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Thirty-Six U.S. States to Face Water Shortages in the Next Five Years PDF E-mail
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(NaturalNews) At least 36 states are expected to face water shortages within the next five years, according to U.S. government estimates. Available freshwater supplies are dwindling across the country due to rising temperatures and droughts, while increasing sprawl, population and inefficient resource usage are leading to rising demand.

"Is it a crisis? If we don't do some decent water planning, it could be," said Jack Hoffbuhr, executive director of the American Water Works Association. Rising temperatures due to global warming have increased evaporation rates across the country and reduced the availability of important water sources. One of these is the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which supplies a significant portion of California's water. Across the West, similar trends are expected to reduce flows of the Colorado River, which supplies water for seven states.

Meanwhile, rising sea levels are expected to cause saltwater to infiltrate freshwater aquifers in coastal states, rendering that water unusable.

California uses about 23 trillion gallons of fresh water per year. The United States as a whole uses more than 148 trillion gallons for all purposes, including agriculture, manufacturing and other uses.

Other threatened regions include the Midwest, where the Great Lakes are shrinking, and upstate New York, where reservoir levels have fallen to record lows. Georgia's crisis has already arrived, and Florida's is expected to hit soon.

While Florida has no shortage of rainfall, widespread draining and paving of the region's natural wetlands has left the water unable to drain back into the soil. As a consequence, the state is forced to flush millions of gallons of water into the ocean per year to avert floods. The state's environmental chief, Michael Sole, has asked the Florida legislature to increase the use of reclaimed wastewater. Other states are encouraging measures such as desalinization, but it is widely accepted that conservation is the cheapest alternative.

Even with such measures, the forecast is not expected to improve. "Unfortunately, there's just not going to be any more cheap water," said Randy Brown, utilities director for Pompano Beach, Fla.

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From  Natural News    March 31, 2008

By  David Gutierrez    
 
Wall Street brokerages borrowing $38.1 billion a day from Federal Reserve PDF E-mail
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WASHINGTON -- Big Wall Street investment companies are stepping up their borrowing a bit from the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented emergency lending program.

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The Federal Reserve reports Thursday that those firms averaged $38.1 billion in daily borrowing over the past week from the new lending program. That compared with $32.9 billion in the previous week and $13.4 billion in the first week the lending facility opened.

The program, which began on March 17, is part of the Fed’s effort to aid the financial system.

The Fed, for the first time, agreed to let big investment houses temporarily get emergency loans directly from the central bank. This mechanism, similar to one available for commercial banks for years, will continue for at least six months. It was the broadest use of the Fed’s lending authority since the 1930s.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues opened the facility as it raced to deal with the sudden crash of the venerable Wall Street firm Bear Stearns, which was on the brink of bankruptcy. Fearful that other investment firms could be in jeopardy given the intense fear that gripped the markets at that time, the Fed moved to give investment firms a place to go for overnight cash loans.

The lending facility is seen as similar to the Fed’s “discount window” for commercial banks, where the Fed acts as a lender of last resort. Commercial banks and investment companies pay 2.5 percent in interest for overnight loans from the Fed.

Banks also stepped up their borrowing from the Fed’s discount window. Banks averaged $7 billion in daily borrowing for the week ending April 2. That compared with $550 million the previous week.


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By  JEANNINE AVERSA

From  Associated Press (freep.com)  April 3, 2008

 

 


 
 
Market supplied with enough oil, OPEC official says PDF E-mail
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TEHRAN (Reuters) - The market is supplied with enough oil and OPEC is not under pressure to raise output, the organization's secretary general was quoted as saying on Saturday during a visit to Iran.

"Oil supply to the market is enough and high oil prices are not due to a shortage of crude but rather it is because of the decrease in the dollar's value, shortage of refinery capacity and some political tensions in the world," OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri was quoted as saying by Iran's official IRNA news agency.

(Reporting by Hossein Jaseb and Zahra Hosseinian; Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Sami Aboudi)


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From  Reuters     April 5, 2008
 
Rush to restrict trade in basic foods PDF E-mail
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Governments across the developing world are scrambling to boost farm imports and restrict exports in an attempt to forestall rising food prices and social unrest.
Saudi Arabia cut import taxes across a range of food products on Tuesday, slashing its wheat tariff from 25 per cent to zero and reducing tariffs on poultry, dairy produce and vegetable oils.
On Monday, India scrapped tariffs on edible oil and maize and banned exports of all rice except the high-value basmati variety, while Vietnam, the world’s third biggest rice exporter, said it would cut rice exports by 11 per cent this year.
The moves mark a rapid shift away from protecting farmers, who are generally the beneficiaries of food import tariffs, towards cushioning consumers from food shortages and rising prices.
But economists warned that such actions risked provoking an upward spiral in global food prices, which have already been pushed higher by rising demand from emerging markets like China and India and pressure on land from the growing production of bio-fuels.
“There are so many speculators in the market that when something happens to affect supply, there is an immediate reaction,” said Paul Braks, commodities analyst at Rabobank, one of the largest agribusiness lenders.
“Markets are very tight, and when you see net exporters imposing these export restrictions to stabilise domestic food prices, it makes the market nervous.”
Mr Braks said volatility in food prices had been exacerbated by problems in financial markets. “The credit crunch has pushed a lot of investors into commodities as a safe haven,” he said. “If they get their fingers burned, they are likely to withdraw.”
Kamal Nath, Indian trade minister, said food shortages were becoming one of the most pressing trade issues. “It is ... probably our number one problem,” he said. “World food stocks have never been lower.”
India, which became self-sufficient in food in the 1970s, has imported substantial quantities of wheat and other staple foods over two years in response to shortages and higher prices.
Mr Braks said that even highly productive exporters such as Ukraine were imposing export restrictions on wheat, though a good harvest in the autumn should see more grain being released on to the world market.
In the medium term, high prices should encourage more land to come into production, particularly in Ukraine and Russia. “World grain prices are likely to be high and volatile over the next two crop years, and then from 2010 the supply response should start to bring prices slowly down,” he said.
Disputes over sharing the costs and benefits of higher food prices have shot up the political agenda in many developing countries as sharp reductions in purchasingpower, particularly for the urban poor, have put increasing pressure on governments.
Global rice prices have risen by a third since the turn of the year, and higher soyabean costs have sparked protests in countries such as Indonesia.
In Argentina, farmers have protested against attempts by the government of Cristina Fernández to redistribute the benefits of rising commodity prices by increasing export taxes on soyabeans and other crops. In the Philippines, government investigators have raided warehouses suspected of hoarding rice.


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From  www.ft.com (FINANCIAL TIMES)    April 1, 2008

By  Alan Beattie in London
 
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