Widespread Drought And Water Shortages
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-07-18/widespread-drought-and-water-shortages
The U.S. is experiencing its most widespread drought in more than fifty years. In its monthly report, the National Climatic Data Center reported more than half the country was in moderate to extreme drought at the end of June. Farmers are losing crops and pastures at alarming rates, especially in the nation’s corn and soybean belt. The Department of Agriculture declared a thousand counties in twenty-six states as natural disaster areas. Many fear the drought will get worse before it gets better. What this could mean for food costs, the nation’s water supplies and weather patterns across the globe.
Guests
Raghu Murtugudde
professor from the University of Maryland.
Coral Davenport
energy and environment correspondent for National Journal.
Brian Fuchs
climatologist at the National Drought Mitigation Center.
Joseph Glauber
Chief Economist at the Department of Agriculture.
Alan Bjerga
agricultural reporter for Bloomberg News.
Comments
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Why don't we just call it a republican war on bugs, there are definitely a lot less bugs out there.
I live in a small midwestern farm community. I am familiar with the area of the picture and see the ravages of drought all over my state. America's breadbasket. The corn crop is extremely bad. Since just about everything has some form of corn in it, farm animal feed for hogs and cattle, which effects your meat and/or milk, gas for those who use ethanol, and food, whole food, snack foods, juices, etc. are going to be extremely expensive. We are already seeing the impact of the drought in these areas. Many counties and cities are implementing water emergency laws. The general public is woefully ignorant of how to properly use and conserve water. Let's face it, there's no reason to let the sprinkler run at 2 in the afternoon just to keep your lawn green. It's grass - it will grow back. We take our resources for granted.
Water, the oil of the 22nd century, will increasingly become scarce. The time to prepare is now if we can ever get over our national myopia of shortsightedness and single bottom line mentality.
I have a small farm in southern Michigan and at this point our hay field is dried and done for the year. We were able to get one decent cutting of hay. That is not enough to feed our animals for the year. With everyone in the same boat I think alot of farms are going to be closing out this year. Cost of hay will be very high if you can even find anyone with enough to sell.
From Cedar Park Tx.
The mega-church in our neighborhood has drilled 3 wells on their property. These wells go into our aquifer. They put up signs around the property letting people know that their watering system is supplied by wells, as if this is something good. It just seems wrong to me that a company or person can freely dip into the aquifer.
The reporter from North Dakota needs to check his figures. North Dakota does not produce the most wheat of U.S. states. That (dubious) honor goes to Kansas and has for decades.
I know that many in the U.S. hate both Carter and Obama and even though Reagan made some people feel good. The country still needs an energy policy which includes alternative energy sources. At what point are the climate change deniers going to wake up and stop believing the corporate lies whose only interest is short term game.
This drought puts a spotlight on the wisdom of the ethanol mandate. Requiring that gasoline include 10% ethanol commits 40% of the nations normal corn production. With decreasing corn production that 40% figure must rise. That means an amplification of the reduction for food use. The logical extreme is that there would be NO corn available for food!
Homeowners in drought areas should think seriously about replacing their lawns, which need watering, with plants that don't need watering or mowing, before municipalities make it mandatory.
Please explain the argument against Climate change. Thank you, Caroline
Please have your guests comment on the calving of the Greenland icesheet which occurred earlier this week.
As far as I know the aquifers in the west do NOT have unlimited supply! Apparently, they have been declining rapidly!
My organization works with African American, American Indian and other producers across the country. Could your guests address some other issues such as those experienced by African American and American Indian producers in Oklahoma. They had no hay last summer and a big issue was the loss of their herds - they lost their traditional genetic diversity developed over many generations. Also lost were traditional corn seeds of the indigenous varities.
Ladyingreen,
You are SO right! In fact, it will be worse than the oil situation.........there is NO alternative to H2O. The Sahara grows annually at an alarming rate. The Amazon is rapidly losing its rainforest via slash and burn methods and population encroachment. The oceans are increasing in acidity which kills off coral which is vital to life on earth. Runoff pollutes every water source. So even the scarcer water is tougher to use for drinking.
Per the song, "We don't know what we've got 'til it's gone."
It will be like Spaceballs except there will be no stored up cans of water or air.
Just drove 20 miles across Dayton Ohio. Yard after yard tan and crispy. The warmest 12 months on record. Blazing temperatures this summer across the nation. Huge water shortage. Ding ding ding! What do you think it will take for non believers to get that global warming is real. Does it matter?
It amazes me how resistant this country continues to be to facing up to climate change I am afraid that nothing is going to be done until it is too late. If you look at the current conflicts around the world resource scarcity is at the root of most of them, I wonder if it will take the collapse of our food supply to wake people up.
maryinaustin, good point. there have been problems with farmers who irrigate also tapping huge amounts of water from surrounding aquifers.
