Saturday, November 21, 2009
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Environment
Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska face largest temperature increases
08/29/2009

Writing in The Huffington Post, Ryan Grim reports on a new analysis from The Nature Conservancy that, if correct, should stir major action in the rural Midwest. (Go here to see an interactive map, like the one above.)

"Climate change is, in fact, a regional issue, but not in the short-term way that the coal senators think, according to new analysis from The Nature Conservancy," Grim writes. "The environmental group finds that rural Midwestern states will face the greatest consequences of climate change. The three that will face the steepest rise in temperature -- Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa -- are farm states whose soil will be significantly less productive as temperatures rise more than 10 degrees Fahrenheit there by 2100."

What does this mean? The consequences to these farm states will be far reaching. As droughts become more common, their soil and climate will begin to look more like their neighbors' to the south in Texas and Mexico, Grim reports.

BioFuels and Energy | Environment
Is It a Tornado or a Wind Turbine?
08/28/2009

All those whirling wind turbines out there are causing havoc with weather radar, or so says the Associated Press. "Some wind farms have appeared on Doppler radar as either a tornado or a violent thunderstorm," wrote Dirk Lammers. "The National Weather Service received a frantic warning from an emergency worker in Kansas who had access to radar images and thought he’d seen a tornado. What he actually saw was an image of wind turbines with fast moving blades." 

This is a case where a human eye is better than a computer. The turbines can set off an automatic alert from a Doppler radar. (Wind farms built within 11 miles of a Doppler site seem to have the biggest effect.) But when a real, live weather person looks at the screen, she can tell a real tornado from a blip caused by turbines. Software can remove stationary obstacles — mountains, buildings — but there is no fix yet for removing moving turbines.

Weather people are aghast that anyone trained on reading a radar would be fooled. However, it appears that the Royal Air Force's air traffic radars have been fooled, too. 

Environment | Politics and Government
Vilsac Gives First Address on National Forests
08/15/2009

Can you really make everybody happy these days? Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack seemed to do just that Friday in his first major policy address on the nation's forests, according to Kim Murphy of the Los Angeles Times. Vilsack said: "It is time for a change in the way we view and manage America's forestlands with an eye toward the future. This will require a new approach that engages the American people and stakeholders in conserving and restoring both our national forests and our privately owned forests. It is essential that we reconnect Americans across the nation with the natural resources and landscapes that sustain us."

Murphy allowed that the address was "short on specifics," but it "elicited a generally positive reaction from conservationists and the timber industry — groups that often find very little to agree on." For instance, Murphy said the Sierra Club was impressed by Vilsack's "all lands approach." The guy from the American Forest Resource Council said he was "encouraged by (Vilsack's) recognition that maintaining our milling and logging infrastructure is going to be important in maintaining the health of the forests."

Vilsack must be happy -- and, if smart, got out of town quickly.

BioFuels and Energy | Environment
Obama Faces 'Now What?' on Strip Mining
08/13/2009

Ken Ward Jr. at the Charleston Gazette asks, "What will Obama do now about mountaintop removal?" Good question. The destructive form of strip mining — remove the top of the mountain, take coal, dump waste in the valley below — has been the subject of litigation and rulemaking. Obama hoped to beef up regulation of mountaintop mining, but now a federal judge has said the government is moving too quickly. It was trying to reverse a Bush administration mining rule without going through the proper procedures.

Ward notes that the situation "put the National Mining Association in the position of being the ones arguing for good government (this after eight years of having a seat at the table, in the room, guiding Bush administration policies on mountaintop removal and most other energy issues)." The coal boys were the ones saying government was working behind closed doors. And the judge agreed.

But now what? "Somewhere in the middle, what appears absolutely certain is that neither side is really clear at all on what the Obama administration’s position is, what exactly its goals are, or what exactly the rules on when permits will or won’t be issue are," Ward writes. "The transparency promised by President Obama across government generally,  and by White House officials and regulatory agencies on mountaintop removal specifically, just isn’t there."

Environment
You're Not From Around This Watershed, Are You?
08/07/2009

Tim Collins, carrying on a family tradition, suggests that for long-term development, we must organize around our relationships to water and to the other communities, urban and rural, along those same waterways.

Environment | Food
Oklahoma Depends on Cherokee For Poultry Pollution Suit
07/27/2009

The Oklahoma Attorney General has sued Arkansas poultry companies for damages to the Illinois River. But a federal judge says he can't proceed without the Cherokee Nation as a plaintiff.

BioFuels and Energy | Environment
Is There an Anti-Rural Bias in Climate Bill?
07/17/2009

The House bill reduces advantages now held by midwestern utilities, says a utility executive. And an Iowa utility is running ads saying the climate bill will lead to higher electricity rates.

BioFuels and Energy | Environment
6,000-Mile Energy Corridor Through the West is Challenged
07/11/2009

Suit alleges 6,000-mile corridor would threaten wildlife and some of the West's most scenic lands, all while ignoring the push for renewable energy in the region.

BioFuels and Energy | Environment
Obama Nominates Mine Safety, Environment Officials
07/07/2009

The White House has named the two men who will be in charge of both the safety of coal miners and the environmental protection of coal mining regions. President Obama has nominated Joseph Main to serve as assistant secretary of labor in charge of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration and Joseph Pizarchik to be director of the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining. (Press releases from the White House and Interior Department are here.) 

Joe Main (above) makes most coal miners, safety advocates and the United Mine Workers of America happy. Main began working in the mines in 1967 in Pennsylvania. He became a mine safety advocate and specialist, eventually heading the UMWA safety office. "It's going to be frustrating having somebody with an agenda that is pro-union," said Bill Caylor, president of the Kentucky Coal Association. "We're not looking forward to it."

Pizarchik is a more neutral choice. The White House passed over those with a history of fighting coal strip mining, such as Kentucky attorney Joey Childers, to pick the director of the Pennsylvania Bureau of Mining and Reclamation. Those fighting mountaintop removal mining "worry that as a career government bureaucrat, Pizarchik might not push for an outright ban on the practice," according to one news report. There was an effort over the weekend by environmental groups to block Pizarchik's nomination. 

Ag and Trade | Cool Places | Environment
Praying for Rain, and More, in Dubina, Texas
07/06/2009

Your Yonder editors visited the church picnic in Dubina, Texas, Sunday. Dubina is in Fayette County, the heartland of Czech Texas and so there was lots of polka music and kolaches up for auction at the church fundraiser. 

We know the ground is too wet in parts of the Midwest, but here ranchers are suffering through a brutal drought. Central Texas has run out of categories for bad when it comes to a lack of rain. We went into Dubina's beautiful Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church (interior photo above) and found copies of a "Prayer For Rain" in every pew. It goes, in part, like this:

"We come now with You in our hearts, to pray for rain. We are firmly convinced that You, according to the measure of Your wisdom, goodness and love, have the omnipotent power to send us the rain we need. We ask this in humility, knowing Your great goodness. We also ask of You to guide us in the right path, to restrain us from evil, and to preserve us from misfortune of soul and body. We ask that we may be made worthy of Your great kindness in granting our request. We beg Your assistance, remembering Your words,'Ask and you shall receive.' Amen."

Daily Yonder | Keep It Rural
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