Agriculture

"A federal court [Friday] rejected U.S. EPA's justification for reducing renewable fuel requirements in a win for the biofuels industry."

"There is a man among us who talks to the bees. They spoke recently on a warm Sunday morning in my driveway. Nick Wigle was standing with his hands on his hips, squinting down at a small gas-meter vault packed with 3,000 stinging residents. “All right, guys,” he said. “We’re going to take this nice and easy.” The hive buzzed back, its low tone telegraphing the gentleness unique to Santa Barbara's bees."

"In the summer of 2010, Russia faced a severe drought, a heat wave and a series of catastrophic wildfires, destroying a third of the country’s wheat harvest. Half a year later, the Arab Spring began."

"President Trump on Wednesday nominated Sam Clovis, a former college professor and talk radio host who has challenged the scientific consensus that human activity has been the primary driver of climate change, to serve in the Agriculture Department’s top scientific post."

"A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday denied a petition by environmental groups to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ban the agricultural pesticide chlorpyrifos, ending one of three parallel attempts to bring about the ban, court filings show."

"Way up in northern North Dakota lies an old oilfield with a problem 60 years in the making."

"This year's bloom is predicted by NOAA to be much larger than average - just under the size of the 2014 bloom that left 500,000 without drinking water".

"The forecast for western Lake Erie for later this summer into fall?: Green and mucky.

The algae blooms that have plagued the lake in recent years are expected to be worse than normal this year, well above the size at which they can potentially become harmful to aquatic life and even humans, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasters announced Thursday.