Next to not being able to breathe, the feeling one has when dehydrated and there is no water to be had is probably one of the worst feelings you can imagine. In the heat of the desert, your head begins to spin and your heart rate increases. The dryness in your mouth is unbearable and your limbs begin to weaken. Everything in your field of vision starts to shimmer, and your stomach begins to churn. Your gait staggers. Your body has sweated out the cell salts that keep you functional, but you don’t notice any sweat, only the salt stains on your clothing. You want to lie down and not wake up to make it all go away.

 

We can live a long time without food, but only a few days without water. I have experienced the symptoms of severe dehydration and I know all too well what it is like to stand in an arena at 120F with a hard wind blowing clouds of fine dust into my lungs. I cannot imagine the well running dry at a horse ranch, and having nothing at all coming out of the ground or the taps. Yet this is reality. Call it climate change, call it cyclic, or call it a disaster… whatever, however it is happening, it is for real. I have experienced the climate changes and weather anomalies first hand in the southwestern United States, and it is one of the main reasons behind my having left the business of teaching and training horses. The implications of environmental changes on the equine industry are huge, as they are with any ecosystem and the many millions of humans around the world who are already displaced as a result.

Right now, we are looking at having to haul in 6000 gallons of water per day to sustain the sanctuary and its residents. That is at a cost of roughly $500 per day . . . until California sees rain again and the water tables rise. This is the kind of crippling environmental crisis that you hope will never come.

http://www.returntofreedom.org/the-extended-drought-in-the-west-has-left-our-hills-barren-of-forage-and-has-caused-the-price-of-hay-to-rise-august-28-2014/

  

The horses and their caretakers in the position of those at Return to Freedom are in need of compassion, and a lot of money. Understanding how quickly this kind of crisis can escalate, one can only have empathy for all those involved. For those of us with firsthand experience in hot, dry areas, it creates an overwhelming sense of helplessness and a looming question…”how can such a massive environmental emergency be resolved?” Not only do the horses and other livestock need adequate amounts of water, but the water also has to be uncontaminated and free of toxins such as algal blooms. Cyanobacteria can intensify quickly in hot conditions, causing issues like liver damage to the point of being fatal to the animals.

 

The average horse will intake 5 to 10 gallons of fresh water per day. Just like humans different horses crave or need different water amount intakes. A horse deprived of feed, but supplied drinking water, is capable of surviving 20 to 25 days. A horse deprived of water may only live up to 3 or 6 days. After lacking water intake for two days a horse may refuse to eat and exhibit signs of colic and other life-threatening ailments. 

http://extension.psu.edu/animals/equine/news/2012/how-much-drinking-water-does-your-horse-need

 

So imagine going to water your horses one morning and there is no water. How would you feel? It would be hard not to panic. It is one thing for this to happen to one ranch, but in the bigger picture, this could happen to many more facilities and affect considerably more horses and other animals in the very near future. Nobody knows when or if the drought conditions will improve. Forecast models are not too optimistic. When I was at the University of British Columbia’s Summer Institute of Sustainability in 2009, we had some of the most highly respected specialists in the field of sustainability telling us that the computer climate models at the time were conservative compared to the rate of actual changes that were occurring worldwide. What we are seeing now so far as temperature ranges and extreme climate events are exactly what the models were predicting five years ago.

 

As of August 12, 2014, most of California sits in a D4 “exceptional drought,” which is in the most severe category. Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas loiter in a substantially less severe D1 moderate drought.

http://www.futurity.org/american-southwest-megadrought-754652/

 

While the only immediate answer for the horses and people at Return to Freedom and other affected properties is to pay to have water hauled in, the long-term answer to a water crisis is more vague. The only way it can end is if Mother Nature drops enough precipitation on the drought-plagued areas over a long enough duration to refill shrinking reservoirs and bring life back to ravaged grazing lands. Without a major correction in the climate, hay prices will continue to rise, and the water scarcity problems will have a domino effect on horses and all the humans who rely on produce grown in the parched agricultural regions of the southwest. There are already too many unwanted horses in the system and this situation will only add to those numbers too.

