Planet-Wide Panic!

Woof! Woof!...
I'm barking at the moon, do'ya mind? Okay, so my bark isn't very loud, and the moon has been hiding recently anyway. Well, on to today's topic: Planet-Wide Panic! I'm the kind of dog who likes to hide from the news, it's rather depressing, and I prefer my jaunts through the park, and my cookies and milk (cookies courtesy of the rabbits). But the scary facts just keep popping up in the newspaper.

Just today I read 3 articles, that when added together paint a very alarming picture for our future. The first article outlines what would have to happen to create a world-wide food shortage. The surprising thing is, it wouldn't take much. Just 3 natural disasters happening in close succession of each other just might do the trick. Specifically, the article outlines a wind-blown wheat rust in Russia, a heat wave in South America, and a warm El Nino. We've been having warm years lately, as well as El Nino's off and on, so this is a very real possibility. The second article takes a look at water on planet Earth. Most of the water we have is salt water, and not really drinkable unless you are willing to freeze and thaw it (as Captain Cook discovered). Our underground fresh water reserves are being drained faster than the Earth is replenishing them. Someday, our fresh water may run low enough we have to begin nationally rationing water, or find a new source. Getting nervous yet? There's more.

If you haven't lived under a rock, you've heard California is going through year after year of drought. This year is looking worse. According to numbers, the snowpack in the Sierra mountains, usually at 100% for a regular year, stands at 0% of that total. This year is the third driest year observed in California, at a little over 5 inches of precipitation, less than half of the average (13 inches). June 1 of this year, California instituted a 25% mandatory water reduction restriction, a goal they are struggling to reach. In terms of records, the last time California saw a similar scale drought was over 1000 years ago! And, according to NASA, the state would need about 11 trillion gallons of water to make up for the shortfall!

Any one of these articles is alarming, but all three read on the same day can really make one uneasy. I hope the rabbits can find a way to save our planet, I've given them a 12$ budget, 3 days, and a new game of Parcheesi (theirs has worn out) as incentive to find a way to fix our planet. We'll see what they come up with.