This is a truly frightening video. NASA has modeled rainfall projections and it's very clear - if it weren't already - that food shortages from drought are going to lead to famine and violence. Since many staple crops are distributed through global trade, the effects will ricochet around the world leaving aid-dependant countries wanting, and prices soaring in developed nations, with the poorest starving first. I'm reasonably certain that NASA's models don't include the fact that trees are dying prematurely, at an exponentially rapid rate, from tropospheric ozone - which is going to vastly exacerbate the disruption of the hydrological cycle and hasten their predictions, all by itself...never mind the wildfires that have already begun this spring in the US that add to the pollution.
Think about it a moment. When food is in short supply there will be no reason to exchange food for paper. Food will not be high-priced, it will have no price. Such arrangements as get made will not be based on money. Arrangements based on high prices will be for domestic purposes only and will not last long.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, I'm sure that eventually that will be true - currency will become worthless. First though, food will become prohibitively expensive for the poor - it has already begun, with the failure of the wheat crop in Russia in 2010, which some say directly contributed to the Arab spring. There is a staggering number of people in the US, including children, who are hungry right now because of the high price of food.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17450286
ReplyDeletei didn't want to believe that ALL trees are dying - especially after many "leafed out" this spring in between many that haven't produced any leaves or very many leaves. But now i see it's becoming obvious that the trees that DID leaf out and produced a ton of pollen, look emaciated and weak now. Everything is looking "thin" on the way to and from work - along highways and back roads and now in my own back yard i'm seeing evidence that you've pointed out (loose bark, spots, etc) on my over 100 ft tall oaks and others! It's so sad to see it all collapsing slowly.
ReplyDeleteTom
Well Tom, it is incredibly sad - nobody wants to believe it. I call it soul-crushing. But 2 things are undeniable, unfortunately. First, it is an unmistakable, global trend. It's always the trend that matters. And second, it is a decline that is accelerating.
ReplyDeletehi Gail,
ReplyDeletesomething I read yesterday http://www.theinvestigativefund.org/investigations/envirohealth/1775/what_bp_doesn%27t_want_you_to_know_about_the_oil_spill/?page=entire
love
I saw that article - it took me a couple of days to read the whole thing because I just couldn't get past the very beginning, it just made me so disgusted:
ReplyDeleteGriffin did as she was told: "I tried Pine-Sol, bleach, I even tried Dawn on those floors." As she scrubbed, the mix of cleanser and gunk occasionally splashed onto her arms and face.
Within days, the 32-year-old single mother was coughing up blood and suffering constant headaches. She lost her voice. "My throat felt like I'd swallowed razor blades," she says.
Then things got much worse.
Like hundreds, possibly thousands, of workers on the cleanup, Griffin soon fell ill with a cluster of excruciating, bizarre, grotesque ailments. By July, unstoppable muscle spasms were twisting her hands into immovable claws. In August, she began losing her short-term memory. After cooking professionally for 10 years, she couldn't remember the recipe for vegetable soup' one morning, she got in the car to go to work, only to discover she hadn't put on pants. The right side, but only the right side, of her body "started acting crazy. It felt like the nerves were coming out of my skin. It was so painful. My right leg swelled — my ankle would get as wide as my calf — and my skin got incredibly itchy."
Here's an article on oak trees i saw today, that i thought you'd be interested in.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2320013/Thousands-oak-trees-threat-invasion-deadly-caterpillars-toxic-humans.html
Tom
Thanks Tom. The usual - it's an invasive! xenophopica blame. With all the travel and trade over centuries between UK and Europe, suddenly, imports are killing trees in England. Riiiiggghhhhhht!
ReplyDelete