I’m bringing back the question of the week. This one is inspired by a Christian Science Monitor story, and this stunning map of US drought conditions:
The story, “Drought threatens to darken Obama reelection prospects,” opines in its sub-hed:
With nearly two-thirds of the US enduring drought conditions, food prices are expected to jump ahead of the November election. That could add to voter anxieties about the economy.
Certainly one of the biggest impacts of warming-driven drought and extreme weather is food insecurity (see “Climate Story of the Year: Warming-Driven Drought and Extreme Weather Emerge as Key Threat to Global Food Security” and links below).
And this drought is (almost) as brutal as it gets:
The PDSI [Palmer Drought Severity Index] in the Great Plains during the Dust Bowl apparently spiked very briefly to -6, but otherwise rarely exceeded -3 for the decade (see here). Nearly half the country is now -3 or worse.
If you want to see how these drought indices stack up against the historical record since 1895, click here. For the nation as a whole, the PDSI is in the lowest 1%. Over much of the Midwest is just about the worst drought ever.
The Monitor story explains the impact of the current drought on crops:
Record-setting heat waves that have fueled fires in the Mountain West have also had a dramatic effect on the corn crop at a particularly vulnerable time. Currently, 30 percent of the corn crop in the 18 chief corn-growing states is now in poor condition, up 8 percentage points from a week earlier.
“In the hottest areas last week, which were generally dry, crop conditions deteriorated quickly,” wrote Rich Tinker, author of the Drought Monitor.
In places like Egypt where, food consumes 40% or more of family income, so a jump in food prices can obviously be devastating — and that certainly can have political impact (see The Economist: “The high cost of food is one reason that protesters took to the streets in Tunisia and Egypt”). Drought would also appear to be having an impact in Syria (see Syria: Climate Change, Drought and Social Unrest).
Americans, however, are more impervious to food price fluctuation from extreme weather because we are the breadbasket of the world and the wholesale price of food is generally a small fraction of the price consumers pay in the market.
The story continues:
… if wilting plants result in yield below what was expected in the futures markets, prices will rise further. Already, prices have risen by about 30 percent, meaning consumers could see short-term price impacts on manufactured goods like cereals and even soft drinks this fall and rising meat prices next year.
Researchers have pegged inflation and “rate of income” as two major factors for voters in presidential elections. With gas prices again inching up and “now the drought impact on the food sector, we’re going to have an inflation issue here, and that will put a damper on consumer confidence and will have a major impact on the election,” says Michael Walden, a consumer economics expert at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.
Record-setting heat waves that have fueled fires in the Mountain West have also had a dramatic effect on the corn crop at a particularly vulnerable time. Currently, 30 percent of the corn crop in the 18 chief corn-growing states is now in poor condition, up 8 percentage points from a week earlier.
“In the hottest areas last week, which were generally dry, crop conditions deteriorated quickly,” wrote Rich Tinker, author of the Drought Monitor.
Inflation, which had been estimated at 2.5 percent to 3.5 percent for this year, likely will inch up to 3 percent to 3.5 percent, Chris Hurt, a Purdue University agricultural economist, tells The Town Talk news site.
What are the political implications?
No one is suggesting that President Obama should take direct blame for the drought. In fact, his administration has been adamant about taking on global climate change, which some suggest could be playing a role in the unseasonably, and in many places historic, heat that’s blanketed the country this year.
Yet drought-related food inflation could serve to highlight the overall weakness of the economy – a potential problem for Mr. Obama.
Of course, the current drought could break, as it seems to have begun to do in Georgia, where copious rain has fallen in the past few days. Moreover, the extent and timing of rising food prices remain big X factors as the two presidential campaigns steer toward November.
“Whether [the drought] affects the election will depend on the timing,” says James Campbell, a political scientist who specializes in presidential politics at the University at Buffalo in New York. “The drought will most likely affect food prices later in the year, and the question is, will that be too late to make a difference?”
More than three-quarters of voters will likely have made up their minds before the last days of the election, when food prices might be rising. But Professor Campbell adds: “Those late deciders, they’re going to decide the election.”