 

It is possible that such an extreme crisis will open the door for contractors who claim they can control the weather. As bizarre as it may sound to some, it is nothing new in the field of environmental and weather modification technology:

 

Weather-modification, according to the US Air Force document AF 2025 Final Report,

“offers the war fighter a wide range of possible options to defeat or coerce an adversary’, capabilities, it says, extend to the triggering of floods, hurricanes, droughts and earthquakes: ‘Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally… It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog and storms on earth or to modify space weather… and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of [military] technologies.”

In 1977, an international Convention was ratified by the UN General Assembly, which banned ‘military or other hostile use of environmental modification techniques having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects.’ It defined ‘environmental modification techniques’ as ‘any technique for changing –through the deliberate manipulation of natural processes – the dynamics, composition or structure of the earth, including its biota, lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere, or of outer space.’

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-ultimate-weapon-of-mass-destruction-owning-the-weather-for-military-use-2/5306386

 

Of course, controlling and modifying the weather brings up all kinds of ethical and moral questions, the least of which being the unknown effects of messing with the planet’s natural weather systems. As these programs are already in place and have been implemented in the U.S. through state-by-state policies, we may in effect be witnessing the aftermath and ongoing effects of manmade weather and climate changes due to the delivery of tropospheric aerosols. It would not surprise me if we begin to see corporations hawking weather modification in the future as a means to “fix” current climate changes and extreme weather. Unfortunately, I doubt if anybody really knows what the consequences would be if such action were taken on a mass scale.

 

Then there is a more esoteric approach, as described by scientists such as Gregg Braden. I just watched the YouTube presentation of his talk about his book, The Divine Matrix. Dr. Schoen and I have spoken of “the field” in The Compassionate Equestrian, and how it may be used for the benefit of interspecies communication. As Braden describes “the matrix” according to Max Planck’s theory, he gives examples by which healing can occur when one applies a particular method that engages the laws (as they are presently understood) of quantum consciousness.

 

“All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.”

Max Planck

Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], speech at Florence, Italy (1944) (from Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797)

 

In the talk, Braden describes how a young native man in the desert southwest “prayed rain,” as his ancestors taught him. Not prayed “for” rain, as this sets up an infinite possibility and incalculable time frame that may or may not happen according to the tribal lessons. Instead, they conduct a ceremony by which they feel the rain, feel the mud underfoot, and feel as though what they wish for already exists in that moment. As Braden noted, after the young man’s action, it did indeed rain.

 

Using “the field” we are taught to see everything from the heart, and use the energy of the field to see the situation as though it is already healed, and perfect:

http://youtu.be/MRedvbARVhM

 

In the west we have not been conditioned to operate in this way however, so the general populous is more reactive than responsive when all of a sudden it seems like everything has fallen apart. There is fear, and in the case of not being able to offer food and water to your animals, watching them suffer greatly is as heartbreaking as can be.

 

Perhaps if everyone had compassion, we would find the answers to all of our human conditions and the root causes of the planet’s problems, instead of using knowledge and inventions to enact wars on other countries. Maybe it is a combination of willpower, technology, and a coming together of science with ancient knowledge that will get us and our beloved horses, as well as all of the creatures of the earth out of the situations in which we now find ourselves. I do not know what will work, either in the interim, or the long term. I do know there are prophecies that have come down through tribal peoples such as the Hopi about the trials we now face, and there have been predictions by scientists in recent years that seem to back up what those ancient cultures have been telling us.

 

Can we turn to the horses themselves for answers? Can we watch other species and learn from them? What information do they convey to us? What would they do and where would they go? Can we simply be quiet and find compassion for our planet and all those sentient beings in need of help? We all need water to survive. For anyone who can contribute financially to the delivery of water for Return to Freedom, please do so, and if not, please offer compassionate thoughts and prayers for them and all others affected by water shortages and rising costs of hay and feed, especially the rescues that rely on donations. There is no more time left to try to decide why or how climate change is happening – it is already here.