Betrayal of the worst kind

Eyes red,
Lips parched,
Throat dry,
Skin flaky,
She looked up
Aching for that drop
Of tear He would shed.
He failed her,
He the RainGod.

Flourishing Civilizations have been wiped of by sudden spell of droughts. The Akaads of Eurasia, Mayan’s of South America and the Egyptians all were betrayed to extinction when their RainGods punished them. What their crime was we do not know, but definitely not as bad as industrialization.
Even if the world stood still with zero carbon emissions from today, we would not be able to avert the climate disaster we have brought upon. UN’s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) predicts that for the next fifty years atleast we would see a huge change in rainfall patterns. Wet areas would be wetter and dry areas drier. And moreover the rains would pour as short spells in those wet areas leading to large scale flooding. And the dry areas (the temperate – near the equator) will encroach into wet areas. Meaning less areas, near the poles are going to receive heavy rainfall in short spells. (Look up: Ferrel and Hadley Cells).
The dry parched Bihar villages, are reporting brawls over drinking water from their starving dwellers.

The water wars would collapse political and social systems.

Meanwhile, South Indians are asking for interlinking of the nation's rivers, so that they can drink the from the sacred and perennial rivers from God’s own head. They better be warned, that those rivers are going to turn seasonal when the glaciers feeding them melt away from the rising temperatures.
But what irony, India’s rice basin has been growing more than 50% of its crops on ground water, letting all the sacred rivers do their only duty of washing sins away.(Worldwatch Institue, Lester Brown’s talk). And bad news is North India’s ground water table level has been falling down by an inch and half every year, looks like a small number, but enough to ring alarms at the UN.
Unaware of all this clamor, the textile, paper and numerous other industries are polluting all the ground and river water we have for now, worried only about the relatively trivial expenditure on Water Treatment Units.
But good news does pop-in now and then, small villages in AndhraPradesh and the drought hit TamilNadu have survived this year’s betrayal (DHAN :Development of Humane Action) they dug up small tanks and ponds and farmed on small scale. Meanwhile farmers worldwide are reporting drought and recession resistance through small-scale community farming.

Small-scaling seems our salvation.

As I write, I remember the words of the old lady in Bihar, thinned to a skeleton, back bent to the scorching sun, digging on her caked field, 'Ram Bharose'.