Excerpt: "Am I just a slow person, or doesn't knowing what causes something actually help you prevent that thing's happening again, or at least, doesn't it help you prepare yourself better for when it does? I begin to wonder if climate change is going to be one of those issues like gun-control where well-financed paranoia and heavily subsidized ignorance wear the political process down to the point at which people simply give up trying to fight them."
Failed US corn crop. (photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The Drought - A Slow-Motion Meteorological Catastrophe
27 July 12
he ongoing drought in the United States is one of the most consequential — and underreported — stories of the past five years. It affects almost every aspect of human life, from food and water to public safety, as cash-strapped states and cities and towns try to deal with massive wildfires, and the conditions are almost assuredly a result of, and exacerbated by, the global climate crisis the existence of which one entire half of our political spectrum is dedicated to denying. And there are new stories every day, and every one of them is worse than the one before.
Today, for example, we find that the percentage of the country suffering under the worst drought conditions rose seven percent just in the past week. And it's not just farm country that's being slowly desiccated:
States posting dramatic increases in just the last week included Illinois, which went from 8 percent in extreme/exceptional drought to 70 percent, and Nebraska, which went from 5 percent to 64 percent. In Illinois, the drought is impacting water supplies in towns like Pontiac. "The Vermillion River does not have enough flow for us to use it as our primary source of water," one field observer reported Wednesday to the Drought Mitigation Center. "We have had to switch to a secondary source of water, located in a reservoir a few miles outside of town ... A 'dirt' like smell and taste is being noted ... We NEED rain, very soon."
In Oklahoma, farmers are trying to keep alive herds of cattle that they can't sell. A third of Arkansas is under what is called "extraordinary drought" conditions. A friend down there reports:
The drought here is far worse than last year. We had some rain two weeks ago. The pastures got green again for a week. Now they're dying again. Oak trees are dying up on the ridge. It's very depressing. Really takes the pleasure out of country living, to be honest. Old timers say they've never seen anything this bad. Oddly, it's not costing me much, as the money I'm spending on hay I'm not spending on mowing.
This is a slow-motion meteorlogical catastrophe, the functional equivalent of a series of simultaneous tornadoes or hurricanes, but heat and drought are so general that they don't register as disasters the way other weather events do. Its ecological effects are more lasting, however, and its financial impact ripples through the entire American economy. Meanwhile, as the land gasps from thirst, the national infrastructure of our public water supply has been deteriorating for years, and people have been warning about what a wreck it is for going on a decade now.
And what is the public response? The Washington Post decides to slap the greedy farmers around. And, on the other hand, the Congress, which is chockful of climate-change denialists and people who thump their tubs for "small government" until the wildfires start surrounding their vacation homes, is using the drought to play shenanigans with a farm bill that it can't seem to pass. Whatever they're doing, they're not listening to the administration, that's for sure. Which isn't entirely a bad thing, because the administration doesn't seem to know what in the hell is going on, either.
STOLBERG: Could you talk a little bit about the drought itself? Is it very unusual? Did anyone see it coming? Is it from climate change? Is there anything you can do to prepare?
VILSACK: I'm not a scientist so I'm not going to opine as to the cause of this. All we know is that right now there are a lot of farmers and ranchers who are struggling. And it's important and necessary for them to know, rather than trying to focus on what's causing this, what can we do to help them.
My God, what in the hell does that mean? Am I just a slow person, or doesn't knowing what causes something actually help you prevent that thing's happening again, or at least, doesn't it help you prepare yourself better for when it does? I begin to wonder if climate change is going to be one of those issues like gun-control where well-financed paranoia and heavily subsidized ignorance wear the political process down to the point at which people simply give up trying to fight them.
And then we all die of thirst.
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No subsidies for fossil free energy would be needed, since they could about double their selling price of energy.
A myriad jobs would be created as we replaced our moribund fossil dependent infrastructure. ... It is simple really!
How about the German solution, where the government would lend money to homeowners and businesses for solar panels. Excess energy is sold back to the grid at triple the wholesale price until the loan is paid off.
I begin to wonder if climate change is going to be one of those issues like gun-control where well-financed paranoia and heavily subsidized ignorance wear the political process down to the point at which people simply give up trying to fight them.
Answer: Yes. Put it on TV and repeat it enough and it becomes fact. Rove and his ilk learned that a long time ago. Down is up.
Lester Brown (Earthwatch) predicted just what's happening now a couple years ago. Nobody paid attention then. Hardly anybody is paying attention now.
To all the GOP leaning climate crisis deniers out there; she is a "person," she is an "energy voter" and she is pissed.
California didn't outlaw landslides and unstable soil, but they did corrupt the process that would have identified the almost guaranteed occurrence of it to allow unscrupulous developers to profit from the construction that never should have been approved.
Criminal? I think so, but still not as outright stupid as blatantly legislating deliberate general public ignorance of the most likely future damage.
Some of the people who comment believe that this is the result of climate change due to use of fossil fuels.
The article implies that the problem is due (in part?) to a failure to maintain the water distribution system.
The politicians are saying that they hear that farmers are in financial trouble due to the lack of water. They say they want to "help".
Some of those who comment believe that government does not want to help most people due to having other motives such as profit to selected people or desire to maintain power.
I am thinking about what can be done to solve the water problem.
Maintaining the water distribution system might
1) allow more variations of moving water from one place to another
2) refine how we process the water before and after it is used or
3) reduce the amount of water that is lost through leaking and evaporation.
Do we know whose responsibility it is to maintain the water distribution system? If government, what level of government?
more...
Can we put forward a convincing argument that repairing the water distribution system will solve the problem? If water is not available anywhere, then building pipes will not help. Even if the water is available, moving it will mean less available from where it came from. It may also impact the environment or shipping.
While it may or may not be true that global warming causes drought, reducing carbon footprint, if we do it, will not improve matters quickly. That does not mean preventing global warming would be a bad idea, but I do not expect it would solve the problem in the time scale that the farmers require.
I wish that making power from growing industrial hemp was an acceptable solution to the carbon impact question, but this does not seem to be a popular idea in America. I cannot prove that it would be a practical idea, even if it were legal. Hemp would also need water. I guess we could grow hemp in parts of America that have enough water.
While stopping the war-making could improve America's reputation and the financial situation of America's government, and might be a good idea for moral reasons, I do not expect that war-making directly has anything to do with the drought, unless you think less war would allow more to be spent on water distribution, but that is a long stretch. The amounts of money are on difference scales.
Just kill off most of the humans on earth.
It's ridiculously easy for America to do--we have more arms than anyone else. You don't need nukes--carpet bombing will take out most excess population centers, and intramural strife will take care of most of the rest. Let the elites sit it out in the well-stocked salt caverns, or on isolated tropic isles that they own anyway, and they can emerge and own it all. I really believe that this is the only long-term plan in existence.
And the elites who survive? whom will they exploit when all the cheap labor is gone? I guess they too will die off quickly since they can't possibly survive without air conditioning, their martini drinks and that whiff of coke.
Brought up in a regime of instant-gratifi cation of any and all wants, they cannot conceive that at some point, and with certain finality, without a healthy planet (much less a healthy and happy workforce) those "pipelines" will empty, and sooner than they could possibly imagine.
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