In stark contrast to decades past, Ethiopia is parched by a potent drought but not reeling from mass famine. What changed? Read the article: Here’s Why There’s a Searing Ethiopian Drought Without an Epic Ethiopian Famine ; ; ;
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Here’s Why There’s a Searing Ethiopian Drought Without an Epic Ethiopian Famine
By Katie Herzogon Apr 27, 2016Share
India is suffering. In the midst of the worst drought it has seen in half a century, some 330 million people are currently affected, reports the government. The scarcity is so severe that schools, farms, and even hospitals cannot function — doctors don’t have enough water to wash their hands — and many people are leaving their homes in search of water.
To combat shortages, the government has started shipping water across the country via trains, but it’s not enough. In one of the most devastated states, 9 million farmers have little or no water for irrigation and at least 216 have committed suicide, reports the Guardian.
“The government says it is bringing water by train every day, but we are getting water once a week,” Haribhau Kamble, an unemployed laborer in the drought-struck district of Latur, told Reuters after waiting in line for three hours to fill up two pitchers. The situation for people like Kamble is expected to get worse as the summer temperatures rise and reservoirs dry up.
The current drought and other extreme weather events — including flooding that killed hundreds in South India last year — are linked to climate change. And while 190 countries met in Paris last year to come up with a plan to target climate change and its increasingly tragic effects, many critics argue that the accord failed to adequately address the needs of the developing nations like India, where over 20 percent of the population lives below the poverty line — that is, on less than $1.90 a day.
“What we needed out of Paris was a deal that put the poorest people first.” Harjeet Singh, global lead on climate change for ActionAid, told the Guardian last year. “What we have been presented with doesn’t go far enough to improve the fragile existence of millions around the world.”
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India’s worst drought in 50 years is shutting down farms, hospitals, and schools
What should you plant in your garden in case we have a very dry spring, summer and fall? How can you beautify your landscape if you can’t water it?
The key is to plant drought-resistant plants that will do well on a minimum amount of moisture. Plants that don’t require a ton of watering make sense whether there’s a drought or not. Water for a yard or garden is expensive no matter where you live, so the less you need to create a beautiful yard, the better. Plus, watering takes time if you don’t have automatic sprinklers set up. You’ll end up wasting both water and time if you don’t choose plants that can get buy on a minimum of H2O.
Here’s a guide to choosing the least thirsty plants, along with some suggestions for flowers, bushes and ground covers that won’t require a downpour to do well.
How to Find the Best Drought-Resistant Plants
One approach is to fill your landscape with drought-tolerant specimens and save thirstier varieties for containers that can add a pop of color to a hill or bed without dominating the entire space.
But more importantly, choose the right plants for the amount of rain you’re likely to get. Contact your county extension service to get their recommendations; they will probably have a list you can download and use when you shop.
Browse the plant aisles at a local nursery as well. Big box stores will sell a lot of plants, but they won’t necessarily know anything about them. The local nursery will be more expensive, but you’ll get better advice there and probably a better selection of perennials that will do well in your region.
Shop for plants at farmer’s markets, too. Local farmers will be able to tell you how much moisture and sun a plant needs, as well as what pests it might be susceptible to. Remember that any plant you buy, you can propagate and turn into many more. Even if one plant seems expensive, it’s an investment in the future, as long as you care for it well.
Don’t forget to check out native plants. Natives to your region have evolved to do well in your climate. PlantNative.org offers this excellent guide to planning, planting and maintaining a native plant garden.
Finally, consider your soil. Does it retain moisture, so you can water it less and still keep your plants happy? Or is it sandy and dry and not capable of providing moisture to a plant’s roots when needed? You can often send soil samples to your county extension office for testing; they’ll also let you know what nutrients or soil amendments you need. Plan to add compost, which will enrich the soil and increase its ability to hold moisture.
Examples of Drought-Resistant Plants
As for plants to look into, here are some suggestions, depending on where you live:
Cactus – If you live in the American southwest or in another particularly dry but sunny part of the U.S., cactus has got to be on your list. These plants come in an infinite variety of shapes, sizes, textures and colors. Many of them flower, and some of them even produce fruit. They’re gorgeous when planted in a bed that mixes up varieties to create visual interest.
Sedum – Sedum are considered a succulent; they store water in their leaves to help them survive dry spells. Sedum makes for a wonderful ground cover, especially on a slope.
