The Nation: As the World Burns

article | posted November 17, 2007 (web only)
As the World Burns
Tom Engelhardt


This story originally appeared on TomDispatch.

Georgia's on my mind. Atlanta, Georgia. It's a city in trouble in a state in trouble in a region in trouble. Water trouble. Trouble big enough that the state government's moving fast. Just this week, backed up by a choir singing "Amazing Grace," accompanied by three Protestant ministers, and twenty demonstrators from the Atlanta Freethought Society, Sonny Perdue, Georgia's Baptist governor, led a crowd of hundreds in prayers for rain. "We've come together here," he said, "simply for one reason and one reason only: To very reverently and respectfully pray up a storm." It seems, however, that the Almighty was otherwise occupied and the regional drought continued to threaten Atlanta, a metropolis of 5 million people (and growing fast), with the possibility that it might run out of water in as little as eighty days or as much as a year, if the rains don't come. Here's a little summary of the situation today:





Oops, that's not Atlanta, or even the Southeastern US. That's Ankara, Turkey, hit by a fierce drought and high temperatures that also have had southern and southwestern Europe in their grip.

Sorry, let's try that again. Imagine this scenario:

Over the last decade, 15 to 20 percent decreases in precipitation have been recorded. These water losses have been accompanied by record temperatures and increasing wildfires in areas where populations have been growing rapidly. A fierce drought has settled in--of the hundred-year variety. Lawns can be watered but just for a few hours a day (and only by bucket); four-minute showers are the max allowed. Car washes are gone, though you can clean absolutely essential car windows and mirrors by hand.

Sound familiar? As it happens, that's not the American Southeast either; that's a description of what's come to be called "The Big Dry"--the unprecedented drought that has swept huge parts of Australia, the worst in at least a century on an already notoriously dry continent, but also part of the world's breadbasket, where crops are now failing regularly and farms closing down. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071203/engelhardt

and you couldn't wash your hands in the men's room - they had cut off the water. More and more people; less and less potable water. One of the many dumb things we have done is to build large metropolitan centers in either deserts (e.g. Las Vegas, Phoenix) or in areas of low precipitation. Atlanta normally gets rain, and when it is in trouble, it really gets one's attention.

We have lots of water and almost no deadly weather. While the occassional tornado hits down-state, the worst many of us face is lots of snow (which then of course turns into valuable water).

Julie