Elaine Meinel Supkis
This summer is very much like last summer. Fires and drought in Europe, fires in America, drought in Texas and part of Midwest, all we are missing is the very start of hurricane Katrina! With a drought gripping America, is would take a miracle to get hurricanes going. Meanwhile, heat encourages plague germs.
Chronicle: As hay becomes increasingly rare, the price for a bale has doubled in Central Texas, from about $40 last year to $70-$80 now, ranchers say. The government hasn't offered the ranchers any livestock assistance this year.Cow slaughter was up 32 percent from January to June in Texas and surrounding states, compared with last year, according to the Texas Agricultural Statistics Service. The number of cows and calves being auctioned was up 13 percent from last year, the service reported.
Lockhart's auction ran about 2,300 head this week, twice as many as usual, said the auction's co-owner Tim Von Dohlen.
Ascending rows of ranchers and buyers in straw hats and plaid shirts settled into their seats, some preparing to stay till midnight, as one cow after another barreled through a semi-circular cage to the rhythm of the auctioneer, his microphoned voice belting out a steady waltz of breed names, bids and occasional commentary.
"There's still a little something to eat where she come from," the auctioneer bellowed, enticing offers for a beefy brown cow.
I used to have oxen. Cows eat a lot of hay. Due to last winter's sweeping fires plus this very hot summer and no rain means there is no grazing. So the pastures turn to dust (1930s all over again!). As I pointed out in the past, the dream of turning switch grass into fuel is a pipe dream going up in smoke. Maybe we could burn golf course grass! Yeah.
I've had bad years due to drought which meant feeding Chip and Dale and Sparky their winter hay in July onwards. It is a real problem. Most farmers produce hay for each winter's use and if everyone has to buy an extra 30% more in bales, the price shoots up very rapidly. Down here, we have to ship it in from Canada and the price more than doubles. Right now, it is a cheap $3 a bale thanks to plenty of rain which stopped in July or it would have been a disaster for us at the opposite end of the scale.
Flooding in Alaska as drought dries Texas!
By DAN JOLING, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 47 minutes ago
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - High water that closed the main corridor between the state's two largest cities dropped steadily Sunday, though weary emergency officials kept a close watch on forecasts calling for more rain."We have reports all over the valley of the rivers and streams subsiding," said Clint Vardeman, a deputy director of emergency services.
Roads and bridges were still under water, he said. Both the Parks Highway and the Alaska Railroad remained closed between Anchorage and Fairbanks because of bridge damage and mud slides.
Looks like the moisture that should be falling in the lower 48 has migrated north! Weather patterns become increasingly unsettled as the planet heats up. Yo-yo effects are in particular, hard to deal with.
Like last year, the Mediterranean countries are having serious drought/fire problems.
One British holidaymaker at a Halkidiki resort, Jo Leaney, told the BBC the fire had raced down from nearby hills and forced her out of her apartment.The fire comes at the hottest time of year and during a prolonged dry spell.
The BBC's Malcolm Brabant in Athens says the temperature on Monday was about 42C (107F) and the flames were fanned by a seasonal northern wind called the Meltemi.
California has the same problem. Spain has been on a big manhunt to track down and stop arsonists. It, too, is burning. This is how deserts are rapidly born. The Sahara was once green savannah.
Envioronmental groups choose a very attractive monkey as their symbol for global climate actions.
by Raymond Whitaker in Casimiro de Abreu, Brazil
Environmental groups have enlisted one of the world's most distinctive and rare mammals, the golden lion tamarin, in their campaign to prevent irreversible climate change damaging the planet.The orange-maned tamarins, whose name derives from their resemblance to antique Chinese drawings of lions, are on the brink of extinction because their habitat, Brazil's unique Atlantic rainforest, has been all but eradicated. Barely 4 per cent is left.
Like pandas, dolphins, penguins and other cute animals, researchers find people are more willing to notice something if it has a cute representative. Sort of like the little dog peddling fast foods or the geko creature.
Lastly, heat means more plague summers.
Climatic changes could lead to more outbreaks of bubonic plague among human populations, a study suggests.
Researchers found that the bacterium that caused the deadly disease became more widespread following warmer springs and wetter summers.
Mother Nature works hard to bring nature into harmony. One of her earliest tools is to use the oldest living organisms, viruses and bacterium. They are the ultimate rulers of the earth. We need them within our bodies to stay alive, too. Meet our masters. Single cell rulers.
Culture of Life News Main Page
No livestock assistance?
GOOD. It's time those slackers got off the government dole!
VOTE REPUBLICAN, TEXAS!
Posted by: Liberal AND Proud | August 22, 2006 at 11:21 AM
I just came across a new book on this topic: The Ravaging Tide: Strange Weather, Future Katrinas, and the Coming Death of America's Coastal Cities by Mike Tidwell (Free Press, 2006, ISBN: 074329470X).
Publisher's Weekly said: Award-winning travel journalist Tidwell (who predicted a Katrina-like catastrophe in his 2004 book, Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast) ramps up the rhetoric to a category 5 intensity in this assessment of how global warming is swelling the volume of water lapping against the world's coasts. Because of society's insistence on re-engineering natural waterways and shorelines, we are committing a form of "group suicide." And, Tidwell goes on, President Bush, by refusing to fund a $14-billion plan to bring back wetlands and barrier reefs to protect the Louisiana coast, is committing "federal mass murder." His central thesis is that two conditions threaten to inundate nations like Bangladesh and cities like Calcutta, London and New York: land-based glaciers are vanishing, their meltwater seeping into the seas at the equivalent of a Lake Erie every year,; the slowly warming water temperatures causes sea levels to rise even more dramatically. Drastically slashing greenhouse gases is the only way to save the planet, writes Tidwell, who proves—his dire prognostications notwithstanding—to be an optimist, pointing to Japan's success in reforesting its islands as a model for other nations to emulate.
Posted by: Iowan | August 22, 2006 at 12:09 PM
And then there's this:
Hurricane chief foresees 'mega-disaster'
Max Mayfield says U.S. setting up for storm worse than Katrina
Tuesday, August 22, 2006; Posted: 9:04 a.m. EDT (13:04 GMT)
MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) -- If you thought the sight of New Orleans flooded to the eaves -- its people trapped in attics or cowering on rooftops -- was the nightmare hurricane scenario, think again.
...
"People think we have seen the worst. We haven't," Mayfield told Reuters in an interview at the fortress-like hurricane center in Florida.
"I think the day is coming. I think eventually we're going to have a very powerful hurricane in a major metropolitan area worse than what we saw in Katrina and it's going to be a mega-disaster. With lots of lost lives," Mayfield said.
Link
Posted by: Iowan | August 22, 2006 at 12:28 PM