Election analysis has tended to show that people are more influenced by economic conditions — both the absolute level and the direction of change — in the spring and summer before election than they are in the fall. So I’m inclined to think the impact would be minimal, though it certainly would be ironic if warming-driven drought helped elect a candidate who has etch-a-sketched himself into climate denial and climate inaction.
What do you think?
Related Posts:
- Reports: Egyptian and Tunisian riots were driven in part by the spike in global food prices
- Expert consensus grows on contribution of record high food prices to Middle East unrest
- Grantham’s “Things that Really Matter in 2011 and Beyond”: “Global warming causing destabilized weather patterns, adding to agricultural price pressures”
- We’re Already Topping Dust Bowl Temperatures — Imagine What’ll Happen If We Fail To Stop 10°F Warming
- Oxfam Predicts Climate Change will Help Double Food Prices by 2030: “We Are Turning Abundance into Scarcity”
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
In my opinion it depends not just on public attitudes but also on whether the Obama campaign finally starts to treat AGW/ACC as something that needs to be dealt with in a serious manner, thereby contrasting themselves with the GOP and business as usual.
If instead they continue to treat AGW/ACC as “that which must not be mentioned” then people will not see as much of a reason to be motivated to vote for him.
And if Obama suddenly starts spouting concern over anthropogenic climate destabilisation, how will one tell whether this is not just another cynical PR ploy to rope in the ‘Hope’ dopes yet again?
It’s hard for me to think that anyone thinks that somehow we’d have less drought if we elected a candidate who denied Climate Change or thought it would fix itself. As for the issue of economic hardship, while I think there are committed GOP followers who are willing to accept any story that makes Obama look bad, the people who are actually thinking certainly understand it’s not Obama policies that are leading to these problems. People know what’s really going on. What Obama needs to do is to embrace problems like this, not deny them. People know the problem is difficult–they just don’t know what to do is fix it. He needs to offer a plan for fixing it that is more than “Elect me and it’ll be fixed.” Even something like “Elect me and give me a Democratic Congress so that I can actually break the deadlock.” would be a big improvement.
It’s yet another illustration of why fraudulent democracy is so hopeless. Either Obama is running scared because millions of intellectually insufficient and ignorant climate destabilisation denialists all have a vote (or he is pretending to be worried by that lowest common denominator prospect)or he is using it as a cynical excuse to do what he was programed to do-serve the rich who only care for profit maximisation.
I have yet to hear anyone from the Obama administration link the drought to our addiction to burning fossil fuels. This argument won’t make any difference in Georgia or Texas, but could gain traction in swing states like Iowa and Missouri.
Several years ago, our mainstream media got this memo, dutifully repeated by all of the networks and people like Andy Revkin of the New York Times: “Don’t you dare connect a weather event to global warming!”. The big boys from Koch and Exxon obviously have trained the Democrats to obey here, too.
It’s true that Midwesterners’ budgets are more sensitive to the price of gas for their Ram Tough trucks than for their corn dogs. Unfortunately, unless our leaders don’t start talking to Americans as if we are adults who know how to read and reason, we will end up with a lot worse than Obama and Romney eventually.
Don’t think of Missouri as a swing state, unless you’re using the term like swinging on a rope with loop at the end. The GOTP is pouring $Billions into this state to oust McCatskill, and with all that money they’ll take the whole state with them.
Yeah, I’m afraid you’re correct. In the old days, Missouri often went Democratic, and was a pretty good bellwether. Lately, like most of the South, it’s veered right.
The Democrats will have to pick up states like Virginia and Colorado to compensate for the recent trends in Missouri and Florida- no easy task.
Why has the South veered Right? Could it be years of relentless brainwashing by a Rightwing MSM? And, if so, what hope is there for ‘democracy’ in a capitalist state when the MSM remains entirely in the hands of the deranged Right and is used as a crude and vicious brainwashing apparatus?
