct 25, 2007
SF Chron, 10-17-06, Big Bonuses line Gerberding's Pockets as Career Staff Flees
Corruption Updates 46, 2nd article on the page, Report Says Interior Official Overrode Work of Scientists
Links on Big Oil and Administration manipulation of Science
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2) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
Natural decline 'hurting lives'
Continuing destruction of the natural world is affecting the health, wealth and well-being of people around the globe, according to a major UN report.
BBC, Oct 25, 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7050788.stm
The Global Environment Outlook says most trends are going the wrong way.
It lists degradation of farmland, loss of forest cover, pollution, dwindling fresh water supplies and overfishing among society's environmental ills.
The UN Environment Programme (Unep) says there is a "remarkable lack of urgency" to reverse these trends.
"There continue to be persistent and intractable problems unresolved and unaddressed," said Unep's executive director Achim Steiner.
This assault on the global environment risks undermining the many advances human society has made
Ban Ki-moon,
UN Secretary General
"Past issues remain and new ones are emerging, from the rapid rise of oxygen 'dead zones' in the oceans to the resurgence of new and old diseases linked in part with environmental degradation."
TALE OF DECLINE
There is "visible and unequivocal" evidence of the impacts of climate change
Many farming systems have reached their limits of production
Warmer temperatures and ocean acidification threaten food supplies
1.8 billion people face water shortages by 2025
Three-quarters of marine fisheries exploited to or beyond their limits
Exposure to pollutants causes 20% of disease in developing nations
Pollution being "exported" to developing world
About 60% of "ecosystem services" are degraded
Fish stocks are in a worse state, arable land (particularly in Africa) is becoming unusable, more people than ever before lack enough clean water, greenhouse gas concentrations have risen, and the loss of biodiversity is accelerating.
"This assault on the global environment risks undermining the many advances human society has made in recent decades," wrote UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon in a foreword.
"It is undercutting our fight against poverty. It could even come to jeopardise international peace and security."
PDF File of Original Report
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U.N. Warns of Rapid Decay of Environment
By JAMES KANTER
NYT, October 26, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/26/world/26environ.html?
ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print
PARIS, Oct. 25 — The human population is living far beyond its means and inflicting damage to the environment that could pass points of no return, according to a major report issued Thursday by the United Nations.
Climate change, the rate of extinction of species, and the challenge of feeding a growing population are putting humanity at risk, the United Nations Environment Program said in its fourth Global Environmental Outlook since 1997.
“The human population is now so large that the amount of resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available at current consumption patterns,” Achim Steiner, the executive director of the Environment Program, said in a telephone interview.
Over the last two decades, the world population increased by almost 34 percent, to 6.7 billion, from 5 billion. But the land available to each person is shrinking, from 19.5 acres in 1900 to 5 acres by 2005, the report said.
Population growth combined with unsustainable consumption has resulted in an increasingly stressed planet where natural disasters and environmental degradation endanger people, plants and animal species.
Persistent problems include a rapid rise of “dead zones,” where marine life no longer can be supported because pollutants like runoff fertilizers deplete oxygen.
Mr. Steiner said parts of Africa could reach an environmental tipping point if changing rainfall patterns turned semi-arid zones into arid zones and made agriculture much harder. He said another tipping point could occur in India and China if Himalayan glaciers shrank so much that they no longer supplied adequate amounts of water.
He also warned of a global collapse of all species being fished by 2050, if fishing around the world continued at its current pace. The report said that two and a half times more fish were being caught than the oceans could produce in a sustainable manner, and that the level of fish stocks classed as collapsed had roughly doubled over the past 20 years, to 30 percent.
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., October , 2007
Corruption Updates 71, 9th article on the page, "Only 50 years left' for sea fish"
Corruption Updates 76, 7th article on the page, "Study finds huge decreases in bird populations"
Corruption Updates 93, 3rd article on the page, "Record Gulf of Mexico ‘Dead Zone’ Is Predicted"
Corruption Updates 94, 8th article on the page, "Climate Change Debate Hinges On Economics"
Corruption Updates 65, 7th article on the page, "China puts economy before climate"
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Scientists Link Extinctions, Rising Temperatures
Nick Wadhams
for National Geographic News
October 24, 2007
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/31098826.html
A team of British scientists contends that, within 200 years, Earth's temperatures may become hot enough to kill off half of all existing plant and animal species.
