Tag Archives: climate desk

Obama’s Budget Calls for Billions in Climate Funding

by JasperCottman Posted on February 2, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

In yet another sign President Barack Obama is making climate change a big theme of his final two years in office, the White House today released its proposed $3.99 trillion budget, and it contains a slew of programs designed to fight global warming. It’s important to note that this budget is the president’s proposal—a blueprint—given to Congress to be fought over or blatantly ignored; it’s not law. So, this is first-and-foremost a political document used to outline the president’s vision and define his terms of engagement with Congress. Most of these measures, to use the language of the moment, will likely be “dead on arrival,” given that both the House and Senate are now under Republican control.

Having said that, the document is useful in showing which tools Obama wants to use in fighting climate change—a kind of “would if he could” laundry list of desires. Here’s what you need to know:

1. Increased spending on renewable energy research and development

The budget proposes $7.4 billion for programs designed to stimulate the development of clean energy technology, mainly through the Departments of Defense, Energy, and Agriculture, and the National Science Foundation. That number is an increase from the $6.5 billion Congress enacted for this year, according to Reuters.

The budget outlines some of these activities, including fixing the energy grid to be able to use more renewable energy, reducing the costs of clean energy, finding cheaper solutions for carbon capture and storage from fossil fuels, and doing research to measure methane emissions that leak from natural gas operations.

2. Extended tax credits for wind and solar

The budget also calls for the permanent extension of tax incentives used by the solar and wind industries. Supporters of the wind industry say the Production Tax Credit is an important lifeline to help wind compete against heavily-subsidized fossil fuel power sources; when it was in effect, it provided developers a tax break of 2.3 cents per kilowatt hour of energy their turbines produce for the first 10 years of operation. But the credit expired, and the Senate recently voted down a nonbinding measure calling for a five-year extension, continuing a kind of boom-and-bust cycle in the fortunes of the wind industry dictated by whether the tax credit is currently in effect.

A separate provision, the Investment Tax Credit, provides an important incentive for solar development. It offers a 30 percent federal tax credit for solar systems on residential and commercial properties. The ITC is set to expire at the end of 2016.

3. A new fund to help states cut emissions

The budget calls for a $4 billion fund designed to encourage states to make faster and deeper cuts to power plant emissions than would be required under the rules proposed by Obama’s EPA last year. In other words, the budget would give states a financial incentive to do even more to clean up their energy sectors. States can get these incentives by, among other things, working together in regional partnerships to cut greenhouse gases. There’s unlikely to be much love for this measure in Congress: The EPA’s proposed regulations have been met by intense opposition in coal-producing states, and Republicans have labeled them a job-killer.

4. Being more prepared for natural disasters

The budget contains a range of proposals designed to help vulnerable parts of America prepare for natural disasters, including an increase of $184 million in the National Flood Insurance Program Risk Mapping efforts—historically beleaguered by debt and deficit—to $400 million. There is also additional money to tackle drought, wildfires, and coastal flooding.

5. International efforts to fight climate change

The White House wants to provide $1.29 billion to advance its Global Climate Change Initiative, which includes $500 million for US contributions to the UN’s Green Climate Fund—the first installment of the $3 billion pledged by the US last November. “The United States expects that the GCF will become a preeminent, effective, and efficient channel for climate finance,” the budget states. But the measure is likely to hit stiff opposition in Congress, where Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), now chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, has vowed to fight it. “The president’s climate change agenda has only siphoned precious taxpayer dollars away from the real problems facing the American people,” he said in November.

See the article here: 

Obama’s Budget Calls for Billions in Climate Funding

Posted in Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, global climate change, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, solar, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Obama’s Budget Calls for Billions in Climate Funding

This Chart Shows That Americans Are Way Out of Step With Scientists on Pretty Much Everything

by MichelineWorth Posted on January 29, 2015

Mother Jones

Here’s one big reason why the US has been so slow to take aggressive action on climate change: Despite the wide consensus among scientists that it’s real and caused by humans, the general public—not to mention a disconcerting number of prominent politicians—remains divided.

