Sen. Kerry Blames Tornados on Global Warming Kerry appeared on MSNBC on February 6 to discuss storms that have killed at least 50 people throughout the Southeastern United States. So, of course, Kerry used the platform to advance global warming alarmism. “[I] don’t want to sort of leap into the larger meaning of, you know, inappropriately, but on the other hand, the weather service has told us we are going to have more and more intense storms,” Kerry said. “And insurance companies are beginning to look at this issue and understand this is related to the intensity of storms that is related to the warming of the earth. And so it goes to global warming and larger issues that we’re not paying attention to. The fact is the hurricanes are more intensive, the storms are more intensive and the rainfall is more intense at certain places at certain times and the weather patterns have changed.” Kerry’s assertion tornado activity is related to any type of climate change is questionable based on the writings of at least one meteorologist. Roger Edwards, a meteorologist at the Storm Prediction Center of the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla., has doubts about any global warming and tornado relationship. “As of this writing, no scientific studies solidly relate climatic global temperature trends to tornadoes,” Edwards wrote on the Earth & Sky Web site in April 2007. “I don’t expect any such results in the near future either, because tornadoes are too small, short–lived, hard to measure and count, and too dependent on day to day, even minute to minute weather conditions.”
Gov again slams royalty cut A federal plan to keep a bigger share of federal mineral royalties is designed to recoup costs for paperwork and manpower required for collection and distribution of the money, a federal Minerals Management Service Spokesman says. Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal, meanwhile, says the change is "an absolute crime." While the states and the federal government used to split those royalties 50-50, the split is now 52-48 with the federal government getting the larger share. The change first became law as part of a spending bill signed by President Bush in December. Bush suggested extending the provision by another year in his proposed budget released Monday. Gary Strasburg, a spokesman for the Minerals Management Service, which is part of the Interior Department, said the extra money for the federal government is intended to cover the administrative costs. But it will be deposited into the general treasury, he said....
The Collapse of Central Valley Salmon The latest federal government data on 2007's salmon run on the Sacramento River point to an "unprecedented collapse" in the fishery considered for years to be one of the most healthy on the West Coast. If the data is verified in upcoming meetings of the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC), commercial and recreational salmon fishing in California and Oregon ocean waters and recreational salmon fishing in Central Valley rivers could be closed or severely restricted in 2008. This alarming news couldn't come at a worse time, since recreational and commercial fishermen are already reeling from draconian restrictions on rockfish, lingcod and other groundfish in California. "The magnitude of the low abundance, should it be confirmed in verification efforts now underway, is such that the opening of all marine and freshwater fisheries impacting this important salmon stock will be questioned in the upcoming Council process to set 2008 ocean salmon seasons," according to an internal memo of the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) by Donald O. McIsaac, Ph. D, Executive Director....
Snow news good news for Colorado River area A snowy January on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains has water managers crossing their fingers for something they haven't seen for a while: a truly wet year on the Colorado River. The latest forecast calls for the river to receive 120 percent of its normal inflow from melting mountain snow. If that prediction comes to pass, 2008 would go down as the best year on the Colorado in more than a decade. As of Tuesday, snow levels were above average by as much as 56 percent in parts of central and western Colorado credited with supplying large amounts of water to the river system. Elsewhere in the high country of Colorado, Utah and Arizona, the snowpack is almost double what it normally is this time of year with more winter storms in the forecast for this weekend....
Power Struggle The first sign that there might be something wrong with the water on Craig Duderstadt’s south Texas ranch was when the cows wouldn’t drink. Last summer, they began to bypass their special groundwater well-fed trough, preferring to drink from a muddy puddle of rainwater. “This is a full water trough, and they’d walk a couple hundred yards and drink from a water hole. They’d walk right past that water trough,” Duderstadt said. “You can’t make ‘em drink.” About that same time, the well water used inside the house for everything from showering to drinking started running red and slimy. A well filter that would normally last six months plugged up in a matter of hours—one time, Craig couldn’t even get it out of the filter casing because of all the sediment. The Duderstadts stopped drinking the water, too. A Culligan driver now brings four blue jugs of clean water a month from Victoria, the nearest big town, about a 30-minute drive northeast. The culprit, they say, is a uranium mining operation 1,250 feet from their front door. They say the water turns bad when the mining company drills exploration wells nearby....
