What Did We Learn From The Dust Bowl

"We were likewise selfish and we were trying to brand money. Information technology didn't work out." – Grit Bowl Survivor quoted in Ken Burns'southward documentary, The Grit Bowl

Wed dark, I attended an early preview of Ken Burns' documentary, The Dust Basin, which will exist airing on PBS November the 18th. Mr. Burns presented half-dozen clips from the moving picture, followed past a console discussion that also included Dust Bowl survivor Cal Crabill, National Geographic editor Peter Miller, and CBS news correspondent Jim Axelrod.

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Equally a sometime student of soil science and the history of agriculture in America, I was more than passingly familiar with the story of the Dust Basin as a cautionary tale of the consequences of the coincidence of human greed, regime policy, and extreme climate weather condition. Equally I know the story, a favorable market for crops, speculation from wealthy investors, and encouragement from the federal government led to a massive turn-upward of state in the Midwest and Plains States during the 1930s. This was before modern soil conservation practices evolved, when people actually believed that their activities would not damage the country.

"The soil is the one indestructible, immutable asset that the nation possesses. It is one resource that cannot exist exhausted, that cannot be used up." – Federal Bureau of Soils, 1909

We now know the above quote is non true. Information technology is possible for humans to cause incredible, and fifty-fifty irreversible damage to our natural resources. The soil is resilient, but it is not indestructible.

Watching the movie brought the human being dimension of the Dust Bowl and its backwash to life in my mind. I can't imagine what it was like for people to sit in the dark in their own homes, covering their faces with flour sacks or pieces of cloth to go along from breathing in the dirt every bit black clouds of dust raced past just outside their walls. I tin't imagine the aftermath of poverty, when people'south lives were destroyed and their sources of income depleted, then that mothers went to extreme measures to find lost dimes to feed their children.

Photo: Arthur Rothstein, 1936. Library of Congress. Farm family walks through a dust storm near Cimarron County, Oklahoma.

One Grit Bowl survivor told about how after the recovery, folks began to plow up the soil all once more, just a couple of decades after the worst storms.People seem to believe that the same matter won't happen twice. While we have learned some things about soil conservation practices to prevent current of air erosion, long-term needs and the past fade out of retentiveness as new opportunities to brand money arise.

Right at present, market weather are encouraging farmers to constitute fence row to contend row, breaking out new land in the Midwest and Plainsand destroying what native grasslands remain. This past summer, i of the worst droughts in contempo history created ideal conditions for dust storms. Indeed, yesterday, in Oklahoma, a dust storm caused "nigh blackout visibility" and a 30 motorcar pile-up, resulting in injuries, harm to belongings, and the adventure of human life.

Information technology is crucial that our government policies do not encourage us to echo by mistakes. That is why NWF has been fighting to get a national Sodsaver provision applied to the next Subcontract Bill. The Great Plains of the past that supported vast herds of buffalo and antelope are long gone, just our remaining grasslands are home to a broad array of wildlife, such equally pheasants, prairie dogs, and songbirds. Information technology is very of import that nosotros don't lose what little grassland remains. We should remember the lessons of the Dust Bowl, and call back not just well-nigh what could happen to wild animals, only likewise what could happen to human beings if we try to do too much on the land.

Allow Congress know that you want a national Sodsaver provision in the next Farm Nib. This is a small stride nosotros tin take to make sure taxpayer dollars aren't funding the aforementioned kind of activities that contributed to the Dust Basin.