As a river dies: India could be facing its greatest human catastrophe ever

[Binkie The Clown]

INDIA: Much of the once bountiful and lush-green rice fields was reduced to a dry, yellow-brown landscape, after successive years of scanty rainfall and severe drought.

For farmer Mr Vijayakumar, 52, the rice crop was his family’s sole source of income. Hit by the double whammy of crop failure and mounting debts, he took a lonely walk to the edge of his two-acre rice field in Tamil Nadu in January this year.

There the tough, rugged man, used to the hard toil of a farmer for decades, hanged himself from a nearby tree.

...
The Cauvery River is dying - and with it, the crops, hopes and lives of millions of farmers. It could be India's greatest natural catastrophe ever. Is an ambitious plan to link all rivers to the cities to blame? Insight investigates southern India's worst drought in 140 years.

Read more at http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/as-a-river-dies-india-could-be-facing-its-greatest-human-9060070

Also video at the link.

[lapfog_1]

1. The state of Punjab

is India's vegetable and agricultural center.

The water table (almost all of the land is irrigated by wells) is dropping 2 feet every year, forcing farmers to spend more and more money to pump water. No one knows what will happen when the wells run dry.

The Himalayan snow pack is shrinking every year. The snow pack is the headwaters for the Yellow, Yangtze, Me Kong, Irrawaddy, Ganges, and Indus rivers... all of India, China, and Southeast Asia depend on these rivers for feeding billions of people.

Welcome to the new world of global warming.

[Binkie The Clown]

2. And yet economists talk about India's bright economic future.

Economists, it seems, know nothing about ecology and the habitat needed to support such vast numbers of human animals. They seem to forget that, after all is said and done, a human being is still a biological creature, an animal that needs habitat to survive. This is probably because those living in cities are far enough removed from the food-growing habitat that supports them that they forget it even exists, or that it is crucial to survival. To them, food comes from a supermarket, and if demand exceeds supply, new suppliers will come online to meet the demand.

[Duppers]

4. +100

[NickB79]

3. It would be like us losing the Central Valley in CA or all of Iowa's cornfields

Just wait until millions of Bangladeshi climate refugees start fleeing inland as their homes are flooded by rising seas, and their fish harvests plummet as the dead zone there grows. Things are going to get very "interesting" on the Asian subcontinent in our lifetimes.

[Duppers]

5. Related: Farmer suicides rise in India as climate warms

Katy Daigle, Associated Press
Updated 4:25 pm, Monday, July 31, 2017

NEW DELHI (AP) — When Rani's husband died by drinking pesticide, he left the family in debt. But even if they could pay off the loans, Rani said their farming days are over.

"There are no rains," said the 44-year-old woman from drought-stricken Tamil Nadu, one of hundreds of farmers protesting in the capital for more government support. "Even for drinking, we get water only once in 10 days."

A new study suggests that India will see more such tragedies as climate change brings hotter temperatures that damage crops and exacerbate drought. For every 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming above 20 degrees C (68 degrees F) during the growing season in India, there are 67 more suicides on average, according to the findings published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS.

The message "is that farming is an inherently risky occupation, with annual incomes often held hostage to the weather, and it's getting riskier in the era of climate change," said Vikram Patel, an Indian psychiatrist and mental health expert with Harvard Medical School in Boston who was not involved in the study.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/science/article/Farmer-suicides-rise-in-India-as-climate-warms-11720979.php

HAT TIP to Judi Lynn in LBN.

[The_jackalope]

6. The thin white line of the extinction tsunami comes over the horizon...

Climate change will hit the food producers of the world first. Crop failures will hit the rest of us shortly afterward.

We've only got a generation or two left. We should be getting our affairs in order.

[StevieM]

7. If you want a more complete picture you should read this terrifying article.

http://globalwarming.berrens.nl/globalwarming.htm

[The_jackalope]

8. Thanks, but I've been there for a while now.

I wrote this web site from 2007 to 2013: http://paulchefurka.ca/ I have a very complete picture of what's coming.

In 2013 I came to peace with the realization that no one here gets out alive, no matter what we do. So I stopped writing.

I was also extremely active on this board as GliderGuider. Since I lost an argument with the admins over an unrelated issue and had to reincarnate myself, I don't see much point in posting.

I no longer give a fuck.

[StevieM]

9. Oh, hey there. I didn't realize that was you.

Welcome to the reincarnated chapter of your time on DU.

I wish you would check out the article I linked to. It actually provides some information that you haven't discussed, especially as climate change reaches 6 degrees celsius. Maybe you can skim it.

I continue to hope that the geoengineering fairy can come save us. It is a reach, I know.

If a worst case scenario does happen, I hope that some plant life will survive. If it doesn't that could lead to a total collapse of the food chain on land. Then again, I hope that the oceans can survive too, at least to some extent.

I'll go check out your blog. Thanks for the link!!

[The_jackalope]

10. I thought at first it was just a re-framing of Mark Lynas' "Six Degrees"

But the death imagery is even more colourful, starting with spreading deserts in America, and ending with hydrogen sulphide a la Peter Ward's "Under a Green Sky".

We're on our way out. Everyone who had children before they understood what was in store for them has my deepest sympathy. Anyone who understands, but still argues that we can save the world for them has my deepest contempt.