If things continue to deteriorate, once the drought/heat wave become a national disaster Obama should give a message to the whole nation about extreme weather and climate change.
The Republicans will attack him with the usual denialist, anti-science and McCartyist retoric. Democrats should then denounce the dishonest behaviour of Republicans showing how dishonest and corrupted the deniers and their Republican allies are.
Is a risky action, but done properly could decide the election in favour of Obama and at the same time unlock action against the carbon economy.
Good idea, but he won’t do it. Remember the BP spill? Obama kept agreeing with Hayward that it was leaking 5,000 barrels a day, when the entire scientific community knew it was closer to 10 times that much. He hasn’t gotten much better since then, and would have approved Keystone if not for the risk of a mass exodus of progressive voters.
Exodus to where?
The Socialist or the Green Parties perhaps?
Everyone knows it’s the GOP that has been denying climate change, so if a major spike in food prices occurs before the election, Obama can point not only to the recently announced federal drought-aid program but also remind the voters that it’s Republicans who don’t want to do anything about greenhouse gases. But the President needs to address the nation on this issue soon and not be afraid of any GOP criticism.
Yes, there have been spotty areas of rainfall in some sections of Georgia (see the Drought Monitor above), but in drought-breaking quantities or early enough to make a major difference? I don’t think so. Where the corn, bean and cotton fields are truly lush in the Peach State is under under those center-pivot irrigation systems that continue to spread like kudzu across the landscape. Those farmers with resources and guts enough to play the irrigation game rolled the dice one more time. They tapped deep into our underground aquifers. Now, as Midwest crops wither in the fields and futures prices soar in response, some of our Georgia gamblers stand to hit pay dirt. Why worry about climate change when you can just keep digging the hole deeper?
There are limits to how far you can dig that hole and unless the acquifers are being constantly refilled, the water runs out. If it is deep underground, that water has probably been there for millenia and has no current form of replenishment, ME
That’s what deep horizon toxic waste injection wells are for…. not to mention fracking!
This year 5 billion bushels of corn will be turned into ethanol
drought or no drought, it’s business as usual.
hunger doesn’t show up on balance sheets
Actually, hunger does show up on balance sheets. You can start with the direct health effects on hospitals etc. Then even a minor degree of malnutrition causes more low-weight babies who need more care, and raises the infant mortality rate. Then you can look at rising crime rates, break-ins etc. And as food prices and hunger were implicated in the Arab Spring, what makes you think the USA would be immune? Particularly when it is badly infested with guns? ME
Both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are members of the Money Party, as are most of the 525 members of Congress. None will do anything to upset their moneyed campaign supporters who benefit from extraction of the earth and exploitation of those not in the Money Party.
Expect no changes, no matter how bad the weather and climate get. It’s not in their DNA.
Very few human behaviours are directly tied to DNA. Eventually all human beings change their behaviour in response to the changing environments they find themselves in and this will be no different.
You can all help it along by putting away your dogmatic pessimism and making or supporting action for change, ME
setting genetics metaphors to one side, Catman correctly states neither the Dems nor GOP are likely to lead us away from the abyss. Both are capitalism advocates, and are fatally addicted to the one thing capitalism requires above all else:
nonstop economic growth.
Every campaign speech from both major parties has some reference to how their candidate will make the next growth happen.
Folks, its a finite planet.
Economics and ecology are just two sides of the same piece of paper. As more of the public gets experiential education about economics/ecology, they’ll start to see both major parties are delusional in their addiction to growth. And the biggest US party talking about alternatives are the Greens. Their job is to mature past their flakiness so more people will understand they are the only ones talking longterm rational, sustainable economics. I just wonder how much time there is before domestic social pressures exceed our ability to handle them in a civilized way?
Not long. I’d say ten years, max. Your middle class is being pauperised, the underclass is burgeoning and all the 1% can think of is war and terror to keep the imperium intact. Big implosion, coming soon.
Mark, I know the equation between economics and ecology quite well and have been commenting on that in this blog, e.g. you don’t get economic growth from a dying planet. As Mulga says, this will be demonstrated to everybody in good time. And what will you all do then?