The researchers from the Universities of York and Leeds in Britain base that dire possibility on a new analysis of the 520-million-year-old fossil record, which links past mass extinctions with cycles of high temperatures.
"We could be in the temperature zone in which mass extinctions have occurred by the end of this century, [or] more likely in the next century," said Peter Mayhew, the study's co-author and an ecologist at the University of York.
No other research had examined both the entire globe and the entire fossil record, which begins about 540 million years ago. This analysis makes the strongest case yet for a solid link between temperature and changes in the number of species on Earth.
"We don't want to over-extrapolate in our findings, but if they hold, it's quite a scary thing to contemplate," said Timothy Benton, a co-author and professor of population ecology at the University of Leeds.
"The issue here is that we are creating the climate change, and we are creating the climate change at an unprecedented rate," said Benton. "So clearly we are creating the events for a climate-related mass extinction that wouldn't otherwise be happening."
Those statements echo other controversial ideas. The International Panel on Climate Change, which recently shared the (Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, has warned of a possible drop in biodiversity if temperatures rise by three or four degrees.
And last year, experts from 13 countries wrote an article in the journal Nature saying that climate change could push 37 percent of all species to extinction within the next 50 years.
"We are on the verge of a major biodiversity crisis," that letter said. "Virtually all aspects of diversity are in steep decline and a large number of populations and species are likely to become extinct this century.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Climate Change has already happened
Glad the Scientists Took their Heads out of their Asses, opened the Window, and Looked outside
Those of you who know me, and have talked to me for the last decade, are not surprised at the acceleration of global warming, and the continuing failure of climatological models.
Six years ago I predicted the rate of global climate change would break all the climatologists' models, regaling scientists to the role of merely reporting. rather than predicting, climate change.
This prediction has proven itself.
Hear that chainsaw in the distance? That's the sound of nature coming to return all the favors we have bestowed on it.
Corruption Updates 39, 10th article on the page, "Top Scientists Warn of Water Shortages and Disease Linked to Global Warming"
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Tracking kids and dirty air
UC Davis research finds closer link between bronchitis and pollutants
By Ngoc Nguyen - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, October 21, 2007
http://www.sacbee.com/101/v-print/story/445116.html
Researchers from UC Davis have found a closer link between bronchitis in infants and some gases and particles in air pollution, findings that bolster efforts in the Sacramento region to control emissions from vehicles and wood-burning stoves.
In one of the first studies to look at air pollution and infants, researchers said last week they found young lungs more vulnerable to little-studied components in air pollution called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. Such contaminants get into the air from coal burning, vehicle exhaust, wood-burning stoves and tobacco smoke, and from grilling food.
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., October , 2007
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Scientists See Politics in Spotted Owl Plan
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 3, 2007; A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/02/AR2007100202031_pf.html
More than 100 independent scientists suggested yesterday that political pressure may have led federal officials to water down protections for the northern spotted owl in a recently revised recovery plan for the threatened bird.
Six separate peer reviews, five of them funded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, all suggest that the agency's revised plan downplayed the importance of protecting old-growth forest in the plan to manage a species that ranges from the Canadian border in Washington state to Northern California.
Yesterday, 113 scientists sent a letter urging the Interior Department to redo its draft recovery plan, while 23 congressional Democrats sent a similar missive questioning whether political appointees altered the plan. House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.) also asked the Government Accountability Office to explore the matter.
"We are greatly concerned that, according to scientific peer review recently conducted by owl experts and three of the nation's leading scientific societies, much of this science was ignored," the scientists wrote to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.
The scientists said the new plan could weaken protection for between one-fourth and one-third of old-growth forests designated for these species. The northern spotted owl's population has dropped an average of 3.7 percent a year over the last two decades, said Dominick A. DellaSala, a forest ecologist who opposes the plan.
David Wesley, who is deputy regional director for Fish and Wildlife's Pacific region and recovery team leader for the spotted owl...(said)...that he and his colleagues had revised the plan because Interior officials in Washington asked a year ago for "an option that had less reliance on specific lines on a map."
Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), who organized the letter in opposition to draft plan, said, "The reason the Bush administration doesn't like lines on a map is it actually provides protection, and prevents their political friends from having clear-cuts and harvests. . . . This plan is so explosive it could ignite a whole new generation of timber wars in the Northwest."
An independent review by the Society for Conservation Biology and the American Ornithologists' Union said, "These changes may in part reflect new information . . . but it's hard not to conclude that they may also result from pressure to relax restrictions on logging."
Bribed Politicians Devastate Forests, America's Natural and Political Heritages
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., October 25, 2007
Want to assure our forest policy is not taylor made to rape our forests? Then we must remove the ability of the forest products industry to bribe our politicians.
Our democracy demands that the citizens, not the corporations, control our politicians. Our democracy demands that our political representatives regulate industry, not that industry regulate our politics and politicians.
Until then we can rest assured that our forest, environmental, energy, and health and safety policies will reflect the profits and power of industry, rather than the power and welfare of our citizens.
Corruption Updates 46, 6th article on the page, Judge Suspends Administration Rules For Managing Forests
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NOAA Reports U.S. Likely to Have Above-Average Winter Temperatures
La Niña Arrives, Southern Drought Concerns Intensify
October 9, 2007
Go to the NOAA site to see the two cool maps on NOAA page: projected temp and rainfall for winter of 2007:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/20071009_outlook.html
U.S. Temperature Outlook, December 2007 - February 2008.
NOAA forecasters are calling for above-average temperatures over most of the country and a continuation of drier-than-average conditions across already drought-stricken parts of the Southwest and Southeast in its winter outlook for the United States, announced at the 2007-2008 Winter Fuels Outlook Conference in Washington, D.C., today.
“La Niña is here, with a weak-to-moderate event likely to persist through the winter,” said Michael Halpert, head of forecast operations and acting deputy director of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “The big concern this winter may be the persistence of drought across large parts of the already parched South. And while December through February is likely to be another milder-than-average winter for much of the country, people should still expect some bouts of winter weather.”
For the 2007-2008 U.S. winter, from December through February, NOAA seasonal forecasters predict:
In the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic,temperatures are expected to be above average in response to the long-term warming trend. Snowfall for the region will depend on other climate factors, which are difficult to anticipate more than one-to-two weeks in advance.
The drought-plagued Southeast is likely to remain drier-than-average due to La Niña, while temperatures are expected to be above average.
In the Great Lakes and Tennessee Valley, temperatures and precipitation should be above average.
The south-central Plains should see drier-than-average conditions and warmer-than-average temperatures. Above-average temperatures are also expected in the central Plains. The northern Plains has equal chances of above-, near-, or below-average temperature and precipitation.
In the Northwest, there are equal chances for above-, near-, or below-average temperatures. Precipitation should be above average in much of the region due to La Niña.
Drought conditions are expected to persist in the Southwest due to La Niña, and temperatures are likely to be above average.
Northern Alaska is expect to be milder–than-average, while the rest of Alaska has equal chances of above-, near-, or below-average temperatures and precipitation. In Hawaii, temperatures and precipitation are expected to be above average.
This winter is predicted to be warmer than the 30-year norm. For the country as a whole, NOAA's heating degree day forecast for December through February projects a 2.8 percent warmer winter than the 30-year normal, but a 1.3 percent cooler winter than last year.
The U.S. winter outlook is produced by a team of scientists at the Climate Prediction Center in association with NOAA-funded partners. Scientists base this forecast on long-term climate trends and a variety of forecast tools from statistical techniques to extremely complex dynamical ocean-atmosphere coupled models and composites. The outlook will be updated on Oct. 18 and again on Nov. 15 at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
Pattern of Freakish Seasons to Continue Deepening
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., October 25, 2007
Climate Already Changed, People and Scientists Too Stupid to SEE IT
For about 10 years I have been telling my buddies that the heat of summer was not retreating southward during winter. This has been increasing each year, diminishing the polar chilling, changing the timing of the onset and end of the seasons. Most important in my view is the radical changes in the direction of the winter winds.
