While the Midwest is suffering through another round of flooding from record setting rainfall this spring, just next door in parts of Oklahoma, conditions are very different.
Officials in the Oklahoma Panhandle are appealing for government aid to help with the effects of a drought that has harmed crops and livestock forage.
"This area is starting to look like the Sahara Desert," said Ann Boyd, a 76-year-old rancher in Cimarron County, at the western edge of the Panhandle. "There's just nothing here. Even the weeds are dying. The buffalo grass isn't coming up. There's nothing."
The US Drought Monitor just updated the drought in the panhandle area to "exceptional" -- its worst rating. Less than an inch and a half of rain has fallen in the area so far this year, which puts western Oklahoma well below the average for the real Sahara Desert.
It's drier now than it was in the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, and to date it's the second driest year on record for the Panhandle. ... Crops are failing. Cattle are starving. The winds are howling.
Drought conditions are also growing worse in Texas and other areas of the Southwest. And if you thought that conditions had eased in the Southeast, think again. Conditions there range from "severe drought" to "extreme drought," with river levels falling to record lows.
When scientists talk of the link between extreme weather and climate change, it's easy think of raging hurricanes or a plague of tornadoes. When we look at the link between climate change and national security, thoughts may turn to floods rising in distant lands. But devastation can come as quietly as a cloudless sky. Day, after day, after day.
With the Mississippi flooding the Midwest, "water crisis" means too much of it in all the wrong places. But for much of the world, finding drinkable water is an all-day struggle, and threatens global stability in Asia, Africa and elsewhere - not to mention our brush with parched-earth over Atlanta. Besides climate change, we can thank corporate control of that priceless resource, without which life and liberty are out of the question, for many of the water-availability problems. And the Pentagon is getting into the act.
It's time to address this issue before mega-drought and extinction issues force our hand, and do something to protect this resource as the ultimate human right: right to water, to life.
While the Iowa farmers are busy having their crops flooded out, along comes this news from Texas.
.. many Williamson County farmers are still wondering if they'll break even due to soaring gas prices and the drought-like conditions wringing Central Texas dry.
Driving through eastern Williamson County, you can see miles and miles of brown corn stalks. ...
...Farther south in areas like Seguin and Lockhart, extremely dry conditions have caused some farmers to pull their corn crops altogether.
The traditional media rarely discusses extreme weather events in the context of global warming. However, as the Wonk Room Global Boiling series has documented, scientists have been warning us for years that climate change will increase catastrophic weather events like the California wildfires, the East Coast heatwave, and the Midwest floods that have been taking lives and causing billions in damage in recent days.
Today, the federal government has released a report that assembles this knowledge in stark and unequivocal terms.
From this mornings McClatchy Newsletter, as reported in the Sacramento Bee at http://www.sacbee.com/...
The driest spring in history has yielded by far the driest, most flammable landscape fire forecasters say they have ever seen this time of year in the Sacramento Valley and Sierra foothills.
Rangeland grasses, oak woodlands and forests started the fire season in May with less moisture than the lowest levels typically recorded at the seasonal peak, in August and September, according to fire-weather experts.
Presidential aspirant John McCain is in Florida this week. Five days into the hurricane season that typically haunts this South Eastern State, Senator McCain, grapples with his own disaster. The Arizona Senator, proud of his opposition to a proposed National Catastrophe Fund, needs dollars to restore order to his political house. Hence, the Arizona Senator has come to the Sunshine State to catch some rays, or more accurately to raise the necessary green.
There has been a lot of talk over the past few months and even past couple of years with respect to the refugee crisis in Iraq - the flight of much of the professional class from Iraq, the displacement of millions of Iraqis and the sectarian cleansing are just some of the things that jump to mind. Couple that with the high unemployment rate, the lack of electricity, the ongoing violence and rampant corruption, and the outlook has been pretty bleak for quite some time.
A combination of political compromise and a bit of rainfall and snowmelt, which raised the average levels of the Catalan reservoirs from 20.1% of capacity to over 25%, seems to have provided a temporary breathing space in the water crisis in northeastern Spain.
The Catalan drought, which threatens to leave five million people in Barcelona without drinking water, is only one example of a worldwide increase in Climaticide induced drought (Australia, Ethiopia, Yemen, Chile, etc.).
In Spain, where political battles over water have a long tradition, the infighting has been bitter and the crisis is still far from over. Even as the bulldozers and backhoes begin work on the pipeline that will carry water from the Ebro river to Barcelona, irrigators block highways in protest, other regions complain they are not receiving equal treatment, and debate rages over whether the country should build another pipeline from the Rhône river in France to provide a long-term solution to the area's water problem.
Can the United States, like Spain, a developed country with a growing water problem, draw useful lessons from the Spanish experiences? It would seem prudent to at least have a look.
[Note: Links below sections are to the source material for that section. All translations are mine]
I have a long list of critical issues requiring immediate attention when a new U.S. president takes office in January, the length and nature of which will make FDR’s "Hundred Days" plan look small (getting out of Iraq, caring for veterans, dealing with war crimes charges against Bush administration officials, developing an appropriate strategy for combating terrorism, turning the economy around, moving on a plan for universal health care, undergirding Social Security, restoring civil liberties, re-establishing international credibility, cleaning out politicized and crony-corrupted federal agencies, repairing the crumbling infrastructure, to name a few). But, as someone who worked with an NGO on the world food crisis of the 70’s, I’m not sure any of the problems listed above cloud the future more than the current global food crisis. Who would want to be president and face this problem?
of Mother Nature. Forget the candidates for a second this evening...what did you do to show support for the planet on this EARTH DAY 2008? Have you showered the pols with "green" without considering their stances on Mother Nature's natural green? Did you hug a tree today?
