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Increasingly erratic rainfall patterns related to climate change pose a major threat to food security and economic growth, water experts said on Monday, arguing for greater investment in water storage. In a report by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), experts said Africa and Asia were likely to be hardest hit by unpredictable rainfall, and urged policymakers and farmers to try to find ways of diversifying sources of water. The IWMI research estimates that up to 499 million people in Africa and India could benefit from improved agricultural water management. read more »

Sunny Delight Beverages Company’s recently released 2009 Sustainability Report outlines the company’s accomplishments over the past year, the most significant being the achievement of their Zero Waste to Landfill Goal by all U.S. and Spanish manufacturing plants more than 3 years ahead of schedule. The zero waste goals were achieved at Sunny’s Anaheim, Mataro and Littleton plants in 2009, 4 years ahead of the company’s 2013 goals. read more »

At least 18 people were killed in Guatemala on Saturday, including a dozen on a bus that was buried in a landslide, as heavy rains lashed the Central American nation and southern Mexico. A dozen people died when the bus they were traveling on was suddenly engulfed by mud around 8 a.m. on the Inter-American highway 50 miles outside of the Guatemalan capital, emergency workers said. Another six people were killed in separate incidents, Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom told reporters. read more »

The United States reiterated on Friday that it was committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 even though the Senate has failed to pass legislation. "I am in no sense writing off legislation over time. And I'm quite sure the president isn't," U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern told a news conference during two days of talks in Geneva among about 45 nations reviewing climate finance. read more »

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) today reopened to commercial and recreational fishing 5,130 square miles of Gulf waters stretching from the far eastern coast of Louisiana, through Mississippi, Alabama, and the western Florida panhandle. The Mariner Energy oil platform just had an explosion is about 250 miles from today's reopening. The fire on a Mariner Energy Inc. oil and natural-gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico has been extinguished in an event that may prolong the U.S. drilling moratorium imposed after BP's record crude spill. read more »

A reinterpretation of the fossil record suggests a new answer to one of evolution's existential questions: whether global mass extinctions are just short-term diversions in life's preordained course, or send life careening down wholly new paths. Some scientists have suggested the former. But according to the calculations of Macquarie University paleobiologist John Alroy, that's just not the case. read more »

Every state government has their own agency for the protection of the environment which they operate in conjunction with federal laws and statutes. When those state laws do not match up with their federal counterparts, the potential for conflicts increase. A recent example of this is the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality's (TCEQ) clean-air permitting program. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has declared that certain aspects do not meet federal Clean Air Act requirements. read more »