Joe Romm and Rebecca Leber — The Dust Bowl of 2012’: Drought Covers Majority of U.S. and ‘Might be a $50 Billion Event for the Economy

This year’s drought ranks as one of the top 10 worst U.S. droughts for the last century. With more than half the country (54 percent) experiencing drought conditions, it’s the single worst drought since the 1950s.
It is hot all over. NOAA said in its June “State of the Climate Global Analysis”:
This is the second month in a row that the global land temperature was the warmest on record for that month.
While it has been hotter than the 1930s in many places in this country, the drought hasn’t been quite as bad as the worst of the original Dust Bowl. But if we don’t act soon to slash greenhouse gas emissions, we are on our way to far worse as climate change fuels more frequent and more extreme droughts across the U.S. (see “We’re Already Topping Dust Bowl Temps — Imagine What’ll Happen If We Fail To Stop 10°F Warming”).
Climate Progress has documented how unrestrained fossil fuel pollution is leading to worsening droughts. Texas’ severe drought of the past memory was made 20 times more likely from global warming, as one study explained. The Nature article last year, “The Next Dust Bowl,” explained, “warming causes greater evaporation and, once the ground is dry, the Sun’s energy goes into baking the soil.”

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