Have we passed "the tipping point"?

[Spider Jerusalem]

87. "Society"? "Government"? Hah. If only that were all.

It's considerably worse than that, and it's not going to be getting better, regardless of what changes society makes or which party is in power.

The Southwest is in the midst of a drought that's gone on for 14 years:



The major reservoirs along the Colorado River, Lake Powell and Lake Mead, are below 50% capacity; they probably won't refill, ever. Too many people drawing on the water, climate change has reduced the Rocky Mountain snowpack that feeds the Colorado. Seven states and over 30 million people depend on that water. What happens when the situation becomes critical enough to trigger a mass population exodus from the Southwest? From Phoenix and Vegas and LA?

Some climatologists are talking about the possibility of a 60-year drought in the Southwest. And even asking if the current conditions may be the new normal.

Meanwhile, aquifer depletion in the US west has reached a nearly critical point:



And drought is affecting areas of agricultural output, which means they're pumping more groundwater to make up for the shortfall:



Most of that agricultural production of corn? It's not even for food. Over half of the corn crop goes to ethanol. And meanwhile the areas of major shale gas and oil development are largely in the same region:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/United_States_Shale_gas_plays,_May_2011.pdf/page1-1650px-United_States_Shale_gas_plays,_May_2011.pdf.jpg

Fracking uses water. Quite a lot of water. In areas already affected by drought and aquifer depletion. And adds carbon to the atmosphere, which exacerbates the problem by contributing to increased warming:



So yeah, we're past the tipping point; things are fucked, and they're probably going to get significantly worse. And meanwhile you have a Democratic president touting fracking and shale gas and oil as "building a bridge to US energy independence", and major parties fighting over social issues. Which is basically saying "damn, that was a big iceberg. But we're still afloat! Now I think those deck chairs would look better if we moved them over here."