Drought Spreads Its Pain Across 14 States

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

COLQUITT, Ga. — The heat and the drought are so bad in this southwest corner of Georgia that hogs can barely eat. Corn, a lucrative crop with a notorious thirst, is burning up in fields. Cotton plants are too weak to punch through soil so dry it might as well be pavement.

Farmers with the money and equipment to irrigate are running wells dry in the unseasonably early and particularly brutal national drought that some say could rival the Dust Bowl days.

“It’s horrible so far,” said Mike Newberry, a Georgia farmer who is trying grow cotton, corn and peanuts on a thousand acres. “There is no description for what we’ve been through since we started planting corn in March.”

The pain has spread across 14 states, from Florida, where severe water restrictions are in place, to Arizona, where ranchers could be forced to sell off entire herds of cattle because they simply can’t feed them.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/us/12drought.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

[KamaAina]

1. Well, look on the bright side, Mike

Your repuke legislature and governor scared away all the migrant workers, so there wouldn't be anyone to pick your crops anyway. :eyes:

[newfie11]

2. 8 dollar corn maybe the low this year

alfalfa here is now 220 a ton. All this is not due to drought but because of to much moisture (Nebraska panhandle)

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. for us non-farmers, what is a "normal" price for alfalfa?

compared to the 220.00?

[newfie11]

10. last year it was anywhere between 2 to 5 dollars a bushel

In my area and prime alfalfa was 80-100 a ton.

[dixiegrrrrl]

18. Holy shit...that IS a hell of a price increase!

[movonne]

3. This is a big news story that I haven't see much of on tv and other

media...not that I have not seen it before but just not out there like it should be...we have had so many disasters that we just seems to go from one story right on to the next...

[defendandprotect]

12. This is Global Warming -- you won't see it on TV --

[msongs]

4. hemp is more drought resistant than cotton, has few natural enemies, makes more things nt

[cppuddy]

6. the is global climate shift

this is a global climate shift. this has been going on for 10 years or so. places with no rain and places with two much. shift in global air and moisture patterns.

[notadmblnd]

7. What would another Great Depression be without another dustbowl?

[defendandprotect]

13. +1 --

[PuffedMica]

8. Deniers will still tell you that CO2 emissions have nothing to do with global warming

It is just weather, no climate change here. Move along, right wing radio will proclaim snow on the mountain tops prove the Earth is cooling.

[Heywood J]

9. Hmmm. When the population of an area surges and the water supply doesn't,

drought ensues. No one could have predicted this.

Millions of people poured into Southern and Western cities in the last thirty years without thinking of where their drinking water would come from. Atlanta doubled in size while continuing to suck water from a comparatively small river. Los Angeles seems to periodically go around looking for lakes to vacuum until they're dry. Las Vegas exploded in population while relying on a tiny amount of Colorado River water and a reservoir which is now drying up.

[defendandprotect]

11. Anyone know if the huge WIND cloud last week was connected to this?

[defendandprotect]

14. Article blames La Nina --- Keep in mind El Nino and La Nina are part of Global Warming ....

These systems were once rare -- once every 1,000 or 2,000 years --


Global Warming has the power to change weather systems -- including wind patterns -- oceans.


From a meteorological standpoint, the answer is fairly simple. “A strong La Niña shut off the southern pipeline of moisture,” said David Miskus, who monitors drought for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The weather pattern called La Niña is an abnormal cooling of Pacific waters. It usually follows El Niño, which is an abnormal warming of those same waters.



This is also interesting because animal-eating also puts pressure on nature -- besides the

filth and pollution it creates -- and the power of the animal-eating industry ....

“One of the biggest impacts of the drought is going to be the shrinking of the cattle herd in the United States,” said Bruce A. Babcock, an agricultural economist at Iowa State University in Ames. And that will have a paradoxical but profound impact on the price of a steak.

Ranchers whose grass was killed by drought cannot afford to sustain cattle with hay or other feed, which is also climbing in price. Their response will most likely be to send animals to slaughter early. That glut of beef would lower prices temporarily.

Nature forcing us to change what our common sense and intelligence haven't moved us to change!



Additionally --

Texas -- there have been blackouts in some cities --

evidently power lines - because of the lack of rain - have salt/chemicals building up which

triggers surges and shuts down the system. In Houston, they're sending out power crews to

spray the power lines.

Here's another eye opener -- USDA gave $75 million to ranchers nationwide -- most in Florida,

NM and TX.

If we have any common sense we should be discouraging animal-eating -- !!

[tammywammy]

15. Where did you read that La Nina & El Nino were rare, 1000-2000 year events?

I've never read anything saying that.

[defendandprotect]

16. "The Heat Is On!" --

an excellent book by Ross Gelbspan --- probably at your library.


Also, you may not know that there was a 50 year delay in our actually feeling

the effects of Global Warming -- of course the glaciers were melting --

but essentially the effects we are feeling even now bring us only up to about 1960 --

imagine all we did after that time!

[tammywammy]

17. Thank you

I'll have to look that book up.

[123forgood]

19. Burn baby Burn....

According to Al Gore....we ain't seen nothing yet....scientific data shows it maybe too late to try and stop this hell we have created but in my opinion it's a do or die trying situation.

[Uncle Joe]

20. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, alp.