Dude, How Did I Miss The Most Important Drought Story Of The Year?
From ABC News: A severe drought that has parched corn and soybean fields across the Southeast has also scorched marijuana crops, leaving plants that should be 10 feet tall so puny that Roberts and his deputies simply pull them up. (Hat tip waterblogged.b)
Biofuels Troubles
According to an Ernst and Young analysis, things are getting a little gnarly out on the biofuels frontier. From Platts: The global biofuels industry has seen a slowdown in growth over the third quarter of 2007, caused by rising feedstock prices and a rapid expansion in capacity that may outstrip demand, according to an Ernst [...]
This Week in Petroleum
TWIP this week explains the disconnect between the rise in the price of oil and the rise in the price of gasoline: The main reason for the surge in gasoline prices over crude oil seems to have been unusually extensive U.S. refinery outages, which also pushed the limits of gasoline import availability. In the face [...]
Measles Drop
This is happy news: Improved routine immunization programs and huge national drives to give children a second dose of the inexpensive measles vaccine have contributed to a stunning 91 percent reduction in measles mortality across Africa, with deaths plunging to 36,000 last year from 396,000 in 2000, the World Health Organization and Unicef reported.
U.S. Greenhouse Emissions Drop
A shift from coal to natural gas for generating electricity contributed to a 1.5 percent drop in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2006 as compared to 2005, according to an EIA report out today. We’re 15 percent above 1990. Platts story (which I have read) Full report (which I haven’t read) update: from the comments, [...]
Wiring the Desert
Nature has a story on a massive Sahara-based solar energy proposal to be presented to the European Parliament in Brussels tomorrow (Thursday Nov. 28). The price tag mentioned in the story sounds enormous: US$595 billion. The political complications sound vexing. But hey, couldn’t be any harder than retrofitting coal plants for carbon capture, could it? [...]
Roger Sr. Returns
I am happy to note that Roger Pielke Sr.’s blog is back.
Climate Change As Seen From Nairobi
Per capita income in Kenya is $1,200. Climate change does not currently rank high on the list of pressing concerns of the residents of Nairobi, according to a new study by Meleckidzedeck Khayesi and Chris Shisanya in the journal Climatic Change. The global concern about climate change appeared like a mere drop in the oceanic [...]
Wasting Time
Roger Pielke Jr. points to a nice example of why all the energy so enthusiastically devoted to arguing about the hurricane record or fighting those pesky Climate Audit guys and the other “science wars” activities is such a colossal waste of time. On Prometheus, Roger points to comments by both James Hansen and David Victor [...]
On Buying Locally In a Desert
Kelsey has some nice thoughts on what it would mean to actually try to buy locally: Globalization seems to favor our desert city sticking to high technology at discount rates, with low land costs and lots of intellectual capital. Farming is mostly done elsewhere already, and the city is supported by the Labs, the Base, [...]
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