One in two Australians have a mental or chronic disease

Submitted by a reader in Sydney, Australia

‘Millions of Australians suffering from combined physical, mental ill health, new report finds’

• 4 million Australians have a mental health condition
• One in two Australians have a chronic disease
• Mental health conditions are the leading cause of illness and disability
• More than 2.4m Australians have a mental and physical health condition

Read more…

[The stats are even more frightening here in the U.S.]

Image of the Day from NSW, Australia

Harry Taylor, 6, plays with the bones of dead livestock on his family farm which has become a dust bowl due to the extreme drought. In the Central Western region of New South Wales, Australia, farmers continue to battle a crippling drought which many locals are calling the worst since 1902. [Brook Mitchell/Getty Images] Image may be subject to copyright. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/nsw-drought/10084956

 

100% drought declared across state of New South Wales: Govt

NSW produces more than a quarter of Australia’s agricultural output.

The worst drought in living memory is sweeping parts of eastern Australia, leaving farmers struggling to cope and many asking questions about the future (!)

“Australia’s drought — the cancer eating away at farms”

“My great-grandfather settled on this land in 1901, and he never had to remove cattle from the paddocks over there,” says May McKeown, 79, pointing to the west. “But we have had to remove them all and bring them closer to the homestead so we can more easily feed them.”

Farmer Ash Whitney stands in the middle of a dried-up dam in a drought-effected paddock on his property located west of the town of Gunnedah in New South Wales, Australia, June 3, 2018. “I have been here all my life, and this drought is feeling like it will be around a while,” said Whitney. Sourced from https://abcnews.go.com/ Image may be subject to copyright.

California Drought Could Worsen Water Contamination

EXTREME CLIMATIC EVENT
STATE OF EMERGENCY
WORSENING DROUGHT
WATER FAMINE
.

“Water is, after all, essential for life” —Dr Linda Rudolph

California’s drought could worsen water contamination and cause more health problems, health experts have warned.

Millions of Californians who rely on groundwater are facing increasing levels of contaminants due to dry conditions, said Dr. Linda Rudolph, co-director for the Center for Climate Change and Health in Oakland, California.

The state Department of Public Health has identified 17 communities—mostly in the Central Valley—with severely affected water systems.

“Many groundwater basins in California are contaminated, for example with nitrates from over application of nitrogen fertilizer or concentrated animal feeding operations, with industrial chemicals, with chemicals from oil extraction or due to natural contaminants with chemicals such as arsenic,” she said.

“Little-Water Creek,” California.

Drought worsening health and safety problems

California’s drought is also worsening numerous other health and safety problems.

The lack of rain is drying out soils and increasing dust levels, and dust carries pathogens, said Rudolph.

“[This] increases allergy and asthma. And dust can also carry pathogens. Over the last decade we’ve seen an increase in Valley Fever, a fungal disease in the Central Valley. That can be increased when dust levels increase and the spores of this disease are carried in the dust.”

Other Health Problems

The drought could also spark other health problems, said Rudolph,  including an increase in diabetes in some rural communities because people turn to sugary fluids when drinking water becomes scarce .

“And when those other alternatives are things like soda, it just exacerbates health problems such as obesity,” she said.

Droughts , which are already causing crop disaster declarations across the Golden  State, are reducing agricultural crop yields, and could soon lead to significant food price increases.

“And we see the same thing when people have to pay more for food. Low income people often turn to calorie dense food that is associated with more calories, obesity and diabetes,” said Rudolph.

Running Out Of Water in 60 DAYS

Meanwhile, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) announced they are prioritizing assistance to the following public drinking water systems because they are running out of drinking water in 60 days:

System Name	City	County	Population
City of Willits	Willits	Mendocino	8,062
Redwood Valley County Water District	Redwood Valley	Mendocino	3,969
Brooktrail Township Community Services District	Willits	Mendocino	3,800
Lake of the Woods MWC	Frazier Park	Kern	953
West Goshen	Goshen	Tulare	300
River Highlands Community Services District	Smartsville	Yuba	200
Washington Ridge Conservation Camp	Nevada City	Nevada	100
Camp Condor	Taft	Kern	75
Whispering Pines Apartments	Mid-Pines	Mariposa	55
Ophir Gardens	Auburn	Placer	45

California Drought

Drought persists across California. US  Drought Monitor has downgraded Humboldt and Trinity Counties drought conditions from degradation severe to extreme drought (D2 to D3). Areas near Monterey to Bakersfield have been downgraded from extreme to exceptional drought (D3 to D4).  Some 8 inches of snow reported on the ground at the Central Sierra Snow Lab near the Donner Summit reports, the lowest for this since at least 1946. Source: NOAA/NWS/NCEP/CPC.