Purple Sage – Purple sage is a member of the genus Salvia. It’s native to the western U.S., which historically is a dry habitat. Some varieties produce showy purple flowers. There are also shrub varieties. Flowers can be quite large and fragrant.
Joe Pye Weed – Eupatorium purpureum, or Joe Pye Weed, is a tall, majestic plant with airy pink-purple flowers that last from mid-summer through fall. While the plant does best in a moist environment, I have it planted in dry shade and never water it. It proliferates, but doesn’t get as tall in dry shade as it would if it were in moist sun. It attracts a bevy of insects and butterflies and is beautiful towards the back of the garden.
Sempervivum – This is a big group of alpine succulents. Their natural habitat is typically 3000-8000 feet above sea level in a cooler, drierclimate. There are about 50 species and over 3000 varieties, so you have a lot to choose from!
Echinacea – Also known as Purple coneflower, this plant is a native of the great plains of the U.S. It thrives in dry, sunny conditions, where its big beautiful flowers attract birds, butterflies and bees.
Lavender – It’s hard to go wrong with this beautiful plant. The flower is gorgeous and fragrant; it resists hot summers and cold winters, repels deer and resists most pests. It will add color and variety to your landscape for many years; you can also cut flowering stems, dry the flowers for potpourri or pulverize it and add it to your favorite lotion or liquid soap.
Russian Sage – Wayside Gardens describes this plant as having “super tolerance of heat, humidity and drought.” It will attract butterflies and hummingbirds, and bloom all summer long. What’s not to love?
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Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
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It’s an area half the size of Rhode Island. Shutterstock The desert in Southern California could be in for a climate-friendly makeover, after the Obama administration released its plans to develop more renewable energy projects on federally owned land. On Tuesday the Interior Department released the final version of a plan that would open up about half a million non-contiguous acres—half the size of Rhode Island—for projects such as wind and solar farms in the Mojave Desert and surrounding areas. It would also more than double the amount of land dedicated to protecting delicate desert ecosystems that are home to vulnerable species, including the desert tortoise. The Mojave Desert, which stretches across most of Southern California, is a potential gold mine for clean energy. Earlier this year, the world’s largest solar farm opened there, near Joshua Tree National Park. According to Interior, the desert and the its surrounding area have the sun and wind potential to support 20,000 megawatts of renewable projects, about equal to the amount of solar energy installed nationwide today. In announcing the plan, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell said that public lands will “play a key role” in helping the United States meet its goal of procuring 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources (excluding large hydro dams) by 2030—up from about 7 percent now. But over the past few years, efforts to develop all that potential have sparked clashes between clean energy buffs and conservationists who don’t want to see pristine landscapes blanketed by vast arrays of solar panels. One pioneering project, the Ivanpah Lake solar farm, became a pariah after environmental groups said that it encroached on tortoise habitat and that its sunlight-concentrating panels were blasting superheated rays into birds’ flight paths and killing tens of thousands of them. Subsequent estimates put the death toll much lower, but the Ivanpah controversy underscored just how hard it can be for government planners to find common ground between competing environmental interests. The new plan (finalized in October but made public Tuesday) is meant to clear the air by painstakingly analyzing a 2 million-acre swath of Southern California and offering a comprehensive take on where to focus clean energy development. Scientists and planners from a host of agencies stockpiled research on wildlife, water, agriculture, historic and cultural sites, and other features in an effort to find spots that have high renewable energy potential with minimal environmental impact. In the map below, the pink and red areas are where the Bureau of Land Management recommends that private developers focus their efforts. Orange and blue hatching shows areas proposed for conservation: BLM Anyone who wants to build a wind or solar farm in these areas still has to go through the normal permitting process that any development on public land has to clear. But the plan is meant to help developers avoid headaches by showing them the areas that the feds have already decided are either not ecologically sensitive, or that are already too degraded to worry much about building in. That’s a departure from the previous modus operandi, in which federal officials made case-by-case decisions on each proposed project. “It’s a real change from how BLM has approached renewable energy development in the past,” said Erica Brand, California energy program director at the Nature Conservancy. The agency, she added, is “protecting desert landscapes by directing development to areas that are more degraded.” Similar reviews of private and state-owned land will be released over the next year. And you can bet that there will be plenty of interest from renewable energy companies. California has the country’s most favorable investment climate for renewable energy, according to Ernst & Young, and the state recently adopted the country’s most aggressive renewable energy target: 50 percent of its electricity mix by 2030. That’s up from 20 percent now. “The [Mojave] Desert has some of the most intact natural landscapes in the lower 48,” Brand said. “As we transition to cleaner energy sources, and work to meet our climate goals, we also have to keep those natural resources intact.”