Submitted for your perusal....BREAKING!...THE EARTH...ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS TO USE.
Exxon appeal rejected in Louisiana contamination lawsuit. Exxon Mobil Corp. suffered a defeat at the Supreme Court on Monday, as the justices refused to consider an appeal by the oil giant of a $112 million damage award in an environmental lawsuit. Associated Press via Anchorage Daily News
Mississippi River debris spilling into lake. As Mississippi River water hurtles through the Bonnet Carre Spillway and into Lake Pontchartrain, it carries the detritus of the American heartland along for the ride. New Orleans Times-Picayune
Happy Earth Day...from Santa Barbara, California home of the national disaster that helped Nixon to create the EPA and spark the Environmental Movement and Earth Day Celebrations.
Ecological disaster brought reality check. Crude oil blasted nine stories into the air on Jan. 28, 1969, from a pipeline that blew out in the Santa Barbara channel. For the environmental movement, this disaster was the spark that launched Earth Day. Bridgeport Connecticut Post
The story goes that Earth Day was conceived by Senator Gaylord Nelson after a trip he took to Santa Barbara right after that horrific oil spill off our coast in 1969. He was so outraged by what he saw that he went back to Washington and passed a bill designating April 22 as a national day to celebrate the earth. - CEC
As we pump out greenhouse gases, most of the discussion focuses on direct consequences like rising seas or aggravated hurricanes. But the indirect social and political impact in poor countries may be even more far-reaching, including upheavals and civil wars — and even more witches hacked to death with machetes.
The words are from Nicholas Kristof, whose column today has the same title as this diary. While perhaps most Westerners will not care how supposed witches die in places like Tanzania, Kristof's cogent column provides a context which might get our attention. In this diary I will explore his column and offer some of my far less cogent observations.
Not long ago I wrote a diary, Is life on earth falling apart (or is it just me)?. Since then, we seem to have continued on an ever-accelerating track toward political, economic, and environmental disaster.
This diary presents a kind of "pre-requiem" for America and for life on Earth, both in the form of lists. Despite the grim title and content, however, I am surprised to find that I am optimistic about having to confront the Chinese proverb-curse, "May you live in interesting times." ("Interesting" is the very least one can say about life these days.)
Sure, they are rioting for food in Haiti. Yes, the melting glaciers are threatening fresh water supply. But, did you know that the eternal Twinkie may soon be on the endangered list?
The Interstate Bakeries Corporation, based in Kansas City, Missouri, makes the Hostess products, including Wonder bread, Ho-Ho’s, Ding-Dongs, Twinkies, and Cupcakes. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2004 with the high price of flour cited as one of the reasons the company was struggling. The price of flour in 2004 was $4 a bushel. As the company tries to get itself back on track, flour prices have soared to as high as $12 a bushel. More after the fold.
The news is coming in fast and furious on the Spanish water crisis, which is becoming the central topic of Spanish politics. When we last looked at the Spanish press 2 days ago, central government First Vice-President María Teresa Fernández de la Vega had declaredthat there would be no diversion of water from the Ebro or it's tributaries, while Catalan Environment Counselor, Francesc Baltasar, announced that the Catalan government, the Generalitat, would move ahead with construction on the assumption that permission would come later.
It didn't take long for Counselor Baltasar to receive another call from Madrid.
I have been writing about the Spanish water crisis periodically in my weekly EcoNoticiario, but the situation there has grown grave enough that I thought it merited a diary of its own. Tensions in Spain over water are increasing. In addition to the disputes between town and countryside in Catalonia, there is now evidence of strain between the central government in Madrid and the Generalitat in Barcelona.
In the face of a drought that has now lasted 18 months and reduced Catalan reservoirs to 21% of capacity, the Catalan government has finally revealed a plan, about which there had been much speculation, subterfuge and political maneuvering: to divert water from the Segre River to the Llobregat River, despite warnings from the central government that water policy is a question for federal not regional authorities.
Conflict is not limited to the Northeast: further south, the province of Castilla-La Mancha has announced that further transfers from the Tajo (Tagus) River to the Segura which serves the water-short Murcia area's 2 million people, are impossible.
Conserve your energy. Take a breather from candidate bashing diaries. Let's talk about ISSUES...shall we? Now...ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS TO USE!
Radioactive remains: The forgotten story of the Northwest's only uranium mines. One of the world's largest mining companies is trying to wash its hands of responsibility for a costly cleanup of the Northwest's only uranium mines. Seattle Times
Your sewer on drugs. Sewage is more than just filth. It’s evidence of our worst habits, everything from caffeine to cocaine, all ingested and flushed down the toilet. Now scientists are using wastewater to drug-test entire cities, and the results are sobering. Popular Science.
Man...what a week. I'm pooped. Without further adieu, stories on the topic that dare not speak it's name within either Party...ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS to USE! (P.S. No candidates were bashed in the making of this diary...)
Is cabin air making us sick? More and more pilots are reporting that air polluted by engine fumes is making them ill and even incapable of handling their aircraft. So why are passengers not being told? London Daily Telegraph
4 nations, 4 cities take 'climate neutral' pledge. Four nations and a clutch of cities and corporations unveiled a Web-based information hub on Thursday to help meet a pledge to radically cut carbon levels in their economies in coming decade. Agence France-Presse.
The traditional media rarely discusses extreme weather events in the context of global warming. However, as the Wonk Room 
