Turbulence

The weather news reports for Texas have been unabashedly positive these last few months.  The local newspaper report that all our reservoirs, once empty and bleak holes in the ground, have now replenished and we can declare the drought over.

Of course it’s a totally different story out west.  California faces the prospect of another dust bowl summer and perhaps the destruction of tens of thousands of acres of farmland.  The rest of the nation faces higher food prices as a consequence.

Four years ago it was the exact opposite.  A neat little online tool can help you visualize it

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/MapsAndData/ComparisonSlider.aspx

While I’m glad that our condition has improved, I worry that the overall picture is slowly but surely deteriorating.  California will recover in time.  Of that I’m sure.  But these see-saw changes in the weather are leaving deep scars in nature’s ability to heal itself and to withstand the abuse that we throw at it.

Nature can put up with a lot and given time it can come back stronger than before but with the increased demands that we are putting on the planet I am not sure that the damage in some of the more marginal areas will heal this time.  As these marginal areas fail to heal and become wastelands other areas that were fruitful become marginal and we stress them even more as our material needs increase.

It’s a vicious downward spiral that has the potential of eventually becoming self-sustaining and unstoppable.  It to be arrested or even reversed and given time and conscious effort it can be.  But the time and the ability of our species to affect a positive change is rapidly dwindling.

These harsh flood and drought patterns in our weather cycle are just the beginning of what could be catastrophic times to come.  if we do nothing then this could become our normal way of life.