It’s not just climate change. On a range of pressing social issues, scientists and the public rarely see eye-to-eye. That’s the result of a new Pew poll released today that compared views of a sample of 2,000 US adults to those of 3,700 scientists who are members of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the group that publishes the journal Science.

The biggest split was over the safety of genetically modified foods: 88 percent of scientists think GMOs are safe, compared to only 37 percent in the general public. Interestingly, college graduates were split 50-50. The gap between scientists and the public is smaller on the question of whether to mandate childhood vaccines. But it’s still there. Eighty-six percent of scientists and 68 percent of all adults think vaccines should be required.

The poll didn’t attempt to explain the gaps between scientists and the general public. On some issues there are clearly factors beyond pure science, like ethics and politics, that influence opinions. For example, scientists show more support for nuclear power, but less support for fracking, than the public. As our friend Chris Mooney has reported many times, these outside factors tend to creep into peoples’ opinions even on objective questions like whether humans have evolved.

Lee Rainie, Pew’s director of science research, added that trust in scientists can be a big factor. On GMOs, for example, 67 percent of the public believe scientists don’t fully understand the health risks. And on issues like climate and evolution, the public believes there to be more disagreement within the scientific community than there actually is, he said.

More interesting findings are below:

Pew

This article – 

This Chart Shows That Americans Are Way Out of Step With Scientists on Pretty Much Everything

Posted in alo, Anchor, bigo, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on This Chart Shows That Americans Are Way Out of Step With Scientists on Pretty Much Everything

Bill Nye: Screw Deflategate. You Should “Give a Fuck” About Climate Change Instead.

by AaronLampungmei Posted on January 29, 2015

Mother Jones

This article originally appeared in the Huffington Post and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Bill Nye is weighing in on Deflategate again, but this time he has a few props and a message to share about something far more important.

New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick claimed atmospheric conditions and temperature changes could have caused footballs to lose air pressure during the team’s AFC Championship win over the Indianapolis Colts.

On Sunday, Nye said taking that much air out of a ball would require an inflation needle. But in a new video posted on Funny or Die, The Science Guy declared that “one test is worth 1,000 expert opinions,” and put some footballs into a fridge set to 51 degrees, or the temperature at the Jan. 18 game.

That’s where the video takes a very different turn.

“While we’re all obsessed with Deflategate, let’s keep in mind that there’s something about which you should give a fuck,” Nye said. “Yes, like Tom Brady, the world is getting hotter and hotter, and you know why? Because we humans are pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.”

Nye then began listing things that contribute to climate change—including long-winded Deflategate press conferences—and followed that up with a rallying cry.

“You should vote for congressmen and senators that appreciate the threat of climate change and the rate at which the world is getting warmer, so that we can preserve the earth for humankind for generations to come,” Nye said.

Oh, and about those balls…

Nye took one out of the fridge, gave it a squeeze, pronounced it “pretty much the same,” and said “the Patriots probably bent the rules a little bit.”

Nye, who lived in Seattle for a number of years, ended the video with a message that’s bound to rankle the New England faithful: “Go Seahawks!”

Jump to original:

Bill Nye: Screw Deflategate. You Should “Give a Fuck” About Climate Change Instead.

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Bill Nye: Screw Deflategate. You Should “Give a Fuck” About Climate Change Instead.

This Map Shows Why The Midwest Is Screwed

by TommieC45wkj Posted on January 27, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The ongoing drought in California has been, among other things, a powerful lesson in how vulnerable America’s agricultural sector is to climate change. Even if that drought wasn’t specifically caused by man-made global warming, scientists have little doubt that droughts and heat waves are going to get more frequent and severe in important crop-growing regions. In California, the cost in 2014 was staggering: $2.2 billion in losses and added expenses, plus 17,000 lost jobs, according to a UC-Davis study.

California is country’s hub for fruits, veggies, and nuts. But what about the commodity grains grown in the Midwest, where the US produces over half its corn and soy? That’s the subject of a new report by the climate research group headed by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, and billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer (who recently shut down rumors that he might run for Senate).

