A new piece of analysis of the likelihood of severe drought in the United States in the later half of the 21st century has made some dire predictions.. Entitled Unprecedented 21st century drought risk in the American Southwest and Central Plains, the article posits that the American Southwest ( The broad definition of the South-West includes nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and Utah) and the Central Plains of the U.S. (includes Nebraska, Kansas, southern South Dakota and Minnesota, western Iowa and Missouri, and northern Oklahoma), will as a result of global warming and natural climate changes, endure increasingly longer periods of severe drought.- the worst in a thousand years.
The research argues that rainfall measurement and soil moisture levels over the past 100 years do not accurately indicate the drought potential in the United States.
The “mega-droughts” of the 12th and 13th centuries in North America will pale into insignificance compared to the impending droughts beginning to occur somewhere between 2030 and 2050. This drought will be compounded by the then very severe impacts of global warming, and the massive loss of groundwater and river depletion caused by unsustainable agricultural practices, fracking, and the large influx of human populations to the west over the preceding 100 years.
Benjamin Cook, a lead researcher for the study from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies , notes that the models also revealed that the “drying in the Southwest would result from a combination of less rain and greater soil evaporation due to higher temperatures. They were not as conclusive about less rain in the central Great Plains but all showed more evaporation there. “Even where rain may not change much, greater evaporation will dry out the soils,” Cook says.”
If this research is in fact correct, then perhaps, you might argue , this is payback time for the 200 years of devastation to the planet and horrific suffering inflicted on so many human beings by that experiment in global destruction – the United States.
But we must not forget that “innocent” human beings will undoubtedly die , and countless millions of unique species may well disappear from the face of the planet as a result of this calamity. Or perhaps, as many of the Plains tribes ave predicted, this is their opportunity to re-claim their destiny.
The rich of the West and mid-West will have no problem relocating to their houses in the eastern states or overseas. It is the poor of the US who will once again suffer as they did in the dust-bowl era. Will this extreme dislocation lead then to a resurgence in workers’ rights, of equality for all, and true non-oligarchic democracy? Or will it instead lead to a desperate grab for other, more fortunate, countries’ resources by what is still likely to be the largest military machine in the world? It is however indisputable that, over time, this environmental catastrophe will dramatically accelerate the United States’ transition to relatively minor international player .
Will those who assume the mantle of ‘international leadership” be less voracious and barbarous in their responses to international issues?-we will have to hope so.