It is up to the well educated commenters here to do their bit and behave responsibly – nothing is more destructive to the human spirit than to see their peer group rolling over. Besides that, it’s a cop out.
Plenty of people out there are cooperatively fighting for alternatives to growth and greed and they need support. Anybody who just retreats into such abject pessimism is shooting themselves in the foot along with the rest of us, ME
Thank you for your intelligence. Honesty, and above all your willingness to promote civil solution.
Respectfully, I disagree. That abject negativity is an unavoidable psychological stepping-stone as one comes to terms with our society’s addiction to nonstop economic growth. The first step is admitting we have an addiction, and for the first few daring to go there, it’s a lonely road.
Hope lies in the fortitude people show to work past that unavoidable stage of feeling hopeless. Only then will we have the ability to come up with viable alternatives. At best, clean tech capitalism can just buy us some time. Which is why global warming is a very serious symptom, but is not, in and of itself, the heart of the problem.
We will have to disagree Mark. I don’t know whose theory that is but it doesn’t ring true either historically or in terms of how people behave. Indulging yourself by justifying hopelessness is the first step towards depression, not exactly what we need which is concerted, cooperative action which will generate energy and spark creativity. These phenomena are self generating spirals and it is important that we embark on the right one, ME
‘Abject negativity’ is, in the case of the current global situation, simply facing reality. It ought not stop us doing something, even if it turns out to be futile, if only for reasons of moral hygiene and to be able to look the children in the face and say we tried. As Pablo Casals said ‘The situation is hopeless-we must take the next step’.
Merryn, that would be Psych 101 and the basic stages of grief in the face of betrayal…. which is what I and all of many progressive friends and activist allies have gone thru at some point. Chastising the isolated person who is trying to find a new community and new value set as they work thru this emotion does not help them work thru the emotion so as to find that power you speak of. Mental health is a big part of this problem.
Ah yes, the stages of grief! Mark, that theory is culture-specific and does not hold in cohesive cultures where people are richly interdependent. The key word in your statement is ‘isolation’.
Any human being who feels isolated is well on their way to mental illness, and any culture that glorifies the ‘individual’ and ‘independence’ above a sense of belonging is intrinsically an unhealthy one to be in. Rather than ‘working through’ in isolation, could I suggest you get together with your progessive colleagues and collectively do something that is meaningful to all of you, and I don’t mean talking about it, ME
We must not be communicating. In my culture – white USA middle class university educated (males) – the moment you break with warm fuzzy (democrat) capitalism the common experience is….. ISOLATION! There aren’t many of us willing to say that the lesser of two evils is STILL EVIL.
Having arrived at that lonely place, where all your heroes are toast, all your cuddly myths are based on economic/ecological fatal errors…. that’s quite a bit of rug to be pulled out from under one.
It’s a very nice idea to just snap one’s fingers and instantly find one’s alternative groove…. but I suggest its not reasonable to expect mythless heroless people to instantaneously know how to stop their fall when the rug is yanked out.
I agree with you Merryn about what such folks need to do – eventually. Chastising their fear and isolation during that initial
freefall doesn’t help them take your hand. At least, not in my experience, either when I was the one falling, nor when I was the one catching.
Whether Obama gets re-elected or not, is a paltry issue. He is no more prepared to deal with it than Romney. Here’s the real question:
http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2012/07/12/the-exaggerated-promise-of-renewable-energy/
That analysis is too simplistic.
To respond directly to the headline question, historically not likely. The country re-elected FDR during the Dust Bowl years and Eisenhower in the droughty fifties.
“Yet drought-related food inflation could serve to highlight the overall weakness of the economy – a potential problem for Mr. Obama.”
This fact should make people think twice if they want to blame Obama for food-inflation. How will the GOP spin this? No Chance vs Climate Change!
