tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post4097491444813845189..comments2024-03-27T21:12:31.654-04:00Comments on Politics and its Discontents: Yet Another Sign Of Just How Much Trouble We Are InLornehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15741324981120408977noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post-70618526803118432962015-06-17T21:44:55.302-04:002015-06-17T21:44:55.302-04:00You paint a very grim picture here, Mound. It woul...You paint a very grim picture here, Mound. It would seem that one of our greatest failings as humans is our inability to envisage our own demise. Our arrogance (hubris?) simply won't allow us to.Lornehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15741324981120408977noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7884128379999766348.post-31510922994425662352015-06-17T19:23:00.103-04:002015-06-17T19:23:00.103-04:00It's the dependency factor that makes this mos...It's the dependency factor that makes this most worrisome, Lorne. Industrial agriculture that we cannot do without if we are to feed 7+ billion mouths, soon to be 9+ depends on an uninterrupted supply of freshwater for irrigation. One of the least considered impacts of climate change is the disruption of historic rainfall patterns by cycles of drought and flood. The temperate jet stream that once moved rainstorms in a relatively orderly fashion, west to east, was the key to the intensive agriculture of the past century. With a warmer Arctic atmosphere that gently undulating jet stream is no more. This greatly increases demand for groundwater in volumes vastly beyond natural recharge rates. A perfect example is the High Plains or Ogallala acquirer that underlies the 8-states that make up America's grain belt. It's huge and it's fast running empty.<br /><br />An article in Harper's magazine last year claimed that several thousand small, farm towns in the grain belt have already been abandoned. Vast swathes of land that once produced bumper crops to feed the world are now being fallowed, returned to the original prairie grasslands. Wheat has been replaced by bison and beef cattle grazing "free range" style.<br /><br />In good times the world has a 60-day reserve of cereal grains. This creates a very serious food security problem. Over the past 15-years we have experienced drought-based crop failures - in Russia, in Australia and even in the United States. What saved many lives was that, when one country went down, the other two remained productive. Yet scientists warn it's only a matter of time before two of them, or even all of them fail at once. Should that occur, the 60-day grain reserve may be insufficient to avert a serious, global outcome.<br /><br />We've been playing on the margins since the late 70s. We have seen plenty of famine but it's usually been confined to a small region, one or two countries at a time. Before long we may look back on that as the "good old days."The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.com