Winter Winds in the Bay Area have traditionally come from the NW. For the past 8 years the Winter winds have been shifting, coming from the West and the South West. These winds are dry in mid-winter, and keep the wet Northern Storms at bay. Then, in Spring, these Southern Winds have brought tropical-style downpours, barely offsetting our drying Winters.
This year the freakish Southern Spring storms did not come and bail us out.
Every Winter has become drier and warmer for the past 10 years. Fall now regularly extends into December, and spring try's to start in February. For the majority of you who are from someplace else, and don't have a clue as to what was normal for the Bay Area, this is very abnormal weather.
Watching the Sierra Bears in November and December is sad. Instead of enjoying a cold sleep, they are hungrily patrolling dead, dry meadows that have no berries, grubs, or food to sustain them until the uncertain advent of Winter snows and hibernation.
Watching the lowland trees this winter was disturbing: deciduous trees were dropping leaves all winter long. There was no "fall" to speak of, as in a temperature fall triggering a massive leave drop.
I suspect that the increasing incidents of mountain lion attacks reflects the lions response to decreasing late-fall food supplies. In any case, these seasonal changes have had a cascading effect in ecosystems. Budding times in Spring are off, affecting birth and survival rates of all interrelated species. Increasing Summer temperature are killing off high altitude plants. Lack of Winter snowfall is drying out the land early in the Spring, affecting budding timing and density. And the cycles of life continue to decline in the thrall of our ignorance.
Expect large declines in crop productions, if not outright crop failures, across the United States, and the world this year.
The Climatologists will catch up with the changes, but it will be too late to preserve our predictable seasons. We do not need science to tell us we have severely damaged our climate, we needed wisdom to fundamentally change our values and the direction our country is going.
Wisdom would have prevented us from blinding ourselves to the early warnings of nature, and the subsequent warnings of science. Wisdom would have prevented us from overburdening our land with people, our water with dams, and our skies with endlessly expanding pollution.
The oceans contain a thin shadow of the life they held in 1600. And we desperately need wisdom now that our science cannot keep up with reporting on the damage our industrial-strength ignorance is perpetuating.
We seem to have traded, or maybe sold, our wisdom for luxury, prestige, greed and power.
It was a bad trade. The latter commodities are short-lived, unless balanced with wisdom. But Wisdom cannot be comodified and put on the market, so it has little contemporary value, and was let go of cheaply.
I have a wise plan: Let's double California's population by 2050. Let's give everybody in the state a driver's licence and a car or two. lets put another 30 million cars on our State's streets. Let's double our water and electricity consumption.
That should fix things right up. I'm glad we have such wise leaders, who represent our best interests so well.
(first printed in Corruption Updates 47-10)
LA Times, 4-6-07: Permanent drought predicted for Southwest: Climate Already Changed, People and Scientists Too Stupid to SEE IT
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WIDESPREAD WARMTH LEADS TO THE FIFTH WARMEST SPRING FOR UNITED STATES,
DRIEST SPRING ON RECORD ACROSS THE SOUTHEAST WORSENS DROUGHT
NOAA Report on Spring 2007 weather-temps
June 14, 2007
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2007/s2876.htm
Fifth warmest in history.
Fourth warmest spring in world history
Highlights from the NOAA article:
June 14, 2007 � The fifth warmest spring on record for the contiguous United States occurred in 2007, according to scientists at the NOAA National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.
The global land-surface temperature was the highest for the month of May, as well as for boreal spring. The combined global land- and ocean-surface temperature was fourth warmest for May, and tied with 1998 as the warmest January-May period.
Approximately 34 percent of the contiguous United States was in moderate-to-exceptional drought in early June, according to the federal U.S. Drought Monitor.
Drought impacts have included low streamflows and mountain snowpack, parched soils and pastureland, and numerous wildfires. The dry conditions across the Southeast worsened wildfire activity during May across Florida and southern Georgia.
The past 12 month period was driest on record for California and Nevada. The abnormally dry conditions have led to severe-to-extreme drought from the southern California coast eastward to Arizona and north along the Sierra Nevada Mountains into the Great Basin.
Global Highlights
The combined global land and ocean surface temperature for May was the fourth warmest on record, 0.95 degrees F/0.53 degrees C above the 20th century mean. The global surface temperature for the combined January-May period tied with 1998 as the warmest January-May on record.
