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The Coming Water Shortage– New Dust Bowl “Haboobs”
So– if you haven't seen Ken Burn's new documentary, The Dust Bowl– click the link and go watch it. If you are super pressed for time, just watch the first 7 minutes of episode 1 and the last 10 minutes of episode 2: www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/watch-videos/#2304010308
Why? Well, because here's the thing about history, it may be the past, but it tends to repeat itself. And guess what–? Yeah, we're probably going to be dealing with the consequences of the “take now, pay later” attitude well into the future…
Way back in the late 20s, farmers went nuts plowing up natural prairie to plant wheat– and for 15 years, there was a wet cycle in the weather and all was grand. Then the 1929 to 1939 decade-long drought hit right as the Great Depression hit. Result-? A huge volume of topsoil was blown away and we had the greatest sustained natural disaster in American history, and one of the 6 worst in recent history in the entire world. Eventually, they figured out how to farm more sustainably and the rains returned and the region was returned to prosperity– but for a brief dry spell in the early 1950s.
Cut to today– now farmers from the Great Plains are pumping water from the great resevoir under the ground to irrigate crops year after year. Over half of that ground water is now GONE. It would take centuries– if not another ice age!– to replace, since most of it is meltwater from the retreat of the great glaciers that once covered northern North America. It is estimated that perhaps 20 years worth of irrigation water remains– and then that underground water is GONE. That means well water is all dry. It means drinking water for the entire mid-portion of the United States will be no more.
I've already brought up how living anywhere in the Southwest of the United States, unless you're next to a mountain that can provide melt water from its winter snows, is a bad idea even into the near future. Or in a few areas next to the coast that actually get rain. Otherwise, a great drought is coming to that area and in many places has already begun to hit. The following states will become increasingly unlivable in the longer-term future: Southern California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Southern Idaho, New Mexico, Texas, and Eastern Colorado and Wyoming. Now– just imagine adding ALL the Great Plain states once they go dry in a decade to 20 years: North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
Our nation will be split in two by the simple lack of water. There will be the eastern half of the United States, and then there will be the Northwest. All the rest will be nearly uninhabitable except in small areas that have mountain snow or regular rainfall for some reason. Considering what we've already faced in the last couple of years regarding droughts exacerbated by Climate Change, I don't personally hold out much hope for those regions. Certainly, America's breadbasket may still be farmed, but it will be back to 19th century farming based purely on rain cycles that are almost certain to be either too much (with floods) or too little (with droughts.)
Already, some farming practices once considered too damaging to the soil have come back into vogue, and we are starting to see massive dust storms popping up here and there in the Southwest. We even took the name from the Middle East of those giant dust, sand, and grit storms: ”Haboob.”
For example, this one in Phoenix, AZ in July of this year: www.youtube.com/watch
You'll notice towards the end of that video, the guy shooting it says, “I think that's the biggest one we've had yet this year!” So– its not like a one-time event or anything. I don't think it takes psychic powers to predict far more of these in the years to come. Maybe the Dust Bowl will return, perhaps bigger than ever.
Meanwhile, while I write about droughts and dust storms, outside my own bedroom window its pouring rain and really dark for the middle of the afternoon. We had that odd extra long seasonal drought here, late summer through mid-autumn, but the weather is sure making up for that! October, despite starting off so dry and warm, ended up being one of our wettest on record (in less days, since early October was so dry) and November is looking as bad if not worse. I'm used to rain here. But western Oregon rain is a soft thing… usually. We get light rains on and off for 7 to 9 months a year. But this– this is more like the rains of other places back east. Pouring, driving rains with heavy winds and dark clouds. You know, the kind you get in areas where they get downpours and then lots of dry spells– like most of the country, say? Only we're getting these heavy rains, 1 to 2 inches a day sometimes, unrelentingly for days at a time. Even weeks. Its so miserable sometimes. This isn't my normal, gentle rainy season. This seems like another beast altogether.
2012-11-20 20:46:50
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