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This Map Shows Where the Next Clean Energy Gold Mine Is
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From fork to farm: Startup recycles grocery store food waste into organic fertilizer
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Pataki and Graham aren’t invited. Workers stand in at the candidates’ podiums in preparation for Tuesday’s Republican debate in Milwaukee. Morry Gash/AP If you were hoping for a reasonable discussion about science during Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debates, you’re probably going to be sorely disappointed. That’s because the only two candidates with serious positions climate change have been excluded from the event. Last month, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham and former New York Gov. George Pataki made news when they called out their own party for rejecting the science behind climate change. “I’ve talked to the climatologists of the world, and 90 percent of them are telling me the greenhouse gas effect is real, that we’re heating up the planet,” said Graham during CNBC’s Republican “undercard” debate—the early-evening consolation prize for candidates who aren’t polling high enough to land a spot in prime time. “It’s…not appropriate to think that human activity, putting CO2 into the atmosphere, doesn’t make the Earth warmer,” added Pataki. “It does. It’s uncontroverted.” Out of all the candidates in the crowded GOP field, Graham and Pataki also have the strongest track records when it comes to actually fighting climate change. In the Senate, Graham once sponsored a cap-and-trade bill intended to reign-in greenhouse gas emissions. As governor, Pataki helped create a regional cap-and-trade program in the Northeast. So I was excited to hear what they would have say on the issue during the debates that will air Tuesday on the Fox Business Network. Like its sister network Fox News, Fox Business is a major epicenter of climate science denial. Unfortunately for science, Graham and Pataki won’t be on stage Tuesday. Neither of them are averaging anywhere close to 2.5 percent in the polls—the threshold Fox established for the main debate. They aren’t even managing the 1 percent required to participate in the undercard debate. Instead, viewers will hear from an array of global warming deniers. Ted Cruz believes that climate change is a “pseudoscientific theory”; Donald Trump calls it a “hoax”; and Ben Carson insists there’s “no overwhelming science” that it’s caused by humans. Viewers will also hear from candidates like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (who was recently demoted to the undercard stage). Christie acknowledges that climate change is real but seems to oppose any realistic plan to deal with it. Then there are the folks who will be asking the questions. Last year, Fox Business managing editor Neil Cavuto—one of the moderators for Tuesday’s main debate—explained how he first became a climate change “doubter”: Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com Here’s what Trish Regan, one of the moderators for Tuesday’s undercard matchup, had to say when Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) called climate change the country’s top national security threat during a Democratic debate earlier this year: #Bernie says #climatechange is our biggest #1 threat. Maybe he should run for office in #Denmark? #DemDebate — Trish Regan (@trish_regan) October 14, 2015 So since you’re not likely to hear this tonight, here’s Pataki explaining why you really should believe what climate scientists are saying—and why you should vaccinate your kids, too: Read more: 2 GOP Candidates Have Reasonable Positions on Climate Change. They Won’t Be in Tonight’s Debate. ; ; ;
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2 GOP Candidates Have Reasonable Positions on Climate Change. They Won’t Be in Tonight’s Debate.
Mother Jones
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There were helicopters, SWAT teams, and nearly 100,000 marijuana plants yanked out of the ground, but last week’s massive raid in Northern California’s rugged Emerald Triangle was not your father’s pot bust. Carried out by county law enforcement with no help from the DEA, it targeted private landowners—and not just because they were growing pot, police say, but because they were illegally sucking some 500,000 gallons of water a day from a section of the nearby Eel river that is now stagnant and moss-ridden.
In short, the cops say this was as much a water raid as a pot raid. One certainly could imagine, in this era of evolving attitudes toward marijuana, a shift in enforcement focus toward environmentally problematic grows on steep wooded hillsides or above sensitive salmon streams in an increasingly dry climate. These are not isolated issues: Among the growers targeted in last week’s raid, according to the Lost Coast Outpost, were members of California Cannabis Voice Humboldt, a group working to bring growers into compliance with state and federal environmental laws.