State of Emergency

Governor Brown proclaimed a State of Emergency on January 27  amid the worsening statewide drought.  He called the “really serious,” adding that 2014 could be California’s third consecutive dry year. “In many ways it’s a mega-drought.”

57 California Counties Declared Crop Disaster Areas

All but one of the 58 counties in the state of California have been declared Crop Disaster Areas due to Extreme Drought conditions.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has designated 57 counties in the state of California as crop disaster areas due to the worsening drought, since the beginning of the year.

California State Resources

• Electronic snowpack readings –  http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/snowapp/sweq.action
• Electronic reservoir readings – http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/resapp/getResGraphsMain.action
• Water Conditions – http://www.water.ca.gov/waterconditions/
• California Drought Page – http://www.water.ca.gov/waterconditions/drought/

Related Links

• California Drought Worsens February 6, 2014
• COLLAPSE OF CALIFORNIA LOOMS February 2, 2014
• California Drought Could Paralyze the U.S.  February 2, 2014
• California Drops State Water Allocation to Zero  February 1, 2014
• California Drought Intensifies January 30, 2014
• California Communities Could Run Out of Water in 60 to 120 Days January 29, 2014
• Drought Disaster Declared for Multiple Counties in Four States January 25, 2014
• California Declares Drought State of Emergency January 18, 2014
• California Governor to Declare Drought Emergency January 17, 2014
• High Fire Danger in Southern California amid Driest Conditions on Record January 17, 2014
• 520 Counties across 16 States Declared Crop Disaster Areas due to Drought January 16, 2014

FIRE-EARTH 2009 Forecast: Desertification of California in the Near Future Is Almost a Certainty

[NOTE: The above forecast and most of the links posted below have previously been filtered by Google, WordPress and others. Editor ]

• California: Biggest Desert in N America August 16, 2009
• Warning: California Is Being Mojavefied!
• Can’t have your water and eat the fish, too!
• Alaska: One Fire Away From Exporting Charcoal
• Calif Drought: Schwarzenegger declares a state of emergency
• Images of the Day: California Drought & Folsom Lake
• Desertification
• California ‘Mojavefied’ by 2011?
• Land degradation threatens 1.5 billion people
• Topsoil
• First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities

• Schwarzenegger Proclaims Water Emergency in Nine Counties
• Drought
• A Few Extreme Events Away
• Image of the Day: Southern Spain
• Schwarzenegger Proclaims Water Emergency in Nine Counties

July 2012: Hottest Month on Record for Continental U.S.

Disaster Calendar – 9 August 2012

SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,315 Days Left

[August 9, 2012] Mass die-offs resulting from human impact and the planetary response to the anthropogenic assault could occur by early 2016.  SYMBOLIC COUNTDOWN: 1,315 Days Left to the ‘Worst Day’ in Human History…

–

Hi temps and low precipitation intensified drought 2012, covering  about 2/3 of the U.S., as deadly wildfires burned millions of acres

July average temperature for contiguous U.S. climbed to 77.6°F, 3.3°F above the 20th century average, making it the hottest July and the hottest month on record for the country, reported NOAA. “The warm July temperatures contributed to a record-warm first seven months of the year and the warmest 12-month period the nation has experienced since recordkeeping began in 1895.”

“The August 2011-July 2012 period was the warmest 12-month period of any 12-months on record for the contiguous U.S., narrowly surpassing the record broken last month for the July 2011-June 2012 period by 0.07°F. The nationally averaged temperature of 56.1°F was 3.3°F above the long term average. Except Washington, which was near average, every state across the contiguous U.S. had warmer than average temperatures for the period.”

• The previous warmest July was Dust Bowl summer of 1936 when the average U.S. temperature was 77.4°F.
• Precipitation in continental U.S. averaged 2.57, 0.19 inches below average.
• Virginia experienced its warmest July, with a statewide temperature 4.0°F above average.
• Record heat also contributed to the warmest ever January-to-July period.
• U.S. temperatures have now broken the hottest-12-months record 4 times in as many months (see chart below).
• The U.S. Climate Extremes Index (USCEI) soared to a record-large 46 percent (more than twice the average value) during the January-July period, beating the previous record large CEI of 42 percent which occurred in 1934.

Year-to-date temperature Chart, by month, for 2012 (red), compared to the other 117 years on record for the contiguous U.S., with the five ultimately warmest years (orange) and five ultimately coolest years (blue) noted. Source: NCDC

The ten warmest 12-month periods recorded in the U.S. Temperatures have now broken the hottest-12-months record 4 times in as many months.  Source: NCDC

Other Global Disasters/ Significant Events

U.S. Drought Disaster 2012

About a quarter (24.14%) of the Continental U.S. is now in ‘Extreme’ or ‘Exceptional’ drought (D3 – D4), a rise of about 2 percent since July 31, and nearly a half (46.01%) of the country is experiencing ‘Severe’ to ‘Exceptional’ drought levels (D2 – D4), according to data released by the US Drought Monitor.