The report is all about climate impacts expected in the Midwest, and the big takeaway is that future generations have lots of very sweaty summers in store. One example: “The average Chicago resident is expected to experience more days over 95 degrees F by the century’s end than the average Texan does today.” The report also predicts that electricity prices will increase, with potential ramifications for the region’s manufacturing sector, and that beloved winter sports—ice fishing, anyone?—will become harder to do.

But some of the most troublesome findings are about agriculture. Some places will fare better than others; northern Minnesota, for example, could very well find itself benefiting from global warming. But overall, the report says, extreme heat, scarcer water resources, and weed and insect invasions will drive down corn and soybean yields by 11 to 69 percent by the century’s end. Note that these predictions assume no “significant adaptation,” so there’s an opportunity to soften the blow with solutions like better water management, switching to more heat-tolerant crops like sorghum, or the combination of genetic engineering and data technology now being pursued by Monsanto.

Here’s a map from the report showing which states’ farmers could benefit from climate change—and which ones will lose big time:

Risky Business

This article is from – 

This Map Shows Why The Midwest Is Screwed

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on This Map Shows Why The Midwest Is Screwed

Obama’s Trip to India Shortened His Life by 6 Hours

by OlenMayorga Posted on January 27, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Over the weekend President Barack Obama was in India for talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on nuclear power, trade, climate change, and other topics. The climate piece was, if not necessarily a letdown, certainly less exciting than Obama’s wide-reaching deal with China in November. Crucially, the China deal included specific carbon emissions reduction targets; those were left out in India over Modi’s (arguably justifiable) insistence that the country be able to aggressively expand its electricity infrastructure to fight poverty.

Instead, India committed to expand its solar power capacity by 33-fold within seven years, and to work closely with the United States in advance of major UN climate talks in Paris in December. (India’s participation will be vital for the summit to produce a meaningful international agreement.)

As Bloomberg‘s Natalie Obiko Pearson noted, Obama got a first-hand taste in the trip of how important it is for India to fuel its growth with clean energy sources. India is already the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas emitter behind China and the US, and air pollution in many of its cities far exceeds even the infamous levels in Beijing and other Chinese megalopolises.

In fact, Delhi—the capital city where Obama’s meetings took place—has the world’s highest concentration of PM 2.5, according to the UN. These tiny airborne particulates can increase the risk of heart disease and a host of really awful respiratory ailments. The PM 2.5 levels in Delhi are so insanely bad that breathing the air for only a few hours can have irreversible health impacts…even on the leader of the free world.

From Bloomberg:

During Obama’s three-day visit, PM2.5 levels in Delhi have averaged between 76 to 84 micrograms per cubic meter, according to data collected by India’s Ministry of Earth Sciences…Those levels translate roughly into an estimated loss of 2 hours a day in life expectancy, said David Spiegelhalter, a statistician at the University of Cambridge, who specializes in quantifying risk in a way that is understandable to the public.

Obama was there for three days, so that’s six hours off his life. That is profoundly terrifying. It also underscores how, for developing countries, the need to stem pollution from power plants is about much more than solving the long-term problem of global warming. It’s about addressing an urgent pubic health crisis.

This post has been updated.

Original article: 

Obama’s Trip to India Shortened His Life by 6 Hours

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, solar, solar power, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Obama’s Trip to India Shortened His Life by 6 Hours

Attention GOP Presidential Candidates: Winter Does Not Disprove Global Warming

by Shawn75Imwhebm Posted on January 26, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Snow is falling across the Northeast, and millions of people are preparing for a massive blizzard. Due to the extreme winter conditions, my colleague at Climate Desk has issued the following advisory:

It may seem obvious to you that the existence of extreme winter weather doesn’t negate the scientific fact that humans are warming the planet. But that’s probably because you aren’t a climate change denier who’s contemplating a run for the GOP presidential nomination.

Last year, for example, Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) weighed in on the issue. “It is really freezing in DC,” Cruz said during a speech on energy policy, according to TPM. “I have to admit I was surprised. Al Gore told us this wouldn’t happen!” Cruz said the same thing a month earlier, according to Slate: “It’s cold!…Al Gore told me this wouldn’t happen.”

