Archive for the ‘Drought’ Category

America’s Dwindling Water Supply

Saturday, July 24th, 2010

In 15 Years, Nearly 2 Billion People Worldwide Will Live Where Water is Scarce

(CBS) In its “Where America Stands” series, CBS News is looking at a broad spectrum of issues facing this country in the new decade.

Americans are the world’s biggest water consumers. By 9 a.m., after showering, using the bathroom, brushing our teeth and having a cup of coffee, each of us typically has used more than 30 gallons of water.

After doing the dishes – 12 gallons per load – running the washing machine – 43 gallons per load – and watering the lawn – 10 gallons per minute – by the time we go to bed, we’ve used up to 150 gallons.



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Why Do So Many Bad Things Keep Happening To The United States?

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

At a time when the American economy is already reeling like a drunken s

ailor, the United States is being hit by what seems like an endless parade of horrible disasters that threaten to push the fragile financial system over the edge.  The massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that is now destroying not only the the entire economy of the Gulf Coast but also the entire way of life for hundreds of thousands of people is getting all the headlines right now, but it is far from the only major crisis that has hit the United States recently.  The old saying, “when it rains it pours”, is certainly applicable to the United States right now.  Already faced with some of the biggest economic problems in a generation, America is also being forced to deal with horrifying natural disasters, rapidly growing environmental nightmares and agricultural problems that could end up being absolutely unprecedented.  So why do so many bad things keep happening to the United States?  Does there come a point when the economic damage from all of these disasters just becomes too much?  After all, how many body blows can the “biggest economy in the world” take and still remain standing?

Why Do So Many Bad Things Keep Happening To The United States?.

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Agricultural Apocalypse 2010 : Agriculture

Monday, April 19th, 2010

The food business is far and away the most important
business in the world. Everything else is a luxury.
Food is what you need to sustain life every day.

Dwayne Andreas

When a large segment of the population is facing a drastic cut in income in the face of escalating food prices we have a catastrophic problem in the making. Today we have the simultaneous events of income deflation and food inflation; two high-speed express trains coming down that tracks at each other, a financial crisis colliding with staggering crop losses, which are cutting deeply into available planetary food reserves. Prices of food are again beginning to soar again just as millions are losing the ability to afford a reasonable diet, though little of this is being observed or reported. But soon even the blind will see.

From corn to crude, prices for a wide range of commodities are
on the rise across the globe. In recent months, global food prices
have been growing at a rate that rivals some of the wildest months
of 2008, when food riots erupted across the developing world.

January 9th Wall Street Journal

Agricultural Apocalypse 2010 : Agriculture.

http://agriculture.imva.info/

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On Plains, concern about another Dust Bowl – USATODAY.com

Friday, April 9th, 2010

MULESHOE, Texas — James Wedel remembers seeing thunderheads on the hWildlife Refuge Manager Jude Smith explains how a fence post has been buried by tumbleweeds and soil over time at the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge, near Muleshoe, Texas. Smith believes a couple fences are buried beneath this fence.orizon and thinking: “Oh good, we’re finally gonna get some rain.”

One problem: Those weren’t rain clouds.

“The wind started blowing, the dust started blowing, and you could hardly see in front of your face,” Wedel says. “Static electricity was flying around. It was hard to breathe. I tell you, it was awful scary.”

Seventy-five years have passed since the worst of the Dust Bowl, a relentless series of dust storms that ravaged farms and livelihoods in the southern Great Plains that carried a layer of silt as far east as New York City. Today, the lessons learned during that era are more relevant than ever as impending water shortages and more severe droughts threaten broad swaths of the nation.

On Plains, concern about another Dust Bowl – USATODAY.com.

http://www.usatoday.com/

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Epoch Times – Worst Drought in a Millenium Creates Severe Food Shortages

Monday, March 29th, 2010

Worst Drought in a Millenium Creates Severe Food Shortages

Regime pledges five cents per person for relief

Beijing News has reported that drought has now seriously impacted the provinces of Guangxi, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, the city of Chongqing, and the surrounding areas, affecting 61.3 million people, according to a disaster briefing released by the Chinese Ministry of Civil Affairs on March 23.

The drinking water supply for 18 million people, and water for 11.7 million large livestock and five million hectares (12.5 million acres) of farmland are compromised. More than 1.15 million hectares (2.9 million acres) of farmland is already decimated.