Past 12 months warmest ever recorded in United States
(CNN) — The mainland United States, which was largely recovering Monday from a near-nationwide heat wave, has experienced the warmest 12 months since record-keeping began in 1895, a top government science and weather agency announced Monday.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/09/us/extreme-heat/index.html
Surely, if Obama loses this election, the chances of putting an actual democrat in power in 2016 would be greatly improved ?
That is, someone who won’t adopt and exceed every obstructive Bush policy on climate,
who won’t sit on their hands saying that they just can’t see the 70% polls for action and they just don’t have the support for it,
and who will if necessary use his executive authority to negotiate and sign an equitable and efficient global climate treaty, having ensured that it contains terms to leave any nation signing but failing to ratify it facing untenably disadvantageous global trade terms (as is the US president’s right).
I note that his determination to do nothing useful on climate extends even to his empathy photo-ops at impact sites – as when he visited Colorado Springs recently and made a point, on camera, of declaring it to be “a natural disaster . . . ”
Does anyone really expect Obama to take real action in a second term when he doesn’t need the votes of progressives, when he didn’t take action in his first term when he did need those votes ? If so, could they please explain just why ?
If he can’t be expected to take action, then he’s a dead letter, and it’s the outcome of 2016 that matters.
Regards,
Lewis
Exactly, Lewis, exactly.
How about credit where credit is due. The Obama administration has launched three major executive actions to reduce carbon pollution including new vehicle economy standards, new states renewable electricity standards and the first nationwide standard to reduce carbon dioxide pollution from new power plants. The stimulus helped support developing renewable energy resources and you can tell it has hit a nerve, when you hear all the belly-aching about it in the right wing blogosphere. Time to get off our collective duffs to support action on climate change, instead of whining about how someone else has not done enough.
“Surely, if Obama loses this election, the chances of putting an actual democrat in power in 2016 would be greatly improved ?”
And then what? All you accomplish with your idea is a delay of climate action – progress. You actually suggest Romney should win?
Obama will win and he will do everything possible to combat climate change. Because he has to, because the public wants food security and is like 70% for action. And this will only grow.
I certainly hope you are correct, but the 70% support figure for action is irrelevant. Only the 1%, and the 0.01% in particular, count. If you want a democratic republic you must neuter the 1%.
Too simplistic. The .001 percent is at odds with itself as much as with the rest of us. Look at Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Donald Trump, the King of Saudi Arabia, Assad, Putin — they are as busy working against each other as against the rest of us.
The details are well known, Philip. But there is a large difference between knowing a thing and being able to change it.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2011/10/22/the-147-companies-that-control-everything/
Philip, me darlin’-sure the top parasites claw at each other from time to time, but there is much more collaboration in ‘keeping the rabble in line’. Class consciousness amongst the parasites is very strong, while the serfs have been brainwashed to resent and hate, not the rich, but one another, the poor, welfare recipients, various foreigners and even unionists who have gained a slightly less wretched pay deal or some modicum of health insurance.
70% won’t want action once they are told stories about how action will affect their lives of consumption.
How much do you think they will be consuming when the power is off for long stretches at a time and they can’t afford adequate food or petrol? ME
It’s not the ‘how much’ they will be consuming when the crash comes that worries me, but who.
For your sake Mulga, I hope they target the long pigs with no sense of humour, ME
I don’t know about the election question, but every time someone sneezes, some newsie says it will darken Obama’s reelection chances. But if it does help the Republicans, at least we can use it as an example of a reinforcing feedback loop. Drought elects Republicans, who deny global warming, which allows the warming to strengthen, which causes more drought, which elects…
The reduction in corn, soy and other crops in the Mid West & Great Pains will continue now into the future. Each year with varying degrees of harshness. – rainfall and some moisture may return next year due to The El Nino now forming.
Nonetheless, the trauma to the soils has begun. Rising Temperatures and increased evaporation may make precipitation less useful. So in dry years, the situation becomes worse. Soils further west become dry and dusty- and begin to spread further east.
The fools in the American Government have no solutions. Obama seems intent on continuing our reliance on fossil fuels. Co2 globally continues to rise at a forcing never seen, making the transition from agriculturist breadbasket to a dust bowl a certainty in decades.
