Here’s a recent visual aid from the U.S. National Drought Migration Center. Look at all that drought cropping up in key agricultural terrain over the last three months.
All around the world, communities are either drying out or faced with unprecedented deluges.
Eastern Europe is also experiencing dramatic weather pattern shifts that are drying out long-settled and long-farmed areas. For instance, by 2050, there may not be enough water in the Czech Republic to provide for household and farming needs, and a number of the country’s rivers are expected to run dry. Homeowners are digging four times deeper to hit groundwater in the country than just 30 years ago.
In must-read article Europe Begins to Run Short of Water, professor Michael Marek commented on the Czech Republic drought to Inter Press Service:
The Czech Republic is already seeing the effects of climate change in more frequent extreme weather events and changes in biodiversity.
“But possibly the most important change is in the increasing drying out of the landscape as drier periods get longer and are followed by bursts of intense rainfall which the dry soil cannot absorb. This has a very significant effect on underground water supplies.
Though the total amount of precipitation in the country has remained relatively consistent, rain falls less often, but in heavier storms that cause flooding but the dry ground can only take so much.
(Check out the Boston Globe’s extensive photo spread of the aftermath of the Queensland flooding.)
Scientists must kick themselves nightly for labeling climate change “global warming,” as that label has left deniers an easy avenue to mock scientists after extreme colds snaps and nickname-worthy blizzards that dump more than a foot of snow at a time. . Despite the overwhelming support of the scientific community and their conclusions that human behavior — particularly Western industrial behavior – is a root cause of climate change, American deniers hold public policy hostage, refusing to address the issue.
How much longer can we ignore a global threat when the benefits of addressing the issue include a green jobs economy, less reliance on Middle Eastern oil, a cleaner environment and less money getting into the hands of terrorists? Especially since the flip side is increasingly violent and extreme weather, shifts in climate that dramatically affect the ability to produce food in nations around the world, and dwindling fresh water supplies that could yield global military action.
Seems like the impact and cost of climate change increases exponentially while American politicians sit it out.
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