This Isn't Something That's Going To Happen A Number Of Years Down The Road. People Are Dying Right Here In The US Due To Global Climate Change. Now

The NYT reports that:

A searing heat wave in its second week has been responsible for more than 100 deaths across California, the authorities said, with the coroner’s office here forced to double-stack bodies.

Thousands of livestock are also dying from the intense heat. Dairy farmers are using sprinkler systems and shaded barns to try to keep the cows cool. Most of the deaths were reported in the land-locked Central Valley, the agricultural spine of the state where triple-digit temperatures have been the norm. At least 22 deaths in Fresno County, where funeral homes have offered to help with the backlog at the coroner’s office, have been linked to the heat.

Note the danger to livestock and the fact that this is happening in the "agricultural spine" of the world's seventh largest economy.

We’re just trying to catch up,” said Joseph Tiger, a deputy coroner in Fresno. “I have been here 10 years and I have never seen it this bad. Our boss has been here over 20 and he hasn’t seen it this bad either. For the last two weeks it has just been unbearable hot.”

Workers are dying in the fields and people from age 20 to age 95 are dying from the heat: Among the dead here was a 38-year-old worker found in a field, an unidentified man around 40 who made it to a hospital emergency room where his body temperature was recorded at 109.9 degrees and a 58-year-old man who was found drunk, officials said. Statewide, Ms. Java said, the youngest heat-related death was a 20-year-old man from San Diego and the eldest a 95-year-old man in Imperial County, near the Mexican border.

Crops and livestock continue to be hit by the heat, as well. This is important not because the death of a field of soybeans or a herd of cows is as important as the death of a fieldworker or a 20 year old or a 95 year old, but because people this winter will be hurting for food if this continues: The record temperatures have also hit the state’s farmers hard, with roughly one percent, or 16,500 cows, of the state’s dairy herd dying from the heat, according to California Dairies, the state’s largest milk cooperative. Further, panting, miserable cows have lowered their milk production between 10 and 20 percent, said trade groups and dairy farmers in the region. California is the largest milk producing state in the country, producing about 12 percent of the country’s milk supply, according to trade groups.

Because of the large number of dead cows, the California Department of Food and Agriculture waived a regulation requiring dead animal haulers to transport animals to rendering plants in eight counties in the Central Valley — freeing them to put animals in landfills,

Six counties have declared states of emergencies because of the backlog of dead livestock.

“It is just a bad, bad situation,” said Larry Collar, the quality assurance manager for California Dairies. “In 25 years in southern California, this is the most extreme temperatures we have ever seen and the most extreme length of time we have seen.”

The high temperatures have also caused problems with field crops around the state.“We have been having trouble mainly in the Central Valley with the walnuts,” said Ann Schmidt-Fogarty, a spokeswoman for the California Farm Bureau. “The intensity of the sun and heat actually burns them inside the shell.”

She said that delicate fruits like peaches, nectarines and plums are also ripening unevenly, causing further crop damage.

“Our biggest concern is our people,” Ms. Schmidt-Fogarty said. “We make sure they are very hydrated and some are working half days.”

At the Te Velde dairy farm in Bakersfield, about 100 miles south of here, 16 cows have perished over the last 11 days, when temperatures hovered well over 100 degrees daily, and 12 more were sent to slaughter because they could not handle the heat, said Ralph Te Velde, 59, who has run his family farm for three decades.

The remainder of his 1,600 cows sought relief under a patch of water misters Thursday morning, and by 9:30 a.m. some were already showing the telltale signs of distress, their fat pink tongues hanging dangling to their chin.

One cow, her five-minute-old baby being licked by a neighboring sow a few feet away, was being hosed down by Mr. Te Velde’s son. At the end of the lot was a pile of dead cows, their bodies in a twisted black and white mass.

Mr. Te Velde and other dairy farmers have struggled to get rendering companies to come and get dead livestock. “The main challenge is a disposal challenge in the Central Valley,” said Steve Lyle, a spokesman for the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

Mr. Te Velde said his farm usually generates 72 pounds of milk daily per cow, but is now to about 60 pounds this week. He estimates the state may be losing 1.5 million pounds of milk a day.

“The question is, how many farmers can survive this,” he said. “You never want to lose animals. We are trying to mist them and mitigate this, keep them happy and what not.”

While cows are better accustomed than humans to manage cold temperatures, the heat is not their friend.

“The double whammy for cows,” Mr. Collar said, “is that lose heat through their mouth when they breathe, but don’t have sweat glands so are unable to dissipate heat. The other thing is that they are ruminant which means they have multi compartment stomach and have bacteria that breaks down food, and that bacteria generates heat.”

Dino Giacomazzi, a dairy farmer in Hanford – which sits between Fresno and Bakersfield – said he has been watching Yahoo weather for days, hoping to see the last of the heat.

“We spend a lot of time and money making sure these cows are comfortable all the time,” he said. “Because uncomfortable cows don’t make milk.”

Milk. No problem. I understand George Bush prefers nearbeer.

Can we get some fucking leadership? Could someone please recognize that we're now in the middle of the disaster that's been predicted for years? If we're frogs in the pot, the water is now fucking bubbling. We need real steps to preserve electricity, to cut down drastically and immediately on greenhouse gasses, to preserve and share around the small crop that will manage to get harvested this fall. We need mandatory conservation measures of every type of fuel and we need all of this not some time in the future but RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!

In five days, Pagans will be celebrating Lammas, the feast of the first harvest. I'm going to have more to say about this this weekend. Meanwhile, I'd buy grains that can be stored in airtight containers, bottled water, powdered milk, and nuts. And I'd pray to whatever deity I believed in for some leadership. NOW.