A leading advocate for Northern California pot growers scoffs at the notion that the raid was environmentally motivated. “This isn’t about the environment; this is about business as usual,” says Hezekiah Allen, director of the Emerald Growers Association. Allen challenges the authorities’ water use estimates, pointing out that the extensive reservoirs discovered at the grow sites could be eco-friendly ways of storing winter runoff for use during the summer growing season. He also questions the value of criminal raids at a time when the California Water Board is drafting a system of water-use permits and civil fines for pot farmers.
“There are 2,200 un-permitted water diversions for wine grapes in the Central Valley,” he points out, citing a state report, “so I am curious when we are going to see the sheriff show up and chop down un-permitted vines. If we are agnostic about what the crop is, the same crime should lead to the same activity. That is all we are asking, just to be treated like any other crop.”
Yet if state and local officials are to be believed (they did not respond to requests for comment), the raid suggests that even the most eco-conscious Emerald Triangle growers could face a reckoning once California (probably inevitably) legalizes cannabis and starts subjecting pot farms to agricultural inspections. Even with the the best land-use practices, many Emerald Triangle farms likely draw too much water from sensitive mountain streams and headwaters. Growers may find that it’s cheaper and more eco-friendly to relocate to the Central Valley.
Or why stop there? Cannabis, indigenous to moist river valleys in Central and South Asia, uses about six gallons per day per plant. That’s more than many other thirsty crops, such as cotton, which uses 10 gallons per plant for the entire growing season. Which suggests that cannabis should be grown somewhere wet—somewhere other than California.
Allen doesn’t see that happening. He argues that cannabis farming in the Emerald Triangle can be sustainable when farmers cultivate drought-tolerant Kush varieties from Afghanistan, and irrigate entirely with rainwater stored in tanks onsite. After all, no crop offers a greater financial yield per gallon of water. “If we step back and take a look at this industry and the jobs that it creates, California cannot afford not to grow cannabis in the 21st century,” he says. “It’s one of the most adaptable, resource-efficient ways of generating revenue on small farms.”
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Police Say the Biggest Pot Raid in Years Wasn’t Really About Pot
Mother Jones
California’s thirsty almond orchards have been generating an impressive amount of debate as the state’s drought drags on. But that won’t likely stop their expansion. The title of a new report from the Dutch agribusiness-banking giant Rabobank explains why: “California Almonds: Maybe Money Does Grow on Trees.”
The report is “exclusive for business clients of Rabobank,” but an accompanying blog post offers some good tidbits. “Drought conditions and the stronger US dollar have increased the price of almonds for all buyers,” it states. On the US East Coast, wholesale prices for premium almonds have risen 20 percent since last year. “In Europe, the almond is becoming increasingly popular, not only as a nutritious snack but especially as a go-to ingredient for manufacturers,” it continues. There, wholesale prices are up 50 percent since last year, while “buyers in India and Hong Kong are paying 25 percent and 20 percent more, respectively.”
Those higher prices will evidently more than compensate California farmers for higher watering costs, and inspire than to expand acreage. Rabobank expects California almond production to rise by 2 percent to 3.5 percent per year over the next decade, accoring to Sacramento Bee‘s Dale Kasler, who got a look at the Rabobank study.
That’s impressive growth. If almond output expands by 3 percent per year over the next ten years, then—using this trusty formula—production will grow a whopping 34 percent between now and 2025. That’s a lot of growth for a state that already churns out 80 percent of the world’s almonds. This scenario doesn’t imply a 34 percent expansion in almond acreage—some of the almond trees that will contribute to that growth in output have already been planted and will be coming into production over the next few years (it takes almonds about four years to begin producing after they’re planted). But it does imply a robust expansion. Kasler quotes the study:
Higher prices and good profits for California almond growers will continue to encourage more planting of almond orchards…. Nurseries report very little slowing in orders of new trees.
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Say What You Will About Almonds, but They Are Wildly Popular
Mother Jones
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California’s drought isn’t bad news for everyone: turns out West Nile Virus has been thriving in the state’s parched climate. The California Department of Public Health announced last week that in 2014 it recorded the most cases of the potentially deadly mosquito-borne illness since it first showed up in the Golden State more than a decade ago. The CDPH tallied 801 diagnoses, including 31 deaths—the most ever in California.
