Weather experts now say that this 2012 drought is the worst heat storm to hit West Kentucky since 1956. From 1953 through 1956 heat and lack of rain devastated the row crops of West Kentucky. 

Now, fifty years later, we are once again confronted with a mean cycle of too little water in the fields. Unlike earlier megadroughts, the influence of massive coal fired coal energy plants and dense carbon pollution in the air have exacerbated the problem of nature out of balance.

Or is Mother Nature that far out of balance? What if the ancient Hopewell mound builders civilization that live in these parts some 1,000 years age, had to leave this same geography because they too had to face a prolonged period in which the rain didn’t come?

This 2012 drought is the third drought in the last three years to hit West Kentucky. In the year 2011, the actual heat storm (temperatures over 100 degrees with spikes of 3 days in which heat indexes over 120 degrees) timeframe lasted only 10 to 12 days.   Five of those days’ temperatures reached true air numbers of 105 degrees through 110 degrees.

And in 2011, this region had just survived spring record braking rain falls with regional massive flooding not seen since the 1920s and 1930s.

In the 2010 drought, the harsh heat storm days came in mid to late August and occurred only in short period of 5 to 7 days.

The other massive cultural shared memory of recent history was the mega regional ice storm of 2009.

Extreme weather is rapidly becoming a major force which is reshaping our lives in this early period of the 21st Century. And yet, many in our public leadership positions or in academic centers seem incapable of responding to these events.

With the American economy down and looking worse each year, can we as a civilization pretend “all is calm” when in fact strong forces of nature are moving to rearrange wind, rain, water, and heat patterns?

The time is past on the debate of climate change. We are now living it. Do we have time to correct the problems or can we move fast enough to learn new patterns of adaption and co-existence between man and nature?