You've heard the term Feast or Famine?
It's time for a new version-
Drown or dehydrate.
Not quite as catchy, but scary relevant.
Have you noticed how many times we hear the term "100-year flood" these days? More often than once per hundred years, I'd wager.
Maybe you recall that the tragic mega-floods in Pakistan.
This is but the latest.
Thai Flooding Worst in Decades
Devastating floods spreading from northeastern Thailand have left 17 people dead over the past two weeks as heavy rainfall has put entire villages underwater, destroyed crops and disrupted transportation and commerce.
We are seeing cases of unprecedented/biblical flooding happen several times per year this century. Here is but a short list of the major floods just this past decade.
Renown climate scientist Dr. James Hansen says this:
The increased water vapor in the air (and it increases rapidly with increased temperature) not only yields heavier rainfall events -- it also provides fuel for stronger storms driven by latent heat, including thunderstorms, tornadoes and tropical storms -- so the strongest storms will be stronger. Again, don't blame a single storm on global warming, but look at the statistics -- 100-year floods will occur more often than one per century, 500-year storms will become more frequent, etc."
So you may be thinking: So what? I love to swim!
That's nice.
But for a far larger portion of the globe, clean, fresh water will be a shockingly scarce commodity. In the past I've called this "Global Drying".
There was a powerful diary posted by DWG recently that got far too little notice.
Hell is coming: Drought in the age of global warming
Notice the purple and red areas of the map below?
That's bad.
I encourage brave people to read that diary.
(Direct link to image; CTRL + to enlarge)
A study published in Nature last month showed that 80% of the human population lives in areas with severe threats to water security. A comprehensive review by Aiguo Dai at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) paints a grim picture of the effects of climate change on water resources during this coming century. Drought will be the hallmark of the 21st century.
The detailed analysis concludes that warming temperatures associated with climate change will likely create increasingly dry conditions across much of the globe in the next 30 years, possibly reaching a scale in some regions by the end of the century that has rarely, if ever, been observed in modern times.
And for those who think only poor people in developing countries will pay the price for our gluttony, think again.
In modeling future trends, Dai suggests there will be clear winners and losers in the future availability of water resources. Apart from Alaska, the United States will likely be in the losers column.
This type of science is being ignored by the media, and by far too many of the population at large. I fully expect 6 out of 7 teabaggers to foolishly swallow the hook dangled by the Koch brothers.
That means more Tea Party boosters believe Barack Obama is a Muslim than that global warming is something to worry about.
But the sad thing is that even on the Democratic side of the aisle, an absurdly high percentage of us put virtually everything else ahead of climate change.
What is up with that?
My question is more complex that than, actually.
A better one would be-
Are you prepared for a life where water comes in two sizes:
Never enough or way too much?
It's up to us, today, to prevent that world from becoming a reality.
It may not yet be too late, but goddammit we are cutting it close.
Action Item:
For the next 12 days, work your ass off for candidates facing challenges from the obscenely idiotic and dangerous climate zombies running for office this year.
Some good places to start HERE and HERE.