During the past century, global surface temperatures have increased at a rate near 0.11 degrees F (0.06 degrees C) per decade, but the rate of increase has been three times larger since 1976, or 0.32 degrees F (0.18 degrees C) per decade, with some of the largest temperature increases occurring in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere.
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'Unexpected growth' in CO2 found
Carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere have risen 35% faster than expected since 2000, says a study.
Story from BBC NEWS; Published: 2007/10/23 12:59:19 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7058074.stm
International scientists found that inefficiency in the use of fossil fuels increased levels of CO2 by 17%.
The other 18% came from a decline in the natural ability of land and oceans to soak up CO2 from the atmosphere.
About half of emissions from human activity are absorbed by natural "sinks" but the efficiency of these sinks has fallen, the study suggests.
The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), was carried out by the Global Carbon Project, the University of East Anglia, UK, and the British Antarctic Survey.
It found that improvements in the carbon intensity of the global economy have stalled since 2000, leading to an unexpected jump in atmospheric CO2.
The weakening of the Earth's ability to cope with greenhouse gases is thought to be a result of changing wind patterns over seas and droughts on land.
"The decline in global sink efficiency suggests that stabilisation of atmospheric CO2 is even more difficult to achieve than previously thought," said report co-author Dr Corinne Le Quere of the British Antarctic Survey.
"We found that nearly half of the decline in the efficiency of the ocean CO2 sink is due to the intensification of the winds in the Southern Ocean."
The declining power of the seas to soak up industrial pollution is not only being recorded in the southern hemisphere, however.
According to a separate 10-year study published recently, the effect is also being seen in the North Atlantic.
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., October , 2007
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Ice withdrawal 'shatters record'
Arctic sea ice shrank to the smallest area on record this year, US scientists have confirmed.
Story from BBC NEWS, September 21, 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7006640.stm
The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) said the minimum extent of 4.13 million sq km (1.59 million sq miles) was reached on 16 September.
The figure shatters all previous satellite surveys, including the previous record low of 5.32 million sq km measured in 2005.
Earlier this month, it was reported that the Northwest Passage was open.
The fabled Arctic shipping route from the Atlantic to the Pacific is normally ice-bound at some location throughout the year; but this year, ships have been able to complete an unimpeded navigation.
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., October , 2007
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Australia slashes wheat forecast
By Nick Bryant
BBC News, Sydney, 9-18-07
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/asia-pacific/7000113.stm
Australia has slashed its official forecast for wheat production because of the ongoing drought.
The government said it expected farmers to grow 15.5m tons of wheat, a 30% reduction from its previous forecast.
The news will put further pressure on the global price of wheat, which is already at record highs.
The problems have been compounded by crop failures in the northern hemisphere and an increase in demand from developing countries.
Australia is normally second only to America in the amount of wheat it exports.
So when farmers harvest less than they expect it has a knock-on effect around the world, prompting things like food protests over the price of pasta in Italy.
Global shortage
...30% lower than it originally predicted...might prove an optimistic assessment with farmers warning that if there is not heavy rain over the next few weeks, their crops will be even more meagre.
Up until now, September's rainfall has been below average and adverse weather has already reduced harvests in Europe and North America.
International wheat prices have risen by over 350% in the past five years, with global reserves now at their lowest level since the early 1980s.
At a time of shortened supply, the world is also experiencing an increase in demand.
Eating habits are changing in emerging countries like China with improved diets and a greater preference for meat, which drives up the demand for feed for livestock.
The growing popularity of biofuels which can be made from wheat has added to the pressure on prices.
Cars are now competing with cattle and consumers for access to these dwindling crops.
Freak Weather Driving Crop yeilds down, Pain up
Be very worried
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., October , 2007
Germany Harvests "Dust"
USDA Global Report
EU Report
Giews World Report
Expect Northern Hemisphere Crop failures this year
Weather Story Links
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As plan fails, Congress scrambles to aid rural counties
Forest Service land won't be sold to provide funds.
