Book reviews

[Docwagon 856]

Holy shitballs, this book is good.

 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Worst-Hard-Time-Survived/dp/0618773479

 

The book is a narrative of multiple families and individuals who lived through the Dust Bowl.  (For those unfamiliar with US history, the Dust Bowl was a catastrophic consequence of tearing up the native grass species on the lower Great Plains region of America, resulting in massive dust storms that stripped the top soil and carried it far enough away that it dusted ships at sea.  They ruined the land by removing all indigenous species so that they could plant millions of acres of wheat, and then when wheat prices plummeted due to the end of WWI and Russia resuming grain exports to Europe followed shortly thereafter by the stock market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression, and the fields sat empty.

 

A lot of non-fiction is interesting in that you are learning, but not particularly compelling (ie, dry).  This book has a ton of historical information, as well as information on how the economy and markets worked in turn of the century America, but is presented inside the true stories of these families and communities.  There are lessons for the future inside this history of the past, including what happens when the wealth gap tips beyond what a given society will tolerate, from rigging backruptcy auctions to dragging judges out of the courtroom and threatening to hang them if they foreclose one more deed.

 

I read the first third of the book non-stop today.  It's non-fiction that reads like top shelf fiction, absolutely incredible stories told in an excellent voice with just the right amount of historical context and explanation to make sense of it but without it getting in the way of the flow of the story.  Its well worth $8 and the time to read it.

[Drifter 851]

Haven't read that book, but have watched a documentary about that exact subject on the History ch and was amazed by the scope/size of the dust storm they had to deal with back then

[Sennex 1,903]

They did a review of this on All things Considered, which is an NPR show.

It seemed pretty solid.

 

The sad part is how the tree's that were mandated to be planted to help fight this have no all been cut down in the last 15 or so years.

[Docwagon 856]

They did a review of this on All things Considered, which is an NPR show.

It seemed pretty solid.

 

The sad part is how the tree's that were mandated to be planted to help fight this have no all been cut down in the last 15 or so years.

 

 

Apparently they started cuttind down the trees as early as the 1940's once the price of wheat went back up and the Ogalla underground water reservoir was tapped, with resulting dusters occurring again in the '50s and '60s.  Areas that maintained a soil conservation corps plan held together, the unbridled farmers watched their land turn to dust again.

 

I finished the book this morning, its a short read, but well worth it.

[Sennex 1,903]

I had no idea the cutting started that early. Damn people are dumb

[Docwagon 856]

I had no idea the cutting started that early. Damn people are dumb

 

Its one of the side affects of capitalism without restraints.  There is little incentive to be socially responsible or pay attention to marginal costs that you do not have to pay (ie clean up fees for a river you've dumped your waste into or the cost of importing water for an area once you've drained the natural water sources) as long as your profiting.

 

If you really want to shake your head, the ogallala aquifer as a water source is being drained much faster than it can refill and is expected to be completely dry within the century, perhaps as early as 20 years from now.  One of the primary users are cotton farmers in Texas, who receive farm bill subsidies to the tune of $3 billion a yer.  There is essentially no domestic market for cotton, on the textile plants have went overseas.  Who buys the cotton?  China.  Yup, you are paying $3 billion in taxes and ruining one of the largest natural aquifers in the country (and when its dry, wheat production in the former dust bowl area will collapse again and about 2.5 million people will need to find a new source of drinking water) so that China can have their cotton cheaper.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer