The Dust Bowl took place from 1931 to 1939, but the source of it came from the 1920s. After World War I, farmers found themselves in a recession, as they had a surplus of food and prices dropped. In order to increase their profits, farmers adopted new farming techniques to plow the plains and increase farming space. These new methods failed to accomplish their goal, however, because the wheat planted by the farmers did not sell for much, putting farmers in debt for the cost of these new ways, as well as the production of exposed lands that were unsuitable for farming. This was not the end of the tragedy for farmers, sadly. Because of the overuse of the earth, the strong winds of the Great Plains were able to sweep up the overworked fertile topsoil. This, matched with droughts, led to the giant dust storms that stretched on for years that became known as the Dust Bowl.
The consequences of this were insurmountable. Millions of farmers were out of work and left their farms in order to evade this tragedy. Farmland was lost, which contributed to the consumption hardships of the Great Depression. Much of this can be attributed to a lack of environmental forethought. There is the possibility that, with the proper scientific research, this could have been avoided. However, at the time, people did not comprehend that this could happen and would have never thought to prevent this. Perhaps this was a necessary evil, a way to enforce the fact that these kinds of drastic measures must be carefully researched and analyzed before being put into action. From the Dust Bowl, future generations are now more cautious before taking extreme measures on the environment. We now know to judge the severity of our actions, and we understand that short-term actions may have long-term consequences for our country.
Sources:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/timeline/dustbowl/
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/dust-bowl-cause.htm
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4015056/
This is a really interesting topic! It was cool how you wrote about one of the underlying causes of farmers' struggles during this period. It is something that most people don't connect it to. Fun fact: There was also an infestation of grasshoppers and jackrabbits trying to eat the meager crops.
ReplyDeleteI also think this is a really interesting topic. As you mentioned, the whole thing could have been avoided had proper precautions been taken beforehand. Trees are now planted as barriers between different fields to help with the wind and dust so it doesn't erode as easily and cause the huge dust storms as seen in the dust bowl.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like a lot of the time, we talk about how the possibility of environmental disasters like the Dust Bowl were only recognized once it was too late to reverse the damage. Is it possible to predict these things, or is it really that the reason these major disasters occur is because they're the only ones we fail to predict? Also, how capable is the American government of changing course to avoid further disaster and to what extent do politics and public momentum impact things?
ReplyDelete@Avi, I think a lot of times it's hard to see these things beyond hindsight -- looking to climate change, it's up in the air as to whether we caught it too late. Moreover though, there usually isn't political will to do anything about predicted environmental disasters. Global warming became an issue in the 90s and early 2000s, but action has been slow, even a decade later.
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