Texans and Frogs. What Do They Have in Common?

It's pretty hard to exaggerate our indifference to early-onset impacts of climate change.  They're here, they're worsening before our eyes and, more often than not, we ignore them.  Some call it the "boiling frog" syndrome.

The New Republic offers up a cautionary tale of drought-stricken Texas and the collapse of the state's once legendary cattle industry.

In fact, hydrologists estimate that even with improved rainfall, it could take thousands of years to replenish the groundwater already drawn from the South Plains. If sustained rains don’t come soon, the tiny cattle towns of the Panhandle and across North Texas, already in decline for decades, may be pushed out of existence. Their residents, like the workers displaced by the Cargill plant closure, may be forced north in the first wave of U.S. climate change migrants, as the national cattle herd constricts around a narrower band in the center of the country and the nation’s food supply becomes ever more reliant on the deepest parts of the Ogallala Aquifer in Kansas and Nebraska.  

This dovetails neatly with yesterday's post concerning America's looming 'internally displaced population' problem and the increasing problem with climate change migration.