1994-18						Release at Will: August 
1994

Contact:	Joan Vandiver Frisch
		Manager, NCAR Media Relations
		Boulder, CO (80307-3000
		Telephone:  303-497-8607
		Email: jfrisch@ncar.ucar.edu


Global Warming Threat: 
Does Drought Really Follow the Plow?
	BOULDER--As parts of Africa, Australia, Brazil, the former 
Soviet Union and the United States suffer record-breaking droughts, 
Congress and the general public turn to the scientific community to 
supply answers.  What are the causes?  Could it be global warming?
	A new book, Drought Follows the Plow, (Cambridge University 
Press), helps to sort out the tangled web of interrelated social and 
physical causes that contribute to the negative consequences of 
drought.
	Michael Glantz, head of the Environmental and Societal Impacts 
Group (ESIG) at the National Center for Atmospheric Research 
(NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, authored the 255-page book, which is of 
value to policymakers, scientists and the general public around the 
globe.  The book raises concerns about the difficulty of attributing 
droughts around the world to global warming. 
	 According to Glantz, "Indicators, such as an increasing number 
of drought-related food shortages, are misleading because people 
throughout the world are increasingly moving into areas considered 
marginal for agricultural production in search of a better life.  
Sometimes, they are forced to occupy marginal areas by governments 
who confiscate their traditional farmlands in order to produce cash 
crops for export, such as cotton, sugar and tobacco."
	The author draws attention to the relationship between society 
and climate change, using the notion that "drought follows the plow."  
According to Glantz, people tend to grow the same crops in marginal 
areas that they grew in the better-watered areas from which they 
migrated.  And the new conditions--poorer soils and less reliable 
rainfall--increase the likelihood of crop failure.  The movement of 
people into the margins is a process that occurs in rich countries as well 
as poor ones. 
	The author presents case studies and analyses describing the 
devastation in countries throughout the world, with contributions 
from colleagues in the most heavily impacted areas of the world.  
Prefaced by a discussion of drought, desertification and food production 
in marginal lands, the book describes what happens when farmers 
cultivate the dry margins.
	The book is part of a new series, issued by Cambridge University 
Press, that explains complex scientific subjects in terms that the public 
can understand.  Copies can be ordered by calling 
1-800-872-7423.  The book is available in hardback, ISBN 521442524 for 
$39.95, or paperback, ISBN 0521477212, for $19.95.
	NCAR is managed by the University Corporation for 
Atmospheric Research under sponsorship of the National Science 
Foundation.
					-The End-