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Understanding Sustainable Food Security through the Lens of the Dust Bowl

This lecture, part of the Sustainable Development course, explores the historical context of the Dust Bowl, a severe environmental crisis shaped by natural drought and unsustainable agricultural practices from 1930 to 1940. Led by Dr. Bryan McDonald and Kelsey Meagher, the session covers the impact on 100 million acres across several states and its relation to food security. As millions became environmental refugees during the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl serves as a crucial case study in sustainable development and highlights the long-term consequences of unsound farming practices.

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Understanding Sustainable Food Security through the Lens of the Dust Bowl

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Presentation Transcript

  1. PPD132 /ESS 182Sustainable Development 2Spring 2010 LECTURE2: SUSTAINABLE FOOD SECURITY Matthew

  2. Overview • Guest Lecture: Dr. Bryan McDonald and Kelsey Meagher • Next Class • Landscape: The Dust Bowl • Group Projects

  3. Next Class • Back in DBH 1600

  4. Landscape: The Dust Bowl

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. Landscape: The Dust Bowl

  9. Landscape: The Dust Bowl

  10. Landscape: The Dust Bowl

  11. Landscape: The Dust Bowl

  12. Landscape: The Dust Bowl

  13. 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

  14. Group Projects

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