Barak Obama

Obama says agriculture adds to, suffers from climate change

In his first foreign speech since leaving office, former President Obama said agriculture is the second-largest source of greenhouse gases and it is feeling the effect of global warming. "We've already seen shrinking yields and rising food prices," Obama said at the Seeds and Chips conference in Milan, according to the New York Times.

Rural and urban vote becomes more polarized

The split in Republican and Democratic support in U.S. cities versus rural America widened as Donald Trump won the presidency, says the Daily Yonder. Trump garnered 66 percent of the vote in rural counties, up by five points from fellow Republican Mitt Romney in 2012, while Democrat Hillary Clinton got a much smaller share of the rural vote, 29 percent, than President Obama's 38 percent in his 2012 re-election.

With Trump in office, will China become world’s hope for confronting climate change?

Under a Trump administration, China could become the world champion for climate change reform, says Reuters: “China worked closely with the administration of outgoing President Barack Obama to build momentum ahead of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. The partnership of the two biggest greenhouse gas emitters helped get nearly 200 countries to support the pact at the historic meet in France's capital.”