The picture is of a dust storm during the Great Depression in America - reminiscent of "The Grapes of Wrath". Huge amounts of agricultural land in Oklahoma became a dust bowl and unusable, leading to starvation, appalling poverty and mass migration to California.
Is this what we are heading for? Here in France there have been pictures in the newspapers of farmers demonstrating their crops which are dying shortly after birth because of the lack of rain. In UK we hear it has been the warmest spring for donkey's years. Yesterday we had two emails from New Zealand saying that it had been the hottest May (autumn there) for 100 years. And one from Australia telling us that it has been the coldest May for 40 years. The wheat crop failed in Russia last year. There are fears the same is happening in Texas now. The tornado count in USA has dramatically increased this year.
Clearly weather patterns are changing all over the world. It is difficult to visualise what the future holds in this respect. Mass migration from one country or continent to another as new deserts form?
The good news, for us, is that, at last, after very little rain since the beginning of the year, we have had little else for the past few days. And the next few, it seems.
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