
How the West Was Lost: In America’s First Climate War - jctwinkle
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/09/how-the-west-was-lost/569365/?single_page=true
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hyperion2010
To predict the future all you need is a rain gauge and a little imagination.
Unfortunately the people who stand to gain the most by denying reality ...
gain the most.

In addition, the map of western watersheds is amazing. I would love to see the
other one the article mentions.

edit: couldn't find that, but did find Powell's 1878 report
[https://pubs.usgs.gov/unnumbered/70039240/report.pdf](https://pubs.usgs.gov/unnumbered/70039240/report.pdf).

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archgoon
Huh. I learned about the Great Dust Bowl in American High School mostly
through it's economic and sociological impact, books like "Grapes of Wrath".

The science behind it, and that it was predicted by John Wesley Powell isn't
discussed. It's just a thing that happened. Maybe other schools, or more
recent education, discuss it more in depth.

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1auralynn
I watched the Ken Burns documentary about the dust bowl, it covers the science
and farming practices that led to it - VERY interesting and well done, if a
bit dry.

My main takeaway was that they "solved" the dust bowl by pumping water up from
the aquifers, which are now like 70% depleted - scary.

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sologoub
> “When all the rivers are used, when all the creeks in the ravines, when all
> the brooks, when all the springs are used, when all the reservoirs along the
> streams are used, when all the canyon waters are taken up, when all the
> artesian waters are taken up, when all the wells are sunk or dug that can be
> dug in this arid region,” he warned, “there is still not sufficient water to
> irrigate all the land.”

This rings very true today, save for the ability to desalinate. While it’s
hard to predict what environmental impact such mass irrigation would have, we
do have the technical ability now.

California should certainly invest in at least enough of desalination to
supply cities and act as a safe guards against fluctuations in rainfall for
agriculture.

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genericone
Absolutely, we need to look to Israel, also a country within a desert:
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-
the...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/israel-proves-the-
desalination-era-is-here/)

Israel desalinates more water than it uses and is a net exporter of water in
the region, selling fresh water to other countries.

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GreeniFi
Very interesting article. However, it only talks about drinking water and the
real problem is water for agriculture and the author doesn’t talk much about
cost of desalinated water vs cost of acquirer water. My own professional
experience suggests desal water is cost-effective within sophisticated
fertigation, controlled-environment systems which produce high value crops,
but probably not for the more expansive wheat, maize, rice systems we use to
grow our staples and animal feeds. Maybe we’ll be able to achieve this in an
era of renewables.

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pm90
Wouldn't it be easier to take the farms to where the water is, rather than
bring the water here?

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stevenwoo
The grandfathering of water use rights from 100 years ago and the political
clout of rural areas guaranteed by the typical state/federal senate
apportioning makes this extremely difficult to turn around from having the
farms in the desert in California and Arizona. How do we fix that?

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RestlessMind
Very interesting article. One thought which still lingers in my mind is how to
distinguish between visionaries (like Powell from TFA) and Malthusians in
present? Both of them, after all, observe the current state of the world and
make projections. Neither takes into account future technological progress.

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autokad
its really amazing how Malthusian ideology is so pervasive in public thought,
when the data shows that it is wrong just about everywhere you look. Even
India's population growth rate is going down (has been going down since the
late 1970s, source: google india population growth rate chart), and they are
the poster child for population growth. Japan was the first country to post a
population loss, but other countries will follow shortly

~~~
GreeniFi
Africa is the concern on the population front.

I sort of feel we need Malthusian pessimists to warm us when we are heading
for the cliff. The Green Revolution, and what it achieved in India and
elsewhere, was achieved in substantial part through public investment in
research. I guess we’re all rather glad we didn’t continue blithely believing
the Gods would save us from the Malthusians! Right now, the Malthusians are
warning us of the physical limits to further crop productivity increases. I’d
take this as a signal that we need to start investing in solutions!

~~~
goatlover
Africa has a lot of arable land that's uncultivated. So I'm not sure the
Malthusians are right this time about crop productivity increases worldwide.
Google tells me there are 600 million hectares in Africa, which is 60% of the
world's total. That's a lot of potential food. Also, much of exiting
agriculture in Africa is inefficient, and could be increased.

~~~
GreeniFi
Much of Africa’s soils have only 20 years of harvests left.

This paper, by the British Warren Buffet, explains the problem and is well
worth the read if you have the time. It’s well-written so not as daunting as
it’s length otherwise makes it look.

[https://www.gmo.com/docs/default-source/research-and-
comment...](https://www.gmo.com/docs/default-source/research-and-
commentary/strategies/asset-allocation/the-race-of-our-lives-revisited.pdf)

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Theodores
Then they named Lake Powell after him!

For those not familiar with the American West, Lake Powell is the 'upper half
of the Grand Canyon', blocking tributaries that only a handful of white men
had ever ventured into before the whole lot was flooded.

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UncleEntity
> Then they named Lake Powell after him!

They love their irony.

Lake Powell, the $20 bill (Andrew Jackson was _very_ against a central bank)
&etc...

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black6
The hubris of mankind believing he can bend the climate to his will is still
strong today.

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jchanimal
s/the climate/capitalism/

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everyone
website is broken

[https://image.ibb.co/m0Q6jK/image.png](https://image.ibb.co/m0Q6jK/image.png)

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stevenwoo
I get that on the atlantic homepage and on slate.com when I use firefox with
privacy badger. When I use chrome without any special add-ons it works. Assume
there is some javascript nonsense going on there but haven't bothered
reporting it or trying to figure it out.

