Het Neoliberale Geloof 46

Afgelopen zomer sprak ik met Texanen die me vertelden dat de veeboeren er vanwege de droogte ermee waren opgehouden. Zo zag het land eruit, kurkdroog, uitgedroogd, verschroeid.

'Why the Great Plains Are Dying
By Steven Conn

Mr. Conn is an associate professor in the history department at Ohio State University and a writer for the History News Service.

Much of the western United States has been experiencing a severe drought for nearly a decade, and the future only looks drier. One of the conclusions of the new United Nations study on global climate change is that wet places on the planet will probably get wetter and dry places, like much of the American West, will become even more parched. John Wesley Powell is rolling over in his grave.Powell isn't a household name any more, but in the era after the Civil War he was among the most prominent American scientists and explorers. His expedition down the Colorado River became the stuff of heroic legend in the late 19th century.But Powell was not simply an adventurer. Between 1881 and 1894 Powell directed the United States Geologic Survey. Based on his research he concluded that there were really two Americas, one wet and one dry, divided almost exactly down the middle, roughly at the 100th meridian. That unalterable fact of the climate, Powell warned, would force limits on the way Americans settled the West.Americans don't like to be told that there are limits. The very idea rubs us the wrong way and it did in Powell's day as well. Yet then as now scientists were telling us that we faced real environmental constraints. Then as now the question was whether we were prepared to face those limits, restrain our use of resources, and re-imagine our national aspirations so that they were more environmentally sustainable. Powell's career serves as a reminder of what it ultimately costs if we stick our heads in the sand.In 1878 Powell wrote and submitted to Congress his Report on the Arid Lands of the United States. It was a blockbuster as scientific reports go. Powell told Congress that if the West was going to be settled at all, the region would require an extensive plan for water management and allocation.'

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