The church in Cedar Park, TX needs to forget about watering lawns with that water from the aquifer and to make it a church project to replace them with desert plants that don't need watering. The lawns should be the first thing to go.
See Senator Inhofe's page from Oklahoma. Note his appointments, committees, and his recent book. Our future quality of life on earth needs global citizens (not just Okies) to challenge (VOTE) his power as the most conservative Senator in the nation. Until then his perceptions will dominate everyone's already deflated motivation to make meaningful legislation for effective and responsible natural resource conservation. Oklahoma is infrared. So red its invisible, but with oh so much power.
Yankee born and raised in Oklahoma. Tempted to leave, but roots are deep. We used to be the Democrat Baptist Help the Little Guy State (see Green Corn and Woody Guthrie), but now it something very different with low health and education scores...but low taxes, decent employment rates, a great arts, softball, football and basketball scene. Go Thunder! and buy a hybird.
One approach to address drought and reverse desertification is offered by Allan Savory and the Savory Institute. Check out this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=JxgDcBHTFm4&NR=1
The vast majority of elected officials - as well as extreme right wingers - believe there will be a "rapture" which will be taking all the problems away.
That said, the fact is there will be no focus on solving problems at all because "the rapture will solve all the problems", so I am told by the fund-a-mentalists.
Very sad but also very true - why focus on solving these difficult problems when we can just wait for the rapture and in the mean time keep wasting the Mother Earth for the bottom line of profits - they learned this from the Prophets, apparently.
We need to return to worship and love of this Earth and the fruits of Her Blessings rather than worship of federal reserve notes and gathering of mass amounts of "money".
Thousands of the West's wild horses have been taken off the range & the Interior Department's explanation is that the horses are impacting drought. Compared to hydro-fracking by extractive industries the impact of wildlife is unnoticeable.
For all the folks here who espouse current droughts as a direct result of Climate change, I have a few questions, but first a few assumptions:
1. The world's population was less than half of what it is today than in the 1950s during the last severe, multi-year drought (it's a fact, but I am just calling it an assumption)
2. The amount and number of fossil fuel burning agents were 10 times less than they are today an (it is a fact, but I am just calling it an assumption)
So, based on these assumptions,
1. How do you explain the severe, multi-year droughts of the 1950s. Was it climate change then also? If it was then what you are really saying is that the earth cannot sustain more than 3 Billion people. Is that what Hitler used to justify killing 60 million jews?
2. Why has there not been as severe a drought as the 1950s one since then?
Let's see what the debate says.
Hardly Known
Burbank, CA
So what is your assertion based on when a government department has a different view of the reason? Or is this just a "gut" reaction?
In my gut, I know I am going to win the lottery. Doesn't mean I have won it yet.
Postulating without facts is for the weak-minded.
So what is your assertion based on when a government department has a different view of the reason? Or is this just a "gut" reaction?
In my gut, I know I am going to win the lottery. Doesn't mean I have won it yet.
Postulating without facts is for the weak-minded.
So how are you going to eat, live, drink and buy drugs without this "federal reserve notes" or "money"? Must be nice to live in the mountains, living off the land but magically be able to write comments on the internet without having to worry about "federal reserve notes" or "money".
More fundamentally, how did you write this post? Maybe you didn't worship the "federal reserve notes", but I am 100% positive that some sort of "money" WAS involved in your ability to write this note.
Just unbelievable.
Country is not resistant. It's rational. Many a more extreme climate events have occurred in the past (some even 100 million+ years ago), and the earth's climate has been hotter than it is now in the past. Those things cannot be explained away by people who toot Climate change as the catch-all for everything. Those climate change folks think people are stupid or ignorant or both.
In reality, people are rational. What you cannot explain logically does bring in skepticism from rational human beings. Read some of my other posts so your blood can start boiling.
Dear Robin,
How about never as an answer to your question? Climate Change had many "scandals" lately, and unless you haven't paid attention, it has had MASSIVE influence on the public's perception of the truth.
When you "bend" the truth even a little, it tends to break. So trying to lie to wake people up to climate change had the exact opposite effect and now people don't believe anything they say.
If you tell a fable, inform the listener that it is a fable. Don't insult their intelligence by trying to pass it off as a true story.
Other than the profit motive, why does the US avoid discussing significant interstate or transnational water transmission? JSG
We all need to make lifestyle changes with regards to food, eating habits, waste, housing size , landscaping, chemicals in our seeds & foods, water usage.
Large corporations need to stop destroying the earth.
More and more urban gardens are being established as the local growers markets flourish. GMO's have got To GO Monsanto has GOT TO GO. People from these kids of corporations GOT TO GO.
Usually it takes dire situations for people to listen and change from their comfort zone..It is all connected. Texas was in this predicament last year where lakes and rivers dried up. It was quite disturbing and surreal.
Earth will survive without humans but humans will not survive without a good earth.