1
00:00:00,200 --> 00:00:05,080
Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Chuck here on a lovely Saturday morning. Cut

2
00:00:05,120 --> 00:00:09,760
Speaker 1: my cup of hot tea. I'm looking out the window

3
00:00:10,080 --> 00:00:13,800
Speaker 1: at a blue sky. The birds are chirping. It's all

4
00:00:13,840 --> 00:00:19,160
Speaker 1: gets as far as your select mind goes. And today

5
00:00:19,160 --> 00:00:22,400
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about droughts because California is in

6
00:00:22,400 --> 00:00:24,680
Speaker 1: the midst of a bad one. And we talked about

7
00:00:24,720 --> 00:00:32,360
Speaker 1: that and more in this episode How Droughts Work. Welcome

8
00:00:32,479 --> 00:00:41,640
Speaker 1: to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,

9
00:00:41,680 --> 00:00:44,839
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles

10
00:00:44,920 --> 00:00:50,000
Speaker 1: W Chuck Bryant, and Jerry the chairs there making copies

11
00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:53,840
Speaker 1: and this is stuff you should know. That was a

12
00:00:53,880 --> 00:00:56,520
Speaker 1: classic skit, wouldn't you say? And that one of the

13
00:00:56,520 --> 00:00:59,640
Speaker 1: only ones I liked by that guy by Rob Schneider.

14
00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:03,320
Speaker 1: That wasn't the biggest fan. Uh did you see the

15
00:01:03,320 --> 00:01:08,360
Speaker 1: one We're Stinging? He's like staying stingling ling ding ding

16
00:01:09,920 --> 00:01:13,160
Speaker 1: making copies. Yeah, it was funny. I mean, I'm not

17
00:01:13,200 --> 00:01:16,040
Speaker 1: anti Rob Schneider, but I just wasn't like, how could

18
00:01:16,080 --> 00:01:19,399
Speaker 1: you be anti Rob Schneider? Honestly, nobody. It's like being

19
00:01:19,440 --> 00:01:22,160
Speaker 1: mad at like a friendly horse or something. Yeah, exactly,

20
00:01:22,800 --> 00:01:25,240
Speaker 1: that's stupid friendly horse. Yeah, I hate his guts. Yeah.

21
00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:30,680
Speaker 1: Uh what a weird intro. Yeah, well, par for the

22
00:01:30,760 --> 00:01:33,200
Speaker 1: course pretty much. My friend. Well, although his career has

23
00:01:33,280 --> 00:01:38,920
Speaker 1: dried up. Oh that was good and vicious. Man. I

24
00:01:38,920 --> 00:01:41,280
Speaker 1: hope he doesn't listen before we get into the whole

25
00:01:41,360 --> 00:01:46,080
Speaker 1: drying up reference. Chuck, we are long, long, long overdue

26
00:01:46,160 --> 00:01:50,240
Speaker 1: for giving a huge shout out to our Kiva team. Yeah,

27
00:01:50,240 --> 00:01:53,800
Speaker 1: that's right. Uh several years ago, it feels like many

28
00:01:53,880 --> 00:01:56,640
Speaker 1: years ago, we did a podcast on micro lending and

29
00:01:56,680 --> 00:01:59,160
Speaker 1: we said, hey, let's start a Kiva team. Kiva is

30
00:01:59,200 --> 00:02:04,320
Speaker 1: a international lending organization micro lending where they pair you

31
00:02:04,360 --> 00:02:07,120
Speaker 1: with people. Actually they it's all over the world. Now

32
00:02:07,640 --> 00:02:10,280
Speaker 1: you need money on a small basis, you loan them

33
00:02:10,280 --> 00:02:12,440
Speaker 1: the money. You can get paid back and pull your

34
00:02:12,440 --> 00:02:14,400
Speaker 1: money back out, or you can reloan it. And we

35
00:02:14,480 --> 00:02:18,399
Speaker 1: have a very active team. And let's hear some numbers. Okay, so, um,

36
00:02:18,440 --> 00:02:21,720
Speaker 1: our team captain Glenn of Glenn and Sonya team captain

37
00:02:21,800 --> 00:02:25,600
Speaker 1: Fame sent us some stats recently. We have the stuff

38
00:02:25,639 --> 00:02:28,800
Speaker 1: you should know. Team has eight thousand, four hundred and

39
00:02:28,800 --> 00:02:34,400
Speaker 1: fifty three members as as of July thirty one. Um,

40
00:02:34,480 --> 00:02:36,360
Speaker 1: how much have we loaned so far. Are you ready

41
00:02:36,360 --> 00:02:38,040
Speaker 1: for this? We need a drum roll, Jerry. Can we

42
00:02:38,080 --> 00:02:39,800
Speaker 1: put in some sort of drum roll effect or at

43
00:02:39,800 --> 00:02:47,440
Speaker 1: Wilhelm scream or something like that. All right, Okay, that's nice,

44
00:02:47,639 --> 00:02:50,560
Speaker 1: that's very good. Here we go. Three million, two hundred

45
00:02:50,600 --> 00:02:55,320
Speaker 1: and fifty one thousand, twenty five dollars. Dude, that is crazy. Yep.

46
00:02:55,639 --> 00:02:58,280
Speaker 1: And that's out of a hundred and seventeen thousand, five

47
00:02:58,360 --> 00:03:01,400
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty nine loans, which is a total of

48
00:03:01,480 --> 00:03:04,520
Speaker 1: thirteen point nine loans per member. I don't know how

49
00:03:04,520 --> 00:03:06,640
Speaker 1: people are doing like nine tenths of a loan, but

50
00:03:06,680 --> 00:03:09,200
Speaker 1: that's impressive in and of itself. Yeah. So what that

51
00:03:09,240 --> 00:03:11,760
Speaker 1: means is people get repaid and they just kind of

52
00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:13,760
Speaker 1: do what I think we do is just kind of

53
00:03:13,840 --> 00:03:15,960
Speaker 1: roll that into another loan. Yeah, you relan it. They

54
00:03:15,960 --> 00:03:18,359
Speaker 1: make great gifts. I think at least one person sent

55
00:03:18,440 --> 00:03:20,880
Speaker 1: you to Kiva gift card to congratulate you and Emily

56
00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:23,919
Speaker 1: on Ruby Rose. That's right, And that's always a nice

57
00:03:23,960 --> 00:03:26,040
Speaker 1: thing you can do at holiday times or birthdays. Yep.

58
00:03:26,280 --> 00:03:28,760
Speaker 1: It's whenever it's not too late to join, like we're

59
00:03:28,760 --> 00:03:30,680
Speaker 1: not like, oh, you're new to the team, like it's

60
00:03:30,680 --> 00:03:33,720
Speaker 1: a very supportive, great team and again, like you said,

61
00:03:33,840 --> 00:03:36,560
Speaker 1: very active. You can go to kiva dot org slash

62
00:03:36,800 --> 00:03:40,200
Speaker 1: teams I believe it's plural slash stuff you should know,

63
00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:42,840
Speaker 1: or just search stuff you should know on kiva dot

64
00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:44,680
Speaker 1: org and we'll bring up our team and you can

65
00:03:44,800 --> 00:03:49,480
Speaker 1: join and be embraced by our teammates. That's right. Yeah,

66
00:03:49,560 --> 00:03:52,640
Speaker 1: So thanks to Glenn and Sonia as always for nudging

67
00:03:52,680 --> 00:03:54,680
Speaker 1: us in the right direction and keeping up with the stats.

68
00:03:55,360 --> 00:03:58,440
Speaker 1: Big help and um and congratulations to our team on

69
00:03:58,520 --> 00:04:01,440
Speaker 1: getting the three point to five million dollars and change

70
00:04:01,440 --> 00:04:07,520
Speaker 1: and loans. Absolutely. Okay, So droughts, huh, Rob Snyder VA.

71
00:04:08,080 --> 00:04:11,960
Speaker 1: Droughts the natural progression of things. Don't forget sting was

72
00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:19,760
Speaker 1: in there. Um, all right, let's talk droughts their serious thing. Yeah,

73
00:04:19,800 --> 00:04:22,600
Speaker 1: I mean it's uh, it's it's natural disaster is what

74
00:04:22,640 --> 00:04:25,760
Speaker 1: it is. It is. Although so Robert Lamb wrote this

75
00:04:25,880 --> 00:04:29,599
Speaker 1: article that that forms the basis of this in part. Yeah,

76
00:04:29,680 --> 00:04:31,960
Speaker 1: Robert of stuff to blow your mind, Award winning stuff

77
00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:36,160
Speaker 1: to blow your mind. Yeah, yeah, they wanted to ward. Congratulations. Um,

78
00:04:36,360 --> 00:04:40,520
Speaker 1: the heat points out that droughts are fairly natural. There's

79
00:04:40,560 --> 00:04:46,200
Speaker 1: a lot of debate over whether climate change exacerbates droughts UM.

80
00:04:46,279 --> 00:04:49,920
Speaker 1: But for the most part, droughts are natural. They're seasonal,

81
00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:53,080
Speaker 1: they're temporal, they come and go, or in some cases

82
00:04:53,120 --> 00:04:55,720
Speaker 1: they just stay. And then you got a desert and

83
00:04:55,760 --> 00:04:59,839
Speaker 1: it's it becomes a natural disaster when you apply human

84
00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:01,760
Speaker 1: city to it, kind of like do you remember those

85
00:05:01,800 --> 00:05:05,839
Speaker 1: overhead projectors, and they would have transparencies, so there could

86
00:05:05,839 --> 00:05:08,200
Speaker 1: be like different they could overlay stuff, so so you

87
00:05:08,240 --> 00:05:12,880
Speaker 1: have drought transparency and it's just whatever. But then you

88
00:05:12,920 --> 00:05:16,680
Speaker 1: overlay humanity on it, and then it becomes a natural disaster. Yeah,

89
00:05:16,680 --> 00:05:18,479
Speaker 1: I thought that was a pretty good point actually, when

90
00:05:19,360 --> 00:05:22,960
Speaker 1: that Robert made um in and of itself. If there

91
00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:26,839
Speaker 1: were no humans, that would be a drought um. The

92
00:05:26,920 --> 00:05:30,160
Speaker 1: land would dry up in certain regions, Animals would leave

93
00:05:30,400 --> 00:05:32,560
Speaker 1: because there's no water, but it's like who cares, you're

94
00:05:32,600 --> 00:05:36,680
Speaker 1: not humans. Vegetation would die or the few animals that

95
00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:38,800
Speaker 1: could stay would stay, and the few plants that could

96
00:05:38,839 --> 00:05:40,880
Speaker 1: still grow would grow, and then that would just be

97
00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:44,080
Speaker 1: the new ecosystem, right, and then no big whoop. Potentially,

98
00:05:44,120 --> 00:05:47,560
Speaker 1: if it wasn't permanent, it would shift back and the

99
00:05:48,600 --> 00:05:52,279
Speaker 1: life would come back to the area. But again humans,

100
00:05:52,720 --> 00:05:55,160
Speaker 1: like you said, wouldn't give a big whoop if it

101
00:05:55,240 --> 00:05:59,960
Speaker 1: wasn't for humans living everywhere, growing crops everywhere, and using

102
00:06:00,040 --> 00:06:03,640
Speaker 1: tons and tons of water mostly to grow those crops.

