Texas imposed restrictions on water use in 1,000 cities as droughts worsened, and numerous experts reported that this is not your granddaddy’s periodic dry spell, but rather the direct result of climate change. Spicewood Beach, a community of some 500 homes near Austin, became
the first Texas town to officially run out of water and now must buy the precious commodity by the truckload. A bit farther south, severe drought in Mexico has cost farmers more than a billion dollars in crop losses; killed 60,000 head of cattle and weakened two million more; and forced the government to spend nearly $3 billion in emergency aid. "Droughts are cyclical--we know that--but they are growing more frequent and severe due to climate change," said Elvira Quesada, the Minister for the Environment and Natural Resources. When the price of water goes up, so does the price of food? Mexico’s food imports leapt 35% last year
