Drought-Related Economic Cycle

Discussion

Martin Shekel:

"Dr. Raymond Wheeler of the University of Kansas invested 20 years and a staff of over two hundred to compile detailed charts covering 3,000 years of world weather, correlated with the exact dates of significant events in recorded history.

With nearly 2,000,000 data entries, supplemented by maps and charts, Wheeler concluded that man behaves differently, but predictably, according to climatic shifts. The Earth's climate shifts from Warm-Wet phases to Warm-Dry phases, then from Cold-Wet to Cold-Dry phases, and back again in a continual circle.

Significant economic events in history coincided with different climatic phases. The worst depressions appear during the Cold-Dry weather.

The ‘Drought Clock’ indicates the world is entering a Cold- Dry phase. According to Wheeler, the drop in temperature will be accompanied by long, severe droughts, with a serious effect on world food production. In 1980, Wheeler says that one third of the last 25 years of this century will involve severely cold and dry periods.

As an example; the growing season began to shorten in late 1974 in the U.S. An early September frost destroyed millions of dollars’ worth of maturing corn in the Mid-Western United States. Once the cold phase has stabilized in the corning years, frost in June and August can be expected in the world's corn belt.

Early and late frosts will become a serious menace in southerly areas. Winters could become severe enough to cause serious problems for cattle and sheep raisers in the Northern Hemisphere. Blizzards will be much more common than for fifty years or more. Severe lengthy droughts and famines will strike worldwide.

According to Wheeler, the world should now be preparing for long shortages in water supplies and for shorter, not longer, growing seasons. Colder weather and longer droughts will bring a scarcity of food for the prosperous nations, famine and starvation for the less economically stable. Along with the fall in temperature, there will be a serious decline in rainfall.

This has happened consistently during the 100-year cycle on the ‘Drought Clock‘, 26 times since the days of Ancient Greece. Each of those long term drops in temperature and rainfall can be seen in the sequoia tree-ring curves, the longest of which goes back to 350 B.C.

In the fifth century, near the fall of the Roman Empire, world rainfall was so low that sequoias grew very slowly for decades. The Caspian Sea in Asia sank forty-five feet below its present level.

Wheeler contends that droughts and frost will influence the world economy, which he claims is linked to the weather cycle. The current climatic period is inevitably characterized by a succession of rapidly occurring and troublesome depressions.

Prosperity as we have known it is due to decline for an extended period. ‘Times may have changed from the earlier terminations of 500-year cycles says Wheeler, but the laws of nature have not according to the weather cycle, the next era of prosperity is not expected to develop until around 1995.

Wheeler's findings seem to conform to the long wave pattern of economic life, even though his findings are the result of considerable non-economic data. There is little evidence in Wheeler's writing that he was aware of, or concerned with, the economic findings of Schumpeter, Kondratieff, Juglar, or Kitchin." (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153439874684137&set=gm.968997873144392&type=1)