U.S. Drought Map. Comparison maps for July 31 and August 7, 2012. Source: US Drought Monitor

• New Mexico. USDA has designated eight counties in New Mexico as agricultural disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by the ongoing drought.

• Nebraska. USDA has designated 38 counties in Nebraska as agricultural disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by the ongoing drought. The disaster declaration extends to the following counties in bordering states
  • Iowa: 3 counties
  • Kansas: 2 counties
  • South Dakota: 3 counties

• Mississippi. USDA has designated 6 counties in Mississippi as agricultural disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by the ongoing drought. The disaster declaration extends to the following counties in bordering states
  • Arkansas: 2 counties

• Oklahoma. USDA has designated 20 counties in Oklahoma as  agricultural disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by the ongoing drought. The disaster declaration extends to the following counties in bordering states
  • Kansas:  Cherokee County.
  • Missouri: 2 counties.

Oklahoma Drought Map

Oklahoma Drought Maps for July 31 and August 7, 2012. Source: US Drought Monitor.

• South Dakota. USDA has designated 6 counties in South Dakota as agricultural disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by the ongoing drought. The disaster declaration extends to the following counties in bordering states
  • Iowa: Lyon County.
  • Minnesota: 2 counties.

• Ohio. USDA has designated 4 counties in Ohio as agricultural disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by the ongoing drought. The disaster declaration extends to the following counties in bordering states
  • Michigan: Hillsdale County.
  • Indiana: 2 counties.

•  Arkansas. USDA has designated 6 counties in Arkansas as agricultural disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by the ongoing drought.

• Illinois. USDA has designated six  counties in Illinois as agricultural disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by the ongoing drought. The disaster declaration extends to the following counties in bordering states
  • Wisconsin: 2 counties.

• Iowa. USDA has designated ten counties in Iowa as agricultural disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by the ongoing drought. The disaster declaration extends to the following counties in bordering states
  • Minnesota: 2 counties.
  • Nebraska: 2 counties.
  • S. Dakota: 3 counties.

Iowa Drought Maps for July 31 and August 7, 2012. Source: US Drought Monitor. The areas covered by extreme or exceptional drought levels in Iowa have more than doubled from 30.74 percent last week to 69.14 percent on August 7.  Iowa is the country’s top corn and soybean producer.

• Minnesota. USDA has designated 4 counties in Minnesota as agricultural disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by the ongoing drought. The disaster declaration extends to the following counties in bordering states
  • Iowa: Lyon County
  • South Dakota: Two counties

• Kentucky. USDA has designated 9 counties in Kentucky as agricultural disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by the ongoing drought. The disaster declaration extends to the following counties in bordering states
  • Indiana: Perry County.

• Kansas. USDA has designated 21 counties in Kansas, a key farm state,  as agricultural disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by the ongoing drought. The disaster declaration extends to the following counties in bordering states
  • Missouri: 2 counties.
  • Nebraska: 5  counties.
  • Oklahoma: 2 counties.

Kansas Drought Map

Kansas Drought Maps for July 31 and August 7, 2012. Source: US Drought Monitor.

U.S. Corn Condition

Map of the Agricultural Weather Assessments for U.S. Corn Conditions for the week ending August 4, 2012. Source: USDA

Europe. Watch this space!

• Manila, Philippines.  Authorities in the Philippines have appealed for “more medicines, blankets, mats and, more importantly, dry clothes” to help more than two million people displaced or severely affected by floods in and around Manila, as the death toll mounted.
  • many evacuation centers are  unable to provide warm meals for the growing numbers displaced, AFP reported Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman as saying. “Most local government units do a community kitchen, but the volume of evacuees is so big they have been overwhelmed,” she said.

Global Disasters: Links, Forecasts and Background

• The First Wave of World’s Collapsing Cities
• Back to the Primordial Future
• The Fate of Energy Dinosaurs
• Mass Die-offs

• 2010 Disasters [Links to 2010 Disaster Calendar]
• Mega Disasters
• 2011 Disaster Calendar
• 2012 Disaster Calendar

Planet Dust Bowl

20 Million Tons of Dust in the Air

Minimum dust content in the atmosphere higher than 20 million tons: FIRE-EARTH

Thanks (!) to human induced climate change, exacerbating droughts, dust storms and a few other natural mechanism, as well as deforestation and increased agricultural damage …, the atmosphere contained a minimum of about 20 million tons of dust during the past 12 months, FIRE-EARTH estimates.