103
00:06:03,680 --> 00:06:08,760
Speaker 1: So we've talked about this again and again, but UM,

104
00:06:08,760 --> 00:06:10,920
Speaker 1: what I saw the most recent stead I came across

105
00:06:12,520 --> 00:06:17,240
Speaker 1: of the global supply of fresh water is used to

106
00:06:17,360 --> 00:06:23,880
Speaker 1: irrigate crops, and that only half is reused, is captured

107
00:06:23,920 --> 00:06:27,359
Speaker 1: and reused, so that means we lose a lot of

108
00:06:27,400 --> 00:06:32,560
Speaker 1: water to agriculture, and and agriculture is kind of leaky,

109
00:06:32,839 --> 00:06:35,640
Speaker 1: you could put it that way. Um, And the fact

110
00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:37,760
Speaker 1: that we try to grow crops everywhere and use a

111
00:06:37,800 --> 00:06:40,600
Speaker 1: bunch of the fresh water creates this kind of vicious

112
00:06:40,640 --> 00:06:46,400
Speaker 1: cycle that exacerbates droughts or at the very least, UM

113
00:06:46,640 --> 00:06:50,680
Speaker 1: makes our reliance on a climate to not be droughty

114
00:06:51,560 --> 00:06:57,280
Speaker 1: really really, um, really important. I just put a lot

115
00:06:57,279 --> 00:07:00,320
Speaker 1: of words together and their scents in there somewhere makes

116
00:07:00,400 --> 00:07:02,159
Speaker 1: total sense. Like, just go back and listen to that

117
00:07:02,240 --> 00:07:05,920
Speaker 1: last sense a few times, everybody, They will finally come through. Uh.

118
00:07:05,960 --> 00:07:08,560
Speaker 1: It is serious business, though, and very sad and devastating.

119
00:07:08,839 --> 00:07:12,360
Speaker 1: Between fifty and a hundred thousand people. Uh, died in

120
00:07:12,520 --> 00:07:15,560
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven in East Africa with their drought. And

121
00:07:15,680 --> 00:07:18,440
Speaker 1: right here in the US we have suffered through uh

122
00:07:18,520 --> 00:07:22,119
Speaker 1: some pretty rough drought here in the last fifty years. Um.

123
00:07:22,160 --> 00:07:24,320
Speaker 1: In two thousand twelve they said it was the worst

124
00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:29,480
Speaker 1: conditions in fifty years in corn production. Uh you put

125
00:07:29,480 --> 00:07:31,240
Speaker 1: a dent in corn production, that's gonna put a dent

126
00:07:31,320 --> 00:07:34,200
Speaker 1: in the world markets. Well, yeah, it's a big deal.

127
00:07:34,320 --> 00:07:38,560
Speaker 1: America runs on corn. Well in the world, condonuts, it's

128
00:07:38,600 --> 00:07:42,200
Speaker 1: even dunkndonuts have corn in them. The world to a

129
00:07:42,200 --> 00:07:45,120
Speaker 1: certain degree runs on America's corn too. Yep, you know

130
00:07:45,160 --> 00:07:48,320
Speaker 1: what I mean. Yeah. And when um, something like corn,

131
00:07:48,360 --> 00:07:51,440
Speaker 1: as we'll see, agriculture gets hit by drought obviously, and

132
00:07:51,440 --> 00:07:54,520
Speaker 1: when it gets hit by drought, because of the globalized

133
00:07:54,840 --> 00:07:58,440
Speaker 1: marketplace that we live in today, when food prices go up,

134
00:07:58,960 --> 00:08:01,040
Speaker 1: some of the poorer country t get priced out of

135
00:08:01,080 --> 00:08:03,680
Speaker 1: the market and they see things like food riots and

136
00:08:03,760 --> 00:08:06,080
Speaker 1: starvation and all sorts of bad stuff. So droughts have

137
00:08:06,160 --> 00:08:09,600
Speaker 1: like terrible effects. It's a snowball effect. And it seems

138
00:08:09,680 --> 00:08:11,880
Speaker 1: like I don't I don't know if it's getting worse

139
00:08:11,880 --> 00:08:14,520
Speaker 1: and if it is getting worse, worse, if it's anthropogenic

140
00:08:14,600 --> 00:08:18,880
Speaker 1: or whatever, but there, Okay. Texas. In two thousand and eleven,

141
00:08:18,920 --> 00:08:22,760
Speaker 1: Texas had the driest year since eight, which happened to

142
00:08:22,800 --> 00:08:26,240
Speaker 1: be the year it started recording this kind of stuff,

143
00:08:26,760 --> 00:08:29,600
Speaker 1: so it's it's the driest year on record for Texas.

144
00:08:29,760 --> 00:08:33,240
Speaker 1: Two thirteen, California had the driest year on record thanks

145
00:08:33,280 --> 00:08:38,559
Speaker 1: to the ridiculously resilient ridge UM, and Australia went through

146
00:08:38,559 --> 00:08:42,319
Speaker 1: what's called the Millennium drought from two thousand nine. They

147
00:08:42,320 --> 00:08:45,640
Speaker 1: had a terrible drop. They actually, like some places like

148
00:08:45,679 --> 00:08:50,960
Speaker 1: Melbourne actually um figured out how to live in drought conditions,

149
00:08:50,960 --> 00:08:54,000
Speaker 1: to survive and actually keep going pretty well. And a

150
00:08:54,000 --> 00:08:56,160
Speaker 1: lot of people are studying what Melbourne did because they

151
00:08:56,160 --> 00:08:59,680
Speaker 1: did it so well. That's because Australians are resourceful and

152
00:08:59,720 --> 00:09:06,200
Speaker 1: smart people, very resourceful, you know, but not smart and smart. Okay,

153
00:09:06,800 --> 00:09:10,160
Speaker 1: I wasn't saying anything. I'm just kidding, rubbing my eye.

154
00:09:10,160 --> 00:09:13,640
Speaker 1: I got distracted. So uh well, we even here in

155
00:09:13,679 --> 00:09:17,040
Speaker 1: Georgia we had a pretty wicked drought. Remember two or

156
00:09:17,080 --> 00:09:19,280
Speaker 1: three years ago, do you remember the governor like lead

157
00:09:19,320 --> 00:09:22,319
Speaker 1: a prayer circle praying for rain and it rained? Did

158
00:09:22,360 --> 00:09:25,800
Speaker 1: it rain? It did rain? And uh I don't remember

159
00:09:25,840 --> 00:09:27,560
Speaker 1: that part. Now. It rained, and there was a lot

160
00:09:27,600 --> 00:09:30,280
Speaker 1: of hullabaloo because they were like, well he led the

161
00:09:30,280 --> 00:09:32,560
Speaker 1: prayer circle on the day where they called for like

162
00:09:32,679 --> 00:09:37,280
Speaker 1: nine ye did it rain? Wow? They were praying because

163
00:09:37,320 --> 00:09:38,800
Speaker 1: that would be kind of cool, That would be kind

164
00:09:38,800 --> 00:09:41,079
Speaker 1: of cool. I don't think that's what happened though, Um,

165
00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:44,080
Speaker 1: but I do remember that. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with

166
00:09:44,080 --> 00:09:45,880
Speaker 1: that praying for rain. Do your rain dance. There was

167
00:09:45,960 --> 00:09:50,120
Speaker 1: talk of war between Georgia and Tennessee, and Tennessee said

168
00:09:51,160 --> 00:09:54,000
Speaker 1: we have guns. Yeah, And Georgia said we have guns.

169
00:09:54,040 --> 00:09:57,160
Speaker 1: We have guns too, yeah. And there's a tense standoff,

170
00:09:57,520 --> 00:09:59,400
Speaker 1: and we left and went to New York City where

171
00:09:59,400 --> 00:10:04,280
Speaker 1: there are no guy, we had something on the books already. Uh.

172
00:10:04,360 --> 00:10:07,800
Speaker 1: So let's talk to the basics of drought. Um. Drought

173
00:10:07,920 --> 00:10:12,959
Speaker 1: is obviously when it doesn't rain enough to sustain uh

174
00:10:13,040 --> 00:10:16,840
Speaker 1: the ecosystem like it should. It's basically you're losing water

175
00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:21,160
Speaker 1: through evaporation, which is when water vaporizes or transporation, when

176
00:10:21,200 --> 00:10:24,640
Speaker 1: water moves you know, through the soil and through the

177
00:10:24,679 --> 00:10:28,079
Speaker 1: plants and then leaves and it's not so useful to us, right,

178
00:10:28,120 --> 00:10:32,240
Speaker 1: So you're losing water faster, faster than it's being replenished. Yeah,

179
00:10:32,240 --> 00:10:34,640
Speaker 1: that is a drought. And again this is this is

180
00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:37,960
Speaker 1: all viewed through the lens of humanity. Like water isn't

181
00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:41,800
Speaker 1: lost when it goes through the soil, so it is

182
00:10:41,840 --> 00:10:44,480
Speaker 1: to us until we get it out of an aquifer

183
00:10:44,520 --> 00:10:49,320
Speaker 1: that's being replenished. UM. But it's not necessarily lost unless

184
00:10:49,360 --> 00:10:52,240
Speaker 1: you really look at it through the human lens. Uh.

185
00:10:52,280 --> 00:10:55,360
Speaker 1: And there are many, many factors that go into whether

186
00:10:55,440 --> 00:10:58,959
Speaker 1: or not a drought occurs and how long it lasts. UM.

187
00:10:59,080 --> 00:11:05,960
Speaker 1: Here are a few immediate causes. One is high pressure zones. UM.

188
00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:08,400
Speaker 1: Sinking error means you get a high pressure zone, which

189
00:11:08,400 --> 00:11:12,400
Speaker 1: means you have clear skies and warmer temperatures. And if

190
00:11:12,440 --> 00:11:17,120
Speaker 1: that stalls over a region, then um, more water is

191
00:11:17,160 --> 00:11:20,360
Speaker 1: going to evaporate. So that's gonna exacerbate the problem. That's

192
00:11:20,400 --> 00:11:25,120
Speaker 1: like the ridiculously resilient ridge over California. UM. From I

193
00:11:25,160 --> 00:11:29,560
Speaker 1: think two, it was just this high pressure zone that

194
00:11:29,760 --> 00:11:33,160
Speaker 1: just said I'm sticking around here for a while. And

195
00:11:33,280 --> 00:11:35,880
Speaker 1: not only was it did it lead to like high

196
00:11:35,960 --> 00:11:39,720
Speaker 1: temperatures and low humidity because it's a high pressure zone. UM,

197
00:11:39,760 --> 00:11:44,960
Speaker 1: it also blocked tropical cyclones that normally are brought to

198
00:11:45,120 --> 00:11:48,560
Speaker 1: California by the westerlies. It just shot him up toward

199
00:11:48,640 --> 00:11:52,240
Speaker 1: the Arctic or down towards Mexico and California for two

200
00:11:52,400 --> 00:11:55,840
Speaker 1: different reasons, didn't get precipitation, and it's still in a

201
00:11:56,040 --> 00:11:58,880
Speaker 1: pickle as a result. Well, usually when you have a

202
00:11:58,880 --> 00:12:02,360
Speaker 1: prolonged drought, you can point to a number of factors,

203
00:12:02,400 --> 00:12:09,960
Speaker 1: like the ironically a perfect storm that causes no storm.

204
00:12:10,360 --> 00:12:14,360
Speaker 1: Another reason is um air pollution. UH. There's a decade

205
00:12:14,360 --> 00:12:17,840
Speaker 1: long study completed I think in two thousand thirteen UM

206
00:12:17,880 --> 00:12:22,160
Speaker 1: from the University of Maryland go terps UH and they

207
00:12:22,240 --> 00:12:26,200
Speaker 1: found that air air particulate, which is pollution dusts at

208
00:12:26,280 --> 00:12:32,800
Speaker 1: sulfates um produces more UH intense storms in wet areas,

209
00:12:33,320 --> 00:12:35,560
Speaker 1: or it leads to more intense storms and wet areas

210
00:12:35,640 --> 00:12:41,240
Speaker 1: and reduces rain and drier areas. So basically just again

211
00:12:41,280 --> 00:12:46,040
Speaker 1: exacerbates whatever is normally going on there. It creates weather extremes,

212
00:12:46,360 --> 00:12:48,320
Speaker 1: creates weather extremes. It's a great way to say it.

213
00:12:49,240 --> 00:12:55,440
Speaker 1: That's weird though, because so particulate matter. Yeah, I'm trying

214
00:12:55,440 --> 00:12:57,560
Speaker 1: to figure this out, so the they don't know. The

215
00:12:57,559 --> 00:13:01,439
Speaker 1: mechanism is uncertain at this point, So there is no answer.

216
00:13:01,520 --> 00:13:05,240
Speaker 1: If that was your question, I'm abandoning figuring it out. Then. Uh.

217
00:13:05,280 --> 00:13:09,360
Speaker 1: And then here in the southeast one causes wind blowing

218
00:13:09,400 --> 00:13:11,760
Speaker 1: inward from the ocean is usually good thing because that

219
00:13:11,840 --> 00:13:15,240
Speaker 1: brings in from the Atlantic on the eastern seaboard, brings

220
00:13:15,240 --> 00:13:19,200
Speaker 1: in warm, humid temperatures and uh in the summertime, and

221
00:13:19,240 --> 00:13:22,199
Speaker 1: if they shift or weekend, then they're going to bring

222
00:13:22,240 --> 00:13:24,440
Speaker 1: in less moisture and less rainfall. And I think that

223
00:13:24,559 --> 00:13:28,720
Speaker 1: is what happened. It was a wind shift. And uh,

224
00:13:28,760 --> 00:13:30,520
Speaker 1: whenever it was we had our drought, when was that

225
00:13:30,559 --> 00:13:35,280
Speaker 1: was that? It may have been something like that around then. Yeah,

226
00:13:35,440 --> 00:13:39,480
Speaker 1: I mean it was fairly severe. Um. I just remember

227
00:13:39,640 --> 00:13:42,640
Speaker 1: all the lakes were way down and they I don't

228
00:13:42,640 --> 00:13:45,280
Speaker 1: think we got to the point where they were had

229
00:13:45,440 --> 00:13:50,240
Speaker 1: forced rationing, but they were advising everyone and asking everyone

230
00:13:50,280 --> 00:13:53,280
Speaker 1: to be better stewards. It was a big deal. Everybody

231
00:13:53,400 --> 00:13:57,240
Speaker 1: was really nervous. I think that the lake where Atlantic

232
00:13:57,240 --> 00:13:59,600
Speaker 1: gets his fresh waters down like twelve feet or something

233
00:13:59,679 --> 00:14:05,600
Speaker 1: like that. It there was serious stuff. Um. Did you

234
00:14:05,600 --> 00:14:11,040
Speaker 1: you talked about like like changes in um in different

235
00:14:11,040 --> 00:14:15,960
Speaker 1: areas from did you did you mentioned lno Nino? Do

236
00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:19,680
Speaker 1: you remember that Chris Farley when he was El Nino

237
00:14:19,800 --> 00:14:22,320
Speaker 1: back in the nineties. It's like, I am El Nino,

238
00:14:22,880 --> 00:14:27,400
Speaker 1: which means the Nino in Spanish, so you know what

239
00:14:27,480 --> 00:14:29,800
Speaker 1: that is. I sort of remember that. There's a documentary

240
00:14:29,800 --> 00:14:32,200
Speaker 1: on about him now, which I'm eager to see. Oh yeah,

241
00:14:32,320 --> 00:14:34,080
Speaker 1: I haven't checked out. I forgot about that. I want

242
00:14:34,120 --> 00:14:37,800
Speaker 1: to see that as well. Um, so El Nino is

243
00:14:37,840 --> 00:14:41,640
Speaker 1: actually um named for little baby Jesus. Did you know that?

244
00:14:42,280 --> 00:14:44,680
Speaker 1: I did not know that. Yeah. Back in the sixteen hundred,

245
00:14:44,760 --> 00:14:50,280
Speaker 1: Spanish fishermen um off the coast of Mexico UM named

246
00:14:50,280 --> 00:14:53,920
Speaker 1: it El Nino because it was this weird arrival of

247
00:14:54,040 --> 00:14:56,960
Speaker 1: really warm water in December in the winter months. So

248
00:14:56,960 --> 00:14:59,680
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, well, obviously it's the Christ Child. So

249
00:14:59,720 --> 00:15:02,880
Speaker 1: then aimed at El Nino. And that is when there's

250
00:15:03,200 --> 00:15:09,520
Speaker 1: warmer than average water temperatures in the tropics around like

251
00:15:09,600 --> 00:15:14,480
Speaker 1: basically off the coast of Mexico, right, and those warm

252
00:15:14,560 --> 00:15:18,480
Speaker 1: the air and create wetter than average conditions in some

253
00:15:18,520 --> 00:15:20,800
Speaker 1: parts of the US and other parts of the world,

254
00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:24,720
Speaker 1: and drier than average conditions in the other parts. And

255
00:15:24,720 --> 00:15:27,800
Speaker 1: then there's the reverse of that, La Nina. That's right,

256
00:15:28,200 --> 00:15:31,360
Speaker 1: and that's colder than average temperatures. So those places that

257
00:15:31,440 --> 00:15:34,840
Speaker 1: normally get wetter than normal and drier than normal or

258
00:15:34,920 --> 00:15:38,880
Speaker 1: flip flopped. But either way you get extreme weather events

259
00:15:38,960 --> 00:15:43,480
Speaker 1: like floods and droughts from this. And they aren't exactly

260
00:15:43,560 --> 00:15:50,720
Speaker 1: certain what creates this, just that they're pretty sure it's natural. Yeah, well,

261
00:15:50,760 --> 00:15:54,080
Speaker 1: actually they do have a decent idea. Um, in two

262
00:15:54,120 --> 00:15:57,640
Speaker 1: thousand three, something happened, which the same thing happened in

263
00:15:57,680 --> 00:15:59,960
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties when we suffered a pretty bad drought

264
00:16:00,040 --> 00:16:03,000
Speaker 1: in the US. Uh, there were there are two ocean

265
00:16:03,040 --> 00:16:08,200
Speaker 1: cycles that basically flip flopped, the Pacific Decadal oscillation and

266
00:16:08,240 --> 00:16:13,160
Speaker 1: the Atlantic multi decadal oscillation. And these things flip back

267
00:16:13,200 --> 00:16:16,680
Speaker 1: and forth basically over time, and they cause either more

268
00:16:16,800 --> 00:16:20,000
Speaker 1: rain or less rain. And the p d O is

269
00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:22,920
Speaker 1: what causes the shift in those surface ocean temperatures. So

270
00:16:23,080 --> 00:16:27,040
Speaker 1: what what causes the shift the Pacific decatal oscillation? Okay,

271
00:16:27,080 --> 00:16:30,080
Speaker 1: so but what caused these things to flip flop? Well,

272
00:16:30,120 --> 00:16:34,880
Speaker 1: they just flip flop periodically over over time. Basically, UM,

273
00:16:35,040 --> 00:16:37,400
Speaker 1: I don't buy that. They're like something makes those things

274
00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:40,800
Speaker 1: flip flop. Well yeah, maybe, so, I don't know. I mean,

275
00:16:40,840 --> 00:16:43,120
Speaker 1: that's what I want to answers. Some people probably say

276
00:16:43,120 --> 00:16:45,480
Speaker 1: that's just the cycle of nature. I guess, so that's

277
00:16:45,480 --> 00:16:47,400
Speaker 1: a cop out. But they say that every twenty to

278
00:16:47,520 --> 00:16:50,960
Speaker 1: thirty years, Uh, this is going to happen. And when

279
00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:56,240
Speaker 1: you combine them with with other factors, is it basically

280
00:16:56,320 --> 00:16:59,680
Speaker 1: gives everything a boost. Is and that's what creates al

281
00:16:59,760 --> 00:17:02,280
Speaker 1: nine or n Yeah, that's what they think. It's more

282
00:17:02,320 --> 00:17:06,040
Speaker 1: like it works in concert with Elena and Lennia. So

283
00:17:06,200 --> 00:17:09,399
Speaker 1: these things have happened at the same time, which is

284
00:17:09,480 --> 00:17:11,960
Speaker 1: the reason California is in such a droute right now.

285
00:17:12,160 --> 00:17:14,000
Speaker 1: So you have the warrn p d O plus Lenno

286
00:17:14,080 --> 00:17:16,560
Speaker 1: means it's going to be wetter and cooler. Uh p

287
00:17:16,720 --> 00:17:22,359
Speaker 1: d O plus Lninia equals dryer and uh Laninia is

288
00:17:22,400 --> 00:17:24,840
Speaker 1: influenced by the trade winds basically blowing on top of

289
00:17:24,880 --> 00:17:26,880
Speaker 1: the water. I think you already said that. You're right.

290
00:17:27,000 --> 00:17:29,520
Speaker 1: It just like circulates that water and the deep water

291
00:17:29,600 --> 00:17:34,119
Speaker 1: comes up to the surface. Chili, Yeah, from chili or

292
00:17:34,160 --> 00:17:39,840
Speaker 1: it's chili water chili water, so um, chuck. There's different

293
00:17:40,080 --> 00:17:44,520
Speaker 1: categories or people love to categorize stuff, right and um,

294
00:17:44,560 --> 00:17:48,639
Speaker 1: there's actually different categories of the categories for droughts. I

295
00:17:48,720 --> 00:17:50,199
Speaker 1: thought that was kind of interest, a little bit of

296
00:17:50,200 --> 00:17:53,280
Speaker 1: a brain buster. But um, you can kind of subdivide

297
00:17:53,280 --> 00:17:58,200
Speaker 1: the categories for droughts into um, geographical or seasonal descriptions

298
00:17:58,720 --> 00:18:02,800
Speaker 1: and then descriptions of drought severity. Right, So with a

299
00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:06,439
Speaker 1: geographical or seasonal description, it's kind of like, here's an area,

300
00:18:06,840 --> 00:18:10,000
Speaker 1: and this is the kind of drought conditions you can expect.

301
00:18:10,840 --> 00:18:14,439
Speaker 1: So there is a permanent drout, which is basically what

302
00:18:14,480 --> 00:18:16,000
Speaker 1: you think of with the desert. It's a place that

303
00:18:16,080 --> 00:18:21,680
Speaker 1: gets a minimal amount of precipitation and it never catches

304
00:18:21,760 --> 00:18:26,520
Speaker 1: up to the amount of evaporation or transporation. That's right, right,

305
00:18:26,560 --> 00:18:29,440
Speaker 1: So that's just it's just always dry there. Permanent drought.

306
00:18:29,520 --> 00:18:32,360
Speaker 1: It's an arid climate air climate. Uh. And then next

307
00:18:32,440 --> 00:18:35,320
Speaker 1: you have seasonal drought, which is like a drought comes

308
00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:40,399
Speaker 1: dry conditions come on a predictable UM calendar. Yeah, like

309
00:18:40,400 --> 00:18:44,359
Speaker 1: the dry season or the wet season in the country. Uh,

310
00:18:44,400 --> 00:18:48,880
Speaker 1: those two are pretty standard. Um, no big surprises there.

311
00:18:49,640 --> 00:18:52,160
Speaker 1: But the next couple, Um, you almost said no big

312
00:18:52,160 --> 00:18:54,920
Speaker 1: whoop again almost did you saw that? My mouth went?

313
00:18:57,040 --> 00:19:01,560
Speaker 1: Unpredictable drought is when there are irregular dry spells where

314
00:19:01,560 --> 00:19:05,280
Speaker 1: it's usually humid or rainy, um and then invisible drought.

315
00:19:05,400 --> 00:19:07,400
Speaker 1: I'd never heard of that. I think that's fascinating. That's

316
00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:10,359
Speaker 1: when it is raining and you think, how can we

317
00:19:10,400 --> 00:19:13,160
Speaker 1: be in a drought because it's raining, It just means

318
00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:16,000
Speaker 1: it's it's too hot probably and it's not raining enough

319
00:19:16,040 --> 00:19:19,600
Speaker 1: because too much evaporation and transpirations going on, so it's

320
00:19:19,600 --> 00:19:22,440
Speaker 1: invisible to the naked eye. It's like being skinny fat

321
00:19:22,880 --> 00:19:24,800
Speaker 1: to where you like you'r thin on the outside, but

322
00:19:24,840 --> 00:19:27,040
Speaker 1: your liver's got a ton of fat all over it. Oh.

323
00:19:27,080 --> 00:19:28,560
Speaker 1: I thought you're gonna talk about the people that have

324
00:19:28,640 --> 00:19:30,719
Speaker 1: like really thin faces, but from the nick down they

325
00:19:30,720 --> 00:19:34,800
Speaker 1: have weight. No, I hate those people. Oh chuck, you're

326
00:19:34,840 --> 00:19:38,400
Speaker 1: going to get some mail for that now. I hate

327
00:19:38,400 --> 00:19:40,040
Speaker 1: those people. I'm jealous of those people because I have

328
00:19:40,080 --> 00:19:42,359
Speaker 1: a big, fat face. Like there's no picture I can say.

329
00:19:42,400 --> 00:19:44,800
Speaker 1: I could show my legs or my arms, and people say,

330
00:19:44,840 --> 00:19:49,120
Speaker 1: what a thin guy. You know, I think you look great,

331
00:19:49,280 --> 00:19:51,560
Speaker 1: but everything from my nose to my waist gives me away.

332
00:19:51,600 --> 00:19:53,280
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do that. I canna start posting pictures of

333
00:19:53,320 --> 00:19:56,639
Speaker 1: my legs in my arms, like Danny DeVito. He always

334
00:19:56,680 --> 00:19:58,800
Speaker 1: does the troll foot that has still have a nice, small,

335
00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:02,439
Speaker 1: tiny butt too. We've all noticed. I'm gonna take pictures

336
00:20:02,440 --> 00:20:07,360
Speaker 1: of that. It's the talk of the office. Um, everyone's

337
00:20:07,400 --> 00:20:10,440
Speaker 1: pictures of yourself. Everyone's body is fine. I'm not body shaming,

338
00:20:10,600 --> 00:20:12,800
Speaker 1: all right, that's good. What I'm saying is I'm jealous

339
00:20:12,840 --> 00:20:14,879
Speaker 1: of people with thin faces. I got you, all right,

340
00:20:15,359 --> 00:20:18,960
Speaker 1: So we got we got one category down, which describes

341
00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:22,879
Speaker 1: like a region in area, although invisible drought doesn't really

342
00:20:23,000 --> 00:20:26,960
Speaker 1: fit into that. But what als Okay? Um, the next

343
00:20:27,160 --> 00:20:32,360
Speaker 1: group of categories, um man, I sound like we're we're

344
00:20:32,480 --> 00:20:36,280
Speaker 1: using an overhead projector this is this dry? It's appropriately

345
00:20:36,359 --> 00:20:39,240
Speaker 1: dry for the drought episode. Well, you have to go

346
00:20:39,280 --> 00:20:41,040
Speaker 1: through these, you know, it's part of it. Okay, So

347
00:20:41,119 --> 00:20:44,440
Speaker 1: the other these these categories make sense to me. They

348
00:20:44,520 --> 00:20:47,480
Speaker 1: described like the severity of a drought, right, and you

349
00:20:47,520 --> 00:20:49,679
Speaker 1: can pretty much go from one to the other and

350
00:20:49,720 --> 00:20:53,440
Speaker 1: it makes sense. So like a meteorological drought, it basically

351
00:20:53,480 --> 00:20:57,720
Speaker 1: says that you know, this week, well, this this time

352
00:20:57,840 --> 00:21:01,440
Speaker 1: last year, we had about an inch and a half

353
00:21:01,440 --> 00:21:04,639
Speaker 1: more rain than we got this year so far. No

354
00:21:04,720 --> 00:21:09,680
Speaker 1: big whoop, no big whoop. Yeah. Basically, my brother in law,

355
00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:13,720
Speaker 1: also named Josh, would notice this kind of thing because

356
00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:15,800
Speaker 1: he's a little bit of a weather bug. Yeah that

357
00:21:15,920 --> 00:21:19,000
Speaker 1: I like weather bugs. Okay, well you would like Josh,

358
00:21:19,119 --> 00:21:21,639
Speaker 1: and he's one of the few things a few people

359
00:21:21,720 --> 00:21:24,760
Speaker 1: besides like maybe a meteorologist who would notice this, which

360
00:21:24,800 --> 00:21:27,199
Speaker 1: is why it's called the meteorological trought. That's right, Like

361
00:21:27,280 --> 00:21:29,960
Speaker 1: you would have to be really paying attention to even

362
00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:33,840
Speaker 1: notice this. That's right. Okay, that's stage one. Yes. Stage

363
00:21:33,880 --> 00:21:37,439
Speaker 1: two is an agricultural drought, and that is when you're

364
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:40,600
Speaker 1: talking about crops, and agriculture is going to be one

365
00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:44,080
Speaker 1: of the first industries parts of the world affected by

366
00:21:44,119 --> 00:21:48,680
Speaker 1: drought obviously, so this is when farmers are starting to notice.

367
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:51,280
Speaker 1: You might hear a news blurb or two if there

368
00:21:51,280 --> 00:21:54,280
Speaker 1: had been drought in the news, but it still hasn't

369
00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:57,000
Speaker 1: Like you're not walking around the streets talking about it yet. No,

370
00:21:57,280 --> 00:22:00,240
Speaker 1: just farmers and Josh are speaking to one another about

371
00:22:00,280 --> 00:22:04,200
Speaker 1: the drought. That's right. What's next, Josh, the hydrological drought.

372
00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:06,920
Speaker 1: This is when like we start to notice, and that's

373
00:22:06,920 --> 00:22:09,440
Speaker 1: when you're like, hey, man, I went to my lake

374
00:22:09,480 --> 00:22:12,880
Speaker 1: house this weekend and it's all ugly. Yeah, like clay

375
00:22:12,920 --> 00:22:16,680
Speaker 1: red muddy junk. Everywhere. I can see the submerged buildings.

376
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:21,840
Speaker 1: The underwater cities are visible, like in lakelan near You

377
00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:25,040
Speaker 1: know there's a town down there. Oh yeah, yeah, you

378
00:22:25,080 --> 00:22:27,280
Speaker 1: didn't know that. I don't think. So there is a

379
00:22:27,320 --> 00:22:29,400
Speaker 1: town down there. And when Lake Laner gets low enough

380
00:22:29,560 --> 00:22:31,600
Speaker 1: you can see it. You can see a Gulf seventies

381
00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:34,520
Speaker 1: six sign sticking up out of the lake. Wow. Yeah,

382
00:22:34,600 --> 00:22:37,240
Speaker 1: like the old like ball one that's orange with the

383
00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:41,000
Speaker 1: blue seventy. What was the town m like some part

384
00:22:41,000 --> 00:22:44,040
Speaker 1: of Buford or something. I guess yea. Interesting. You didn't

385
00:22:44,040 --> 00:22:46,520
Speaker 1: know there's a town in under lakelan Ear No, I

386
00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:51,040
Speaker 1: didn't didn't that Creepsville about creepy. It's creepy. I think

387
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:53,480
Speaker 1: it's cool. I mean if there were people living down

388
00:22:53,480 --> 00:22:57,840
Speaker 1: there with gills, that would be creepy. So the point is, Chuck,

389
00:22:58,119 --> 00:23:01,560
Speaker 1: that we notice the people with skills. Notice if everybody

390
00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:04,280
Speaker 1: starts to notice the hydrological drought, it's like the talk

391
00:23:04,320 --> 00:23:07,600
Speaker 1: of town um. And then the next step is where

392
00:23:07,600 --> 00:23:11,560
Speaker 1: it gets really really bad socioeconomic drought. This is when

393
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:15,680
Speaker 1: the government tends to step in and say you who

394
00:23:15,720 --> 00:23:20,600
Speaker 1: have odd number um, addresses can water on Tuesday's Thursdays.

395
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:25,040
Speaker 1: Those of you with even addresses can water on Monday Wednesdays,

396
00:23:25,480 --> 00:23:29,480
Speaker 1: or it can flip flop. It depends on your local government. True,

397
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:33,920
Speaker 1: isn't that set in stone, right? But the point is is, Um,

398
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:37,120
Speaker 1: there are now restrictions taking place, There are now things

399
00:23:37,160 --> 00:23:39,960
Speaker 1: being enforced. The people are are being asked to cut back,

400
00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:42,920
Speaker 1: and and the reason why it's because there you're we're

401
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 1: seeing a real effect like through the economy. Yeah, like

402
00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:48,679
Speaker 1: Robert points out, something I've never really thought of, a

403
00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:51,320
Speaker 1: tourism of course, is gonna dry up it with the

404
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:57,520
Speaker 1: water in some places, uh, food shortages, UM shipping maybe affected,

405
00:23:57,880 --> 00:24:02,399
Speaker 1: uh imports and exports, and in less developed parts of

406
00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:04,520
Speaker 1: the world that can be really bad. Here in the

407
00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:08,159
Speaker 1: US it may just mean socio economic annoyance, but in

408
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:10,520
Speaker 1: other parts of the world it could lead to political

409
00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:14,919
Speaker 1: unrest and armed conflict and panic and disease and like

410
00:24:15,040 --> 00:24:18,439
Speaker 1: really really bad stuff. Right, So that's socio economic drought,

411
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:21,240
Speaker 1: and uh, let's take a break and let's talk a

412
00:24:21,240 --> 00:24:23,960
Speaker 1: little bit about other effects of drought in the dust

413
00:24:24,000 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 1: bowl right after this, So Chuck, we kind of just

414
00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:51,480
Speaker 1: gave some overview of like how drought works or how

415
00:24:51,520 --> 00:24:54,080
Speaker 1: bad it can get. That's right, So what causes this?

416
00:24:54,119 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 1: I mean we talked about whether being a factor. Obviously,

417
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:00,520
Speaker 1: there's not a lot we can do with that. You know,

418
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:04,040
Speaker 1: we have we have our how weather modification works episode

419
00:25:04,080 --> 00:25:06,520
Speaker 1: that we did and a TV show based on that too,

420
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:11,760
Speaker 1: a TV episode, UM, but not everybody agrees that, say,

421
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:15,080
Speaker 1: like cloud seating works. Some people say it really really works,

422
00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:17,320
Speaker 1: other people say it doesn't really work. Yeah, we talked

423
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:20,000
Speaker 1: about cloud seating a couple of times. I think it's

424
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:24,400
Speaker 1: been used, um to affect during wartime to wash out

425
00:25:26,080 --> 00:25:30,879
Speaker 1: trails supposedly, Yeah, and Vietnam. Right, that's what they say,

426
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:34,360
Speaker 1: But why, I don't know. Everyone's not convinced. So when

427
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 1: it comes to things like El Nino or law Nina,

428
00:25:36,680 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 1: as it stands now, at our primitive technological place in

429
00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:43,480
Speaker 1: human history, there's not much we can do about that. Um.

430
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 1: The most we can hope to do is really kind

431
00:25:48,600 --> 00:25:52,760
Speaker 1: of figure out what causes drought in other ways and

432
00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:54,639
Speaker 1: if see if we can do anything about that. And

433
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:57,520
Speaker 1: the UM person in the hot seat or the thing

434
00:25:57,520 --> 00:25:59,000
Speaker 1: in the hot seat, as far as that goes right

435
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:02,399
Speaker 1: now is climate change, and there's a big debate over

436
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:09,480
Speaker 1: UM whether we can do anything about drought conditions through

437
00:26:09,560 --> 00:26:12,160
Speaker 1: climate change and all that has to do with CEO

438
00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:17,680
Speaker 1: two supposedly. Yeah, Well, between the last five decades, between

439
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:21,119
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty and two thousand, worthy warmest in six hundred

440
00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:25,879
Speaker 1: years in the United States temperature wise, and UM, I'm sorry,

441
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 1: I think that's globally, but in the US and the Southwest,

442
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 1: they are predicting a rise UM as much as nine

443
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:36,159
Speaker 1: degrees by the year on UM, and that is accompanied

444
00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:39,560
Speaker 1: by the two degree to degree one point four degree

445
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:43,639
Speaker 1: rise over the past one years. So what they think

446
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:48,359
Speaker 1: is that as more and more c O two enters

447
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:52,120
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, this rise in temperature that it creates from

448
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 1: this greenhouse effect UM will actually create drought like conditions.

449
00:26:56,800 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 1: And one of the ways that it will create drought

450
00:26:58,840 --> 00:27:02,960
Speaker 1: like conditions is by creating high pressure areas which remember

451
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:06,840
Speaker 1: don't have UM a lot of humidity. They have high temperatures,

452
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:11,760
Speaker 1: they're dry conditions, and they also UM simultaneously. UM this

453
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:15,200
Speaker 1: denser air and dense air above it, right, or warmer

454
00:27:15,240 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 1: air above it prevents the air below it from rising, right,

455
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:25,120
Speaker 1: because that's how winds and and UM currents air currents

456
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 1: are formed. Warm air near the tropics rises and replaces

457
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 1: the cooler air to create this cycle. Right, that's right. Well,

458
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:36,480
Speaker 1: if the air above it is equally warm, the air

459
00:27:36,520 --> 00:27:38,679
Speaker 1: below can't rise. And when you have a lot of

460
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:41,439
Speaker 1: carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, that air in the middle

461
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:46,360
Speaker 1: I think in the mesosphere um stays warm. So you've

462
00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:48,960
Speaker 1: got a big chunk of the atmosphere just hanging out

463
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 1: around the your surface. And when the upwelling doesn't happen,

464
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:57,120
Speaker 1: you don't have the upwelling action. That also creates thunderstorms

465
00:27:57,119 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 1: and generates large amounts of torrential rain, which really helps

466
00:28:01,320 --> 00:28:04,040
Speaker 1: things when you have droughts. So they think, and this

467
00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 1: is all just a conjecture at this point, but that's

468
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 1: the big explanation for how climate change can lead to

469
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 1: drought like conditions, and that if we can reduce the

470
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 1: amount of C O two in the atmosphere, we can

471
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:20,439
Speaker 1: conceivably reverse those drought like conditions. Well, and don't they

472
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 1: think that climate changes in general causes more severe everything

473
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 1: like your storms and stream flooding and ah, so I

474
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 1: mean it's definitely something to consider. Yeah, sure, try to

475
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 1: tiptoe around this one because there is a debate not really. No, No,

476
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:41,360
Speaker 1: it's basically fraudulent. Whether there's a debate over whether climate

477
00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 1: change is real. The climate change is real, like almost

478
00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 1: all scientific consensus is the debate that it's a human

479
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 1: cost or not, and whether we can do anything about

480
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 1: it or is there no debate about any of that. No,

481
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 1: there's debate still, but it's not real debate, Like the

482
00:28:54,840 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: scientific community is generally in in agreement that there is

483
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:04,440
Speaker 1: climate change and that it is a real problem. Um,

484
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:07,000
Speaker 1: I don't know what the consensus is on whether we

485
00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:09,480
Speaker 1: could do anything about it. I think probably most people

486
00:29:09,800 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 1: would say we should at least try. It's worth trying. Sure,

487
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: why wouldn't you Well, a lot of people say that

488
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 1: you shouldn't because it will affect like it'll have her

489
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:24,480
Speaker 1: economic progress, or say, for example, like China, Um, say

490
00:29:24,480 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 1: the US is like, oh, hey, we're laying off of

491
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 1: greenhouse gas emitting stuff and we're getting a little greener.

492
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:34,280
Speaker 1: You guys should too, And China would say, well, you

493
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:37,160
Speaker 1: guys kind of got to this point by spitting a

494
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 1: ton of C O two into the atmosphere. It's China's time,

495
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:43,480
Speaker 1: GHO sit over there and be as green as you want,

496
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:47,560
Speaker 1: leave us alone. There's a lot of political land mines

497
00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:51,720
Speaker 1: to two trapes around um in in getting everybody on

498
00:29:51,840 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 1: board to reducing the climate footprint or the carbon footprint

499
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 1: of humanity. Yeah. What what to me is when you see,

500
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:04,880
Speaker 1: usually on social media, when someone said, you know, in

501
00:30:04,880 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 1: the wintertime, like the coldest winner seen in years. You know,

502
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 1: so much for global warning, warming, warning, warming, a warning?

503
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 1: How about that? Maybe they should change the name is

504
00:30:15,800 --> 00:30:19,960
Speaker 1: Fred slip. Uh. But there's a great video that Neil

505
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:22,120
Speaker 1: de grass Tyson does. Um. You can find it on

506
00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 1: YouTube about the difference between weather and climate because those

507
00:30:25,560 --> 00:30:28,920
Speaker 1: are two entirely different things. And he does this little

508
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:31,320
Speaker 1: thing on the beach with a dog. That's great, and

509
00:30:31,840 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 1: that Neil the grass Tyson way with his shirt mostly

510
00:30:34,880 --> 00:30:38,640
Speaker 1: on button Well he's on the beach of course. Uh.

511
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:41,320
Speaker 1: He's got on his clam diggers, you know, his Hawaiian

512
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:44,280
Speaker 1: shirts unbuttoned. And he is a cool cat. He is

513
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:47,000
Speaker 1: a cool cat. But he um, yeah, he explains it

514
00:30:47,160 --> 00:30:51,080
Speaker 1: very simply, the difference between weather and climate. So before

515
00:30:51,080 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 1: you go say something dumb like it's super cold on

516
00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 1: in June so there's no global warming, just go watch

517
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:03,000
Speaker 1: that video. Yeah, that's my recommendation. And uh, I want

518
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:06,040
Speaker 1: to recommend a book called Merchants of Doubt right now

519
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:09,880
Speaker 1: I'm reading and it's about how, um, the tobacco industry,

520
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:14,000
Speaker 1: climate change, TONI all, all this stuff, um is largely

521
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:17,960
Speaker 1: the result of pr Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, it is a

522
00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:21,000
Speaker 1: very interesting book actually, and I think there's a documentary

523
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 1: based on it that just came out to If you

524
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 1: don't like reading, who does? Um Robert points out to

525
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 1: in this article, Uh, predicting drought isn't really something you

526
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 1: can do necessarily. Um. You can predict seasonal droughts a

527
00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 1: month or so out, and you can, I guess you

528
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 1: can predict certain conditions that like right now they're saying

529
00:31:41,240 --> 00:31:44,240
Speaker 1: that California is probably in trouble for the next twenty

530
00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:46,480
Speaker 1: to thirty years. Like, I don't think they see an

531
00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: end in sight because of the various climate factors going on.

532
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:54,360
Speaker 1: It's not like, I mean, any rain would help, But

533
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:56,960
Speaker 1: it's not like a rainy few weeks here and there

534
00:31:57,240 --> 00:31:59,200
Speaker 1: is going to do make much of an impact, right,

535
00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 1: It's pretty scary out there. Well, that's one reason why

536
00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:05,720
Speaker 1: they're studying, for example, Melbourne, Australia or Melbourne Victoria, Australia.

537
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:08,520
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure how you say it properly, um,

538
00:32:08,600 --> 00:32:12,840
Speaker 1: but under this drought, this millennium drought, Melbourne dropped their

539
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:18,040
Speaker 1: water usage by like under drought conditions, and they did

540
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:22,480
Speaker 1: it through like local recycling programs. Apparently one really effective

541
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:27,280
Speaker 1: program was electronic billboards that said, like the shared reservoir

542
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 1: is at like of capacity right now. Like here's what

543
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:33,960
Speaker 1: don't forget what's gonna happen if we all run out

544
00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:37,960
Speaker 1: of water, so like recycle your water, use gray water

545
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:41,400
Speaker 1: to water your plants, that kind of stuff, um, and

546
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: it worked really really well. They should just do dumb

547
00:32:44,920 --> 00:32:48,680
Speaker 1: in photographics for Americans as like the water getting lower

548
00:32:48,720 --> 00:32:52,440
Speaker 1: and then like dead people at the bottom. Here's where

549
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 1: we're headed. Does it make sense to you now, person

550
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:58,120
Speaker 1: watering your lawn and be like Los Angeles, there's a

551
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 1: lot of dead people in our reservoir are buried at

552
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 1: the bottom. I think I two read a little bit

553
00:33:05,440 --> 00:33:07,880
Speaker 1: about the l A drought or Southern California in general,

554
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:11,600
Speaker 1: that they're they're not making enough headway with their conservation

555
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:15,520
Speaker 1: measures right now, like it's not putty much of a

556
00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:20,920
Speaker 1: dent into it, Like their public campaigns yeah. Yeah, yeah,

557
00:33:21,040 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 1: selfish people still watering their stuff. Well, it's the law

558
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:29,480
Speaker 1: of the comments. Like supposedly any shared resource people are

559
00:33:29,560 --> 00:33:33,000
Speaker 1: just like, let everybody else can serve. I'll be I'll

560
00:33:33,040 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 1: be fine. Just give me everything I need. This little

561
00:33:35,680 --> 00:33:37,960
Speaker 1: bit doesn't make a difference. Yeah, And they were this

562
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 1: this article, I think it was a Scientific American article.

563
00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:43,320
Speaker 1: I was reading about Melbourne being so successful. One of

564
00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:45,920
Speaker 1: the ways they were being so successful was taking this

565
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 1: shared resource, this reservoir, and saying, like, all of us

566
00:33:51,240 --> 00:33:54,040
Speaker 1: share this, and it's down to this level. So are

567
00:33:54,040 --> 00:33:55,680
Speaker 1: you going to be the jerk who like makes a

568
00:33:55,760 --> 00:33:59,440
Speaker 1: drop even more by taking more than your fair share? Um,

569
00:33:59,720 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 1: don't be the jerk. That should be their campaign, right.

570
00:34:02,280 --> 00:34:04,520
Speaker 1: One of the problems is this California isn't just have

571
00:34:04,680 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 1: a just a single shared reservoir. They get their water

572
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:12,160
Speaker 1: from a number of different sources. Yeah. Um, so that's

573
00:34:12,280 --> 00:34:14,440
Speaker 1: kind of that. That would be tough to like hit

574
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: that same note with California. Yeah, but as goes California,

575
00:34:18,200 --> 00:34:21,440
Speaker 1: as goes the US economies, I think. Uh, some estimates

576
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 1: say California is the eighth largest economy in the world.

577
00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:27,560
Speaker 1: The state of California. Oh yeah, so I've heard that before,

578
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:31,919
Speaker 1: dire consequences potentially. So let's take one more break, Chuck,

579
00:34:31,960 --> 00:34:33,719
Speaker 1: and then when we come back, we're going to talk

580
00:34:33,760 --> 00:34:37,600
Speaker 1: about dire consequences. Indeed from the nineteen thirties in the

581
00:34:37,680 --> 00:35:01,080
Speaker 1: United States, that's ka the dust Bowl. So I teased

582
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:03,879
Speaker 1: the dust Bowl in the beginning, and then we didn't

583
00:35:03,880 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 1: get to it. But now we're getting to This is

584
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:08,400
Speaker 1: just like TV. And I became a little uh oh,

585
00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 1: I know, just keeping people on the hook. I became

586
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:14,520
Speaker 1: super interested when I was in Oklahoma recently went to

587
00:35:14,560 --> 00:35:18,279
Speaker 1: the Woody Guthrie Museum in Tulsa, which is great, by

588
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 1: the way, and they had a whole section on the

589
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:23,200
Speaker 1: dust Bowl. And I didn't know much about it. I mean,

590
00:35:23,239 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 1: I knew generally it was a drought uh in dusty,

591
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,480
Speaker 1: but I hadn't looked into it too much. And since

592
00:35:29,520 --> 00:35:32,160
Speaker 1: then I've studied on it some and watched the great

593
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:35,120
Speaker 1: Ken Burns documentary on the dust Bowl. It was very good.

594
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:39,319
Speaker 1: You know those parts of that um appear in uh Interstellar.

595
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:43,560
Speaker 1: Oh really were their clips of that? Yeah? I don't remember.

596
00:35:43,560 --> 00:35:48,799
Speaker 1: I couldn't they play it like it's people really like Interstellar? No,

597
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:51,480
Speaker 1: not really Oh I love that movie. Yeah, I love it.

598
00:35:52,040 --> 00:35:54,600
Speaker 1: I thought that was such a great movie. You really

599
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 1: didn't like it. I had a lot of problems with it.

600
00:35:56,719 --> 00:36:01,560
Speaker 1: I loved it. My My biggest problem with it was, uh,

601
00:36:01,600 --> 00:36:06,040
Speaker 1: just just do the let the viewer figure out the movie.

602
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 1: Like I felt like every ten minutes, somebody was explaining something,

603
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 1: same guy, same problem. I don't think so man didn't

604
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:16,040
Speaker 1: run into that. You know how much I hated that

605
00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:19,239
Speaker 1: part in an inception. When you watch Interstellar again, just

606
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:22,279
Speaker 1: make a little note anytime someone explains what's going on,

607
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:24,799
Speaker 1: and you'll have like twenty times written down on your

608
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 1: little note back. I guess I didn't. It didn't bother

609
00:36:27,160 --> 00:36:29,279
Speaker 1: me in this one bother me. And it's not like

610
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:32,439
Speaker 1: I have anything against Ellen Page in particular. Oh sure

611
00:36:32,480 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 1: you do. You you're a juno hater, says something to

612
00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:39,960
Speaker 1: do with Ellen Page. No, I'm just joking anyway. I know.

613
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:42,239
Speaker 1: I just for some reason, it didn't stick out to

614
00:36:42,239 --> 00:36:46,000
Speaker 1: me in Oristellar. I just thoroughly enjoyed that movie. Well good,

615
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:48,080
Speaker 1: I'm glad you did. I want to reign on your

616
00:36:48,080 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 1: parade anyway. That parts of the Ken Burns documentary show

617
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:56,839
Speaker 1: up in interstellar, but it's great just on its own. UM.

618
00:36:56,920 --> 00:37:00,759
Speaker 1: And the reason we bring up the dust bowl is

619
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:04,280
Speaker 1: because it's actually it's larger than just a drought. People

620
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:06,600
Speaker 1: tend to think of it as a drought, but it's

621
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:11,200
Speaker 1: actually um one of the one of the It demonstrates

622
00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 1: things you can do to prevent drought from becoming the

623
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:19,160
Speaker 1: worst case scenario, which is exactly what happened with the

624
00:37:19,239 --> 00:37:20,840
Speaker 1: dust ball. Yeah, it was. It was one of the

625
00:37:20,840 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 1: worst natural disasters in the United States history, for sure. Yeah.

626
00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:27,400
Speaker 1: And it was just one natural disaster compounding another and

627
00:37:27,440 --> 00:37:32,000
Speaker 1: another and another. And what happened actually starts in the

628
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:38,320
Speaker 1: nineteenth century when America was undergoing its westward expansion and UM,

629
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:43,320
Speaker 1: the US government passed the Homestead Acts, and these um

630
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 1: gave land grants to Western settlers, UM who wanted to

631
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:51,279
Speaker 1: set up farms of between a hundred and sixty and

632
00:37:51,320 --> 00:37:54,439
Speaker 1: then later on three twenty acres, which sounds like a lot,

633
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 1: but they're actually not when you start thinking about these

634
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:01,840
Speaker 1: massive states like Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas and all of

635
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:09,360
Speaker 1: US UM. And so what happened was eventually these plaine states,

636
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:14,560
Speaker 1: the semi arid grassland was carved up into a huge

637
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:20,640
Speaker 1: patchwork of smaller farms, and um, people started farming and

638
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 1: things started going really well. The land became productive very quickly. Yeah.

639
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:29,759
Speaker 1: And and at first things, um, they were farming somewhat sustainably.

640
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:32,360
Speaker 1: You know, they still had grasses and still had cattle

641
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:35,759
Speaker 1: grazing on these grasses, which is all good stuff. And

642
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:38,680
Speaker 1: these are these are native grasses that were dry resistant already.

643
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:42,799
Speaker 1: They were acclimated to this again semi arid climate. That's right.

644
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:47,319
Speaker 1: So let's flash forward, or fast forward a bit, um

645
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:50,920
Speaker 1: to post World War One in the nineteen twenties. Um,

646
00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:54,359
Speaker 1: there was a recession and farmers all of a sudden said,

647
00:38:54,400 --> 00:38:57,759
Speaker 1: you know what, we can get these new machines and

648
00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:01,359
Speaker 1: use these new mechanized farming techniques to try and make

649
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:04,759
Speaker 1: more money and turn some of this grass into wheat. Yeah.

650
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:06,640
Speaker 1: Because I mean, if you if you have like a

651
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:10,760
Speaker 1: ho right and you're just hacking away at this semi

652
00:39:10,800 --> 00:39:15,080
Speaker 1: ara ground, you're gonna be like, I've got acres, but

653
00:39:15,120 --> 00:39:17,640
Speaker 1: I'm just going to farm twenty of them because this

654
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:21,239
Speaker 1: is a work, you know. Um, But if you can

655
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 1: go buy a plow and some oxen and the later

656
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:27,080
Speaker 1: on a tractor to drag those plows. Um, you can

657
00:39:27,200 --> 00:39:31,239
Speaker 1: turn all three twenty acres into productive crop land. And

658
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 1: so they overproduced wheat. Yeah, there was a there was

659
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 1: a bumper crop year in where so many farmers bought

660
00:39:42,239 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 1: so many plows and used these mechanized methods of farming

661
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:49,160
Speaker 1: that there's a bumper crop of wheat, so much so

662
00:39:49,200 --> 00:39:51,799
Speaker 1: that the price of wheat plummeted. And it just so

663
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:53,799
Speaker 1: happened that there was a recession, like you said, at

664
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:56,320
Speaker 1: the same time, So there was an oversupply of wheat

665
00:39:56,680 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 1: and an under demand for it because everybody's that's right,

666
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:03,719
Speaker 1: and so everybody said, well, what do you do. You

667
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:07,400
Speaker 1: just plant more wheat, plant more wheat. Yeah, basically expand

668
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:10,279
Speaker 1: your farms so to try and turn a profit. And

669
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:13,160
Speaker 1: so all of a sudden, all these drought resistant grasses

670
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:17,480
Speaker 1: were no more. Uh, there was wheat everywhere. And apparently

671
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:22,560
Speaker 1: wheat does not jibe Um, that quantity of wheat doesn't

672
00:40:22,640 --> 00:40:26,160
Speaker 1: jibe with the natural landscape. Uh. In the soil became

673
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:30,520
Speaker 1: dusty and dry, and uh you couple that with a

674
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:33,000
Speaker 1: drought which hit hard over the period of like three

675
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:38,520
Speaker 1: years and high winds and everything blew away. Yes, so

676
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 1: a hundred million acres of top soil ended up blowing

677
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:45,480
Speaker 1: away like just blew away. It wasn't there any longer.

678
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:48,440
Speaker 1: All that was left was the rocky subsoil like blue

679
00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:51,799
Speaker 1: to the east coast. Yes, Um, some of it blew

680
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:54,439
Speaker 1: to California depending on where the winds blew. Some blew

681
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 1: all the way to Washington, d C. Which actually proved

682
00:40:57,160 --> 00:41:01,000
Speaker 1: to be fortuitous because that got Congress's attention. And um,

683
00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:04,279
Speaker 1: these things were called black blizzards. And there's man, you've

684
00:41:04,280 --> 00:41:08,960
Speaker 1: seen the footage. It's just amazing when these huge, towering

685
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:14,560
Speaker 1: clouds of black dust were just coming towards these what

686
00:41:14,719 --> 00:41:18,120
Speaker 1: looked like these tiny little miniature houses. Um, it doesn't

687
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:20,960
Speaker 1: look real, No, it doesn't. But this really happened on

688
00:41:21,040 --> 00:41:23,400
Speaker 1: the Great Plains in the thirties. Yeah, we're talking a

689
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand square miles over Oklahoma are parts

690
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:32,360
Speaker 1: of Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico. And the

691
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:35,799
Speaker 1: drought itself was from thirty four to thirty seven and

692
00:41:36,080 --> 00:41:40,719
Speaker 1: sixty percent, sixty percent of the population left. Yeah, a

693
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:43,480
Speaker 1: lot of them moved to California. California wasn't very happy.

694
00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:46,840
Speaker 1: A lot of them left their farms and we're just broke. Basically,

695
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:50,160
Speaker 1: they were um like the first generation to find themselves

696
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:53,400
Speaker 1: underwater because a lot of them again remember like there

697
00:41:53,520 --> 00:42:00,160
Speaker 1: was this this drive UM to make more money by

698
00:42:00,239 --> 00:42:03,360
Speaker 1: producing more wheat, even though there was an over abundance

699
00:42:03,400 --> 00:42:07,680
Speaker 1: of wheat UM. So they really over leveraged themselves by

700
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 1: borrowing more for farm equipment and farm hands and farm

701
00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:14,480
Speaker 1: supplies and UM. When the bottom fell out on the

702
00:42:14,520 --> 00:42:18,880
Speaker 1: wheat market, they were over extended and their homes and

703
00:42:19,000 --> 00:42:22,640
Speaker 1: farms got four closed on. So they, like all these

704
00:42:22,680 --> 00:42:25,839
Speaker 1: people who were just at one like just a little

705
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 1: while back, we're farming middle class people were now like

706
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:35,400
Speaker 1: um homeless and on um root sixty six and basically

707
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:37,759
Speaker 1: doing the grapes of wrath thing. Yeah, I mean, like

708
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:39,920
Speaker 1: you said, a lot of them moved west, uh and

709
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:42,920
Speaker 1: I think you said that California was not so happy

710
00:42:43,000 --> 00:42:46,239
Speaker 1: with that. About ten percent of them ended up in California,

711
00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:48,680
Speaker 1: and um, it was not a great time for the

712
00:42:48,680 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 1: country as a whole. So they they didn't want all

713
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:53,359
Speaker 1: these new people they call them Oaky's even though about

714
00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:57,279
Speaker 1: we're from Oklahoma. They didn't want them coming in there

715
00:42:57,320 --> 00:43:00,440
Speaker 1: trying to get their jobs. Uh, and it was it

716
00:43:00,520 --> 00:43:03,520
Speaker 1: was bad news all the way around in California. So

717
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:08,920
Speaker 1: UM in actually, what's a pretty good, pretty good example

718
00:43:09,040 --> 00:43:13,200
Speaker 1: of the federal government doing something really really right. Um.

719
00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:16,799
Speaker 1: They stepped in, actually FDR stepped in with the New

720
00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:21,879
Speaker 1: Deal UM and created a lot of measures that tried

721
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:24,960
Speaker 1: to alleviate the worst effects of the dust Bowl. And

722
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:27,239
Speaker 1: one of the things that they did really really well

723
00:43:27,680 --> 00:43:30,960
Speaker 1: was create the Soil Conservation Service. Yeah. That was a

724
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:36,080
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty five and basically strict instructions to farmers to

725
00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:41,000
Speaker 1: uh plant grass, plant trees, how to plow, how to terrace, um,

726
00:43:41,120 --> 00:43:43,880
Speaker 1: how to hold rain water, how to portion off your

727
00:43:43,920 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 1: farmland um. And not just grow wheat over every square

728
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:49,520
Speaker 1: inch of it, right, Yeah, leave some land to be

729
00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:53,560
Speaker 1: fallow and regenerate after um one year of production or

730
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:56,400
Speaker 1: a couple of years of production. UM. And one of

731
00:43:56,440 --> 00:43:59,120
Speaker 1: the other big pushes that's still going on these days

732
00:43:59,239 --> 00:44:02,120
Speaker 1: is no till arming. One of the big problems that

733
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:06,279
Speaker 1: they that they did with with by knocking out these

734
00:44:06,440 --> 00:44:09,280
Speaker 1: these grasslands was first they got rid of the native

735
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:11,799
Speaker 1: grasses that were good at holding the top soil in place.

736
00:44:12,480 --> 00:44:16,320
Speaker 1: But then they actually tilled the top soil and loosened

737
00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:19,320
Speaker 1: the whole structure of everything, so it was easy to

738
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:22,880
Speaker 1: blow away when these strong winds came in. UM. And

739
00:44:23,000 --> 00:44:26,360
Speaker 1: apparently top soil takes something like I've seen in a

740
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:30,080
Speaker 1: few places five hundred years to produce one inch of

741
00:44:30,200 --> 00:44:33,279
Speaker 1: new top soil. So once it blew away, it wasn't

742
00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:36,479
Speaker 1: coming back. UM. And I'm not quite sure how they've

743
00:44:36,480 --> 00:44:39,040
Speaker 1: replenished it since then. I mean, I know that these

744
00:44:39,440 --> 00:44:42,759
Speaker 1: soil conservation measures are helping, but I mean, is it

745
00:44:42,920 --> 00:44:46,480
Speaker 1: just grassland that's growing on subsoil still for the next

746
00:44:46,640 --> 00:44:49,120
Speaker 1: couple hundred years. I don't know. You know what, I

747
00:44:49,280 --> 00:44:52,239
Speaker 1: know that somebody out there knows that, though well, please

748
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:54,239
Speaker 1: some farmer. I do know that they said by the

749
00:44:54,280 --> 00:44:58,799
Speaker 1: early nineteen forties much of that land had been rehabilitated. UM.

750
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:00,759
Speaker 1: And not only did the from its step in and

751
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:06,280
Speaker 1: still install install a lot of new laws and measures,

752
00:45:06,360 --> 00:45:08,880
Speaker 1: but they also bought a lot of land UM to

753
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:11,480
Speaker 1: take it out of production. Yeah, about eleven million acres

754
00:45:11,640 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 1: just to you know, keep it grassy and stable. UM.

755
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 1: And the new deal brought it wasn't just the Soil

756
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:22,560
Speaker 1: Conservation Service UM. The we won't get into all these,

757
00:45:22,680 --> 00:45:27,840
Speaker 1: but the works progress administration was created. Uh, the I

758
00:45:27,920 --> 00:45:32,040
Speaker 1: think the SCS is now the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Uh,

759
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:35,239
Speaker 1: and they just you know, they really stepped in and said,

760
00:45:35,440 --> 00:45:37,120
Speaker 1: we can't let this happen again, even though in the

761
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties there was another bad drought. But I think, yeah,

762
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:43,319
Speaker 1: the measure that, yeah, I remember in the seventies, that's

763
00:45:43,320 --> 00:45:46,600
Speaker 1: why we have skateboarding. Oh yeah, that's right. I mean

764
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:48,640
Speaker 1: not completely, but it's when they went to the swimming

765
00:45:48,640 --> 00:45:51,600
Speaker 1: pools because they were empty in California. But thanks to

766
00:45:51,680 --> 00:45:54,719
Speaker 1: those measures, things in the fifties and seventies didn't reach

767
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:57,839
Speaker 1: the levels that they did in and UM, I read

768
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 1: this really great article called Rethinking the US Bowl and

769
00:46:00,560 --> 00:46:02,560
Speaker 1: I can't remember where it's from, but it's posted on

770
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:05,560
Speaker 1: the podcast page for this episode on our site. UM

771
00:46:06,120 --> 00:46:08,440
Speaker 1: and it was basically saying like this was a really

772
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:12,879
Speaker 1: good example of the government stepping in taking really good measures. Um,

773
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:17,960
Speaker 1: because ultimately what created the dust bowl was parceling out

774
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:21,719
Speaker 1: the Great Plains into these small farms. If you're a

775
00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:27,319
Speaker 1: small farmer, taking soil conservation measures is not economically beneficial

776
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:30,560
Speaker 1: to you. You're not gonna see a lot of the benefits.

777
00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:33,319
Speaker 1: And it's going to be very expensive, right, And if

778
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:35,239
Speaker 1: you're just a small farmer, it doesn't matter. Your farm

779
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:37,920
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. But if you put a bunch of small

780
00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:41,879
Speaker 1: farms together and no one's taking soil conservation measures, then

781
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 1: what you have, as far as from an ecological standpoint,

782
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 1: is one gigantic farm with no soil conservation measures. And

783
00:46:49,320 --> 00:46:51,480
Speaker 1: that's what set up the Great Planes for the Desk Bowl.

784
00:46:51,719 --> 00:46:55,080
Speaker 1: Federal government came in and said, you guys are small farmers.

785
00:46:55,320 --> 00:46:57,319
Speaker 1: You don't have to be big farmers, but we're gonna

786
00:46:57,360 --> 00:46:59,160
Speaker 1: put a bunch of you together to form what's called

787
00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:03,040
Speaker 1: the Soil concert Vation District, and we're going to say,

788
00:47:03,480 --> 00:47:06,360
Speaker 1: if you plant these trees for wind breaks and you

789
00:47:06,640 --> 00:47:10,040
Speaker 1: do these other soil conservation techniques, we're going to subsidize

790
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:12,279
Speaker 1: your farms. And it worked really well, and a lot

791
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:15,160
Speaker 1: of small farmers got these subsidies, and the Great Planes

792
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 1: was saved. Hooray. Right, But then the same article is

793
00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:21,120
Speaker 1: like this is also a really good example of how

794
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:24,800
Speaker 1: the federal government doesn't work because as smaller and smaller

795
00:47:24,920 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 1: farms were bought by bigger and bigger farms and consolidated

796
00:47:28,200 --> 00:47:32,360
Speaker 1: into like big Agra, these subsidies are still available for

797
00:47:32,480 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 1: these farms and farming companies that would have carried out

798
00:47:36,600 --> 00:47:40,239
Speaker 1: these measures anyway, because they would directly benefit from the

799
00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:43,360
Speaker 1: money that they put into it. They're still getting government

800
00:47:43,400 --> 00:47:46,040
Speaker 1: subsidies from it. So it was like it worked really

801
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:48,360
Speaker 1: well at first. Now it's not working anymore. It's just

802
00:47:48,480 --> 00:47:50,279
Speaker 1: kind of a waste of money. They should have had

803
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:53,320
Speaker 1: a stipulation in there though, that like farms of certain

804
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:56,000
Speaker 1: size or something I don't know, should have, should have,

805
00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:59,440
Speaker 1: could have, would have. I found that really interesting. I

806
00:47:59,520 --> 00:48:03,040
Speaker 1: can tell really get why you suggested this dust Bowl

807
00:48:03,160 --> 00:48:06,279
Speaker 1: drought episode. Yeah, it's a good stuff. We've had a

808
00:48:06,360 --> 00:48:09,719
Speaker 1: lot of um asks for this one lately. So have

809
00:48:09,840 --> 00:48:12,160
Speaker 1: you got anything else? No, sir, Well, if you want

810
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:14,680
Speaker 1: to know anything else about the dust bowl and droughts

811
00:48:14,719 --> 00:48:16,799
Speaker 1: and that kind of stuff, go to how stuff works,

812
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:19,799
Speaker 1: type those words into the search bar and it we'll

813
00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:22,480
Speaker 1: bring all this up. Uh. And since I said search bar,

814
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:27,920
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this batty

815
00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:32,880
Speaker 1: email from a bat bat guy. Um. Hey, guys, went

816
00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:35,920
Speaker 1: bat biologists specializing and threatened an endangered species in the

817
00:48:35,920 --> 00:48:38,400
Speaker 1: Eastern US. It's a great episode and you nailed it

818
00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:41,560
Speaker 1: especially the section on echolocation. I'll add that while most

819
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:46,680
Speaker 1: in sect devorous, insectivorous bats do catch their prey while

820
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:51,040
Speaker 1: on the wing um, some have specialized to flutter slowly

821
00:48:51,400 --> 00:48:54,120
Speaker 1: and their echo locations are so sensitive and high pitched,

822
00:48:54,440 --> 00:48:56,520
Speaker 1: and they're hearing so sensitive that the bats can glean

823
00:48:56,640 --> 00:49:00,640
Speaker 1: insects from vegetation in the darkness. This be in response

824
00:49:00,680 --> 00:49:03,560
Speaker 1: to stealthy moss that have learned to sense bat echolocation

825
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:06,839
Speaker 1: and evade round and round goes through predator prey arms race.

826
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:11,600
Speaker 1: One clarification, though, is regarding the effect of white nose syndrome.

827
00:49:12,760 --> 00:49:14,720
Speaker 1: You said the podcasts that the itch is what wakes

828
00:49:14,719 --> 00:49:17,680
Speaker 1: the bats from hibernation. It's more that the bat's immune

829
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:21,560
Speaker 1: system is ramped up by the late stage fungal infection,

830
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:24,840
Speaker 1: in their metabolic requirements are beyond what they have prepared

831
00:49:24,920 --> 00:49:29,120
Speaker 1: for the damage. Wing membranes are especially susceptible to evaporate

832
00:49:29,200 --> 00:49:32,160
Speaker 1: water loss. In most hibernation interrupted bats are thought to

833
00:49:32,239 --> 00:49:35,719
Speaker 1: die of lack of water rather than lack of food. Additionally,

834
00:49:35,760 --> 00:49:39,560
Speaker 1: new studies indicate that the clinical signs are in stages

835
00:49:39,640 --> 00:49:43,960
Speaker 1: of the disease and that the chemical imbalances cause internal damage.

836
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:48,080
Speaker 1: Before the visible fungal high fade. DO one mechanism for

837
00:49:48,160 --> 00:49:53,479
Speaker 1: this is chronic respiratory acidosis caused by increased dissolved CEO

838
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:57,040
Speaker 1: two levels in the blood. Wow, man, I told you

839
00:49:57,080 --> 00:50:00,319
Speaker 1: it's a bat biologist. Listen to you guys every day.

840
00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:02,600
Speaker 1: Uh And I've taken s y s k onto the

841
00:50:02,640 --> 00:50:06,080
Speaker 1: woods on bat surveys more than once. Thanks for the PA.

842
00:50:06,440 --> 00:50:09,640
Speaker 1: We've been on a bat survey before. It's a great

843
00:50:09,719 --> 00:50:13,439
Speaker 1: balancing act of fact and b s of to each

844
00:50:13,520 --> 00:50:16,759
Speaker 1: their own and holding humanity to a higher standard. You

845
00:50:16,840 --> 00:50:19,840
Speaker 1: guys consistently hit it out of the park. Man, that

846
00:50:20,040 --> 00:50:23,120
Speaker 1: is nice. That is from Jason Whittle and uh, my

847
00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:27,800
Speaker 1: wife's hometown of Akron, Ohio and where Lebron lives to

848
00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:30,160
Speaker 1: that's right. And you know what we actually got our

849
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:34,799
Speaker 1: episode shared by um oh boy, now I can't think

850
00:50:34,800 --> 00:50:39,280
Speaker 1: of it the Bat Society. It's the best society of America,

851
00:50:39,480 --> 00:50:44,520
Speaker 1: the world Bat Society. Can't remember which one, but one

852
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:48,239
Speaker 1: of the larger bat organizations shared our podcast and was

853
00:50:48,360 --> 00:50:49,759
Speaker 1: I said, we did a great job. So I thought

854
00:50:49,760 --> 00:50:53,120
Speaker 1: that was Oh man, that's awesome. Well, thank you thanks

855
00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:56,520
Speaker 1: to the Bat Society, thanks to Jason. It was right

856
00:50:57,200 --> 00:50:59,799
Speaker 1: Jason whittle Um And if you want to be cool

857
00:50:59,840 --> 00:51:02,480
Speaker 1: like Jason and send us a really interesting email full

858
00:51:02,560 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 1: of tons of facts, you can do that. You can

859
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:07,880
Speaker 1: tweet to us too at s y s K podcast.

860
00:51:08,239 --> 00:51:10,680
Speaker 1: You can join us on Facebook dot com slash Stuff

861
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:12,640
Speaker 1: you Should Know. You can send us that email to

862
00:51:12,719 --> 00:51:15,600
Speaker 1: stuff podcast at how stuff Works dot com, and in

863
00:51:15,680 --> 00:51:18,000
Speaker 1: the meantime you can hang out at our super cool

864
00:51:18,120 --> 00:51:20,480
Speaker 1: home on the web Stuff you Should Know dot com.

865
00:51:23,360 --> 00:51:25,600
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.

866
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:28,640
Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the i heart

867
00:51:28,719 --> 00:51:31,640
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

868
00:51:31,640 --> 00:51:32,360
Speaker 1: favorite shows.