And here’s former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on his Fox News show, after a major blizzard back in December 2009:

Which brings us to a couple of Republicans who are probably not going to run for president but who have nevertheless generated headlines recently by suggesting they might. Here’s Donald Trump, during a cold snap last year:

And here’s a 2012 Facebook post from former Gov. Sarah Palin, citing extremely cold winter temperatures in her home state of Alaska:

If you’re a regular Climate Desk reader, you already know why all this is wrong. You understand the difference between individual weather events and long-term climate trends. You probably even know that according to the National Climate Assessment, winter precipitation is expected to increase in the northeastern United States as a result of climate change. But if you’re a Republican who wants to be president, please pay close attention to the following video:

Read the article: 

Attention GOP Presidential Candidates: Winter Does Not Disprove Global Warming

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, Northeastern, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Attention GOP Presidential Candidates: Winter Does Not Disprove Global Warming

Scientists Just Found a Way to Make GMOs Much Safer

by Toni45Zjtw Posted on January 23, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

It’s the worst nightmare of activists opposed to genetically modified crops: An errant GMO seed blows out of a wheat or corn field and breeds with a species in the wild or on a neighboring farm. The modified gene proliferates and spreads through the population, and pretty soon the line between engineered crops and their “natural” counterparts begins to disappear, with unpredictable consequences for ecosystems.

This happened in 2010 in North Dakota, when scientists discovered that genes from genetically engineered canola—grown commercially for its oil across the state—were appearing in nearly every sample of canola taken in the wild. In that case, the “escape” of GMO canola turned out to be no big deal.

But it raised eyebrows with plant scientists about how quickly modified genes can spread. Some warned that plants engineered to be especially hardy—for example, the drought- and heat-tolerant plants that agribusiness giants like Monsanto are pushing as a remedy to climate change—could drive out native breeds, taking with them a precious store of genetic diversity.

Since the late 1970s, when genetically engineered crops began to arrive on US farms, federal and state agencies have applied a smattering of rules and regulations to prevent this from happening. But on Wednesday, a pair of new studies published in Nature offered, for the first time, a protection that comes straight from an organism’s DNA.

After several years of painstaking research, bioengineers at Yale and Harvard have developed a method to ensure organisms with engineered DNA could survive only in designated environments, and not in the wild. Their research was on the bacteria E. coli, but the scientists said the same basic steps could be applied to genetically modified crops, as well as to bacteria used to process dairy products, probiotics for health applications, and even the microorganisms sometimes used to clean up oil spills.

“Endowing safeguards now is important to allow the field of biotechnology to go forward,” said geneticist Farren Isaacs, a co-author of the Yale study.

Continue Reading »

Original article: 

Scientists Just Found a Way to Make GMOs Much Safer

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Safer, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Scientists Just Found a Way to Make GMOs Much Safer

We’re Destroying the Planet in Ways That Are Even Worse Than Global Warming

by GeorgetDabney Posted on January 16, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

This story originally appeared in the Guardian and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Humans are “eating away at our own life support systems” at a rate unseen in the past 10,000 years by degrading land and freshwater systems, emitting greenhouse gases and releasing vast amounts of agricultural chemicals into the environment, new research has found.

Two major new studies by an international team of researchers have pinpointed the key factors that ensure a livable planet for humans, with stark results.

Of nine worldwide processes that underpin life on Earth, four have exceeded “safe” levels: human-driven climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land system change, and the high level of phosphorus and nitrogen flowing into the oceans due to fertilizer use.

Researchers spent five years identifying these core components of a planet suitable for human life, using the long-term average state of each measure to provide a baseline for the analysis.

They found that the changes of the last 60 years are unprecedented in the previous 10,000 years, a period in which the world has had a relatively stable climate and human civilization has advanced significantly.

Carbon dioxide levels, at 395.5 parts per million, are at historic highs, while loss of biosphere integrity is resulting in species becoming extinct at a rate more than 100 times faster than the previous norm.

