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Well, I'll be damned. Today, from an entirely unexpected source, the complete post (to date) on the subject of drought and the potential catastrophes associated with it arrived in my email box. I've been writing about this subject in bits and pieces, most recently in a little post about the North Georgia drought. The unexpected source is Tom Engelhardt, author of what has long been one of my favorite political blogs, TomDispatch.com. Today he puts together an amazing amount of information linking drought situations around the planet, and asks the inevitable big question at the end of all this information: What Then? When the faucets run completely dry, when it is no longer just watering lawns, washing cars and taking long luxurious showers that are municipally put on hold, when highly populated areas can no longer sustain life, business, agriculture...What Then? And, why aren't we paying more attention to this right now?

This piece, As The World Burns, is what I would write in my fantasy world where roaming the internet, reading and absorbing information, putting it all together and writing a piece this defnitive and hard-hitting would be all I'd spend my days doing.

For those of us living in the Southwestern United States the subject of water scarcity is ever-present. This part of the country is in what some are calling a "mega drought," a state of affairs which may soon simply be our norm. Engelhardt's article makes it very clear that we are not alone. "Peak water," not peak oil may well be the event that sends us over that big cliff from which there will be no return. Other parts of the planet have been learning the lessons of desertification for some time now, but we may be getting closer to understanding the enormity of its implications as we watch the swamps and wetlands of our Southeast bake and sizzle. It is high time to pay some serious attention to this issue. There is no life without water, it's just that simple.