Is our vulnerability to drought the "silent elephant in the room?"?

Question

Brian Fagan makes this observation in "The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations." The English born U.S. professor of anthropology and author of more than a dozen books is considered a leading authority on the subject of climate change.

Your thoughts?

Answer 1

It's one of many problems to which we're vulnerable.    Droughts have plagued civilization for centuries.   With preservation and transportation improvements, and globalization of the economy, and because in an advanced economy, the country that suffers a drought will generally have other products and services to trade in exchange for agricultural products, humanity is less susceptible now.

The American Southwest and eastern Africa have suffered droughts over the last 50-100 years.   Nothing like the droughts in the US in the 1930s or in the Southwestern US and eastern Africa during the 1100s-1200s, at the peak of the Medieval Warm Period, though.   But then, now we've rewritten the history books to say that that never happened, because it is difficult (though not impossible) to reconcile with man-made 20th century warming.

And the reason LV will be out of water in a decade if changes aren't made is that there are more people drinking it.    LV has been the fastest growing major city in America for some time.

Answer 2

yes.

in addition, from memory, isn't it interesting that the yes's and noe's pretty closely correlate to the AGW believers and deniers?  not surprising, just interesting.  (Dorothy, just close your eyes, click your heels, and say  "It's not true, it's not true, it's not true.")

in addition, it would be well to remember that there are areas in the Calif central valley that can no longer be cultivated because of excess salt, possibly due to over use of fertilizer and pesticides.

Answer 3

Lets just hope it strikes CA first.  Between the fires, drought and earthquakes we might see enough shift in population to have a normal state once again.   IF not, then its not really any great lose for the rest of the nation.

Answer 4

Just to clarify an earlier comment, Dr. Fagan is qualified to comment on the effects of global warming but not the causes. He is right about our vulnerability to drought.  Desalination plants may be enough to provide drinking water for cities, but would not come close to providing the quantities of water required to grow crops.  Corn, for example, requires at least 25 inches of rainfall (or equivalent from irrigation) in the US.  If mean rainfall declined by 5 inches, the Minnesota crop would vanish.  A decline of 10 inches would eliminate corn cultivation across all of the northern states.  Dry land crops like wheat could be grown in the present corn belt, but the yields in tonnes per acre would be lower and the present wheat growing regions might grow only cacti under those circumstances. US closing stocks of grains were at historic lows in 2007 causing rising food prices.  Reduce production a bit with drought and people will starve - the poor first and the rich last.

Answer 5

Lots of money to be made in writing books!

Answer 6

In the 10,000 plus years of human agriculture, not to mention hunting and gathering, I am curious if you really believe that there was ever a time when any group of humans anywhere weren't threatened by drought, or plagues, famines, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc.  When you ignore history, it is easy to make any new catastrophe seem like it is a new phenomena.  In fact they are not.  The only great elephant in the room IMO is that there are people making predictions of gloom and doom and that is something that has been around for thousands of years as well.

Answer 7

We can get all the fresh water we need with desalinisation so it's only a matter of being willing to spend the money and push aside the NIMBY's, at least for those countries rich enough to afford a desalinisation plant (countries that can't afford may be in for some big problems though).  To avoid CO2 emissions from the energy intensive process of removing salt from sea water we should power the desalinisation plants with Uranium.

Getting the fresh water to where it's needed would require pipelines but they aren't really much of an issue, especially if you can afford a desalinisation plant.  Inland countries could buy water from coastal countries (they should though make sure to have multiple suppliers so as to be paying a market rate).

Answer 8

So a professor of Anthropology is considered a leading authority on the subject of climate change?  

If the droughts of the 1930's occurred today would you be screaming what more evidence do you want that proves climate change?

If you want to state you case say which areas of the world are supposed to have more droughts, then show the precipitation levels of those areas, is it increasing?  Just stating that droughts and floods will become more common is just alarmist.

In an article by Time about global cooling  in the 70s they wrote:  "In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims."  If that happened today, it would be another example of global warming and were are dumb and naive and not looking at the overwhelming evidence of climate change.

Answer 9

If good engineering was applied water could be made from the sea at a very low cost and pipe lines could distribute it. At this time only very poorly engineered designs are used to make water from salt or poluted water but much better systems can be constructed that would improve the environment as well as generate lots of good fresh water. Its just a matter of good engineering.

Answer 10

Oh you mean a drought like this one--

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,4039...

Answer 11

Drought can be the longest lasting weather event. In the desert S.W., there has been a long drought, and places like Las Vegas will out of water in just a decade!

Answer 12

No, not really.  You have to consider that 1000 years ago, heck even 200 years ago transportation was limited and timely.  It could take weeks to cross the United States for instance.  In today's world where we have cars, airplanes and railroads we can very easily move in a few hours what took days in the past.

This transportation allows us to diversify our crop portfolio, so in Essenes if there is a drought in the Southeast, United States and a boom in the say South America then the food supply will remain relatively stable.

Obvioulsy this is a very simple example and you would need to consider alot of other variables, however for the most part I think that it gets the point across.

Answer 13

Before I insert my foot into my mouth. I haven't read any of his/her observations, so at best it will be generalized. If the association is past to present comparisons, then a fair contrast should also be presented. Some cultures have been prone to floods as well as droughts. The Greek-Roman adaptation to plumbing and aquifers was a prime example of both the utilization and environmental detriment along the Mediterranean. In my region of the US, flooding is more of a primary concern then drought. That's only because we have a stable major water tributary. Along with tropical weather systems arriving from the Gulf on a seasonal bases. Most farming structures in this area use a three year congruent cycle (3wet) (1dry). Water cycles are  predisposed to climate...of course.