Do I Really Care About Oklahoma? (Jane Smiley at HuffPost)

[marmar]

Jane Smiley


03.27.2007
Do I Really Care About Oklahoma? (67 comments )

Back in 2004, when Bush seemed to win the Presidential election for the first time, I made a vow. It was that in future years, if I happened to see an elderly homeless person holding out his hat, I would lean down and ask him who he voted for in 2004. If he said "Bush", I planned to step over him and walk on.

In this same vein, I plan not to lift a finger to help the State of Oklahoma if Senator Inhofe continues to reject global warming in the sorts of rude terms that he used with Al Gore last week. Same goes for the home districts in Texas of Ralph Hall and Joe Barton. The voters in Oklahoma and those particular districts in Texas are responsible for these clowns, and it is about time that they told them to put a lid on it.

What will happen in Oklahoma and Texas as global warning progresses? Well, it is already happening--drought. If you go here you will see that most of Texas is suffering from dryness or drought, and part of Texas is suffering from exceptional drought. At least half of Oklahoma is suffering from drought, and one section is suffering from severe drought. The report referenced here shows that as of July 2006, severe and extreme drought covered almost all of Oklahoma and Texas. The drought continues. In December, the NOA Satellite and Information Center made the following observations: "Mandatory or voluntary water restrictions were placed in effect in parts of Florida, Texas, Oklahoma as lake and reservoir levels dropped and other municipal water supplies were reduced. River transportation was severely curtailed because of low levels of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and their tributaries. Agricultural impacts of drought include farmers being driven out of business and hay shortages in Wyoming, and low crop yields in Colorado, South Dakota, Missouri and Alabama. Wildlife population declines were noted in Arizona, Oklahoma and South Dakota...Burning bans were declared in Florida and Texas as dry weather increased the potential for wildfires. The extended drought in Oklahoma, coupled with hot temperatures, led to a high number of cases of West Nile virus." West Nile Virus attacks both horses and people. It is a disease that you don't want to get, and there is no human vaccine.

Of course, it is always possible that Senator Inhofe doesn't remember the Texas and Oklahoma wildfires that raged across those states in December 2005 and into April of 2006. Record high temperatures, high winds, and drought equaled thousands of fires and millions of acres burned.

Folks in Texas and Oklahoma have reason to fear global warming. They are stuck in already dry regions that are difficult to farm--in Oklahoma farming and ranching depend on irrigation. One of the main sources of agricultural water in Oklahoma is the Ogallala aquifer, which, over its general area is being drained at a hundred times its rate of replenishment. In northern Texas, it has been entirely exhausted. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/do-i-really-care-about-ok_b_44354.html

[Orrex]

1. Jane Smiley is awesome

Great post!

[rudy23]

2. I hate this trend. Why punish progressives in a state because they lost an election?

I've seen this mentality a lot lately in "Democratic" circles--recently targeted at Mississippi and Louisiana "Screw 'em if they keep voting in this trash...etc."

We are the country that nearly voted * into office TWICE, should the world punish American progressives because of our failure to get our candidates into office?

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. The point is, we ARE being punished,

by nature and by the people that were put in office. Should we bail out and enable the people that have done this to us?

The world doesn't need to punish american progressives for our failure - the american conservatives are doing it for them.