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The Drought Is Behind California’s Skyrocketing West Nile Virus Numbers
Mother Jones
There’s been a lot of talk lately about the drought in California, especially since this past week, when Gov. Jerry Brown introduced mandatory water cuts for the first time in the state’s history. So what exactly makes this drought so bad? And what are people doing about it? Here are a few important points to keep in mind:
Drought is the norm in California. How bad is this one? There are always wet years and dry years, but the past three years have been among the driest on record—and state officials worry that 2015 will be even drier. Last week, for the first time in the state’s history, Brown imposed mandatory water restrictions, requiring all cities and towns to cut their water usage by 25 percent. Though agriculture uses more than 80 percent of the state’s water, the regulations merely require farmers to submit “water management plans.”
California’s reservoirs have about a year’s worth of water left. Groundwater levels, seen as a “savings account” that the state can draw from in dry times, are at an all-time low. The US Drought Monitor comes out with weekly drought maps based on satellite imagery, precipitation, and water flow data; the Central Valley—America’s bread basket—is covered in dark red, “exceptional drought.”
What exactly is groundwater, and why are people in California freaking out about it? Groundwater is the water that seeps through the ground when it rains. Over the centuries, it accumulates in vast underground aquifers, with older water found deeper in the earth’s crust. Accessed through wells, groundwater is often compared to a savings account in California—good to have in dry times but difficult to refill. The issue now is that with reservoirs (above ground) so depleted, groundwater use is spiking. Farmers are drilling deeper and deeper for water—using water that fell 20,000 years ago. Usually, groundwater makes up about 40 percent of the state’s freshwater usage, but with the recent drought, that number has leapt to 65 percent. This year, it may rise to 75 percent.
What are the state’s biggest water users? Farming in general, and alfalfa (used to feed cows) and almonds in particular. California grows half of the fruits and veggies produced in the States, including more than 90 percent of the country’s grapes, broccoli, almonds, and walnuts. Here are some of the state’s most thirsty crops:
Alfalfa is a superfood of sorts for cows, and it’s in high demand in the Golden State, which leads the country in dairy production and is also a major beef producer. (Fun fact: It takes nearly 700 gallons of water to grow the alfalfa necessary to produce one gallon of milk, and 425 gallons of water to produce 4 ounces of beef.) Almonds are second from the top, both because it takes a lot of water to produce nuts (a single almond takes a gallon of water) but also because the crunchy snack is in vogue in the United States and abroad. The water that’s used to grow the California almonds that are exported overseas in one year would be enough to fuel Los Angeles for nearly three years.
What about fracking? Fracking uses a lot of water, since the process involves injecting water and chemicals into the earth to release oil and gas. According to a recent Reuters article, California oil producers used about 70 million gallons of water in 2014—about the amount that San Francisco homes use collectively in two days. But that’s just the water from fracking. The amount of water that was produced by California’s oil and gas production in 2014—which is to say, the groundwater that bubbled up during production and wasn’t returned to the original aquifers—was about 42 billion gallons. That’s enough to fuel San Francisco homes for 3 years.
Will we get back the water we lose? Your elementary school teachers didn’t lie to you—the water cycle is really a thing. But as Peter Gleick, the president of the Pacific Institute, explained, the water that California is losing “is still falling—it’s just falling somewhere else.” It’s impossible to know exactly where the water that would normally fall in California is going, but there are plenty of places, especially in the North and Northeast, that have been having abnormally wet years. Scientists are also concerned that climate change is both increasing the likelihood of drought and accelerating its effects: As the earth warms, water evaporates more easily from reservoirs, rivers, and soil.
California is on the coast. Can’t we desalinize the ocean? Because desalinization technology is so expensive and energy-intensive, most water officials—and taxpayers—don’t see it as a viable option. The latest attempt is the Carlsbad desalinization plant, just outside of San Diego, which will be complete in 2016. The project will cost taxpayers $1 billion and produce 50 million gallons of water per day—the largest desalinization plant in the Western Hemisphere—and it will provide just 7 percent of the county’s total water needs.
Well, this is depressing. What are viable solutions? There’s no silver bullet, but the good news is that there are some good solutions. This chart, part of a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Pacific Institute, sums up some of the options. California could reduce its water use by 17 to 22 percent with more efficient agricultural water use, including fixes like scheduling irrigation when plants need it and expanding drip and sprinkler irrigation. Urban water use could be reduced by 40 to 60 percent if residents replaced lawns with drought-tolerant plants, fixed water leaks, and replaced old toilets and showerheads with more water-efficient technology. And instead of channeling used water into the ocean, the state could treat it and reuse it—a practice that tends to gross some people out (because of the “drinking pee” factor) but has long been used in Orange County and is becoming more popular as the drought continues.
This article has been updated.
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