Judge delays decision on eagle's status Calling the fate of Arizona's eagles "an important issue for our district and the United States," a federal judge in Phoenix postponed a decision Tuesday about protections for the state's desert-nesting bald eagles. U.S. District Court Judge Mary Murguia will decide if federal officials acted too hastily in removing Arizona's smaller, lighter bald eagles from the federal endangered-species list. Arizona's small band of raptors was removed from endangered-species protections in August along with the nation's other 11,000 bald eagles in the lower 48 states. The action to include Arizona eagles was protested by Gov. Janet Napolitano, U.S. Reps. Harry Mitchell and Raul Grijalva, all three Democrats, along with conservation groups and Indian tribes. In a courtroom filled with more than 75 tribal leaders and members of the public, lawyers for the Center for Biological Diversity and Maricopa Audubon, the groups that filed the lawsuit, asked that the Arizona birds be put back on the endangered-species list, at least until their status can be reviewed by wildlife officials....
Cost to save bighorn pegged at $26.7m Saving the Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep could cost at least $26.7 million over the next 20 years, a new federal study estimates. Environmentalists and federal officials consider this a good investment in protecting a shaggy, endangered mammal that is found from Tuolumne to Tulare counties and across to the Sierra Nevada's remote east side. "It looks like a fair amount of money," Bob Williams, Nevada field supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said Tuesday, "but compared to other species, this is relatively small, and the costs are in line with what the species needs." The public costs cover state and federal dollars directly spent on bighorn sheep monitoring and recovery. But they also include the potential sacrifice of fees that ranchers pay so their animals can graze on federal lands. To help the sheep, some such grazing would be restricted....
Uranium Exploration Near Grand Canyon With minimal public notice and no formal environmental review, the Forest Service has approved a permit allowing a British mining company to explore for uranium just outside Grand Canyon National Park, less than three miles from a popular lookout over the canyon’s southern rim. If the exploration finds rich uranium deposits, it could lead to the first mines near the canyon since the price of uranium ore plummeted nearly two decades ago. A sharp increase in uranium prices over the past three years has led individuals to stake thousands of mining claims in the Southwest, including more than 1,000 in the Kaibab National Forest, near the Grand Canyon. To drill exploratory wells on the claims in the Kaibab forest requires Forest Service approval. Vane Minerals, the British company, received such approval for seven sites in December. The Forest Service granted the approvals without a full-dress environmental assessment, ruling that the canyon could be “categorically excluded” from such a review because exploration would last less than a year and might not lead to mining activity....
Voices in the Wild Sawtooth National Forest Supervisor Jane Kollmeyer will decide in February whether to allow construction of a 90-foot-tall communications stealth tower (cleverly disguised as a pine tree) on the 8,700-foot summit. The tower would provide cellular coverage from Galena Lodge to Petit Lake, including much of the village of Smiley Creek in the Stanley Basin. Proponents of the tower argue for public safety along Highway 75, which connects the towns of Ketchum and Sun Valley with Galena Summit and the Stanley Basin to the north, where stranded motorists could call for help. Others say backcountry skiers and hikers could call for help in an emergency. Critics of the tower plan say it will be unsightly and detract from the splendor of the area, popular with backcountry skiers, snowboarders and hikers. On a clear day, Galena Summit affords views from Stanley to Bald Mountain, a distance of 60 miles, as well as the Sawtooth, Boulder and White Cloud mountains. Jackie Richter, U.S. Forest Service project leader for the proposed Galena Summit Tower study, has collected 94 comments on both sides of the issue and is awaiting an environmental assessment before the Forest Service can proceed with a decision....all this over a fake tree, a "cleverly disguised" fake tree.
Limestone Madness Nothing loves limestone more than the native ocotillo that covers the Empire Valley hills, southeast of Tucson. The problem is, mining interests including California Portland Cement have their own brand of love for those same hills just above Vail. The result is a four-year battle between the community-based Empire-Fagan Coalition, mining companies and the Arizona State Land Department, which approved new leases last year for three limestone-mining claims. The leases--still working their way through litigation--bring up the on-again, off-again debate about Arizona's laws that govern mining and state trust land reform. Empire High School teacher Mike Carson heads the Empire-Fagan Coalition, which questions if the land department is doing the right thing by approving mining leases near a growing residential area dependent on well water. Despite the land department's lease approvals, Carson and his neighbors are optimistic they will prevail....
BLM tries to balance gas, art An ongoing dust-up may have just gained clarity over how to further develop natural gas resources in the nearly 138,000 acres known as the West Tavaputs Plateau Project Area. A main issues is how to preserve "the world's longest rock art gallery" amid gas operations that critics say are already ruining centuries-old petroglyphs. "We've had to take a hard look at all the issues in that area," said Brad Higdon, planning and environmental coordinator in the Bureau of Land Management's Price field office. "Certainly, cultural resources are key issues because of the sensitivity of the area." The BLM announced Friday that the draft environmental impact statement for a proposal by Colorado-based Bill Barrett Corp. and other operators is now available for public comment until May 1. The BLM is scheduling public meetings to be held between now and May 1 in the Salt Lake City, Price and Roosevelt areas. The plan proposed by Barrett Corp. and others is to drill up to 807 more natural gas wells in the Tavaputs Plateau. At full production from those added wells, the area could some day produce more than 50 percent of Utah's demand for natural gas, Higdon estimated....
