Is the Dust Bowl returning?

[Speck Tater]

http://news.yahoo.com/storms-u-plains-stir-memories-dust-bowl-141625464.html

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Residents of the Great Plains over the last year or so have experienced storms reminiscent of the 1930s Dust Bowl. Experts say the new storms have been brought on by a combination of historic drought, a dwindling Ogallala Aquifer underground water supply, climate change and government farm programs.

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A wave of dust storms during the 1930s crippled agriculture over a vast area of the Great Plains and led to an exodus of people, many to California, dramatized in John Steinbeck's novel "The Grapes of Wrath."

While few people believe it could get that bad again, the new storms have some experts worried that similar conditions - if not the catastrophic environmental disaster of the 1930s - are returning to parts of Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas and Colorado.

"I hope we don't talk ourselves into complacency with easy assumptions that a Dust Bowl could never happen again," said Craig Cox, agriculture director for the Environmental Working Group, a national conservation group that supports converting more tilled soil to grassland. "Instead, we should do what it takes to make sure it doesn't happen again."

More at the link.

[EV_Ares]

1. I too hope we do not put ourselves into complacency. However, it seems we never worry about

things until it is too late. Think about Global Warming & how the right politicizes it, no regard for the truth, just their politics. The glacier ice melting; of course, part of global warming. Yet we still cut down trees in the rain forest & you mention the "dwindling Ogallala Aquifer". Right-wing KS still thinks they can drain it for irrigation with no catastrophic results.

I personally wonder how those who continue to farm these lands with no regard for the future, disregard all of the scientific knowledge about global warming can care for their children or grandchildren. I want the future generations to be able to enjoy this earth as those before them have been able to do. I believe the animals on this earth have the right to have their natural habitats & be able to live as they should. It can all be done.

I too fear of a coming dust bowl, it will occur sometime in the future unless some things change.

[Speck Tater]

2. In the book "Collapse"

Jared Diamond wondered what the Easter Islander was thinking as he cut down the last tree on the island. Apparently he thought whatever immediate use he had for that tree was more important than the very survival of trees on the island.

[NoOneMan]

3. Speaking of Easter Island...

If you could put yourself on that island in that culture, how do you think you would react after that last tree was cut?

Would you struggle and fight, and scream at everyone to help, help, help you? Would you help everyone face the consequences and reach peace? Would you ever just giggle at the screamers and shake your head in bewilderment? Would you just forget about it and enjoy your stone faces while they lasted?

[Speck Tater]

4. I'd probably look for another way to make canoes

since without trees they lost canoes, and without canoes they lost their ability to do deep sea fishing. Their population plummeted as they starved to death and descended into cannibalism.

[Mojorabbit]

5. This has been one of my big worries, esp after looking at drought maps for right now. nt