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The US is going through the worst drought in half a century. Since we feed the world, this could lead to a global crisis as crop shortages push food prices up. The US supplies half the world’s corn exports and a large amount of its soybeans and wheat. We even sell Texas-grown rice to Asian countries.

In the July 20th edition of the Financial Times, Jack Farchy and Gregory Meyer quote senior commodities trader David Nelson as saying, "I’ve been in the business more than 30 years and this is by far and away the most serious weather issue and supply and demand problem that I have seen by a mile."
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It’s feast or famine in the Arab world, which is why climate change–NOT a hunger for freedom–may be what’s behind the revolutionary movements in the Middle East that have become known as the "Arab Spring."

In the April 8th edition of the New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman writes that "the Arab awakening began in Tunisia with a fruit vendor who was harassed by police for not having a permit to sell food–just at the moment when world food prices hit record highs." He goes on to remark that it began in Syria and Yemen with similar situations.
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When plants talk to each other, what do they say? Some of them compare notes on how to survive a drought and plants that have been subjected to a previous period of drought learn to deal with the stress thanks to their memories of the experience.

This discovery could lead to development of crops better able to withstand drought. This research also confirms what home gardeners and nursery professionals have often learned through hard experience: Transplants do better when water is withheld for a few days to harden them to drought before they’re moved.
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In the US, kids are holding bake sales and setting up lemonade stands to try to raise money for the starving children of Somalia that they see on the TV news every night. But one of Africa’s largest charities– Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders or MSF) is telling people not to do that, because the money and food is NOT reaching the people who need it, since the reason for this famine is not drought, it’s WAR.
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