Climate

Image: Cattle roam dirt-brown fields on the outskirts of Delano, in California’s Central Valley. Scientists predict future droughts will be far worse than the one in California. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images

theguardian.com - February 12 2015 - Suzanne Goldenberg

The US south-west and the Great Plains will face decade-long droughts far worse than any experienced over the last 1,000 years because of climate change, researchers said on Thursday.

The coming drought age – caused by higher temperatures under climate change – will make it nearly impossible to carry on with current life-as-normal conditions across a vast swathe of the country.

environmentalleader.com - October 7th, 2014 - Ilissa Ocko

California has officially entered its fourth consecutive year of drought, and is trapped in its worst water shortage situation ever.

Because we know that human-caused climate change can trigger and exacerbate drought conditions, media, public officials, California residents and scientists have all been wondering for years if rising global temperatures likely caused or contributed to the current drought in California.

The short answer: Yes, they did.

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Image: Not all cows get to spend their days with soft green grass under hoof. For many, the picture isn't so pretty, according to the book Farmageddon.

npr.org - July 31, 2014 - Barbara J. King

For Philip Lymbery, head of the U.K.-based Compassion in World Farming and his co-author Isabel Oakeshott, a visit to California's Central Valley amounted to an encounter with suffering.

In Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat, Lymbery and Oakeshott write that the mega-dairies of the Central Valley are "milk factories where animals are just machines that rapidly break down and are replaced." At one huge dairy they visited, cows stood idly outdoors, some in shade and some in the sun.

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The California Air Resources Board wants cities to compete in fighting climate change by signing up residents to log actions they are taking to cut carbon emissions. Above, bicyclists during a morning commute on Market Street in San Francisco. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

latimes.com - by Tony Barboza - January 30, 2014

The California Air Resources Board thinks a little friendly competition might inspire Californians to scale back their driving, cut electricity use and take other steps to reduce carbon emissions.

The agency on Thursday announced a second round of the CoolCalifornia City Challenge, where cities compete to see how much they can cut their emissions of greenhouse gases that are causing climate change.

On the line is $100,000 in prize money that will go to cities based on how many people they sign up and how many points they earn in an online tracking system.

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