Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Washington’s ‘Wet Drought’ Gets Worse

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Washington’s ‘Wet Drought’ Gets Worse

Click here to access article by Brian Kahn from Climate Central.

With its snowpack at abysmal levels and some streams recording record low flows, Washington is perhaps looking at a worse drought than it anticipated even a month ago. The impacts already being seen prompted Gov. Jay Inslee on Friday to expanded an emergency drought declaration to cover the whole state.

Here in the Puget Sound area of Washington state where I reside, I haven't noticed much concern from the media about the lack of snow pack in the nearby Cascade mountains or Governor Inslee's declaration of a drought. It seems that the global warming deniers among our ruling capitalist class have conditioned media people to play down this story. It has been easy to do because we have gotten normal rainfall throughout the winter and spring, but this year it fell mostly as rain which proceeded to drain into rivers and out into the ocean leaving little stored as snow in the mountains. This area of Puget Sound has a huge population and depends to a major extent on snow pack to get through the drier summer and fall months.