So here it goes with the whole rafdt of shit these fucking lying Zionist stink fucks sent us today:
"Hurricanes Katrina, Rita caused record forestry disaster"
"New satellite imaging has revealed that Hurricanes Katrina and Rita produced the largest single forestry disaster on record in America - an essentially unreported ecological catastrophe that killed or severely damaged some 320 million trees in Mississippi and Louisiana.
The die-off, caused initially by wind and later by the weeks-long pooling of stagnant water, was so massive that researchers say it will add significantly to the greenhouse gas buildup - ultimately putting as much carbon from dying vegetation into the air as the rest of the American forest takes out in a year of photosynthesis.
In addition, the downing of so many trees has opened vast and sometimes fragile tracts of land to several aggressive and fast-growing exotic species that are already squeezing out far more environmentally productive native species.
Efforts to limit the damage have been handicapped by the ineffectiveness of a $504 million federal program for Gulf Coast land owners to replant and fight the invasive species. Only about $70 million has been processed or dispensed so far. Local advocates blame onerous bureaucratic hurdles and low compensation rates.
James Cummins, executive director of the nonprofit environmental group Wildlife Mississippi and a board member of the Mississippi Forestry Commission:
"This is the worst environmental disaster in the United States since the Exxon Valdez accident . . . and the greatest forest destruction in modern times. It needs a really broad and aggressive response, and so far that just hasn't happened."
The US Forest Service and Farm Service Agency estimated the forest damage from the two 2005 hurricanes, but they have generally focused on economic losses: $2 billion, or 5.5 billion board feet worth of timber.
The assessment of trees killed or severely damaged comes from a study to be released today in the journal Science, written primarily by researchers at Tulane University in New Orleans who studied images from two NASA satellites.
Lead author Jeffrey Chambers said the team used a before-and-after method perfected by researchers who study logging in the
Chambers said of the 320 million trees harmed about two-thirds soon died:
"I was amazed at the quantitative impact of the storm. I certainly didn't expect that big an impact."
Chambers was even more surprised when his team calculated the amount of carbon that will be released into the atmosphere as the trees and other storm-damaged vegetation decomposes. The total came to about 1.1 billiontons, which is equal to the amount of carbon that all the trees in the United States capture from the atmosphere in a year.
Larry Payne, director for cooperative forestry for the Forest Service, said the congressional effort to begin restoring the forest was largely aimed at helping out those small landowners, who often used their timber land as a bank account."
Where's Bush been, as that small landowners "bank account" is NOW EMPTY because of this fucker's negligence and indifference!
All 'cause he had to PAY FOR THE FUCKING WARS!!!!!!!!!
"GULFPORT, Miss., Nov. 14 — Like the other Gulf Coast states battered by Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi was required by Congress to spend half of its billions in federal grant money to help low-income citizens trying to recover from the storm.
But so far, the state has spent $1.7 billion in federal money on programs that have mostly benefited relatively affluent residents and big businesses. The money has gone to compensate many middle- and upper-income homeowners, to aid utility companies whose equipment was damaged and to prop up the state’s insurance system.
Just $167 million, or about 10 percent of the federal money, has been spent on programs dedicated to helping the poor, mostly through a smaller grant program for lower-income homeowners.
The main interest of state leaders in spending community development dollars is to help big businesses like shipbuilders and casinos and the port.
The state’s spending plan “moves business to the forefront and forgets about the people on the ground,” said Anthony Thompson, pastor at Tabernacle of Faith Ministries, whose spotless church (rebuilt by volunteers) is next to a moldering subsidized housing project that he says has not been touched since the storm."
Two-thirds of Mississippi’s block grants have not yet been spent. In fact, few of the coastal states have spent much of their grant money, with the exception of Louisiana, which has already used almost half of its original allotment and just received an additional $3 billion for its home-rebuilding program."So who stole all the money, readers?
Taxpayers are being fucking looted, and no one cares!
"Amid Drought, a Georgian Consumes a Niagara" by BRENDA GOODMAN
ATLANTA, Nov. 14 — A day after Gov. Sonny Perdue asked God to forgive Georgia for being wasteful with its water, county officials in the wealthy suburbs northeast of Atlanta confirmed Wednesday just how profligate one consumer had been.
A homeowner in Marietta, Ga., used 440,000 gallons in September, or about 14,700 gallons a day. By comparison, the average consumption in the United States is about 150 gallons a day per person, and in the Atlanta metropolitan area about 183 gallons.