Why must Obama win? Two words: Supreme Court… nominations.
Dealing with AGW will follow, as an overheated and drying populace exceeds their collective “OH SHIT!!!” moment. But remember, this is, according to David Orr, “The Long Emergency.” Implementing the fix will take decades. Substantial improvement will take centuries. Residual effects will be felt for a millennium or more. The species who get through to the other side will be genetically different from, and almost certainly a much better species than us. Imagine the sell job required to initiate such an effort, and to sustain it.
Climate change effects everything and politicians beware when they think they can cherry-pick reality.
It isn’t going to make much difference who gets elected this year since the system is so shot through with corruption and corporate control that democracy has been reduced to oligarchy in the process. It also isn’t going to matter since we’ve effectively ignored all the warning signs of population overshoot, resource scarcity, CO2 (and now methane) pollution and the dying oceans for decades. We’re going through the collapse that we brought on ourselves through following the idiotic consumerist paradigm and being decidedly “unwise” despite our genus name of homo-sapiens.
Now everything is out of control – our financial institutions are effectively bankrupt AND above the law; our infrastructure continues to degrade while we whistle past the graveyards of ghost towns in our midst; the real estate market is pretty well shot since we can’t trust the mortgage industry; the increasing surveilance of common citizens and militarization of the police only underlines how desperate the powers that be are to hold on to the status quo while they continue to siphon off all that remains of the assets of our once great nation – now reduced to 3rd world status (including a dictatorial assassinator in chief/president and fiat currency being debased by the day).
“Now everything is out of control”
Gandhi would say you ALWAYS have control over your own choices…. and ZERO control over anything else. Have you read about his “noncooperation” strategies?
A global famine could be right around the corner.
And people are worried about the impact on Obama’s reelection chances. Right.
The sad truth is that we are far past the point where Obama getting reelected or not is going to make much difference.
The question to be asking about presidential candidates now, is not so much what they will or won’t do to reduce GHG emissions, but how they will handle the by now unpreventable collapse of agriculture in North America and the resulting food shortages.
The better question is whether their emergency efforts at “adaptation” will come at the expense of war-footing level “mitigation”? So far that appears to be the plan.
Obama must task American industries and the rest of the nation to reinvent this great country to the tune of over $10 trillion per year to near-zero emission energy, transportation, food, manufacturing . . . and include poor people first, universal health care, advanced education etc. . . .
The fossil fuel industry would likely see growth opportunities far surpassing the $1 trillion subsidies and $5 trillion revenues it receives annually far into the future.
. . . instead of the currently inevitable crash into the great abyss . . .
Obama: DC ‘Feels As Broken As It Did 4 Years Ago’
He says he’s most frustrated by the inability “to change the atmosphere” in the nation’s capital “to reflect the decency and common sense of ordinary people” who want their leaders to solve problems.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=156805225
If someone criticize Obama for lack of progress then someone is not factoring in the stalling situation in Washington.
All the above comments are interesting, but that we are even having this discussion points to the near hopeless situation of depending on our government to in any way shape or form manage a meaningful response to climate change. Rather than just whine about and worry (which is all I feel I have done) what can I do? I’m serious, I need a way to contribute to something meaningful, beyond rhetoric, but I’m not finding it in the democratic party, occupy wall street or even the green party.
Nothing beats direct action on the level of your choice and there are lots of opportunities. Almost every national organization having anything to do with climate, biodiversity, conservation and environmental protection is running petition campaigns you can sign, and some of these have been effective influencing outcomes at congressional down to municipal levels. It’s a start.
Other natl. efforts, like 350.org, League of Women Voters, Greenpeace…organize action/awareness campaigns & demonstrations in local communities & cities. you can show up or better yet become part of local organizing teams. Google ‘em.
Find out if your town/county has a climate action plan. Get involved in local political discussions that are determining what will happen to your water, food and energy supplies in the future.
Consider plugging into get out the vote campaigns for candidates who support climate reality. The climate needs votes in November, especially in the House. Write letters to local papers advocating science-based policy and calling out the denialist machine for what it is.