Americans Spending Less Time in Nature Anyone who has ever tried to book a room near Yellowstone National Park in August knows that natural places can get very crowded. But biologist Oliver Pergams says those crowds can hide an important trend: Every year, a smaller percentage of Americans are fishing, camping or engaging in other nature-based activities. Since the late 1980s, the percentage of Americans taking part in such activities has declined at slightly more than 1 percent a year. The total effect, Pergams says, is that participation is down 18 percent to 25 percent from peak levels. Pergams teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago. For several years now, he has been collecting outdoor head counts kept not only by national parks, but also by state and local parks, the U.S. Forest Service, the federal Bureau of Land Management and commercial polling firms. "We've got data for hunting licenses, fishing licenses, three different data sources for camping and backpacking and hiking," Pergams says....
Valentine's Day goes green with eco-friendly flowers, treats You drive a hybrid, bring your own bags to the market, keep tabs on your carbon footprint. As an eco-conscious individual, you practice what you preach. So, what are the eco-sensitive to do on Valentine's Day? What of the emissions created by flying and trucking those beautiful flowers (treated with who knows what) across the globe? What about the wine? The chocolate? Turns out the floral industry's been listening to such concerns. Programs like Florverde in Colombia and VeriFlora Certified Sustainably Grown in the United States help ensure participating floral farms, handlers, and distributors abide by environmental and social best-practice standards. European flowers, too, have their own certification standards in place. Not every farm and flower is Earth-perfect. But the tide is turning. Organic chocolate is easier to find, especially at chain retailers such as Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, and at local shops such as Flat Black Coffee Co., Savenor's Market, Cardullo's in Harvard Square, and Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge (and South End). Look for the USDA Organic and Fair Trade logos on chocolate from makers Dagoba, Lake Champlain, Art Bar, and Green & Black's. Endangered Species Chocolates puts an eco-twist on chocolate by donating 10 percent of its net profits to environmental organizations....well, I needed some help with my chocolate addiction, and this just might do it.
US Arctic drilling rights sale smashes record A sale of oil and gas rights in U.S. waters of the Chukchi Sea, off the northwestern coast of Alaska, has brought in a record $2.66 billion despite protests over the opening the environmentally sensitive area to drilling. Oil company bidding for the acreage being offered by the federal government's Minerals Management Service surpassed the previous record set in the early 1980s, underscoring how high oil prices have transformed undesirable high cost regions into exploration hotspots. The federal government, in its latest budget, had estimated it would receive only $67 million for the acreage, said MMS Director Randall Luthi, who traveled from Washington to attend the sale. A small group of protesters, one dressed in a polar bear costume, braved temperatures of -24 degrees Celsius (-11 Fahrenheit) outside the public library in Anchorage where the lease sale was being held....
Helping wildlife cross roads In the mountains near Vail, the state is planning to build the first wildlife bridge in Colorado history, while near Boulder, wildlife specialists are considering protecting elk by either building a wildlife underpass or fitting the animals with collars that would trigger lights warning of their presence. The measures are a result of an upsurge in car-animal accidents as human use of highways grows and habitats shrink. Nine Canada lynx — listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act — have been killed in recent years in Colorado, two on Interstate 70 on West Vail Pass. Now, a coalition that includes the Colorado Department of Transportation, the Southern Rockies Ecosystem Project and natural-resource agencies wants to build a bridge over I-70 in that area to reconnect critical wildlife habitat. The goal of the bridge is to not only protect the Canada lynx, but other wildlife including moose, mountain lion, black bear and elk....
Judge spurns timber group's suit over bird A federal judge Tuesday rejected an attempt by the timber industry to remove federal protections for the marbled murrelet, an imperiled Northwest seabird that nests in coastal forests and stands in the way of logging. The American Forest Resource Council, an industry group based in Portland, sued the federal government arguing the bird should be removed from the federal list of threatened and endangered species. But U.S. District Judge John D. Bates in Washington, D.C., turned down the lawsuit Tuesday, concluding that there had been no official federal decision to keep the bird protected, and therefore there was nothing for the timber group to challenge in court. He said, however, that the timber group could still petition the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the bird from the list. Chris West, vice president of the council, said Tuesday that the group is assessing its options and may do that. The Forest Resource Council tried to force the issue in court after the Bush administration concluded that marbled murrelets in the Northwest do not differ enough from more plentiful birds in Alaska to merit protection on their own. But the administration, through the Fish and Wildlife Service, has not taken any further action on that conclusion. Instead, the federal agency said it would first review the condition of the entire murrelet population, including the Alaska birds....