Graphic: Guardian; Source: PIK PR

Since 1950, urban populations have increased sevenfold, primary energy use has soared by a factor of five, while the amount of fertilizer used is now eight times higher. The amount of nitrogen entering the oceans has quadrupled.

All of these changes are shifting Earth into a “new state” that is becoming less hospitable to human life, researchers said.

“These indicators have shot up since 1950 and there are no signs they are slowing down,” said Will Steffen of the Australian National University and the Stockholm Resilience Center. Steffen is the lead author on both of the studies.

“When economic systems went into overdrive, there was a massive increase in resource use and pollution,” Steffen said. “It used to be confined to local and regional areas but we’re now seeing this occurring on a global scale. These changes are down to human activity, not natural variability.”

Steffen said direct human influence upon the land was contributing to a loss in pollination and a disruption in the provision of nutrients and fresh water.

“We are clearing land, we are degrading land, we introduce feral animals and take the top predators out, we change the marine ecosystem by overfishing—it’s a death by a thousand cuts,” he said. “That direct impact upon the land is the most important factor right now, even more than climate change.”

There are large variations in conditions around the world, according to the research. For example, land clearing is now concentrated in tropical areas, such as Indonesia and the Amazon, with the practice reversed in parts of Europe. But the overall picture is one of deterioration at a rapid rate.

“It’s fairly safe to say that we haven’t seen conditions in the past similar to ones we see today and there is strong evidence that there are tipping points we don’t want to cross,” Steffen said.

“If the Earth is going to move to a warmer state, 5 to 6 degrees Celsius warmer, with no ice caps, it will do so and that won’t be good for large mammals like us. People say the world is robust and that’s true, there will be life on Earth, but the Earth won’t be robust for us.

“Some people say we can adapt due to technology, but that’s a belief system, it’s not based on fact. There is no convincing evidence that a large mammal, with a core body temperature of 37 degrees Celsius, will be able to evolve that quickly. Insects can, but humans can’t and that’s a problem.”

Steffen said the research showed the economic system was “fundamentally flawed” as it ignored critically important life support systems.

“It’s clear the economic system is driving us towards an unsustainable future and people of my daughter’s generation will find it increasingly hard to survive,” he said. “History has shown that civilizations have risen, stuck to their core values and then collapsed because they didn’t change. That’s where we are today.”

The two studies, published in Science and Anthropocene Review, featured the work of scientists from countries including the United States, Sweden, Germany, and India. The findings will be presented in seven seminars at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which takes place from January 21 to 25.

View original – 

We’re Destroying the Planet in Ways That Are Even Worse Than Global Warming

Posted in alo, Anchor, Citizen, Everyone, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on We’re Destroying the Planet in Ways That Are Even Worse Than Global Warming

West Virginia Wanted to Teach Students Anti-Science Nonsense. Teachers Fought Back—and Won.

by Torri9025sicg Posted on January 15, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

This story originally appeared in Grist and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

For a little while there, it looked like West Virginia was getting ready to teach its students to doubt the overwhelming majority of scientists who say climate change is a real thing. Now, maybe not. Yesterday, after an outcry from science education advocates, the state school board reversed course.

To start from the beginning: The state’s school board voted in December to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards, a framework that 26 states, including West Virginia, helped develop for nationwide use. The standards require students to look at and analyze evidence that humans are causing global warming. But one climate skeptic on the board feels this aspect of the curriculum is misleading; it “presupposes that global temperatures have risen over the past century, and, of course, there’s debate about that,” he told The Charleston Gazette. Hmm.

So, at his urging, the school board revised the standards to sow doubt about whether things are getting warmer (there is no scientific debate about this—they are) and whether humans are causing it (there is almost no scientific debate about this either—we almost certainly are). Students were to learn about Milankovitch cycles—changes in Earth’s orbit around the sun, one explanation for global warming popular among the mostly non-scientist community that doesn’t believe humans are responsible. (In fact, instead of explaining warming, Milankovitch cycles actually suggest that the earth’s temperatures should, at the moment, be stable or cooling.)