[NOTE: The estimate does not include particles from smoke and burning fossil fuels, or ash and other volcanic materials.]

Dust over the Mediterranean

A large plume of dust from the Sahara, extending about 700km, drifts northward across the Mediterranean Sea toward Greece. Natural-color imageas captured by MODIS instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite on November 10, 2010.  Download large image (3 MB, JPEG) . Click image to enlarge. Source: NASA E-O

Dust covers the Gulf of Alaska, again

Dust blows off the coast of Alaska covering the Gulf of Alaska for the second time in as many weeks. “Although dust storms often arise from sand seas, such as those of the Sahara or the Arabian Peninsula, dust can also result from the interactions of glaciers and bedrock.” The natural-color image was acquired by MODIS on NASA’s Terra satellite on December 1, 2010. Download large image (1 MB, JPEG). Source: NASA E-O.

Related Links:

• Dust Storm from Tunisia Passes Over Sicily
• Gobi Tries to Bury E China

• TC Phet, SST and Intercontinental Dust Storms
• Killer Dust Storms Strike India, Middle East

• SW China on the precipice of catastrophe
• Humongous Dust Storm Sweeps Africa
• Australia: World’s Smallest Continental Dust Bowl
• Could Dust Storms Bury Sydney, Australia?
• Washington: Thousands of Tons of Topsoil Lost in Dust Storm

• Australia: Uranium Dust Threat Real?
• And dust to dust …
• The Mesopotamian Dust Bowl
• Image of the Day: Sandstorm in Saudi Desert

Other resources:

• Dust, Smoke, and Haze
• Satellites Search for 770m Tons of Dust in the Air

Oklahoma Drought

Cropland and Prairie, Cimarron County, Oklahoma

In the second week of August 2008, the western Oklahoma Panhandle got just enough rain to ease the region’s drought status from “exceptional” to “extreme“ according to the U.S. Drought Monitor report from August 12. The area had been suffering through a drought since fall 2007; in terms of dryness, the year rivaled conditions the area faced during the Dust Bowl years.

As of early August, the Oklahoma panhandle was experiencing its driest year (previous 365 days) since 1921, according to records kept by the Oklahoma Climatological Survey. Through July, year-to-date precipitation in Boise City, in the heart of Cimarron County, was only about 4.8 inches, barely half of average and drier than some years in the 1930s, the height of the Dust Bowl.

These maps show how vegetation conditions compared to average during 16-day periods in July 2007 and June/July 2008. Green indicates more vegetation than the 2000-2006 average, brown is less vegetation than normal, and beige indicates that vegetation conditions were average.

NASA images by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, based on MODIS data from the Global Agricultural Monitoring Project. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.

The scattered August rains may be responsible for some of the vegetation patterns recorded by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite in this image from August 14, 2008. The image uses a combination of visible and infrared light to enhance the appearance of vegetation, which looks red. Places where vegetation is dead or dormant are shades of beige to gray. Very reflective surfaces, such as roads and dry creek beds are off-white. The small farming towns of Boise City and Keyes are separated by a patchwork of geometric fields.

The most robust vegetation occurs in fields with center-pivot irrigation, usually corn in this part of Oklahoma, but sometimes milo, sorghum for livestock feed, or cotton, according to Cherri Brown, district conservationist for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Boise City. The other circular fields could be residue from harvested crops, but they could also be places where crops have succumbed to drought. Most of the rectangular fields are being prepared for seeding of wheat or are planted with milo and sorghum feed crops. Many of the fields are streaked or marbled with bright, sandy-looking patches. Narrow, straight lines may be cultivation patterns, but the more blotchy-looking areas may be places where the death of vegetation has allowed the region’s sandy soils to blow and drift.

In the first half of 2008, an exceptional drought descended on the High Plains, centered on Cimarron County, Oklahoma. This map shows the extent of drought in the continental United States on July 22, 2008. (Map by Robert Simmon, based on data from the U.S. Drought Monitor.)

North of the cropland, the landscape transitions to prairie, much of which is used as grazing land. The health of vegetation on these lands is variable. In places, the landscape is gray and brown, indicating dead or dormant grasses. But across some areas, there is a faint tinge of red, indicating some plants are surviving the drought. These variations could be due to a combination of patchy rainfall, topography, and soils.

To learn more about the region’s drought, please read the feature story Devastating Drought Settles on the High Plains.

• References
• U.S. Drought Mitigation Center. (2008, August 12). National Drought Summary—August 12, 2008. Accessed August 18, 2008.

NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using data provided courtesy of NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey.