There’s a drought going on?
Fields of wheat, durum and barley in the Dakotas this dry summer will never end up as pasta, bread or beer. What is left of the stifled crops has been salvaged to feed livestock struggling on pastures where hot winds blow clouds of dirt from dried-out ponds.
Some ranchers have been forced to sell their entire herds, and others are either moving their cattle to greener pastures or buying more already-costly feed. Hundreds of acres of grasslands have been blackened by fires sparked by lightning or farm equipment.
Many of the potential worldwide cataclysmic disasters are frightening to me in an abstract sort of way. Earthquakes, for example; you know it could happen and it would be horrible, but it doesn’t really feel dangerous in the present moment. You’ll deal with it when it happens. Global warming? I can handle floods and massive dislocations, famine, and anarchy. Intellectually, anyway.
But drought? Drought scares the shit out of me. Don’t know why really, but it’s the one weather pattern that makes me get reaaallly nervous (and I know droughts will be more common with increased global warming (as will flooding and torrential downpours and increased variability and severity overall)). Maybe it’s because I always assume there’s a way to desalinate ocean water to make it potable and, thus, we live… while it’s rather hard to make water out of thin air. *shrug*
So, anyway, … drought! Ayeeee!!!1!11!1
Then again, maybe it’s just more media scaremongering.
