I’m a few days away, riding through the west Texas desert on my motorcycle, but soon enough I’ll be chasing the rains north through country ravaged by cycles of drought and flood and drought and flood. Maybe that will give us something to talk about when I’m in Denton. I’m looking forward to the conversation…. Read More
The Tao of a Corncob Pipe
BUSHKILL, Pa. — Even now, when I conjure him and he deigns to come, I always see him the same way. He’s encircled in sweet blue smoke, standing on the cool stone of the walkway around midnight…. Read More
“Sweltering: Books on Heat Waves, Droughts, and Wild Fires”
“Seamus McGraw takes us on a trip along America’s culturally fractured back roads and listens to farmers and ranchers and fishermen, many of them people who are not ideologically, politically, or in some cases even religiously inclined to believe in man-made global climate change”.
“He shows us how they are already being affected and the risks they are already taking on a personal level to deal with extreme weather and its very real consequences for their livelihoods.”
“McGraw also speaks to scientists and policymakers who are trying to harness that most renewable of American resources, a sense of hope and self-reliance that remains strong in the face of daunting challenges. By bringing these voices together, Betting the Farm on a Drought ultimately becomes a model for how we all might have a pragmatic, reasoned conversation about our changing climate.” – Yale Climate Connections
I Never Met a Liberal Before
The very last thing the old farmer wanted to do on that rainy Sunday morning in early spring was sit down and talk with me. And he had made it perfectly clear why…. Read More
“On Drought and Doubt”
I’m pleased that Betting the Farm has been reviewed by J. Scott Donahue for the Sierra Club. “More Americans believe in angels than in climate change, writes journalist Seamus McGraw in his new book, … Read More
Just Ride, excerpted from Betting the Farm on a Drought
Maybe after all these years, my memory is playing tricks on me, but I remember him looking like a brilliant bolt of lightning that carried its own storm inside it…. Read More
Found on a Roadside, the Future As It Used to Be
You almost have to be lost to find it. And even then, if you don’t know in your bones what you’re looking at, you might not realize what you’ve found…. Read More
Hard Landings: A Tale of Cheap Wine, Broken Bones and Climate Change
It wasn’t until weeks later–long after the half-gallon of Carlo Rossi red I had swilled and the painkillers that came later in the night wore off–that I actually felt the impact. Sure, I had some vague recollection of the fall, of trying to hop up on the banister in the atrium of my college dorm, three floors above a flagstone foyer, and of missing it by a good six inches. … Read More
San Antonio Book Festival Authors To Tackle Scorching Drought Crisis
An award-winning journalist who wrote hard-hitting stories about hydraulic fracturing – commonly known as fracking – and havoc the process wreaks on the environment will be featured in a panel dubbed “Running (Out of) Water” at the upcoming San Antonio Book Festival. … Read More
This is just nuts
I’m doing some back of the envelope calculations, and it’s starting to dawn on me that California almonds are kind of like crunchy coal when it comes to the challenges we’re facing…. Read More