By Michael Doyle - Bee Washington Bureau
Published 12:00 am PDT Friday, September 14, 2007
http://www.sacbee.com/111/v-print/story/378562.html
A Bush administration plan to aid rural counties by selling off Forest Service land collapsed quickly on Capitol Hill.
"It's DOA," Tuolumne County Supervisor Richard Pland said this week.
Now, with the clock ticking and key questions unanswered, Congress must craft its own solution for helping counties blessed with more trees than tax revenues. It's a multimillion-dollar issue for California, where many counties rely on funding that seems shaky.
"We have school districts that are right on the brink," Lassen County Superintendent of Schools Robert L. Owens warned Wednesday.
Owens, Pland and nearly 200 other rural county representatives swarmed Capitol Hill this week seeking solutions.
Tuolumne County alone sent nine representatives, but 38 of California's 58 counties have a direct stake in what happens next.
The 38 affected California counties, and hundreds like them in other states, contain Forest Service land. They used to receive federal funding tied to timber harvest revenues. The money was used for schools and public works.
But as logging declined, federal dollars shrunk. In 2000, Congress severed the connection to timber harvesting and guaranteed counties funding. Last year, that amounted to $68 million for California. With the funding about to expire, the fight now is over how to keep this money flowing.
Fresno County, for instance, received $2.8 million in federal payments last year. Tuolumne and Tulare counties, with payments reaching $2.6 million and $1.1 million, respectively, were also among the top recipients.
Bush administration officials last year proposed selling off unwanted Forest Service land, including an estimated 85,000 acres in California, as a source of rural county funding. Few supported the idea. Congressional Democrats led by Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon subsequently proposed new fees or fee increases for commercial use of federal land.
Local Taxs from Killing Local Environment for Corporate Profit Ending as Environment Dies Out
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., October , 2007
Bush's last ditch effort to give our last forests to the corporations died an ugly death, as it should. It was the final extension of the government's bribery of local communities to assent to the raping of our last national forests for the enrichment of private corporations.
Now that the majority of our National Forests are stripped bare, and are unable to provide the locals with bribes, Bush tried to use the desperation of local communities to turn the remaining forests over to his logging industry bribers.
Not even the Dems, who will roll over for almost any corporate giveaway, would go for that one.
Corruption Updates 46, 2nd article on the page, Report Says Interior Official Overrode Work of Scientists
Corruption Updates 46, 6th article on the page, Judge Suspends Administration Rules For Managing Forests
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Disease alert in flood-hit Africa
Some African countries have endured months of flooding
Story from BBC NEWS, 9-16-07
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/6997141.stm
Severe flooding across Africa has wrecked hundreds of thousands of homes and left many people vulnerable to water-borne diseases, officials say.
Scores of people have died and much of the continent's most fertile farmland has been washed away in what is being described as a humanitarian disaster.
Some 17 countries have been affected in West, Central and East Africa.
The UN said the floods could lead to locust infestations and outbreaks of diseases such as cholera and dysentery.
Ghana has been hit badly by the flooding, with three northern regions being declared an official disaster zone after whole towns and villages were submerged.
In East Africa, the brunt of the torrential rain was felt in Uganda, Ethiopia and Sudan.
In Ethiopia, deaths have been reported and a massive food aid programme has been set up after flooding hit almost 200,000 people.
And Rwandan officials reported 15 deaths and 500 homes washed away since Wednesday.
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1) White House Censors Science Again, This time in The Politicized CDC
2) UN Report: Environment in Collaspe, Americans too fat, Stupid, and Greedy to Care
2b) UN Report: Environment in Collaspe. NY Times presents clear view of this grim UN Report
3) Global Warming Threatens Eco-System Destruction
4) Pollution is Bad for Kids. Wow, we Paid Scientists for that science secret?
5) Bush Manipulates Forest Plans for Corporate Profit, Death of Spotted Owl
6) NOAA Report: US Roasting, No Winter Likely
6b) NOAA Report: 2007 Spring Driest on Record
7) Scientists no more than weather reporters: Massive Unpredicted Increase in C02 Detected
8) Polar Ice disappearing at faster Rate than Predicted
9) Global Wheat, Grain Production Plunging
10) Running out of Forests for the Corporations to Rape causes Rural Problems
11) Freak African Storms Punishes wide swath of Africa