Today's NY Times' banner headline atop its front page (gifted link available to all) focuses on the extreme water shortages in what was once called Mesopotamia, "the fertile crescent."
The issues have become so dire, that massive climate refugee populations are already moving. And as the story's author, Alissa J. Rubin, writes, "those who remain are suffering a slow death."
Next door in Iran, a province of two million people could run out of water by mid-September, Iranian lawmakers said, leaving few options beyond mass exodus.
We have seen how the media, politicians, and other Pollyannas have phrased the climate crisis as a "someday" event that will affect "our children" "in the future" and so on.
We now know this was always a feint; the climate catastrophe began years ago, and it's only going to get worse, and fast.
For those new to this site or with shorter attention spans/memory issues, I have written extensively here on the topic over the years, for some time under a weekly heading "This Week in Climate Change"
https://www.dailykos.com/tags/ThisWeekinClimateChange
I've also posted using the "global drying" tag, but that never seemed to catch on, and it had been a hot minute (pun intended).
These are excerpts froma few drafts under that tag I never got around to publishing. Perhaps despair gets the best of me at times over the palpable apathy shown to the topic, and my quixotic urges acquiesce.
(From 1 year ago)
Global Drying: And you think California's drought is bad?
http://www.mercurynews.com/science/ci_24904396/california-drought-whats-causing-it
Although, it is bad.
Last year was the driest calendar year in recorded history in California in most cities, with records going back 160 years.
Really bad.
http://www.komonews.com/weather/blogs/scott/San-Francisco-where-a-weeks-worth-of-rain-takes-over-6-months-to-get--241546671.html
The AP is reporting that if the current trend holds, state water managers will only be able to deliver 5 percent of the water needed for more than 25 million Californians and nearly a million acres of farmland.
California and the Midwest are considered to be America's "bread basket." The impact of the drought on California's farmland may be devastating and is a harbinger of more to come as the effects of climate change become more frequent.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/12/1267774/-Peak-water-is-here
No, like WTF seriously bad
San Francisco is supposed to get 29 rainy days from November 1 through January 31, and they have... five.
However...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/01/24/1272237/-Coca-Cola-and-Nike-Getting-Behind-the-Science-of-Climate-Change
Coca-Cola has always been more focused on its economic bottom line than on global warming, but when the company lost a lucrative operating license in India because of a serious water shortage there in 2004, things began to change.
(Another draft, from over a year ago)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/business/global/09food.html?hp
HONG KONG — The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization issued an alert Tuesday that a severe drought was threatening the wheat crop in China, the world’s largest wheat producer, and was even resulting in shortages of drinking water for people and livestock. Enlarge This Image European Pressphoto Agency Farmers drew water to irrigate their arid wheat fields in China’s Shandong province on Tuesday. The state-run news media in China warned Monday that the country’s major agricultural regions were facing their worst drought in 60 years and said Tuesday that Shandong Province, a cornerstone of Chinese grain production, was bracing for its worst drought in 200 years unless substantial precipitation came by the end of this month. World wheat prices are already surging and have been widely cited as one reason for protests in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world. China has been essentially self-sufficient in grain for decades for national security reasons, and any move by China to import large quantities of food in response to the drought could drive international prices even higher, creating serious problems for less affluent countries that rely on imported food.
Forgive the inelegant formatting.
Life is pulling me away from my keyboard atm, so I'm leaving this here for now for folks to read as you relax on a Sunday, likely with your AC blowing at 78° or colder.
I have no flowery, hopeful message with which to end.
I've tried for many years to get this issue to the forefront of humankind's mind. I do hope it isn't too late, and that we can find a way to save what is left of this planet for those who remain.