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PPD132 /ESS 182 Sustainable Development 2 Spring 2010. LECTURE2: SUSTAINABLE FOOD SECURITY Matthew. Overview. Guest Lecture: Dr. Bryan McDonald and Kelsey Meagher Next Class Landscape: The Dust Bowl Group Projects. Next Class. Back in DBH 1600. Landscape: The Dust Bowl.
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PPD132 /ESS 182Sustainable Development 2Spring 2010 LECTURE2: SUSTAINABLE FOOD SECURITY Matthew
Overview • Guest Lecture: Dr. Bryan McDonald and Kelsey Meagher • Next Class • Landscape: The Dust Bowl • Group Projects
Next Class • Back in DBH 1600
Landscape: The Dust Bowl • Severe dust storms from 1930-1940 affecting 100 million acres in Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and New Mexico severely, but all of the US and Canada to some extent • Caused by natural drought and unsustainable agriculture • Following Civil War, Homestead Act encouraged people to settle in Great Plains • Technology enabled rapid expansion of farming, but practices (e.g. burning stubble to weed land) increased vulnerability to erosion
Landscape: The Dust Bowl • Unusual rains encouraged more settlement and farming in the years prior to 1930 • Severe drought struck in 1934 • Dust clouds covered Chicago and blew into Boston, NY and Washington • 500,000 Americans became homeless • 2.5 million moved
Landscape: The Dust Bowl • 200,000 environmental refugees fled to California –but found few economic opportunities because this coincided with the Great Depression • Great Depression started in US in 1929, lasted into 1940s • Causes: bad financial decisions—or bad policy decisions in the face of a recession-- leading to bank failures and stock market crash (Black Tuesday) • Major dust storms: Sahel since 1960s; Australia 2009; China since 1960s; fear of recurrence in US
Landscape: The Dust Bowl • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2CiDaUYr90 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEYb9xjAhHI&feature=related • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PX9CwwOx_U&NR=1