Month after month during a record-setting drought, the two-story, five-bedroom home owned by that consumer, Chris G. Carlos, a wealthy investor who is a member of one of Atlanta’s most well known and philanthropic families, has topped Cobb County’s list of residential users.
Robert Quigley, a spokesman for the Cobb County Water System, said Mr. Carlos had used an average of 260,000 gallons of water a month for the last year, about twice as much as the consumer next-highest on the county’s list. Mr. Carlos has apparently been using the water not only to flush nine toilets and maintain a swimming pool but also to refresh nearly four acres of lush landscaping around his white-columned, red brick home.
When his consumption figures were disclosed this week by WSB-TV in Atlanta, there was an immediate outcry from other homeowners, thousands of whom have been trying to conserve in the face of a drought that is draining the region’s reservoirs. Many are following state suggestions to reuse bath water to feed plants, or to flush toilets a bit less often.
A woman who answered the phone for the Cobb County Water System:
“We’ve had a lot of people calling to gripe about this particular man. He’s not real popular right now.”
The furor led Mr. Carlos to refer all inquiries to a public relations specialist, Joseph M. A. Ledlie, who said Wednesday that Mr. Carlos had only recently become aware of the severity of the water crisis and was now taking steps to conserve.
Mr. Ledlie said his client had cut water use by 73 percent from September to October and had vowed to work with water experts to cut it still further. Indeed, Mr. Quigley, the water system’s spokesman, said that for the last six days, Mr. Carlos had used an average of 2,000 gallons a day, which, at a rate of 60,000 gallons a month, is about 10 times the average for a Cobb County household but quite a reduction for Mr. Carlos.
In a written statement, Mr. Carlos himself, whose monthly water bills during the last year have averaged about $1,200 a month, said Wednesday;
“I honestly didn’t realize the extent of my water use and regret I didn’t act sooner.”
You know, until these asshole elite start modifying THEIR BEHAVIOR, I ain't buyin' the environmental "crises" that is going to fucking tax me and shove my standard of living down.
Fuck you guys and your shit solutions on the "environment."
The problem you fucking saviors created, of course!
SO FUCK YOU, I'm gonna go start the car!
For months, with the Southeast struggling through the worst drought it has endured in 100 years, governors from North Carolina to Alabama have called on residents and businesses to cut their water use. On Tuesday, Governor Perdue led several hundred people at the State Capitol here in a prayer for rain.
Many fellow homeowners say they do not see how Mr. Carlos could have missed news of the drought. But while he seems to have run afoul of public opinion, Mr. Quigley is quick to point out that he has broken no laws. An exception to mandatory restrictions that Cobb County has adopted on outdoor water use allows licensed professional landscapers to water new plantings for 15 days after installation.
Mr. Quigley: “We understand that Mr. Carlos had engaged full-time landscaping services [in which planting was occurring continuously, in exploitation of the loophole]."
Legal or not, that does not please his neighbors.
Ken L. Scott, who lives across the street from Mr. Carlos:
“With the water crisis that we’re in down here, I just think it’s ridiculous that he would take advantage of the situation. It’s tragic for everybody down here, because if you look at the lakes, they’re bone dry.”
The drought has already taken a severe toll on the region, economic and otherwise.
Since August, the town of Orme, Tenn., which has run out of water completely, has had to use an old fire truck to ferry about 20,000 gallons of water a day from nearby Alabama.
Last month, in the face of a mandatory 50 percent reduction in water use, chicken processors in North Carolina began trucking in water to run their operations.
A survey in the Atlanta area found that businesses that depended on outdoor planting and watering had laid off almost 14,000 workers in the last six months, and that number is expected to double before the end of the year, said Mary Kay Woodworth, executive director of the Metro Atlanta Landscape and Turf Association.
And on Wednesday, Pike Nursery, which runs a chain of 22 gardening stores in Georgia, North Carolina and Alabama, filed for bankruptcy in an Atlanta court, blaming the water shortage."
Business finally getting hurt, huh? Then it's a problem.
And look at them MSM build up the scapegoating syndrome with this guy.
Like they want to get him lynched!
Fuck off, Zio-press!
At least it finally rained, huh?
ATLANTA - A storm crashed through the Southeast and dumped up to an inch of rain on parts of drought-stricken Georgia, but forecasters said the storm probably did little to ease the state's historic drought. The rain late Wednesday and early yesterday brought some precipitation to parched northern Georgia (AP)."
