Megadrought forces end to sugarcane farming in parched Texas borderland

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By Lela Nargi, The Guardian. 

Excerpt: ...In February, the [Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers] cooperative announced that it would close its 50-year-old sugarcane processing mill, the last remaining in the state, by the end of this spring. ...Ongoing megadrought meant there wasn’t enough water to irrigate co-op members’ 34,000 acres of sugarcane, and that effectively puts an end to sugarcane farming in the south Texas borderlands. ...In 2022, drought decimated Texas cotton and forced California growers to idle half their rice fields. Water disputes are also on the rise as decreased flows in the Colorado River and other vital waterways pit state against state, states against native nations and farmers against municipalities.... 

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2024 was the hottest year on record, breaching a critical climate goal and capping 10 years of unprecedented heat

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By Laura Paddison , CNN.  Excerpt: It’s official: 2024 was the hottest year on record, breaking the  previous record  set in 2023 and pushing the world over a critical climate threshold, according to new data from Europe’s climate monitoring agency Copernicus [ https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-2024-first-year-exceed-15degc-above-pre-industrial-level ]. Last year was 1.6 degrees hotter than the period before humans began burning large amounts of fossil fuels, Copernicus found. It makes 2024 the first calendar year to breach  the 1.5-degree limit  countries agreed to avoid under the Paris climate agreement in 2015. Scientists are much more concerned about breaches over decades, rather than single years — as above that threshold humans and ecosystems may struggle to adapt — but 2024’s   record   “does mean we’re getting dangerously close,” said Joeri Rogelj, a climate professor at Imperial College London....  Full article at https://www.cnn.c...
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How will China impact the future of climate change? You might be surprised

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