Category: RT Newswire

USE ME! Essentially, this is a catch all for everything. This is probably the ONLY category where things that are not directly related to Rising Tide affiliates/allies should go. For example if a coal company goes out of business (and we didn’t directly cause it) it should probably only go here.

Sinking Without a Trace: Australia’s Other Aboriginal Climate-Change Victims

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Published on Monday, May 5, 2008 by The Independent/UK
Sinking Without Trace: Australia’s Climate Change Victims

Like Kiribati and Tuvalu, the islands of the Torres Strait are slowly being submerged. But unlike their Pacific neighbours, the plight of their inhabitants is being overlooked.

Ron and Maria Passi, who operate Murray Island’s only taxi, were out driving the night the king tide struck. Neighbours flagged them down, asking for help, and so it was not until some time later that they saw their own grandchildren standing in the road. “They were shouting ‘Granddad, stop the car, the water is coming in the house’,” says Ron. “I just slammed on the brakes.”

The couple’s son, Sonny, was outside his fibro shack with his five children, watching the monster surf, lashed by north-west winds, rise ever higher. In the commotion, everyone had forgotten that Sedoi, the baby, was still inside. They heard her crying and found her in her cot, covered in sand. Water had surged in after a wave picked up a big wooden pallet and flung it through the front wall.

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Victory! BLM Withdraws Proposed Energy Leases in Southern Colorado

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Something to Celebrate!

BLM Withdraws Proposed Energy Leases in Southern Colorado
The Associated Press

Article Last Updated: 05/02/2008 04:45:41 PM MDT

DENVER—Federal officials are withdrawing most of the proposed oil and gas leases up for sale in a May 8th auction.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management said Friday that it will defer offering leases on 144,000 acres out of the original 175,430 acres. The parcels withdrawn are in the Rio National Grande Forest in southern Colorado.

BLM officials say the parcels could be auctioned later. They’ll go over the analysis of the sites with the Forest Service

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China Logs, Mines, and Farms the World

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International Herald Tribune

China farms the world to feed a ravenous economy

The Associated Press
Sunday, May 4, 2008
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/04/asia/AS-FEA-GEN-China-Farming-the-World.php

CHALEUNSOUK, Laos: The rice fields that blanketed
this remote mountain village for generations are
gone. In their place rise neat rows of young
rubber trees – their sap destined for China.

All 60 families in this dirt-poor, mud-caked
village of gaunt men and hunched women are now
growing rubber, like thousands of others across
the rugged mountains of northern Laos. They hope
in coming years to reap huge profits from the
tremendous demand for rubber just across the
frontier in China.

As Beijing scrambles to feed its galloping
economy, it has already scoured the world for
mining and logging concessions. Now it is turning
to crops to feed its people and industries.
Chinese enterprises are snapping up vast tracts
of land abroad and forging contract farming deals.

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Climate Change and Global Food Production

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Farmers face climate challenge in quest for more food
Sun May 4, 2008 4:10am EDT  By David Fogarty

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – If farmers think they have a tough time producing enough rice, wheat and other grain crops, global warming is going to present a whole new world of challenges in the race to produce more food, scientists say.

In a warmer world beset by greater extremes of droughts and floods, farmers will have to change crop management practices, grow tougher plant varieties and be prepared for constant change in the way they operate, scientists say.

“There certainly are going to be lots of challenges in the future. Temperature is one of them, water is another,” said Lisa Ainsworth, a molecular biologist with the United States Department of Agriculture.

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