Free Republic

A judge awarded more than $4.2 million to a late Nevada rancher's estate after finding that the U.S. Forest Service engaged in an unconstitutional "taking" of water rights out of hostility to the rancher, a property rights activist. The decision ... involved the Fifth Amendment clause against private property being taken for public use without just compensation. The rancher, Wayne Hage, bought the sprawling Pine Creek Ranch in central Nevada in 1978. the taking occurred when the Forest Service made it impossible for Hage to maintain irrigation ditches, which deprived the ranch of water and made it unviable. The government...

As Congress begins to tackle the causes and cures of global warming, the action focuses on gas-guzzling vehicles and coal-fired power plants, not on lowly bovines. Yet livestock are a major emitter of greenhouse gases that cause climate change. And as meat becomes a growing mainstay of human diet around the world, changing what we eat may prove as hard as changing what we drive. It's not just the well-known and frequently joked-about flatulence and manure of grass-chewing cattle that's the problem, according to a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Land-use changes,...

Rome (dpa) - Farm animal manure produces more greenhouse gas emissions than cars. The surprise finding is the result of a report published Wednesday by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). According to the UN agency's Livestock's Long Shadow -Environmental Issues and Options report, the global livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent 18 per cent than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation. ``Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems. Urgent action is required to remedy the situation,'' said Henning Steinfeld, head...