Thing is, we can’t afford to give in. Not if we have any sense of responsibility.
Run for office?
Study methodically and talk to everyone when they ask why you’re a no-fossil fuel meat vegetarian?
Get involved with anything that is based on cooperative living instead of mass marketing consumerism?
Not sure you got the answer you were looking for…
I don’t comment too often any longer, though I follow others’ comments as leading indicators of the social psychological response to the emerging awareness that this problem is the real deal and, at a certain point, blogging abstractly about it and debating national politics offer diminishing returns.
If that’s what you’re trying to say, follow Ms. Emery’s comments and read “The Great Disruption” and “Crash Course” — Mother Nature is going to impose a new order; Washington politicians are not going to do jack squat, nor will world governments. Aside from incentives for solar installations and fuel efficiency standards, Washington will jump directly to dealing with the cost of adaptation, skipping over mitigation except where they coincide with adaptation. But peak energy costs and economic contraction will start bringing down emissions.
Nonetheless, be resilient and be prepared to adapt.
I’m a little busy with work right now, but I’m looking to perhaps have more meaningful discussions with hard-headed, pragmatic, politically moderate souls — reachable at “thinkingbeyond99v1″ Gmail, that is.
Best to all. Nothing wrong with what Brian and Mark had to say, by the way.
Great discussion all. I have posted on this topic before but feel the need to add to this thread. IMO, the fundamental problem is the capitalistic paradigm ability of the few to profit from the pollution of the commons. If more attention were paid to the money trail that is clear, rather than the global warming or food shortages or the water and drought problems discussed above perhaps more would be capable of understanding the inequities we all face. It is morally indefensible for a few to profit from the starvation of many, yet capitalism allows the rich to buy “futures” on the very outcome, and reap huge profits. Throw a paper cup out the car window in Alaska and it is a thousand dollar fine. Buy into the system and you can dump 19 pounds of toxins per gallon of fuel you burn out the tail pipe of your car and get rich just by convincing the masses that it is all good. People, for the most part, understand going broke, they do not understand “Rational Science.” Stop profits from the pollution of the commons. Keep it simple.
Many are comparing the current drought situation with the drought of 1988. The 1988 drought was what set the stage for Hansen’s famous testimony to Congress that he was 99% sure that global warming was evident then.
People should welcome extreme events because it is obvious that only an event beyond anything ever recorded is going to be enough to shock the country out of its present denial. The sooner a drought unequivocally greater than anything on record happens the better. Hopefully it will be this year.
The New Yorker published Ryan Lizza’s “The Second Term” piece on what Obama might do if reelected. According to his report, “the President has said that the most important policy he could address in his second term is climate change, one of the few issues that he thinks could fundamentally improve the world decades from now”.
Harry Reid has been saying the Democratic Party is ready, should it still have more than 50 Senators after the election, to unilaterally change the rules that allow so many bills to be defeated by 40 Senators. It is legally possible to do this as the first act of any new session. Until now both parties have tacitly agreed to modify the Constitution in the way they have by not unilaterally going back to most votes only requiring 50 votes.
So, you think it should take a Republican president and just 50 Republican Senators to repeal the Clean Air, Water, and EPA Acts? Not to mention Medicare, Medicaid, ACA, kill off Food Stamps,….
I said Harry Reid is saying if the Democratic Party retains nominal control of the Senate they are going to take the opportunity of a new session to change the rules so a majority vote in the Senate is enough to pass most bills. This is the way the Constitution reads.
The question is whether disaster relief comes up as an issue. If the farmers are going to suffer huge financial losses and the crop insurance is insufficient, and Obama ends up in a confrontation with Republicans on added aid, that might be a real example of the need for a government safety net.
Ditto for the drought ending with 10 inches of rain in 36 hours leading to floods.
Of course, if some disaster hits and it appears Obama isn’t responding happened after Katrina, then that will affect the elections.in favor of Republicans even if they are at root of the problem.