Villagers carry empty pails down a mountain in Sichuan Province. (Getty Images)

Buffaloes in a dry riverbed in Shilin County, Kunming City, Yunnan Province, on Feb. 24. (Getty Images)

A boy and his empty pail in Yunnan Province. (AFP)

A waterless reservoir in Green Pool Dame at Shilin County, Kunming City, Yunnan Province on February 2. (Getty Images)

Villagers digging at a 158 year old well that no longer gives water in Guizhou Province. (Getty Images)

Epoch Times – Worst Drought in a Millenium Creates Severe Food Shortages.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/

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Grasshopper invasion feared in some states – Life- msnbc.com

Monday, March 29th, 2010

Image: Grasshopper

Some Western, Plains states could see worst outbreak in 30 years

NEWCASTLE, Wyo. - Grasshopper infestationshave taken on mythic tones here on the arid prairie of northeastern Wyoming — they blanket highways, eat T-shirts off clotheslines and devour nearly every scrap of vegetation on ranches and farms.

The myth may come closer to reality this summer than at any time in decades in several states in the West and the Plains.

Grasshopper invasion feared in some states – Life- msnbc.com

By Matt Joyce
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/

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Texas Scorched by Worst Drought in 50 Years

Thursday, July 30th, 2009
Texas is America’s 2nd largest food-producing state, right behind Calif. Both have see extreme drought.

A combination of record-high heat and record-low rainfall has pushed south and central Texas into the region’s deepest drought in a half century, with $3.6 billion of crop and livestock losses piling up during the past nine months.

The heat wave has drastically reduced reservoirs and forced about 230 public water systems to declare mandatory water restrictions. Lower levels in lakes and rivers have been a blow to tourism, too, making summer boating, swimming and fishing activities impossible in some places.

Read Full Article…..

By Tom Benning
Wall Street Journal

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There is a Hunger Coming Like a Run-Away Freight Train: Created by Congress

Thursday, July 30th, 2009

I’ve driven the almost 400 mile stretch of Interstate 5 from L.A. to Sacramento dozens of times. Quite honestly, it’s as boring as it gets with only the usual gas stations, mini-marts, fast-food, home-cookin’ restaurants, and strangely a newer batch of Starbuck’s Coffee shops sprouting up everywhere. In between… farms, orchards, cattle, and dirt.

On July 15th, as I began my trip to Utah, I came off the Grapevine decline and hit the flat 250 or so mile stretch of interstate which begins the farming belt in the valley. Almost immediately I noticed what I had only heard about on the radio and in the papers. Where once there were vast fields of green, now there where empty, barely recognizable rows of unplanted dirt and growing weeds. Only sporadically at first, but once I passed Bakersfield and for about a 200 mile stretch, I could not believe my eyes. Field after field laid fallow. And not really fallow, but unattended… as if it was not going to be planted in the near future either.

Clint Richardson
Read Full Article…..Millennium Ark: Hot News

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Calif. farmers say feds make drought worse

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
Sections of Todd Allen's farm are only dirt in even rows. His says he hasn't planted on that land this year because he can't get water for it. FIREBAUGH, Calif. — The road to Todd Allen’s farm wends past irrigation canals filled with the water that California‘s hot Central Valley depends on to produce vegetables and fruit for the nation. Yet not a drop will make it to his barren fields.

Three years into a drought that evokes fears of a modern-day dust bowl, Allen and others here say the culprit now isn’t Mother Nature so much as the federal government. Court and regulatory rulings protecting endangered fish have choked the annual flow of water from California’s Sierra mountains down to its people and irrigated fields, compounding a natural dry spell.

Calif. farmers say feds make drought worse – USATODAY.com
http://www.usatoday.com/

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Dust to dust – Water in California

Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

Good things can come from a drought

IN THE dry south-western part of California’s Central Valley, almond-growers are resorting to desperate measures. Some are trimming their trees so they can survive on less water. Others are spraying them with a chemical to retard growth. Dan Errotabere is planning to mix fresh water with salty, boron-tainted groundwater, in effect poisoning his soil. He has also got rid of less valuable crops and left some 1,500 acres (600 hectares) of his 5,600-acre farm to lie fallow.

Before the 1930s this land was desert. Then the federal government built a vast irrigation system. Water from the Sierra Nevada mountains in northern California is pumped out of the Sacramento delta and dumped into a canal that runs 400 miles (640km) through the temperate Central Valley. It is an engineering marvel and an economic boon. In 2006 California’s agricultural output was worth $31 billion, more than any other state. By contrast, worldwide ticket sales for Hollywood’s films in that year amounted to $25 billion.

Read Full Article…..

The Economist print edition

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