Drought-stricken NSW farmers offered water from public pool as national talks begin in Canberra

In a town in New South Wales, the drought has become so desperate that farmers are turning to their new local swimming pool for water supply.

In a town in New South Wales, the drought has become 

 so desperate that farmers are turning to their new local

swimming pool for water supply.

The eight lane outdoor pool is still being built, and was filled with water last week while it was tested for leaks.

Gunnedah Mayor James Chaffey said he did not want that water to go to waste.

"There's more than two megalitres of water that is non-potable, water that is now becoming available," he said.

"We don't want to pump that down the drain.”

Today the council will offer the water — which is not for human consumption — free to anyone who needs it.

Read the story by Anna Henderson from ABC News - “Drought-stricken NSW farmers offered water from public pool as national talks begin in Canberra.”

See everything bad about climate change in a swingle Californian town

MONTECITO IS COMING back to life this morning. The 9,000 person town to the east of Santa Barbara has been empty since Tuesday, when mandatory evacuations forced residents out of their homes for the fifth time in four months.

Rain continues to fall on the flood-damaged area in
Montecito, CA where many residents have evacuated.

This week it was a channel of tropical moisture called the Pineapple Express, dumping bands of intense rain and triggering flash floods throughout Southern California. In January it was a once-in-a-200-year storm that dropped half an inch of water in five minutes, unleashing massive mudslides that ripped houses from their foundations and killed 27. In December it was the deadly Thomas Fire that incinerated 280,000 acres—the largest wildfire in California history.

To some, Montecito might just seem like a town hit by a string of superlatively bad luck. But to people crunching the numbers it looks less like an outlier and more like an inevitability of climate change. If you want to see what California looks like in the future, you don’t need a crystal ball. You just need to hop on the 101 and drive until you hit Montecito.

Read Megan Molteni”s Wired story - “See everything bad about climate change in a swingle Californian town.”

How a small town reclaimed its grid and sparked a community revolution

Martin Rühl never imagined this fight would define the rest of his life. Not for a moment did he reckon it would become so epic in length, in scale, in consequences. He just thought his speck of a town should run its own electricity supply.

Wolfhagen, a somnolent town whose biggest previous claim to
fame was that one of the Brothers Grimm had  swtayed there.

A modest proposal, but in the Germany of 2003 it was highly unusual. Gerhard Schröder was still chancellor and, although a social democrat, was pushing through more privatisations of public assets than any other leader in German history. This was in a Europe that had learned from Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan to stop worrying and start loving the private sector. Now here, swimming against history’s current, was one orderly, slightly anxious engineer.

Read the story by Aditya Chakrabortty on The Guardian - “How a small town reclaimed its grid and sparked a community revolution.”

Developer wants to build a town where no one will need to drive

A brand-new town is going green from the ground up.

Brand new town going green from the ground up.

Kitson: “Our goal has been to create the most sustainable new town in America.”

Twelve years ago, developer Syd Kitson bought a Florida ranch about five times the size of Manhattan. He sold most of it to the state as a wildlife preserve. He’s using a portion of the rest to build Babcock Ranch, an entire town with restaurants, stores, a school, and 20,000 homes. The first residents will move in this winter.

The town includes rain gardens, an irrigation system that uses recycled water, fifty miles of trails, and a huge solar farm that will meet the town’s daytime energy needs.

Read the Yale Climate Connections story - “Developer wants to build a town where no one will need to drive.”

Bozeman monthly luncheon group airs differences on climate

The letters to the editor in Montana’s Bozeman Daily Chronicle are probably similar to those in other small-town newspapers. People worry about the growth of the town, complain about dog poop, and debate the politics du jour.

This past January, when Quresh Latif wrote a letter defending climate science, the online comments devolved into the usual tit-for-tat vitriol. But unlike the relative anonymity of social media commenters, these came from his neighbors. Dismayed by the unproductive toxicity, Latif sought a better way to exchange ideas.

“I have pretty strong emotions on this topic,” says Latif, an ecologist and father of two young girls. “I have difficulty meeting my own ideals when talking to skeptics of mainstream science.” Like many other Americans, Latif is troubled by our society’s deepening polarization. “After Trump got elected, I felt like I needed to make a concerted effort to practice conversation with people who are outside my bubble.”

Read Karen Kirk’s story on Yale Climate Connections - “Bozeman monthly luncheon group airs differences on climate.”

Summer is not here yet, and already the records tumble

Summer has not yet even arrived and already Australian towns are setting heat-based records.

The Melbourne Age has reported that the outback Queensland town of Longreach has set a record, with the temperature topping 40 degrees on 10 consecutive November days for the first time in the region.

It discusses this record-breaking rush of hot days in a story headed: “Longreach tops 40 for 10 days in a row - and there's more to come”.