An open letter to all osteriches.

Yesterday I posted a chart about the warming of planet Earth. A group of scientists believe that we may be warming at an alarming rate. Perhaps fifty times what we are used to seeing in the cooling cycle of the planet for the last 100 years or so. 50 times. So it is not that we are just going through a hot spell. That I can understand. But we are getting hotter by fifty times a greater degree than we are cooling down.

But still certain people scoff. Others bury their heads.

Then I added pieces about beef and grape production suffering. I could have picked other industries in the agricultural system, but those two will do just fine to explain what is going on.

Texas is inside a five-to seven-year drought cycle. Yes, it has happened before. We are an arid section of the country. At least part of the state is. But Texas and the Southwest have undergone this drought for so long that the water tables are being affected. We have more people using the same resources as before, only now we’re pulling more and more water from the ground. When a major beef producing processing plant closes because there are no more cattle to feed it, and when grape production begins to limit the amount of wine bottled, then the climate change has had an impact. As water resources dry up, we are going to see more and more crops in trouble. Farmers in the Tran-Pecos range of Texas say that cantaloupe production could be in short supply again this year. Crop yield was down for the third straight year last year. Corn could be in the same boat. Last year was one of the poorest production years for corn in the last 100 years. Corm futures look so dim that Maker’s Mark whiskey (a corm-based Bourbon from Kentucky has decided to change their recipe after a century and dilute their beverage because they can’t make enough from the corn mash available to them.) Hey, it is one thing to cut into my wine supply, but when you cut into my whiskey supply, you’ve got my attention.

So let’s pretend it is just a cycle. It will go away. We have nothing to worry about. Just some liberals trying to get fossil fuels banned — right? They are just troublemakers and all this will come back. Good as it was! Okay. No worry.

Now, lets suppose they are right — that Greenland is truly melting away and that glaciers that have been with us for centuries and centuries are melting away at an alarming rate?  Big deal. Nobody really lives on Greenland. And glaciers are nice for national parks and for cruise ships to visit, but what’s the big deal?

But you start to limit beef production and wine production and cantaloupe production — you cut into citrus fruit and apples and wheat and corn production not to mention rice and other commodities… soon, with a 7.07 billion humans on the planet to feed, you’ve got a real problem. And forget about feeding them much. Once they eat, they have to wash it down with something. Water is getting more and more scarce.

We have to do something about this. It may go away. (I don’t think so. Not without a lot of help from us.) But if this trend continues, Earth is in for a very rough ride. And its passengers are going to feel every bump. Water riots. Food riots, corn and burger wars…sounds like science fiction, but it could become a reality. People will do crazy things when they get hungry and thirsty. Wars have been fought over far less important things…things like religion, for example.

So it is time we quit making this a political issue. Time we get off the fence and start looking for real answers to help turn this trend back the other way. Even if the scientists are wrong (which they are not) the idea of protecting our planet and making it work for all of us in generations to come is vital.

The new Pope could play a real important part in this. We need real, honest incredibly sensible birth control around the world. And it is time the Mother Church got out of the way and became less a part of the problem and more a part of the solution.

This new information isn’t about the climate change issues you stuff into your mind. It is about the lack of food to stuff into your gut.