How Dry We Are: A Question No One Wants to Raise About Drought

[babylonsister]

How Dry We Are: A Question No One Wants to Raise About Drought
by Tom Engelhardt | Nov 16 2007

Georgia's on my mind. Atlanta, Georgia. It's a city in trouble in a state in trouble in a region in trouble. Water trouble. Trouble big enough that the state government's moving fast. Just this week, backed up by a choir singing "Amazing Grace," accompanied by three protestant ministers, and 20 demonstrators from the Atlanta Freethought Society, Georgia's Baptist Governor Sonny Perdue led a crowd of hundreds in prayers for rain. "We've come together here," he said, "simply for one reason and one reason only: To very reverently and respectfully pray up a storm." It seems, however, that the Almighty -- He "who can and will make a difference" -- was otherwise occupied and the regional drought continued to threaten Atlanta, a metropolis of 5 million people (and growing fast), with the possibility that it might run out of water in as little as 80 days or as much as a year, if the rains don't come.

Here's a little summary of the situation today:

Water rationing has hit the capital. Car washing and lawn watering are prohibited within city limits. Harvests in the region have dropped by 15-30%. By the end of summer, local reservoirs and dams were holding 5% of their capacity.

Oops, that's not Atlanta, or even the southeastern U.S. That's Ankara, Turkey, hit by a fierce drought and high temperatures that also have had southern and southwestern Europe in their grip.

Sorry, let's try that again. Imagine this scenario:

Over the last decade, 15-20% decreases in precipitation have been recorded. These water losses have been accompanied by record temperatures and increasing wildfires in areas where populations have been growing rapidly. A fierce drought has settled in -- of the hundred-year variety. Lawns can be watered but just for a few hours a day (and only by bucket); four-minute showers are the max allowed. Car washes are gone, though you can clean absolutely essential car windows and mirrors by hand.

Sound familiar? As it happens, that's not the American southeast either; that's a description of what's come to be called "The Big Dry" -- the unprecedented drought that has swept huge parts of Australia, the worst in at least a century on an already notoriously dry continent, but also part of the world's breadbasket, where crops are now failing regularly and farms closing down.

In fact, on my way along the parched path toward Atlanta, Georgia, I found myself taking any number of drought-stricken detours. There's Moldova. (If you're like me, odds are you don't even know where that small, former Soviet republic falls on a map.) Like much of southern Europe, it experienced baking temperatures this summer, exceptionally low precipitation, sometimes far less than 50% of expected rainfall, failing crops and farms, and spreading wildfires. (The same was true, to one degree or another, of Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, and -- with its 100-year record scorching of Biblical proportions -- Greece which lost 10% of its forest cover in a month-long fiery apocalypse, leaving "large tracts of countryside…. at risk of depopulation.")


more...

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/11058

[mzteris]

1. Raleigh, NC is about in the same boat

as Atlanta.

http://www.wral.com/weather/asset_gallery/1738766/

[bemildred]

2. Don't be silly, deforestation has nothing to do with it.

:thumbsup:

[Papagoose]

3. I live in NW Georgia

It rained Wednesday night - my neighbors were quick to notify me that this was the work of the Governor's prayers. They were SHOCKED when I wondered aloud if the Governor has looked at the weather forecast before planning his prayer session earlier this week.

[babylonsister]

4. Ha! Welcome to DU, Papagoose! When I read about your

gov praying for rain, and then heard it had rained, I pondered the possibility that he may have checked out a weather channel myself. :-) And good luck with those neighbors! :scared: