The seemingly bottomless Ogallala aquifer watered the Texas Panhandle for decades. Now it is drying up.  Groundwater that sustained livelihoods for generations is disappearing, which has created another problem across the southern plains: When there isn’t enough rain or groundwater to germinate crops, soil can blow away — just as it did during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

 But the 174,000-square-mile (450,658-square-kilometer) Ogallala — one of the world’s largest — is vital to farmers and ranchers in parts of eight plains states from South Dakota southward. The region produces almost one-third of U.S. commodity crops and livestock protein.

I Texas, along with parts of New Mexico and Oklahoma, water is disappearing more rapidly than elsewhere in the aquifer, also called the High Plains. Less frequent rain linked to climate change means groundwater often is the only option for farmers, forcing tough choices. A 2020 study projects that 40% of irrigated lands in the Central High Plains and 54% of Southern High Plains will be unable to support irrigated agriculture by the end of the century due to a drop in water levels of the Ogallala Aquifer. Federal officials are encouraging farmers in a “Dust Bowl zone” to preserve and restore grasslands to prevent wind erosion as irrigation becomes more difficult.

Some are growing crops that require less water or investing in more efficient irrigation systems. Others also are replacing cash crops with livestock and pastureland. And more are returning land to its literal roots — by planting native grasses that green with the slightest rain and grow dense roots that hold soil in place. While non-native grass dies during droughts, native grass goes dormant and the roots — up to 15 feet (5 meters) deep — hold soil.

The Texas Panhandle almost certainly will continue to be locked into extended periods of drought that have persisted across the Southwest for 20 years, says meteorologist Brad Rippey with the USDA.

“Everybody knows that the water’s going away,” he says.

More than half the currently irrigated land in portions of western Texas, eastern New Mexico and the Oklahoma Panhandle could be lost by the end of the century — with 80% of those losses by 2060, according to a study published last year.

But areas throughout the aquifer also are vulnerable. The central part could lose up to 40% of irrigated area by 2100, with more than half the losses in the next 40 years. The USDA has identified a “Dust Bowl Zone” that covers parts of Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas vulnerable to severe wind erosion and where grasslands conservation is a priority.

Already, reestablishing native vegetation in the sandy soil over the Ogallala has proven difficult where irrigation ceased on former Kansas farmland. The same is true on land outside the Ogallala previously irrigated by rivers, including in Colorado’s Arkansas River Valley, where agricultural land dried out before native grasses could be established.

With less rainfall, farmers likely will need to use some remaining groundwater to reestablish native grasses to avoid Dust Bowl conditions, says study co-author Meagan Schipanski, an associate professor of soil and crop sciences at Colorado State University. “In an ideal world, there would be some forethought and incentives available” to help farmers make the transition “before there’s not enough water there,” Schipanski says.

Farmers sometimes plant crops even if they’re likely to fail, because they’re covered by insurance. And cultivating land often is more profitable than taking government payments to preserve or restore grasslands. From 2016 through mid-2021, fewer than 328,000 acres (132,737 hectares) were enrolled in the USDA’s Grasslands Conservation Reserve Program in Dust Bowl Zone counties.

The transition to grasslands and conservation also is hindered by an agricultural banking system that makes it difficult to obtain loans for anything other than conventional farming and equipment, as well as the need to pay off that equipment.

“If you give a producer a choice and flexibility, they’re going to engage in soil health practices,” says USDA’s Ducheneaux, who is advocating for change. “They’re not going to continue to stay stuck in that commodity cycle.” 

But farmers need programs that allow them to earn a living while they make the transition to grasslands over perhaps 15 years, says Kremen, from the Ogallala Water Coordinated Agriculture Project. 

Kremen says. “What’s at stake is the vitality of communities that depend on this water and towns drying up and blowing away.”

Farmers restore native grasslands as groundwater disappears (apnews.com)

 In what is claimed to be one of the richest countries in history, the USA had more than 38.2 million Americans suffering from food insecurity at some point last year. A  9% rise in hunger in 2020 compared with the 2019 level of 35.2 million.

The federal government’s first comprehensive attempt to document how the Covid-19 pandemic found that the number of children in the U.S. suffering from hunger increased from 10.7 million in 2019 to 11.7 million last year, also an increase of 9%.

 60 million people—close to one in five U.S. residents—received charitable food assistance last year, up 50% from 2019, according to Emily Engelhard, managing director of research at Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization. 

CNN reported that the group’s network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries distributed over six billion meals in 2020, an increase of 44% from the year before.

Another USDA report (pdf) released last month showed that federal spending on domestic food and nutrition assistance programs in 2020 reached a historic high of $122.1 billion, which was 32% greater than the previous year.

“The new federal data tells us two things,” Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, said in a statement. “First, while hunger was already a massive, systemic problem in all 50 states before Covid-19 hit the U.S., domestic hunger surged during the pandemic.”

“Second, while tens of million of Americans suffered mightily from food hardship in 2020—and are still suffering mightily—the nation avoided mass starvation mostly because the federal government stepped in to dramatically increase food and cash aid,” Berg continued. “This safety net was a giant food life preserver.”

Stressing that “the pandemic is far from over,” Berg added that “we need that aid to continue, as a down payment on the even bigger investments needed to create jobs, raise wages, and ensure an adequate safety net so we can finally end hunger in America once and for all.”

With 38 Million Facing Food Insecurity, Hunger in US Soared by Nearly 9% in 2020 | Common Dreams News

 15.5 million U.S. adults under the age of 65 and 2.3 million seniors were unable to afford at least one doctor-prescribed medication this year, according to a new study (pdf), based on four nationally representative surveys conducted in recent months by the polling outfit Gallup in partnership with West Health, a nonprofit organization focused on lowering healthcare costs.

“Prescription drugs don’t work if you cannot afford them,” Dan Witters, a senior researcher at Gallup, said in a statement. “Across multiple studies, we are measuring adults from all age, race, and ethnic groups, political parties, and income levels are reporting that they are struggling to afford medications…”

Unsurprisingly, the pharmaceutical industry is lobbying hard against efforts to cut soaring medicine prices.

Margarida Jorge, campaign director for Lower Drug Prices Now, said, “Ending the pharmaceutical industry’s monopoly control over drug pricing is long overdue,” she added. “It’s time to put healthcare before healthcare —no one should have to worry about affording the medicines they need, especially when pharmaceutical corporations continue to be the most profitable sector in the nation.”

Nearly 18 Million US Adults Couldn’t Afford a Prescription Medication This Year: Study | Common Dreams News

 The government’s own internal analysis of its decision to cut universal credit from the start of October (by ending the temporary £20-per-week uplift introduced during the pandemic) says the impact will be “catastrophic”. The paper says: 

A well-placed Whitehall official said the government’s own analysis highlighted the deep impact of reversing the change. “The internal modelling of ending the UC uplift is catastrophic. Homelessness and poverty are likely to rise, and food banks usage will soar. It could be the real disaster of the autumn.”

One minister warned that the political backlash over universal credit, which is claimed by 6m people, was likely to be more serious for prime minister Boris Johnson than the debate about social care.

“There’s no doubt that this is going to have a serious impact on thousands of people and colleagues are really worried, I think it will definitely eclipse social care as a political problem. It’s not just red wall MPs who are fearing a major backlash from the public.”

 The wealthiest 1 percent of people in the U.S.A avoid paying a huge amount of the taxes they would normally owe every year, according to a new report from the Treasury Department.

The report found that the top 1 percent avoid paying $163 billion in taxes every year, or about 28 percent of all taxes dodged yearly. 

 The agency notes that it’s difficult to estimate the tax loss from the highest tax brackets, the data shows that the bulk of the $163 billion figure stems from the wealthiest 0.5 percent of Americans who, according to the Treasury Department, dodge $120 billion in taxes annually.

Overall, the amount of taxes that don’t get paid every year by all taxpayers is equal to the entirety of the amount in income taxes paid by the bottom 90 percent of earners, the agency found. More importantly, the top 10 percent of earners are responsible for nearly 53 percent of the gap in taxes owed but not paid yearly.

 Natasha Sarin, the Treasury Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy, said, “The tax gap can be a major source of inequity. Today’s tax code contains two sets of rules: one for regular wage and salary workers who report virtually all the income they earn; and another for wealthy taxpayers, who are often able to avoid a large share of the taxes they owe.”

“The United States collects less tax revenue as a percentage of GDP than at most points in recent history, in part because owed but uncollected taxes are so significant,” wrote Sarin. “These unpaid taxes mean policymakers must choose between rising deficits, lower spending on important priorities, or further tax increase to compensate for lost revenue—which will only be borne by compliant taxpayers.”

Sarin also pointed out that the IRS simply lacks the resources to chase after all of the lost taxes. And, without the ability to detect the complicated tax-cheating methods used by the wealthy, the IRS’s audit rates for the wealthy have seriously declined over the years, whereas the audit rate for low-income recipients of the Earned Income Tax Credit has not been greatly affected.

Treasury Finds Wealthiest 1 Percent Dodge Over $160 Billion in Taxes Yearly (truthout.org)

Whether an individual wishes to become a vegetarian-vegan or remain an eater of meat will be the personal decision of that person. But the food production system serving whatever the diet of society chooses is a social question and it will be one that even in a socialist society will be discussed and debated. 

One thing we can be sure of though, is that the main agenda will not be which is the most profitable and least costly but that what we produce to eat is both healthy for people and the planet.

“Industrial meat farming is fanning the flames of climate crisis and biodiversity collapse while threatening the health of farmers, workers, and consumers—the evidence is resounding,” said Stanka Becheva, food and agriculture campaigner at Friends of the Earth Europe.

Meat production is expected to increase by another 40 million tonnes a year by 2029, which would take the total output to around 366 million tonnes a year.

Meat Atlas 2021 (pdf) by Friends of the Earth Europe, its German arm Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz, and the Berlin-based Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, says the food sector is responsible for 21% to 37% of planet-heating emissions, over half of which comes from industrial animal farming. The report explains, “The food and farming sector in industrialized countries, which accounts for about one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, is far from doing its fair share to reduce them.”

Its findings from 2018 is that “just five meat-and-milk giants, JBS, Tyson, Cargill, Dairy Farmers of America, and Fonterra, produce more combined emissions per year than major oil players like Exxon, Shell, or BP. Taken together, 20 livestock firms are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than Germany, Britain, or France.”

More than 2,500 investment banks, private banks, and pension funds poured $478 billion into meat and dairy firms from 2015 to 2020, emphasizing that BlackRock, Capital Group, Vanguard, and the Norwegian government pension fund are among the top investors.

The report explains, “the impacts of industrial-scale agriculture are yet to be regulated across financial and legal platforms.”

More than one billion people around the world earn their living by keeping livestock. Traditional and nature-friendly animal husbandry is coming under pressure from industrialized agriculture.Almost two-thirds of the world’s 600 million poor livestock keepers are women. They face disadvantages because they have limited access to land, services, and farm ownership.Conflicts over land are on the rise, in part because of industrial meat production. More and more people are being killed for defending the right to land.The use of antibiotics in animal husbandry is resulting in more and more microbial resistance. This threatens the effectiveness of antibiotics, one of the most important types of treatment in human medicine.The leading producers of fodder crops are among the largest users of pesticides—which contaminate groundwater and harm biodiversity.

The Socialism Or Your Money Back blog is very well aware that we do not possess a monopoly on truth. It has often used sources other than the World Socialist Movement if they presented a supporting case for our socialist ideas. We know many non-members share many of our views and we do not expect them to reflect 100%. Differences in positions will occur even when principles are aligned.

On our constant cyber travels, SOYMB blog has encountered other blogs that are worthy of mention and offer invaluable insights.

This anarchist blog is commendable

This blog-post, in particular, is recommended reading, an appetising  taste offered by this extract:

“…Capitalism is quite literally “rule by capital,” and renders the vast majority of humanity slaves to a machine that only serves itself. As a result, rule of Law is a lie under Capitalism – laws only apply to the working class. Even in those rare cases where the crimes of the capitalist class are so egregious that they cannot be ignored by the State, the penalty is rarely more than a fine – and usually a fine far smaller than the profits of the crime. Individual capitalists are virtually never held accountable.

This article could go on forever. Every aspect of the Capitalist system is designed to bring out the worst in humanity. It is a system designed by sociopaths that breeds sociopaths and normalizes their behavior. It must be utterly destroyed for any of us to have a future…”

 But, as already been mentioned as an important caveat, there are topics where this blog and Bear’s diverge.

 For instance, on his sympathetic impression of Scottish nationalism which indeed welcomes its non-native born residents as full members of society but its separatist driving force can be traced to the belief that Scotland’s potential wealth is being diverted to subsidise poorer regions of the UK, a motivation shared Catalonia’s campaign for independence.

 Fundamentally it is sectionalism and not internationalism.

 The Battle of Blair Mountain was the largest insurrection in the U.S. since the Civil War. This was not a group of states seeking to set up shop in their own country. This was labor taking a stand against capital. It was not the only such incident; the Battle of Evarts in Kentucky and the Ludlow Massacre in Colorado featured ownership using horrific levels of violence to quell labor uprisings. 

In August 1921, thousands of rifle-bearing coal miners marched to this thickly wooded ridge in southern West Virginia, a campaign that was ignited by the daylight assassinations of union sympathizers but had been building for years in the oppressive despair of the coalfields. 

The miners’ army was met at Blair Mountain by thousands of men who volunteered to fight with the Logan County sheriff, who was in the pay of the coal companies. Over 12 miles and five days, the sheriff’s men fought the miners, strafing the hillsides with machine-gun fire and dropping IEDs from planes. 

There were at least 16 confirmed deaths in the battle, though no one knows exactly how many were killed before the US Army marched in to put a stop to the fighting.

In 1920, Governor Ephraim Morgan set up an American Constitutional Association to select the textbooks used in West Virginia schools, which excluded any mention of the state’s mine wars. Generations grew up cut off from their ancestors’ struggles because business leaders were afraid. At the Mine Wars Museum, Kimberly McCoy, the museum’s resident guide opened up five different West Virginia history textbooks from the 1930s to the 1980s to the section where ‘the Battle of Blair Mountain should have been,’ 

Kim said, ‘but they’re all empty.

You would not know that U.S. business leaders machine-gunned and bombed workers who only sought a modicum of dignity and safety in their labors. If you know, you may be motivated to act, and that right there is what capital seeks to squash.

Taken from here

Let’s Teach Histories of Left-Wing Rebellion, Like the Battle of Blair Mountain (truthout.org)

 A scientific study is the first such assessment and lays bare the huge disconnect between the Paris agreement’s climate goals and the expansion plans of the fossil fuel industry. 

The researchers described the situation as “absolutely desperate”. The conclusions of the report are “bleak” for the fossil fuel industry

“The analysis implies that many operational and planned fossil fuel projects are unviable,” the scientists said.

90% of coal and 60% of oil and gas reserves could not be extracted if there was to be even a 50% chance of keeping global heating below 1.5C, the temperature beyond which the worst climate impacts hit.

Prof Paul Ekins of University College London, UK, and one of the research team. “We are nowhere near the Paris target in terms of the fossil fuels people are planning to produce.”

To keep below 1.5C, the analysis says:

1. The US, Russia and the former Soviet states have half of global coal reserves but will need to keep 97% in the ground, while the figure for Australia is 95%. China and India have about a quarter of global coal reserves and will need to keep 76% in the ground.

2. Middle Eastern states have more than half the world oil reserves but will need to keep almost two-thirds in the ground, while 83% of Canada’s oil from tar sands must not be extracted.

3. Virtually all unconventional oil or gas, such as from fracking, must remain in the ground and no fossil fuels at all can be extracted from the Arctic.

 Last month Boris Johnson claimed any trade deal with Australia would, “include a chapter on trade and environment which not only reaffirms commitments to multilateral environmental agreements, including the Paris Agreement but also commits both parties to collaborate on climate and environmental issues”. The prime minister claimed that “more trade will not come at the expense of the environment”. 

However, the reality was that Liz Truss, the trade secretary, and Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, decided to “drop both of the climate asks” from the text of the UK-Australia agreement in order to get it “over the line”, according to the email from a senior official.

A binding section that referenced the “Paris Agreement temperature goals” was scrubbed from the accord after pressure from the Australian government – which has a notoriously weak record on climate action.

John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said the government’s actions would signal the start of a “race to the bottom” and accused Boris Johnson of having lied about the issue.

“The UK government pledged to embed the environment at the very heart of trade, including supporting the Paris Agreement on climate and zero deforestation in supply chains,” Sauven said. “Signing an Australian trade deal with action on climate temperature commitments secretly removed is the polar opposite of everything Boris Johnson publicly pledged and rips the heart out of what the agreement stands for.”

UK secretly dropped climate promises for trade deal with Australia, leaked emails show | The Independent