When the news broke that the standards had been quietly altered, it was met with a general outcry from educators inside and outside of the state, as well as parents. West Virginia University’s faculty senate voted unanimously to request that the school board reverse the changes. Many of those who spoke up were particularly upset that the public, including the teachers who would be discussing climate change in their classrooms, didn’t have a chance to weigh in.

“The West Virginia School Board made these final changes unilaterally,” said Elizabeth Strong, the president of the West Virginia Science Teachers Association. “The science was compromised by these modifications to the standards, specifically by casting doubt on the credibility of the evidence-based climate models and misrepresentation of trends in science when analyzing graphs dealing with temperature changes over time.”

National education groups were also not impressed. “They are taking the standards, they are calling it the next-generation science standards, and they are changing the composition of the science to match their own personal views,” Minda Berbeco of the National Center for Science Education told The New York Times. “That defeats the purpose of having standards developed by scientific advisory boards.”

The outcry, apparently, had the desired effect. After a public comment period on Wednesday, the school board reversed course and went back to the original, unaltered standards. Ryan Quinn, who has great coverage of the whole saga at The Charleston Gazette, reports that the state school board president “said she didn’t want to go against the work that West Virginia teachers did in vetting the standards and called the controversy a learning opportunity.”

Now the standards will be opened up for a 30-day public comment period and the board will take a final vote on the matter in March. Whatever the board settles on will go into effect during the 2016-2017 school year—and right now, signs indicate that they’ll stick with this latest decision to not muddy science in the science classroom.

Read this article: 

West Virginia Wanted to Teach Students Anti-Science Nonsense. Teachers Fought Back—and Won.

Posted in alo, Anchor, Citizen, Everyone, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on West Virginia Wanted to Teach Students Anti-Science Nonsense. Teachers Fought Back—and Won.

California’s Almonds Suck as Much Water Annually as Los Angeles Uses in Three Years

by minecrafty Posted on January 12, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

More stories about the almond boom and what it means for California.


Invasion of the Hedge Fund Almonds


Charts: Almonds Suck as Much Water Annually as LA Uses in 3 Years


Photos: The Story Behind California’s Nut Boom


It Takes How Much Water to Grow an Almond?!


Lay Off the Almond Milk, You Ignorant Hipsters

California’s worst drought on record isn’t stopping the state from growing massive amounts of nuts: The state produces over 80 percent of the world’s almonds and 43 and 28 percent of the world’s pistachios and walnuts, respectively. As Mother Jones’ Tom Philpott details in this longread, the state’s almond market in particular has taken off: What was a $1.2 billion market in 2002 became $4.8 billion market by 2012.

Why are the almond growth rates so…nuts? (Sorry.) One reason is that the average American now eats two pounds of the crunchy snack per year—more than twice as much as a decade ago. But the biggest demand is coming from abroad: The US now exports 70 percent of almonds.

The thing is, nuts use a whole lot of water: it takes about a gallon of water to grow one almond, and nearly five gallons to produce a walnut. Residents across the state are being told to take shorter showers and stop watering their lawns, but the acreage devoted to the state’s almond orchards have doubled in the past decade. The amount of water that California uses annually to produce almond exports would provide water for all Los Angeles homes and businesses for almost three years.

China and Hong Kong together are the top buyers of US almonds; as Philpott writes, “Between 2007 and 2013, US almond exports to China and Hong Kong more than quadrupled, feeding a growing middle class’ appetite for high-protein, healthy food.”

Yet the center of almond farming—and the farming of lots of the US’s fruits and veggies—is exactly where the worst the most extreme drought is taking place. To make up for the water shortage, farmers are pumping groundwater—the underground water that feeds aquifers, serving as a savings account of sorts for the state’s water supply.

As the value of treenuts soars, the water required to support crops is pumped from a groundwater supply that has been shrinking for decades.

So how does the amount of water used to create nuts stack up with the water we use in our daily life? Check out the graphic below:

See original article:  

California’s Almonds Suck as Much Water Annually as Los Angeles Uses in Three Years

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on California’s Almonds Suck as Much Water Annually as Los Angeles Uses in Three Years