Turner 'almost done' buying up ranchland CNN founder Ted Turner, the largest private landowner in Nebraska and the United States and the nation's largest bison rancher, said Wednesday that he is about done buying new ranches. He said he would like to reach 2 million acres nationwide before he dies — about 40,000 acres more than he currently owns. "I'm almost done. I've got enough," said Turner, who was visiting Omaha for the reopening and renaming of one of his 54 bison restaurants, now called Ted's Nebraska Grill. The 69-year-old billionaire, philanthropist and conservationist said he isn't interested in free-standing ranches anymore, only "reasonably priced" parcels adjacent to his current operations, which include five ranches in Nebraska near Gordon, Oshkosh and Mullen. The ranches cover 425,221 acres, an area larger than Douglas and Sarpy Counties combined. "You know what 2 million acres is?" Turner asked over a plate of bison miniburgers and transfat-free onion rings. "If my land was all connected, in one long straight line, a mile deep, it would stretch from New York to San Francisco." Then he joked: "I've been thinking about doing some swaps. I'd be able to cut the United States in half and charge people from going from the north to the south."....I always wondered what his ego was like. Now I know.
Cloning Splits Meat Industry The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently deemed cloned meat to be as safe to eat as meat from traditionally bred livestock, but it still looks to be a tough sell in Montana, with a state representative already planning legislation opposing it, insiders in the meat industry expressing skepticism and a public that remains wary. To be sure, livestock cloning has its share of proponents in the state, and elsewhere throughout the nation. Included among them are officials from the Montana Stockgrowers Association and a cross-section of ranchers, though not all support it. To skeptics, however, the FDA’s decision is unfavorable for different reasons. Some say it came too soon. Others have moral and ethical qualms. And still others just don’t know what to think about it – they feel we’ve stepped into strange futuristic territory, which can be unnerving....
USDA shuts down supplier of beef to schools The U.S. Department of Agriculture has shut down operations at a Chino slaughterhouse accused of supplying meat from at-risk cattle and treating weak animals cruelly. The agency's Food Safety and Inspection Service announced late Tuesday that it was indefinitely suspending inspection at Hallmark Meat Packing, an action that in effect bars the supplier from slaughtering and producing meat while authorities investigate the allegations. The meatpacker clearly violated "federal regulations and the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act," USDA undersecretary for food safety Richard Raymond said in a statement. After the release of a video from the Humane Society of the United States, the USDA last week suspended the company's contracts for federal food programs. The video showed slaughterhouse workers forcing "downer" cows to their feet using sticks, electric prods and water hoses. Westland Meat Co., Hallmark's distributor and a ground beef supplier for the National School Lunch Program, voluntarily halted operations at the time....
The Other Side of Los Angeles There was a time not too long ago that great herds of antelope roamed the western Mojave. In the 1880s, driven by heavy snows across the valley floor, they headed east toward their feeding grounds. The Indians were already long gone from the region, and, like the mighty buffalo of the Great Plains, the antelope’s days were numbered. A few months after Custer and his gray horse unit were killed in the horrific clash in the greasy grass, a sporting party gathered at the arroyos and foothills of the Antelope Valley where the fleet animal liked to range. “They came on horseback and in springboard wagons,” says valley historian Gloria Gine Hossard. “Their faces flushed with excitement and the effects of an ample supply of liquid spirits. Their suits were of the latest fashion and cut from the most expensive material deemed suitable for the hunting field. Packed inside the felt-lined leather boxes were the latest in firearms, new Sharps and Henry rifles, well oiled, manicured and pampered....
Chupacabra update: Mystery grows with new test results Its DNA has been flown across the continent as Cuero residents search for a final answer about their mysterious, blood-sucking beast. The much-anticipated results are back from experts at the University of California at Davis. Last year, the KENS I-Team had scientists from Texas State University evaluate DNA from the animal Canion found. The animal was one of three peculiar, lavender-colored, dog-like animals Cuero residents found last July. Results from Texas State University stated the animal is from the coyote family. But Canion wanted to know more, so she sent more DNA, tooth and tissue samples, off to California. Results from the University of California at Davis show the animal is in fact a mutt: on the mother's side it is part coyote. "On the paternal side, it had Mexican wolf in it," said Canion. Scientists from the University of California at Davis say they can't tell when the Mexican wolf heritage made its way into the gene pool. "It was a hybrid, because it has this other breed in it," she said. Canion is referring to the hairless, odd-colored skin originally thought to be caused by parasites or disease. Now, experts aren't so sure. The Cuero rancher said she expects further testing to find out where all the hair has gone and why the animal, she says, seems to crave just blood from its victims. "We still can't figure that one out," she said....